10/13/04
History is never kind to eras that look like the Dark Ages, and it runs roughshod over individuals from those eras. For instance, we view Londoners contracting cholera from a pump handle in the 17th century as a bunch of numbskulls, even though they were going on their best information.
Thus, I want it right here in black and white: I KNOW FULL WELL HOW STUPID WE ALL SEEM RIGHT NOW. Watching tonight's debate, future kids at the Radio and Television Museum will wonder how the election of 2004 was even close. "Did Bush have some sort of hypnotic control?" they will as their teachers. "Did everyone know something about Kerry that we don't?"
The answer is no. There are people in this country who think they have a steady diet of good information, and they viewed last night's debate and still thought Bush would have made a better president. Crazy? Yes, but true. America, like the world, is frequently messy and does just the opposite of what you might think. Where else but America could a movie like "Super Size Me" come out, and the company in question, McDonald's, makes a whopping 42% more profit than last year?
It's the same reason that anorexia rates go up whenever they do a Movie of the Week about it (hilariously called a "Jenny, Eat Something" movie by Vince Vaughn in "Swingers"). We are just bizarre, contrary, perverse beings.
But to try to apologize to our future brethren, let me just say that a) these are scary times, and b) the good guys, at last, put up a fight.
This third debate was a pale imitation of the first two, not as numbing as the second, and not the blowout of the first - but it'll do. Bush can't help that he looks like a monkey when he smiles, which is his only other emotion besides rage. When he started waxing evangelic about his prayer-time before sending kids to war, I wondered aloud: "does anybody but me find this really creepy?" Unbelievably, the answer turned out to be yes.
In effect, the debates have become the 3-point shot of American politics: the great equalizer. Months of spin, negative ads and 24/7 biased news coverage can actually be erased over the course of four and a half hours. In an era where very little except anti-depressants and soy lattés can be celebrated, this is cause for huge rejoicing.
O Future, please don't regard us all as rubes destroying your ozone and making bad hip-hop albums! There are some people here still willing to fight the good fight, and who have decided not to touch the pump handle. Please think of us kindly.
What a great blog! Thanks.
Yes!!!
after watching most of the third debate, i took my younger son over to the monthly mums and toddlers' gathering at the british club (we've 12 hours time difference from EST here in bangkok). i was wearing my kerry-for-president baseball cap that's been shielding my face from near-equatorial sunshine since early summer. the hat garnered two "yay! a kerry supporter...but i didn't bother to send in my absentee ballot request in time, oh well" comments, one impassioned "oh i'm SO glad to see you wearing that, my dear - that bush is simply HORRID" (from a 60ish british dowager, and one "getting political, are we?" combined with a glare from a presumed bush supporter. that last comment led into a spirited debate about whether it was appropriate for me to wear such a hat to a children's gathering: hunh?! wha?! well, anyway over here the most i can do is wear the hat, put the bumper sticker on my car, and VOTE. my ohio absentee ballot arrived yesterday!!!
What bad hip-hop albums?