SOTU You

So Long, Suckers! bush-sotu.jpg

The State of the Union is an annual orgy of history in the making, or at least struck glancing blows. National treasure James Wolcott spun the dial to join in the fun, and his rage was stoked by the performance of Jacob Weisberg and Doris Kearns Goodwin in one post speech historama.

“I watched a large chunk of the Charlie Rose post-SOTU all-star cud-chew last night during which [Jacob] Weisberg expressed mild surprise that Bush hadn’t sounded “more conciliatory” in his final address. I was surprised that Weisberg was surprised, expressing my surprise by muttering aloud just soft enough so the cats wouldn’t hear, “Diphead, what did you expect? That he would make nice now having gotten his way through arrogance and imperious piety ever since 9/11? He makes cracking down on earmarks a show of manhood, and you think he’s going to introduce softer colors into his palette and fluffier textures as he struts out the door into History’s sunlit parlor? Have you no psychological acumen whatsoever, man?”

“…even Weisberg wasn’t nearly as annoying as fellow panelist Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has become a major irritant with her girlish enthusiasm and goody bag of presidential anecdotes that she dispenses to humanize everybody on the same glorious continuum, as if the crimes and calamities of Vietnam and Iraq were crucibles of character-building for our chief executives, the crowded backdrops to personal tragedy and greatness. (So many faraway nobodies have to die so that History can come alive.)”

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