Dear Dr. Bones,
Well, well! Happy birthday to me! Plus presumably to four lucky others per 1,431 Massachusettienses.
An up-market scribbler has scribbled as follows about our natal-day surprise packet:
Much ado about nothing all around. Brown is getting way too upset that Elizabeth Warren made a reference to his photoshoot, especially when practically invited to by the questioner. Our side (though notably not Warren herself it seems) is getting way too upset about Brown’s joking “Thank God” reaction to her comment. I think everyone needs to lighten up a bit. christopher @ Fri 7 Oct 12:43 AM |
I, on the other tentacle, can only hope that everybooby left and whight will "heavy up" [1] about Frathousegate.
Now Hope is well enough--commended in Neoscripture, even, is Miss Hope--yet Rational Expectation usually disagrees, and goes on to turn out to have gotten the better of the correlation of farces in practice. R. E. advises me that Blue Blazerdom will not not want to do much with this little _trouvée_ that has turned up in their laps and their laptops so unexpectedly. Had their excellencies known that Frathousegate was comin’ to crash the Garden Party of Massachusetts, as it were, why, the "Gated Community on a Hill" might finally have pressed the button and we would find out whether those out-of-commonwealth contractors were having us on about how quickly modern defensive measures can be deployed. [2] As the case actually stands, the B. B.’s will probably mostly try to freeze the crass interloper out after the event with their H*rv*rd _hauteur_. Than which nothing could possibly be tastier, if not necessarily more effective.
If one prefers getting weepy about natal days and a’ that, one could compare-and-contrast, _¡Eheu! fugaces ..., what fun the Party of George Washington Plunkett (and General Jackson, and Mr. Jefferson) would have had with Senator Fratboy an’ St. Elizabeth of H*rv*rdy with how little the Party of Princess Emily and Radio Free Altzheimer’s is likely to make of it.
Less seriously, I fear e-comrade ‘christopher’ is simply mistaken about Fratboy an’ the Fratboy Funders gettin’ "way too upset." Obviously this is not the ideal way to play the Frathouse Card, but, up to a point, "all publicity is good publicity": at least everybooby’s attention is now directed in what the F. F. Club consider the whight direction, at Senator Fratboy’s sociological peculiarities rather than at whose carpets he is baggin’ economically.
The Great Blue Pumpkin himself is not quite so easily distracted as ‘christopher’:
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) defended Brown and his comments in statements to POLITICO. “I know Scott Brown’s story, and I know that he had many obstacles to overcome in his youth,” Ayotte said. “It’s inappropriate to make light of his personal circumstances, or to disparage or belittle him for the decisions he made to improve his life. Scott is one of the best guys to work with in the Senate, and I am proud to call him my colleague.” Collins similarly turned the spotlight on Warren, saying Brown was “merely responding” to comments first made by the Harvard professor, in which she “made light of the difficult choices in his life” – a reference to Warren’s recent jab at Brown’s decision to pose nude for a magazine in his 20’s. “It’s wrong to mock anyone who had to make hard choices to overcome tough obstacles,” she said. “His story is no different than millions of Americans who are doing everything they can to make ends meet.” Gosh, to read those statements, you’d think that Warren was the one who had brought up the issue of Scott Brown’s posing nude in Cosmo. So let’s get one thing very clear: it was Republican activist and Melrose Republican Committee Chair Scott Conway, not Elizabeth Warren, who first mentioned Scott Brown’s decision to pose for Cosmo. |
Unfortunately the G.B.P. did not guess exactly whight what this keyboard would think to read such statements. Who first brought Scottie’s disvestiture problem to light is of no importance at all after thirty years. What one ought to keep one’s eye on here and now is Republicanine crocks an’ allegators sheddin’ tears ’bout "disparage or belittle him for the decisions he made to improve his life" or "make light of the difficult choices in his life."
The strategy of the Fratboy Funders is twofold: (1) DIRECTLY, they appeal to the Louisedayhicksville element among us, to those who relish Frathouse Family Values an’ despise H*rv*rd an’ all its works an’ pomps. Little of this is visible from the PPTV atop the GBH, as I was complaining yesterday before Frathousegate broke. The Great Blue Pumpkin, and all the lesser gourds and squashes and zucchini and arugulæ, hardly live on the same planet as the Louisedayhicks. No doubt their excellencies ought to try to condescend a little more than they do, but naturally one can not rationally expect anything much of that sort.
(2) INDIRECTY, however, the Blazers are precisely the target of the Fratboy Funders’ ancillary battle plan. Archie Bunker & Company are never gowintabe made suckers of with "the difficult choices in his life," but ¿_Quién sabe?_, ¿maybe a Great Blue Pumpkin will actually fall for that shameless phoniness? Fall for it and then (I presume) not oppose poor up-an’-comin’ Scott Fratboy so ferociously as to deprive his Funders of certain political self-servicin’s in which they have specuvested heavily.
The G.B.P.’s response is about as inadequate as it could be, short of utterly failing to see what the enemy is up to. His Excellency does quote that eminently pertinent tripe an’ bologna from Party Neocomradesses K. A. Ayotte and S. M. Collins, as a *completely* clueless analyst would not. But, although the G.B.P. perceives that the tripe IS pertinent, he does not seem to understand HOW and WHY.
The "shirtless cosmopolitan" _shtyk_ is a red-state herrin’ from head to tail, not just in respect of who started it. The true locus of the attempted swindle is the child-abuse topos, a business which the two North-of-Boston blabbermouths did at least manage to contain themselves about. [3]
Happy days.
--JHM
___
[1] If that be an expression _nominandum inter_ Anglophonies. "Make heavy weather of" would, I believe, have passed for idiomatic back in Skipper Morrison’s day.
*
[2] Speaking of "out of commonwealth," Dr. Bones, I trust you noticed yesterday on your AM dial that Howard Lewis, Freelord of Carr in the neopeerage, cannot mention the Blessèd Name of St. Elizabeth without ‘Oklahoma’ taggin’ along close like Tonto, or Sancho Panzer, or the Fool in ‘Lear’.
_Projectio malignans_ is the technical term, I think.
*
[3] David, Freelord Koch, or whoever else may be head honcho of the Fratboy Funders, really ought to have a stern word or two with his loose-lipped ladies. Gettin’ (some of) us Demoncrats an’ Lieberals to put up with the reëlection of Master Scottie on the grounds that his childhood was unhappy is guaranteed to fail unless the marks an’ dupes can think they thought of it all by their ownselves. Assumin’ we have to think of it consciously at all.
Here is a clear occasion for the proverbial " ‘¡Shut up!,’ he explained. " The connection between supposed grounds and desired consequents becomes laughable as soon as it is distinctly conceived. I betcha even St. Eleanor of Roosevelt would snicker if she saw the political heathen were tryin’ to get at her bleeding heart that way.
Nevertheless, it seems a pretty nifty ploy to me -- IF they can sneak it by silently enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment