I dunno, Garrison, why did “enlightened” northerners elect Andrew Volstead? Or Joe McCarthy? Minnesotan Republican Volstead gave us Prohibition, which was the original testing ground for the War on Drugs. Wisconsin Republican McCarthy gave us new and improved scaremongering, with attendant witch hunt and trials. Both of these political movements became part and parcel of the new world order that culminated in ‘Baby Doc’ Bush.

Having grown up Minnesotan, of scandinavian stock and eating lutefisk and lefse during the holidays, I can say with assurance that Keillor’s observations are rooted in the traditional hypocrisy and regional bigotry of his and earlier generations. Older Minnesotans (especially liberal ones) love to pat themselves on the back about their enlightenment, and make snotty comments about southerners. They truly believe that “the south” is one giant cottonfield complete with slaves, lynchings, crackers and inbred cousins.

By contrast, the gentle people of Lake Wobegon are cultured enough to only use the word ‘nigger’ in a whisper – in a room full of nothing but white people. As proof of our modernism, however, we haven’t had a decent mass hanging of indians since 1862 (national record, that one, and just in time for Christmas), and our last lynching of blacks was in 1920 in Duluth. And you know what really makes us morally superior? When we lynched ‘em, we used streetlight standards, instead of trees. Like I said, modernism.

In short, Minnesotans are smug bigots looking to blame everyone but themselves. Just like everyone else. Same as it ever was.

He's the most Lincolnesque figure possible in modern semi-political culture.

I have talked with him a couple times, once for quite a while about the dreadful MidWestern town (I won't name it, but its claim to fame includes being the actual setting for Gasoline Alley) that i had to finish high school in. It's where 90/94 divides, going east to Madison or Milwaukee or Chicago, or north to Eau Claire, coming west from Minnesota or places west like Salt Lake City or Missoula. Mr. Keillor had to wait there quite often for a change of buses going from the Minneapolis area to Chicago, so in that sense he had been to the town hundreds of times :)

It had many Lake Woebegone traits but very few for me, a sour teenager at the time, that I would have called endearing.

He's a patient listener with a good handshake and a warm presence.

I think he's right about the overall trends, a couple of right-wing populists like McCarthy or Volstead excepted, but Thomas Frank pointed out that the South is usually a forerunner of sorts nowadays. One thing down-home people I have talked with seem to believe is that non-Republicans don't value personal virtues but want to establish universal norms.

Gandhi, hardly an American Southerner, was dismissive of wanting systems so perfect no one would have to act morally, and lots of people believe that's what "liberals" have on offer.

I personally was very disappointed to see a kind of Southern Renaissance that continued into the Eighties, despite Reagan, kind of peter out. I think, for one thing, that there is less in the South right now to keep more aggressive and power-hungry people from shutting out the others.

I also thought his take on coolness was very apt. Liz Phair, ironically in a song that wouldn't be played in an old fashioned home, said "I want all of that stupid old s__t like letters and sodas." More of that kind of self admission about corniness, uncoolness, and old-fashioned humanity would work wonders. Especially without the S words.

Kellior's right

southerners generally are warmer and friendlier than northerners, you can't smear and dismiss all southerners as rebel flag waving crackers like democratic demagogue Paul Begala does. Black folk and white folk generally seem to have a less fraught relationship in the south, this irony is lost on northern Democrats. The irony's also lost on Begala as his man Bill came from the south, though Willy likes the big city lights and action in Harlem better these days. Not that every southerner's friendly to everyone though, we do have our Yahoos too that you wouldn't want to meet drunk outside some roadhouse on a Saturday night, even if you're a southerner.

For every southern idiot Pol you can find a northern Pol that's just as bad though, Masachussetts keeps on sending Ted Kennedy to the Senate, the miasma of hypocrisy and self-serving smegma doesn't get much thicker than the yellow crusty funk around Ted. Howard Dean likes to shout down elderly Iowans with that neckless beady stare of his, but squirms speechless on TV in front of a race baiting Al Sharpton, oops, there goes my spine and my election campaign.

Maybe the "it's the weather" generalization is true, northern Europeans can seem colder of personality also than southern Europeans. Compare a Swede or Norwegian temperment to a southern Italian or Spanish temperment. Oops, Ahnaald tried to compare the northern european diaspora temperment with a southern european diaspora temperment generalization in California and was smeared as a racist by Phil Angelides, can a smart northener explain how that liberal ideology works? That wouldn't be some form of pandering, would it?

Boy, howdy, ya got yerself a thesaurus and a GOP (greedy old perverts) talking points memo and you're just goin' to town on them yankees and them libruls, ain'tcha? I sense a deeply closeted trailer dweller with a seething hatred for everything north of Kunticky and west of Virginnie. That imbalance comes from one too many generations of inbreeding. Have a lovely evening on November 7 watching your fascist friends fold. Screw Dixie, and take a dose for yourself if you'd like.

RE: Garrison Keillor's column Southern sunshine warms our hearts.

They ARE good people and their history is peculiar to the rest of the

country starting with the economic system based on slavary.

I'm a Southerner by birth and raising but am also a die-hard liberal.

The best book I've found to explain the Southern culture is called

"Born Fighting" by James Webb, former Secretary of the Navy.

Surprised Garrison Keillor hasn't read it.

Thanks for a good laugh. I'm in Denver now a miss all those

friendly people.