10.03.08
Morning-after reconsiderations
It appears that if I’d been more objective last evening, I’d have been less dismal. The general consensus among our people is that Sarah rocked. Michelle Malkin, Mike Gallagher, Fred Barnes, the editors at National Review all see it that way.
In a post at NRO’s The Corner, Mark Levin explains her unfortunate populist excursions by saying that she can’t engage in obvious departures from the positions of the guy at the top of the ticket. Fair enough. They still made, and make, me cringe. And part of it may be my persnickitiness about style. I’m more of a weigh-the-issues-of-the-day-against-the-bullet-points-of-core-principles kind of guy, and not so much given to corny images of families huddled around kitchen tables, but that may just be me.
Upon, reflection, though, I do lean a little closer to the sunniness I’m encountering this morning. She was indeed surprisingly cogent on foreign policy, the area in which expectations had been the lowest.
The big question is whether her renewed empowerment is enough to pull the ticket through. There are still a number of factors tugging the other, grimmer way: the unlikeliness of a quick fix to the financail crisis, even if both houses of Congress come together on a bailout yet this week, dismal auto-sales figures – and, of course, embarrassing mediocrity at the top of the GOP ticket.
So, Barracuda, my status as a believer is back at full strength. Let’s see the heaviest artillery imaginable 24/7 all month. It looks like it’s up to you.
Mr. Dings said,
October 4, 2008 at 1:24 am
She sounded like a traditional Democrat to me. Didja catch her blaming greed at the top for our current economic crisis? What I hear from young and old alike is a well deserved cynicism about what these politicians say. They are all coached and why they want it? Why? And how did this broad become a millionairess? Journalism major sports broadcaster from Idaho. Go figure….
Mr. Dings said,
October 4, 2008 at 1:25 am
Say it ain’t so, may I call you Joe? That’s the line. May I call you Joe?
Mr. Dings said,
October 4, 2008 at 7:19 am
Joe Sixpack. Now that’s an endearing term. What a broad…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122300786229301597.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_mostpop
The heart of her message was a complete populist pitch. “Joe Six-Pack” and “soccer moms” should unite to fight the tormentors who forced mortgages on us. She spoke of “Main Streeters like me.” A question is at what point shiny, happy populism becomes cheerful manipulation.
Mr. Dings said,
October 4, 2008 at 7:46 am
Now here’s a sports journalist with a mind, one I wouldn’t mind respecting and even voting for, but what’s a mind got to do with American politics these days? The media is the only message, dummies, we’re all in this together. The answer you see, is not on NBC:
It’s the birthday of the man who said, “Language seems to me intrinsically comic — noises of the tongue, lips, larynx, and palate rendered in ink on paper with the deepest and airiest thoughts in mind and the harshest and tenderest feelings at heart.” The humorist Roy Blount Jr., (books by this author) born in 1941 in Indianapolis. When he was a toddler, his Southern parents moved back to Decatur, Georgia. After going to Vanderbilt University on a scholarship for students aspiring to a career in sportswriting, he did a master’s in literature in Harvard and joined the military. He worked for The Atlanta Journal, then got a job writing for Sports Illustrated and wrote his first book, about the Pittsburgh Steelers football team.
Roy Blount has been a freelance writer for more than 100 different publications. He has written profiles, essays, sketches, verse, short stories, and reviews. And he’s written about politics, sports, music, food, drink, gender issues, books, comedians, language, travel, science, animals, economics, anatomy, and family life. His new book comes out next week. It’s called Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory. In it, Blount writes:
To me, letters have always been a robust medium of sublimation. … We’re in the midst of a bunch of letters, and if you’re like me, you feel like a pig in mud. What a great word mud is. And muddle, and muffle, and mumble. … You know the expression “Mum’s the word.” The word mum is a representation of lips pressed together. … The great majority of languages start the word for “mother” with an m sound. The word mammal comes from the mammary gland. Which comes from baby talk: mama. To sound like a grownup, we refine mama into mother; the Romans made it mater, from which: matter. And matrix. Our word for the kind of animal we are, and our word for the stuff that everything is made of, and our word for a big cult movie all derive from baby talk.
What are we saying when we say mmmm? We are saying yummy. In the pronunciation of which we move our lips the way nursing babies move theirs. The fact that we can spell something that fundamental, and connect it however tenuously to mellifluous and manna and milk and me (see M), strikes me as marvelous.
Mr. Dings said,
October 4, 2008 at 7:53 am
and now for today’s money line, from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac (I know, that FHer):
It’s the birthday of journalist Brendan Gill, born in Hartford, Connecticut (1914). He wrote for The New Yorker for more than 60 years, publishing fiction, essays, and criticism. He said, “Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.”