Clearly every race ought to be focused on Sacred Issues, let there be no doubt about it: the Apoplectic Paleface Race, the swarthy AfroAm Race, the shrill Race of Viragos, the inscrutable Fu Manchu Folk, the Tribe of Aboriginal Casino Managers (&c. &c.) -- let them all unite to celebrate the Primacy of the Issue! Even the Jihád Careerism Race can join in also, maybe, assuming Bob Cardinal Spencer and St. Hugh the Less give their consent.[2]
But I beg your pardon, sir, I should explain the alternative so that you see why there is no respectable alternative. She who does not care to racially focus on a Sacred Issue, on what does she propose to focus her race? It goes like this:
| In a posting on Hillary Rodham Clinton's Web site Friday, the campaign said the former president [viz. St. Bill] was simply talking about the need to keep the race focused on issues, "rather than falsely questioning any candidate's patriotism." |
I suppose you will need a little more of the background to make head or tail of that oracle, though, plus it might help if I sew [labels] on some of the players’ figurative jerseys:
| [C] "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country," said [WJB] Clinton, who was speaking to a group of veterans Friday in Charlotte, N.C. "And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." [D] McPeak, a former chief of staff of the Air Force and currently a co-chair of Obama's presidential campaign, said that sounded like McCarthy. "I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it," McPeak said. [E] Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer rejected the comparison. "To liken these comments to McCarthyism is absurd," Singer said. He said McPeak was "clearly misinterpreting" the remarks and suggested that might be an intentional effort to divert attention from a recent controversy involving controversial statements by Obama's former pastor. In a posting on Hillary Rodham Clinton's Web site ... [and so on] .... |
I left out [A] and [B] on purpose, Mr. Bones, because, as we learn from Mr. Singer [E], when St. Bill [C] arrived at the scene of the crime, [A] must have already questioned [B]'s patriotism, that being the sort of mischief that idle racial minds lapse into when they are not properly focused on a Sacred Issue. Very correctly, Mr. Clinton did not indicate who [A] and [B] are, for he wished to discuss FQP, the false questioning of patriotism, as itself a Sacred Issue. Exploitation of FQP as an opportunity for gossip or backbiting cannot have crossed the distinguished statesperson’s lofty mind, obviously. You will further notice, Mr. Bones, that FQP was only one example of "all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." [3] St. Bill was talking about principles, not about personalities.
Perhaps we might shoot the messenger a little, since Mr. Matt Apuzzo of the Associated Press does not exactly bring it all down to the dummies-fodder level. He begins by telling us in so many words that my [B] is none other than B. Husayn Obáma -- no big surprise in that, perhaps -- but he tells us in his own words, not those of my [A]. Mr. Apuzzo does not even indicate that [A] exists, with the result that the unwary customer of his corporation is quite likely to infer that St. Bill Clinton himself was engaged in FQP. (Quelle idée!) Then [D] turns up, the retired violence pro, and drags in the late Senator from Wisconsin and the extremist GOP without indicating exactly how he fits in. According to Gen. McPeak, somebody or another has been giving poor BHO a course of Swiftboat Therapy [4], yet he neither identifies WJBC as the therapist nor suggests any other name -- not in the remarks Mr. Apuzzo passes on to us, that is.
In response to those and perhaps additional remarks, Spinster Singer, wearing jersey [E], says it was ‘absurd’ and ‘clearly misinterpreting’ for General McPeak to drag in Senator McCarthy. If we charitably assume that Mr. Apuzzo is guilty of no more incompetence than suppressing the existence and identity of [A], Mr. Singer has an excellent case. Sen. McCarthy made his own scurillous and phony accusations, after all, he did not jump on the bandwagon of some pre-existing on dit. One need not find him wholly admirable to admit that much in his favor. Furthermore, though Sen. McCarthy's scurrilous phoniness was plainly designed to advance his own career, his victims were never his immediate electoral opponents of either party, let alone competitors inside the Party of Grant and Atwater. The whole "McCarthyite" operation was in effect aimed at America's party as a whole, at every last donkey from President Truman down to the most humble loyalist voter. Those who swiftboated Senator Kerry in the interest of Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology much better resemble the unknown person or persons wearing jersey [A] than Joseph McCarthy does.
‘Absurd’ is therefore warrantable. Whether Mr. Singer is also entitled to his ‘clearly misinterpreting’ cannot be ascertained from the available evidence. Mr. Apuzzo leaves the AP customer in the dark about how Mizz Hillary's hired spinster interprets, [5] and almost entirely in the dark even about what facts exist for him to offer a tendentious interpretation of.
____
The facts being insufficient, we may moralize briefly without any, Mr. Bones, and then turn to some other more tractable Sacred Issue.
Any tyro could moralize that Bill Clinton is no Joe McCarthy, and B. Husayn Obáma no Benedict Arnold or James Buchanan. We can soar a little higher than that, I trust. Let’s see . . .
Suppose we wonder out loud whether "Thou shalt not swiftboat" qualifies as a Sacred Issue in its own right. The details of any particular fabrication by the militant GOP are unlikely to attain so august a status, although the agitprop artists can often make headway with "So do you really want to vote for a ratfink who did THAT?" Quidquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis, Mr. Bones, and I daresay there are dark corners of the holy Homeland where it would be regarded as a plausible grown-up argument to ask "If Elliot Spitzer's wife cannot trust him to be faithful, how can anybody else?" Indeed, Mr. Bones, you must remember that bozo at WRKO who was troubled by how even more bozo his callers-in were on the subject of Gov. Spitzer, parading admirable Sabbath-school pieties even in the middle of a weekday. The Limbaugh wannabe found their "Lust, what's that?" attitudes hard to take with a straight face.
So maybe there is hope for everyone? Well, we need not rush to conclusions either way. The Governor of New York was not a personal acquaintance of the Wombschool Normal alumni, who may be less ludicrous when dealin’ with a reality-based situation and not mere blather from AM 680 Boston. As to not rushin’ the other way, there is the Witch Doctor of Democracy himself, who has very little use for Sabbath School and neoreligionization in general, but manages to manipulate their votaries all the same. Dr. Limbaugh will have wanted Spitzer to die the death of a thousand cuts for grave offenses against Big Management and Absolute Free Trade. I missed the show, but presumably there was far more barkin’ and bellowin’ against elitism and ‘socialism’ and insufferable arrogance than about Commandment VII.
What do they really think at Rio Limbaugh and Wingnut City and Wombschool Normal U. about "So do you really want to vote for a ratfink who did THAT?" An abstract or general discussion might be difficult to find in those benighted districts, and as to practical exempla, one knows without research that a great deal will depend on whose ratfink is involved. It was, after all, a sort of Apotheosis of Bozodom that former Lt. Kerry's military record should have be traduced in the path of former Lt. Bush. Nobody scores any points for imagining how it would have gone had the other guy been the egregious slacker.
"Thou shalt not swiftboat" is not likely to impress Narky Dexter as a Sacred Issue. Some people deserve to be swiftboated, after all, and the reasons why they deserve it need not have any nautical component to them whatsoever. Bozodom has just buried their Buckley Minor, who stated the orthodox WC/RL/WNU dogma not merely impeccably but in a dead language to boot: Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi," that is to say "Me heap big gander, you only silly goose!"
BGKB. Happy days.
_____
[1] Except possibly thee and me and a few selected friends of Eddie Burke.
[2] The Jihád Terror Race, however, had better keep to itself, as also the Tel Aviv Lobby Race. There must be something in the air or water of the Levant that makes the C-mite Races incapable of properly focusing on Sacred Issues.
[3] Let's face it, BHO's campaign constitutes probably 99% of ""all this other stuff" just at the moment. St. Bill can not have contemplated in advance that he would ever be trapped in so disagreeable a moment, halfway through a Hell of primaries with even a nomination victory for She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed not entirely guaranteed.
Which Sacred Issues would WJBC be focusing on when orating before the Veteran Race in North Carolina, had BHO sunk without leaving much trace the way he was supposed to? I cannot even guess. Perhaps he would simply have spoken elsewhere and to others and on different SI's.
"Two people who love this country and are devoted to the interest of this country ... could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues" is not to be pressed very hard, I don't think. That vision of lost bliss is not as well defined as it might be, to begin with. One seems to be invited to fancy the Senator from New York addressing the President-Apparent roughly as follows: "You, Commanderissimo McCain, love this country that I too love. You are devoted to the interests of the very country that I myself happen to be devoted to the interests of. Yet which of us is right to love the holy Homeland and be devoted to Her interests? That is what we must discuss, sir! Americans are waiting to hear our discussion of these vast issues of love and devotion, of Right Love and True Devotion! Why, even the holy Homeland's little foreign friends might be mildly interested. So let's get right to it! I'll let you go first . . . ."
(That improbable show might be kinda fun once, but it would not bear the Douglas-Lincoln sort of repetition well, I don't think. BGKB.)
[4] The Party of Grant and Atwater -- and of Joe McCarthy, as it happens -- have recently made us familiar with the verb "to swiftboat" in approximately the sense "falsely to question the patriotism of."
[5] The spinster’s insinuation of an "intentional effort to divert attention from a recent controversy involving controversial statements by Obama's former pastor" is not what I'd call an interpretation. That it is not becomes perfectly clear when you present the same tripe naked: "Let’s talk about my Sacred Issue, please, rather than any wretched ‘all this other stuff’ that you want us to waste the voters' time on!"
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