Unfortunately Blimp has been consortin’ with Third Estate extremists at the American Ideological Enterprise. As we have previously noted in conjunction with his and others’ bilge and Party cries, AEI rots the brain. Miss Opportunity comes knocking at the Blimp’s barracks door; how does it rise to the occasion? Like this:
| No one dares to ask what really drove the wheeler-dealer portfolio managers. Who re-elected these shady politicians of both parties? Who fostered the cash-in culture in which both Wall Street profit mongering and Washington lobbying are nourished and thrive? We citizens did -- red-state conservatives and blue-state liberals, Republicans and Democrats, alike. We may be victims of Wall Street greed -- but not quite innocent victims. |
Tired bloody stuff, Wingnut City bilge mixed with Geritol! And nothing is more tiresome about it than that the customer is so plainly expected to mutter to herself, "Ah, not quite true, for the Blimp itself dares to ask!"
So the Blimp does. Why, the Blimp even dares to answer that ‘we’ are responsible for ‘our’ own misfortunes! (Amazing that nobody ever thought of that ploy before, innit? Three thosand years of Western Sieve and nobody ever . . . !)
Before consigning this specimen to the Museum of Obsolete Claptrap, however, we might bring it to the attention of the philological arm. Which ‘we’ is it that VDHB is deployin’ here: inclusive, exclusive, or Pharasaical? Does ‘we’ mean "Blimp and its customers" or "Blimp and somebody other than its customers" or "neither Blimp nor its customers"? When sectarian AEIdeologues start preachin’ to the choir, whitewashed sepulchres are usually not far off. But of course it is by no means imposible that Blimp’s personal portfolio is sufferin’ too.
Another way of jazzing up this neobanality would be to fancy the Blimp addressin’ its fellow Americans in the confessional first person singular: "Yes, alas, it is true! I drove the wheeler-dealer portfolio managers. I have re-elected shady politicians [?of both parties?]. Nobody on Gore’s green earth fostered the cash-in culture more than I did. Get out the handcuffs, please, officer: I have come to turn myself in."
That is pretty silly, though the generic silliness of it does indicate why Blimp and its ideobuddies are so fond of the first person plural Pharasaical. As regards the individual specimen, the silliness is even sillier. Everybody knows that little Victor Davey belongs to Miss Bellona and Lord Mars: for a geistliche Militärist to pretend to be Babbit of Zenith is as if George XLIII Bush set up as Einstein or Clausewitz or Julia Child, so implausible as to be a joke, to be ‘camp’.
It is also rather steep for a reactionary ideologue with whose eccentric shade of reaction about one American in 132,409 is genuinely in sympathy to avail itself of that special ‘we’ that includes neither speakers nor auditors. VDHB has much less use for any sort of ‘we’ than most folks -- except the kaiserlich-und-königlich brand, naturally. [1]
The Blimp gradually -- majestically! -- swells to a climax of preowned bloviation:
| In a larger sense, this zeal for quick profits and easy money reflected an oblivious too-good-to-be-true culture in which we drove larger cars but demanded more oil drilling from everyone except ourselves. We expected both expanded government entitlements and lower taxes. |
The AEI brain rot problem is becoming serious, I fear. The gasbag inspiration process could have been presented far more impressively if VDHB had chosen to dilate upon the beauties of Mars and Bellona that Americans have deprived themselves of rather than reheat the same old mess of Lord Mammon’s pottage for the twenty thousandth time. The Blimp’s performance leaves one waiting for the other shoe (or jackboot) to drop, but it never does. What can you call it but "brain rot" when a not unclever neosophist refuses to do what he is good at -- and has no competition in worthy of mention -- and insists on doin’ stuff that any idiot niece of a Big Manager pol could do as well?
Indeed, Governess Putin (sp?) of Alaska, virtual niece to Commanderissimo McCain, could probably crank out this baloney even better than Blimp can. If Mizz Sarah ever started usin’ the word ‘we’ like that, few customers would have any difficulty imagining it to comprehend the oratrix herself. [2] When it comes from Victor Dave, though, anybody who happens to have a little background information and a little dead language cannot avoid recalling the expression asinus ad lyram.
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[1] Possibly there is a special violence-professional ‘we’ that is not identical with the K-und-K pronoun? Militarists, spiritual and otherwise, invariably emerge from the ranks of the officer classes. Victor Davey is no exception to that generality. So when a Rear-Colonel spouts off, one really ought to mentally supply a whole rear-regiment to go along with the parade. When ‘one’ happens to be oneself the Rear-Colonel prancin’ on the white horse in the vanguard, what could be more natural than to lapse into a ‘we’ and ‘us’ and ‘ours’ that pedantic grammarians may disrelish?
Even less senior officers are entitled to this We Militant. Take for example, 2LT Burke with his famous "little platoon": usually I rhetoricise him a chickenhawk and speak of "The Friends of Eddie Burke," modo Higginsiense, yet the military figure was Eddie’s own, after all. Accordingly, the Demosthenes of his age is fully entitled to the same pronominal allowances as authorised for Victor Davis Hanson Blimp.
[2] Governess Putin runs with a different ideopack, to be sure, namely the "Greed is good!" one -- Planet Dilbert. So no ‘we’ of hers is ever gonna be caught talkin’ like Blimp talks!
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