Letters to the Editor
Reilly
Published Letters: 178
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The Sword vs. the Shield
[Read the article: Political Christmas wishes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think essentially what the GOP establishment wants is someone who uses the Christian religion as a shield rather than a sword.
Regardless of whether or not G.W. Bush actually has any deeply held religious convictions, religion for him has been a political shield; allowing him to court a base and at the same time distance himself from anything unsavory in his past via his supposed spiritual rebirth.
To condemn what he was before his "conversion", one would have to devalue the legitimacy of that conversion. Personally I don't have any problem with doing that but it isn't even a remote possibility within the political/media establishment.
At the same time though, besides the faith-based initiative - which it could be argued was mainly a political operation to fund the evangelical infrastructure with the express purpose of getting out the vote - Bush himself isn't religiously active and doesn't even seem to attend church regularly.
Huckabee on the other hand is a full time practicing member of his church. I'm not making any qualitative judgement on whether Huckabee's religious experience rises at all above standard dogmatic regurgitations, just of his outward actions and involvement in the church.
Huckabee's religion is a sword in comparison to Bush's shield. The GOP establishment hates that because they can't control the active religiosity only the passive symbolic one in which little is given but much is received.
The same, more or less, goes for McCain, who is not outwardly, threateningly religious.
But the reason the boys from Fox got all verklempt over McCain's ad is of course because it plays on the narratives to which they are programmed to reflex: the innocent god-fearing American at the hands of a barbaric enemy, tortured and in pain when, on Christmas Day, one of the 'bad guys' draws a cross in the sand reaching across the boundaries of language and tacitly admitting that his side is wrong by paying tribute to the one true Christian God and uplifting our hero.
You can almost here the boys at Fox weapily shouting, "Our God is stronger!"
Huckabbee though went beyond vague symbols and actually reminded people that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Christ. Ouch, bad form.
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McCain and his 'base'
[Read the article: Hillary and the mean kids on the bus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You'll recall that perhaps a year ago McCain was considered the natural front runner for the Republican party and Chris Matthews and other media figures openly refered to themselves - the press - as being McCain's "base".
McCain's entry in Wikipedia (scroll down to 2000 presidential campaign) states:
McCain was famously accessible to the press, using free media to compensate for his lack of funds;[94] as one reporter later recounted, "McCain talked all day long with reporters on his Straight Talk Express bus; he talked so much that sometimes he said things that he shouldn't have, and that's why the media loved him."
Of course this is exactly what you're addressing in this post.
Saying "things that he shouldn't have" pretty clearly implies that he was engaging in off color remarks, probably about other candidates, or even George Bush, and using foul language which he has a reputation for.
None of those things really amount to much among adults, but look at how the reporter expresses the press reaction to it; "and that's why the media loved him."
That's not an adult reaction. That's the reaction of a sophmore who's in the company of a sports coach or vice principle for an extended period during which the authority figure relaxes his demeanor and slips out of his professional persona. It's a huge deal if your 12 years old, but the fact that these adult 'journalists' are still reacting within this subordinate/authority figure dynamic is disasterous for the public and really pathetic for them personally.
If I recall correctly the press went on to throw him a big birthday party in 2004 (or he threw it for himself and invited the press) where he sat on stage with some washed up comedian/musician and the press sang happy birthday to him. These are the kinds of things I and many, many other people couldn't even bring ourselves to do in high school.
And of course this leads directly to how the candidates narratives are put forth and sold by the press.
I hope you don't mind if I indulge myself here with my penchant for limerick:
There are some candidates' traits pundits stress,
As an indicative means to assess,
The strenght of character forged;
Or - in the case of King George,
Character forgery done by the press.