Dear Dr. Bones,
| Newt Gingrich likes "American Idol." Tim Pawlenty is a Coke fan. And Mitt Romney, demeanor notwithstanding, likes it spicy. These tiny gleanings emerged at the first major Republican debate, when moderator John King asked whimsical this-or-that questions before the commercial breaks. The two-hour forum raised a few of those types of questions itself: Current field or Rick Perry? Obamneycare or Minnesota mumbles? Michele Bachmann or Sarah Who? Is it me or is it hot in here? (...) Like all early debates this was not a night for soaring visions of America. There were the usual bromides, of course, but the candidates mostly focused on the nightmare of the Obama presidency. After two hours it was a little repetitive and dreary. If the next moderator asks sunshine or rain, candidates who aspire to follow in Ronald Reagan’s optimistic footsteps have to find a way to do more than bemoan the clouds. |
Q. ¿Clash of Titans, or parochial eyeglazer?
A. Must be the latter. Not just here at Fox-on-15th-Street [1] but all around WWWonderland, it looks as if everybooby who stayed up late for the humanoid event went to bed afterwards -- or possibly during -- without touching a keyboard.
Meanwhile the insomniac or duty-bound Neocomrade J. F. Dickerson dances nimbly on the _gravitas_ of it all. To prioritize Form over Matter as he does here is in principle critical and even philosophical, though we might have been spared the pot shots at Mr. King, who was, after all, himself doing more or less the same thing.
¿_Quien sabe_, maybe they [2] will let J. F. Dickerson preside over the next one?
Nameless editorial hirelin’s of the F-15 Squadron [1] have headlined "Romney’s strong performance is helped by his opponents’ reluctance to attack him," which we can probably take to be the consensus of the Banî WaPo. And presumably we may further take it that their freelordships are rather pleased than otherwise, inasmuch as Neocomrade Governor Th. X. Pawlenty is of no visible utility from the F-15 angle. All he does is dim the lustre of Neocomrade Governor W. M. Romney, who is not -- ¡face it bravely, o para-Foxies! -- all that lustrous, not even on a good day with all the editorial winds behind him. The sooner the field is reduced to one single Respectable surrounded by seven, or seventeen, silly-lookin’ lawn-garden dwarfs charmin’ly moulded out of Tee Putty, the better.
Neocomrade J. F. Dickerson shows certain signs of possible unreliability that I would look into, were I a para-Foxie. ¿Should F-15 operatives be permitted to say things like
| Pawlenty did not have a great night. In addition to introducing themselves to a wider audience, candidates need to impress the people they’re going to be calling asking for campaign donations. That’s the audience he has to worry about and they matter for the next 16 days—the amount of time left before the reporting period ends for this quarter |
The neocomrade at _Slate_ has those wunnerful folks they’re gonnabe callin’ on the brain, it appears:
| Boasting about a big FUNDRAISING number sends a signal that you are a viable candidate. And debates matter, because a common FUNDRAISING tactic is to call donors afterward and brag about your candidate’s great performance or send around a clip of a pundit praising a big moment. It’s ephemeral and sometimes silly, but it gets CHECKS. (...) Pawlenty gave strong answers on a question about labor unions.... But [what] they buzz coming out of the debate was about how he flinched. Buzz is fortunately meaningless in a lot of cases, but not to the people who write CAMPAIGN CHECKS. Pawlenty can recover with voters (...), but he’ll need MONEY to keep going and to compete. His pitch on the phone for the next two weeks is going to be harder after the debate performance. |
The Muses and you, Dr. Bones, and I naturally like that because of the Aristotelianism, the superordination of the Form of a Media Debate over mere substantial matters like who was present with Mr. King last night an’ what she responded when he questioned with forkèd tongue. At the same time, I am not sure Neocomrade J. F. Dickerson is fully in compliance with the Form of a Media Debate Review.
If I am dubious, I’d expect a top-drawer Foxcuckoolander or WaPoCo-class fellow traveler to find Neocomrade (?) Dickinson alarmin’. Assuming, as one always ought to when possible, that one has to do with the most bestembright of the class enemy, I imagine the employers / deployers of JFD findin’ it not at all desirable that he should wash the secret-sector laundry of the Campaign Contributin’ Classes out in the middle of a public way. ’Twere far better the "small people" should never be put in even the slightest danger of botherin’ their cute little fair-haired heads about what the CCC are up to in their corporate capacity.
To put it in The Master’s terms, the perfectly sound maxim "Form trumps matter" does not imply that agitation-propaganda in the path of Party an’ AEIdeology an’ "fiscal responsibility" is always best conducted by putting one’s _formaliter_ foot foremost. Most of those couch potatoes out in Televisionland and the electorate are not exactly philosophers. Not inexactly either.
On that basis I conclude that some kind ideobuddy should take J. F. Dickerson aside an’ persuade him to keep such pearls as these to himself in future. She should also look into whether he really *is* an ideobuddy to the neorégime on Fifteenth Street, not a mere chunk of thoroughly dispensable flotsam an’ jetsam left over fron the bad old days.
But Rupert knows best.
--JHM
___
[1] A. k. a. The Washin’ton Post Company
[2] "¿Who," you ask, "is ‘They’?" An interesting question, to which the theoretical answer is clear enough: obviously it is up to the village elders of MacL@@hanopolis to decide who presides at tribal fêtes. In self-promotional practice, naturally, one needs a list of particular names of _posteriores ad quos applicandos_.
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