Letters to the Editor
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Stick to how wonderful muffins smell on a crisp autumn afternoon
Keillor is a gifted (if often sentimental) personal essayist, a passable (if sometimes MFA-ish) fiction writer and he has created a one-of-a-kind American icon in the form of his radio show. But when, oh when did he become a political commentator? Jesus Christ, is it ever banal.
You could hear a far more acerbic and insightful skewering of Rove just by eavesdropping on college juniors at your local coffeehouse.
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I'm the guy behind the guy behind the guy behind the guy
And believe you me the dark dark plot is deeper and darker than you imagine.
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Ron Smith
You're right. There's great potential for tough, riveting drama for those who have a taste for rendering the era of the Mayberry Machiavels and its ties to the infamous Sixties.
"Where were you in '68?" relates directly to the Rovian era, when one compares the prerogatives and presumptions of those now in power with Rovian types of all kinds from forty years ago.
Iraq and Vietnam may not compare in many ways. That's fine as far as parlor debates go. 'Scuse please, let me put my teacup back on its saucer.
However, it's breathtaking to consider the similarities, including especially the attitude of people with "other priorities," those strategic thinkers who hand down executive guidelines and plans for action (or advise from the dock on how to get in or out of a canoe). They see over the horizon, don't you know, and they "advise" on how to run the meat grinder. Others who are not as glib, personable or visionary put their heads in the machine. Many do this - put their heads in the machine - because they need a job. However, even with the way today's debacle is being handled, lots of others respond to the antique notion of duty. What a concept. These people - the many - don't talk; they do, and many pay dearly.
Young people today might think this is a new story.
It is not, at least as far as recent American history goes.
Ask a grizzled Boomer who is honest and who was around forty years ago about what "went down" way back when. Now there's a parlor debate I'd like to watch.
There was some talk the other day about Shakespeare's relevance by former White House speech writer Michael Gerson.
Gerson seems to be experiencing an epiphany about the Bard after some years polishing the president's public prose. That's good, and as a student of Will's work, I endorse any discussion about him.
(Epiphany. Now there's a sounding from the Sixties for you.)
There's a short riff from Will that resonates with emotions that link Vietnam and Iraq insofar as Boomers remember, and try to explain today's disasters.
The passage is fascinating and disturbing because it suggests the "lessons" of Vietnam were lost on the Mayberry Machiavels, or ignored.
EXETER. How were they lost? What treachery was used?
MESSENGER. No treachery, but want of men and money. | Amongst the soldiers this is muttered, | That here you maintain several factions, | And whilst a field should be dispatched and fought | You are disputing of your generals. | One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost; | Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings; | A third thinks, without expense at all, | By guileful fair words peace may be obtained. | Awake, awake ...
1 Henry VI, I.i.68-78
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keep your eye one the ball. where is rove going?
1) rove left the white house right after the iowa straw poll. my suspicion is that he has picked a 2008 presidential candidate and that evidence of this will not show up on any campaign balance sheet for quite some time. so which candidate is best positioned to salvage 43's legacy and promote the permenant conservative majority project and at the same time have no problem continuing to drive a stake through the heart of the american psyche and fabric?
and then 2) are we ready to consider the possibility that atwater politics is dead yet? talk about 'turning a corner'. the day america turns THAT corner.....
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So, which airport will they name for this creep?
Remember who Dulles Airport was named for? Another Republican president's right-hand whatever. Whose evil brother ran the CIA.
It's just the same story all over again.
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Thou ... "shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee"
I've never liked Garrison Keillor. A few months back, I told him so here in the letters section on no uncertain terms.
I was deleted as many as five times. There are some liberal icons here at Salon you just don't mess with. Especially when it comes to body parts.
I was brash enough to suggest that the sanctimonious Garrison Keillor likes the smell of his own discharges and can wax poetic for hours about them.
(That's what they censored me for by the way. I didn't use the more genteel and oblique terminology herein).
So now, we get an unwanted scent from Mr. Keillor about his aversion to defecating without the benefit of the modern commode.
Too much information.
But since he brought it up, I think it's fair game.
I distrust people who have no idea how to conduct themselves in the woods, especially a Bible verse quoting bore like Keillor who should have come across this in Deuteronomy 23 many times:
"If there be among you any man, that is not clean by reason of uncleanness that chanceth him by night, then shall he go abroad out of the camp, he shall not come within the camp:
But it shall be, when evening cometh on, he shall wash himself with water: and when the sun is down, he shall come into the camp again.
Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad:
And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee."
So learn to squat and bury it, Keillor! We soldiers have been doing it that way since the armies of King David. You big wuss.
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He's more to be pitied than censured, for a woman was the cause of it all.
JOKE ALERT: I'm quoting a century-old popular song whose lyrics actually are the reverse, gender-wise.
But according to some bios, Rove started on the slippery slope to where he is now, when as a teenager he was spurned by a girl he had a crush on, and she was a Young Democrat.
Wow, talk about Freud 101!
So, on behalf of the entire female half of the population, I regretfully accept responsibility, and apologize. (JOKE ALERT)