There was a time - barely two years ago, although it seems like a lifetime - when I used to read National Review as if it were a magazine of serious opinion. I didn’t agree with much of what was said there, but, you know, everyone has their own views, and it is important to consider what everyone thinks because everyone is special and Mr. Rogers even says. This was also a time when I believed that George W. Bush was probably not the worst President in US history, not even in the top 10. Sure, he wasn’t very bright, and he wasn’t very informed, and he didn’t really tell the truth very much, or ever, and he seemed pretty tight with some pretty creepy people, and I didn’t really agree with him on anything, but, you know, he’s a professional politician, and they’re all creeps anyway. And some people said that he was even worse than he seemed, but, well, you know how some people are. You had no trouble finding people screaming about black helicopters and Vince Foster’s murder and the End of the World during the Clinton years, and they, or people just like them, have probably been screaming since the beginning of time. I’ve logged enough time on public transportation to know that about 50% of the voting public can’t operate a stick of deodorant, let alone separate fact from fantasy, so let’s not get carried away over here. This was the political philosophy I concocted from some mixture of temperment and observation during the Clinton years, and, to tell the truth, it served me pretty well.

But now I am shrill. Why? Well, I have neither the time nor the Prozac I would need to slog through that depressing story again, but I can list a few basic tenets of the metaphysics which will lead you as far down your own road of shrillness as you dare.

posted by Scats : 5/27/2005 12:55:00 AM