Letters to the Editor
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A gory Allegory
Of course we passed 'peak' whale oil years ago, but the story lives on,
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Very Fine
I never thought the day would come when the story of the WWMD would leap from the pages so handily into our laps. I see a mini-series. Steve Buscemi could play Bush, playing Ahab. Come to think of it, he could play Lt. Rice too, and all the leads, like Dr. Strangelove. ABC airs it - the Disney touch!! - but with a Beckett edge.
A bare stage, debris, an albatross. "Shall we go?" "Yes." (They do not move. Curtain.)
Aleve Commercial. Diet Pepsi. Desperate Housewives.
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One key difference
Ahab, for all his lunacy, was able to get most of his crew complicit in the chase. Even Ishmael admits that he was almost swayed.
Bush has the power to sway no one, and yet we're all going to go down with him. Whatever that is, that insanity which prevents us from throwing Ahab overboard, is one of the most fascinating aspects of our current situation.
Call us all Fish meal.
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Spare us
I have been an admirer of Garrison Keillor for a long time, but this story is way off base. What virtually no one will admit about Bush is that he is a criminal sociopath. There is no complexity there. His entire life is marked with criminality, cruelty, addiction, fakery, and bluster. Sloth should be in there somewhere, but it weaves through all his delinquency.
When I first started looking at the life of George W. Bush in 2000 it became clear that he was a person with a severe mental disorder that made him a danger to society. A shameless animal torturer in his youth, he became a shameless deserter as an adult, a shameless drug and alcohol addict, a shameless corporate criminal, and a gleeful executioner as governor of Texas.
Since then he has stolen two presidential elections, enabled the worst attacks on American soil in its history, lied the country into a disastrous war, enabled the destruction of one of the world's great cities and neglect afterward, and is now planning the invasion of another country.
He has initiated a broad range of criminal human rights violations, such as kidnapping, torture, indefinite detention without legal recourse, spying on American citizens, and blacklisting of air travelers.
In other words, George W. Bush is a completely worthless human being, unworthy of any respect, homage, or elevation to mythical status.
Which raises the question of why writers and other artists choose to anoint Bush with any kind of mystery or depth. What I have found consistent among these various mythmakers is that they use Bush as a foil for their own egos, a touchstone for making themselves look witty and sophisticated. Nothing is added to our understanding of Bush, but the artist shows himself to be clever and insightful.
Bush, who claims to have read "three Shakespeares" during one of his vacations, is nothing but a faker and a vicious criminal. The idea that he has an obsession on the order of the mythical Captain Ahab is an insult to our intelligence. Garrison Keillor ought to know better.
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Times to serious for this drivel!
Thanks, HAPPY JACK - you have said it all and included everything it would have taken me all night to think of. I am also a big fan of Keillor, but was disappointed in this article. The man is capable of so very much more and this is not the time to be cute. 22,500 of our boys and girls will be leaving this country soon, some never to return, or to return with parts of them remaining in Baghdad. And to think that there is nothing we can do to stop this lunatic is unbelieveable. Both of my parents passed away in recent years, both lifelong moderate Democrats. I am glad they did not live to see the situation our country has allowed itself to come to by not having strong enough leaders to stop this . . .
WHAT IS HE? - This THING that lives in our White House? What are we that we do not revolt and save these, our children, from a useless death? I am so sick of talking about this president person and his administration and daily seeing him carrying on his assault on the whole world. GOD are you really there - are you really watching,listening?!!! Shelby
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I think it's a great analogy
...and I don't see what the complaining is about.
The thing about Captain Ahab is that we're all stuck on the boat. There's no way to get off the ship in the middle of the ocean. We might get rid of the captain, but that's a highly unusual circumstance, fraught with danger. We might just all end up being hung on the yardarms for mutiny.
Is Captain Ahab nuts? Yes, but that's no assurance that the next captain won't be just as nuts or even worse.
Captain Ahab wasn't unusual for his time and Bush isn't unusual for ours. Bush was the consensus choice of the American/Washington/media establishment and even today much of the establishment is utterly blind to his faults and failures. He's still the nice son of George & Babs to many a Washington pundit and poohbah, just like Captain Ahab probably struck your typical Nantucket ship financer as exactly the right sort of person to run a whaling ship. Bush, like Captain Ahab, is not exceptional. He's probably just typical. And that's the really sad thing.
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The complaining...
...comes from people who evidently don't understand that comedy is just as effective a tool as rhetoric. Not everyone responds to having fingers shaken at them; some will see your point much better if you make them laugh. It has a lot of power; there are whole faiths founded on the wisdom of laughter. To complain that Keillor, who makes his living via humor, should not approach this subject humorously rather misses the point of all of that.
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Mockery is effective criticism
This article attacks Bush through humour which is a powerful weapon. Making fun of somebody (standing on deck stern and resolute, but without his pants) can diminish him in the public mind as much as any reasoned criticism.
Keep up the good work Mr Keillor.