Man, I ain't gonna read that On Language column NO MORE. And I think he shows up for synagogue where my dad and sister go sometimes. If I see him there, I'm gonna kick him so hard inthe shins that he'll recall the physical pain like an emotion, or a smell.
"In willingly taking up the two-edged sword of maverickism; in spelling out his frequent fights against the sclerotic, cozy two-party establishment; in zinging that 'big-spending, do-nothing, me-first-country-second Washington crowd'; in choosing an exciting new running mate even as Obama was splashing about in the news media
adulation of his smoothly delivered acceptance extravaganza, McCain stiffly stole the clothes of change.
That last paragraph befits a speechwriter’s peroration, not the soberly sage, almost bipartisan analysis I originally intended. Note the incidental pop at 'media adulation,' a red flag to the arugula-munching 'panjandrums of the opinion media,' in Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s phrase, gleefully waved by Sarah Palin and most other Republican convention speakers. McCain, who reveled in media-darlingism eight years ago, did not participate in such shooting at literate fish in a barrel."
oooooooooooooooo, it makes me shiver...like now I am in the company of evil. And evil will spread as this election rolls forward.
And Safire goes on to describe himslef, "As one whose only claim to coinage fame is in Spiro Agnew’s 1970 nattering nabobs of negativism, I have an attack dog in that fight..."
Um, Mr. Safire, is that your Spiro Agnew dressed in the outfit of the Klan and carrying clubs in Philip Guston's drawing? Was Guston amongst a swarm of Americans who thought Agnew was the off-white, fleshy underbelly of all things bad in America at one point? Didn't his boss get fired and thrust from the national and international stage?
Who would BRAG about crafting that phrase and how it was used. And why isn't that man in jail?
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