URLs du Shame

2007-10-16

I have a number of things to be ashamed about today …

  • First, apparently, I'm spoiled. In the context of news reports of Fred Thompson's lack of physical presence in the Granite State, New Hampshire voters are castigated by Prof Bainbridge.
    Is there anybody more spoiled than a NH voter? Except maybe an Iowa caucus voter? Of course, living in such wretched places, getting your butt kissed every four years by prospective leaders of the free world must be about the only thing that makes life bearable.
    He's got a point, sort of. Whether I get to shake a guy's hand or not doesn't imply anything about what kind of President he'd make. (Same point about mastery of debate theatrics: why should I care about how glib someone is on TV?)

    But … "wretched"? Please. I have four words: New Hampshire Photo Tour.

  • So you can dump on me because of the state in which I live … or maybe because of how old I am. On the occasion of the first "official" baby boomer applying for Social Security payouts, Brian Doherty points to Nick Gillespie's stink bomb essay describing the strange new respect we (finally) decided to show our elders.
    However long overdue the boomers' gratitude and empathy may be, there remains something characteristically self-absorbed about it. In an interview with film critic Roger Ebert, Saving Private Ryan director Steven Spielberg referred to World War II as the "key--the turning point of the whole century....It was as simple as this: The century either was going to produce the baby boomers or it was not going to produce the baby boomers. World War II allowed my generation to exist."
    Yes, we're insufferably narcissistic. Sorry.

  • So you can dump on me because of the state in which I live, or how old I am, … or because I'm a member in good standing of the Right Wing Hate Machine, and presumably looking for Air America talk show hosts to mug. Again, sorry.