Picked this one up from Edroso the Great. Here's James Lileks on why he's not smitten with Barack Obama, as if we expected he might be:
I do not want a National Dad or even a Cool Brother (double-meaning unintended) for the President; I want someone with JFK’s optimism, Roosevelt’s steel, Truman’s irascibility, and so forth.
You know what that "and so forth" is covering up, don't you? The politics of those Presidents.
Lileks wants a JFK, an FDR, a Harry Truman except not...you know...a Democrat.
Of course I understand why conservatives wouldn't want to identify with the current Republican President or the three before him, but this temptation to think they'd have liked past Democratic Presidents baffles me. Do they really not understand how a leader's politics contribute to making him the kind of leader he is?
I wonder if Lileks ever considers the probability that if he'd been in alive and eligible to vote in 1932 or 1948 or 1960 , he'd have voted for Hoover, for Dewey, for Nixon.
He must or he wouldn't have reached for that "and so forth."
I've got a writing suggestion for him, though. Next time, instead of an "and so forth" he should try a Seinfeldian "yadda-yadda."
You remember how Elaine admitted to having "yadda-yadda-ed" sex and George's current girlfriend "yadda-yadda-ed" a crime?
Next time out, Lileks can yadda-yadda the politics.
Better yet. He can yadda-yadda his entire post.
he can yadda-yadda his entire friggin life for all I care.
Posted by: jonst | Tuesday, January 08, 2008 at 02:17 PM