What troubles me most about this entire process, this entire moment, this entire debate, is that so many people, inlcluding those like Joan Wlash for whom I generally have nothing but respect, write and say things like:

"I actually thought the full transcript was much less disturbing than the original snippet."

How can a journalist be ready to jump to a conclusion about or be offended by a "snippet" without having researched the "full transcript," the context, from which the snippet came?

Obama speaks in paragraphs, in sentences, in complex ideas with nuance. The longer passages are almost ALWAYS less troubling than the decontextualized snippets because these longer passages reveal what it was he was actually saying.

Cutting him (or anyone) off at one side of the semi-colon is intellectually dishonest and journalistically corrupt. It is shoddy reporting and it results in dumbed-down public discourse.

Context is everthing.

I'm sure Mr. Shapiro is irritated that so many of the letters are focusing on his inappropriate (if not unusual) use of "Kabuki" as a metaphor for meaningless public ritual. In a letter of his own, he says writes that this use of the word "has become a familiar image to most U.S. readers" and then snarkily adds that "next time [he] will limit [himself] to [N]oh as a Japanese theatrical trope."

The question, of course, is why Japanese theatrical tropes are necessary or appropriate at all in discussions of American politics. I suppose we could talk about candidates walking to the podium from the back of the audience as akin to the use of the hanamichi in Japanese theatre; or we could talk about Obama the various candidates mie-like iconic poses (from Obama's chin-up, 3/4 profile pose to McCain's disturbing grin after every other line.)

But that's not what's going on here, of course. Yes, Chris Matthews and others use "Kabuki theatre" or "Kabuki dance" as an easy metaphor for pointlessness but how many of their audience (and indeed, how many of these pundits and journalists) actually know anything about the form to which they are referring? What is the point of appropriating a "traditional" art form from another culture and importing as an object of derision and dismissal despite the fact that almost nobody in the audience has ever seen it performed, or has any cultural context with which to understand it?

Maybe we should switch it up a little, and use forms from countries other than Japan to serve the same function. Politics as Jingju (China), as Cai Luong (Vietnam), as Pansori (Korea), etc. When we're done with Asia there are countries around the world to use in a similar fashion.

For anyone curious about how beautiful Kabuki can be, do a YouTube search on Tamasaburo: the dancing of that famous onnagata is far more graceful and affecting than anything occurring in the parade of characters (similar to the procession that begins and ends some Eastern European plays?) making up the current search for an American VP.

As usual, Paglia's post is a mixed bag of intriguing insights and intentionally provocative "controversial" observations.

One thing I did want to point out is that her example of Obama's "inner-city black intonations" doesn't sound at all inner-city, or even "urban" to me. The hard r's and dropped ng's sound, if anything, aggressively Midwestern. It may be pandering, or it may have to do with where he was speaking (someone who has lived in Illinois for so long is likely to pick up Midwestern cadences when in the Midwest) but it was hardly "inner-city." Surely Paglia can hear the difference between the cadences and phrasing of her students in Philadelphia (if any U. of Arts students are actually FROM Philadelphia) and the cadences and phrasings in the clip she chose...