[An unfinished sketch of a post; the text file says 13 October. This is just how it goes sometimes; it’s exhausting trying to keep up―you might have noticed we haven’t. Still, herein we find a glimpse of the moment, recorded for the sake of the historical record, and, you know, not really so much my ego, since this could have afforded some better planning and writing.] (more…)
comedy vérité
The Unbearble Burden of Wealth
“What about when I get to the convention? Last time, I was sitting in a box. This time, I may not even get a ticket!”
Among theses you just don’t hear much about was one that arrived in a college catalog some years ago, showing off the work of their graduates. A Master’s degree was awarded for a paper connecting the French Revolution to fashion styles demanding distressed clothing. Think professionally-ripped, stone-washed skinny jeans circa the hair-glam years. And, to be certain, it makes sense. Tattered, battle-weary revolutionaries stumbling home victorious; ’tis a romantic image, we might suppose, if the horrors of war count for romance.
The late Benjamin DeMott called the modern phenomenon Omni Syndrome, in which the object is to conform to the styles and standards of the largest demographic classifications within a society. Thus the dictator plays up his revolutionary history; politicians argue about log cabins and bread bags; the rich and famous want to be seen as just like everybody else, but only as long as it advances their careers.
There was a time when being a millionaire meant something in these United States. Omni Syndrome is so easily twisted that a presidential candidate can argue that a multimillionaire is “middle class”. And now these middle-class millionaires hope to complain that their extraordinary influence is waning.
“Staffers”? Politically engaged millionaires have been reduced to hearing from aides rather than the candidates themselves? The horror.
Evidently, in this new environment, with a proliferation of hyper-wealthy donors, mere millionaires don’t receive the consideration and responsiveness to which they’ve grown accustomed. Neese told the Post that the major Republican presidential hopefuls are “only going to people who are multi-multi-millionaires and billionaires.”
One former Bush Ranger complained, “What about when I get to the convention? Last time, I was sitting in a box. This time, I may not even get a ticket!” ....
.... The piece added that there’s “palpable angst” among donors who used to receive VIP treatment, but whose phones no longer ring: “One longtime bundler recently fielded a call from a dispirited executive on his yacht, who complained, ‘We just don’t count anymore.'”
(Benen)
More Fun with Bill
“Bill O’Reilly was caught in a lie. No, not that one. Or that one. Or the whole sexual harassment loofah thing. This is not really news. Brian Williams being a fabulist was a little more surprising, but not really. Network and cable news are pretty much infotainment anchored by narcissists.”
It is unfortunate, as Brain McFadden notes, that “there’s been no comeuppance for the liars that got us into the Iraq War”, an aspect of these weird chapters of the American press that seems strangely lost on all the right people. Wrong people. Right people. Whatever. What more and more seems like the inevitable fall of Brian Williams has its tragic aspects. That there really isn’t much for comeuppance in Bill O’Reilly’s case is hardly unexpected. But it makes for great comedy vérité.
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McFadden, Brian. “America at War: with Bill O’Reilly”. Daily Kos. 6 March 2015.
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