Harriet As Katrina
I guess there is a certain pleasure in seeing a great man laid low. Very Greek, you know. The tragic hero falls not from some outside force but from some fatal flaw within, a hubris, some weakness. It makes a King a man, and in that there is pleasure.
But I am not pleased that George Bush is laid low. He's fine on the waor of terror (Islamo-Fascists) and that he do well on the problem of the Supreme Court (Priestly Fascists) had been my hope. But he's not done well, he's done wretchedly, and in explanation therein I find his flaw, he fell for a lady.
For those who don't appreciate the bright-eyed enticement of a Harriet let me tell a story.
As a young man I had a great interest in a truly lovely girl. A very bright girl as well, at least far better in class than I. I attempted deep discussion, we didn't communicate. "What a deep and complex mind this girl has," I said to myself, "I just can't figure it out." Years later, the ardor having passed, I did figure it out: there was nothing there. Lovely, yes, as was appropriate to youth, and bright, yes, she sure could take a test, but a mind utterly untroubled by thought. That complexity I saw was a projection, not so much of any complexity I had yet achieved in my own thought, but a projection of the complexity of those things with which I struggled. "So calmy she faces these issues," I thought, and as, in-beauty-is-truth, I recognized that her understanding was beyond anything I could fathom... In fact she didn't have the faintest idea what I was talking about. I've since come to recognize her as sweet and nearly perfect; just not deep.
And so I recognize Harriet. It's true Harriet does not have the loveliness of youth, but she does have the one great loveliness that Bush prizes above all else, the absolute devotion and loyalty expressed in bright eyes as she looks upon him. I've argued this idea before, that what Bush sees when he sees her is himself, because...there's absolutely nothing else to see!
So anyway, by this perception, which pretty much came in the first hour, I find it a bit silly to puzzle over her qualifications, there are none; I find it silly to puzzle over his deep strategy, there was none; and I find it odd that people find it odd that the nomination has been so ineptly handled; a man enamored is always inept.
So much for George Bush the Greek Tragic Hero. What about Katrina, who to my ear doesn't sound so much Greek as maybe German, or Russian? Supposedly she destroyed New Orleans. This is a stick of mine, but I don't think so. I think by the time Katrina hit the floodwalls there wasn't much more force in her than there's intellect in Harriet. Other things than force destroyed New Orleans, but that's another post. What's the same is this: It wasn't the girl that destroyed the government, it was the government that destroyed the city. This whole abysmal mess, this great damage to the conservate cause, to this administration, to the unity of party, is a creation of George Bush, not of Harriet, and not because he's not a man of intellect, but because in this case he's a man blindly enamored of devotion.
Sometime later I'm going to consider the strange case of Hugh Hewitt. Just what in the world is his...ah...tragic flaw?
But I am not pleased that George Bush is laid low. He's fine on the waor of terror (Islamo-Fascists) and that he do well on the problem of the Supreme Court (Priestly Fascists) had been my hope. But he's not done well, he's done wretchedly, and in explanation therein I find his flaw, he fell for a lady.
For those who don't appreciate the bright-eyed enticement of a Harriet let me tell a story.
As a young man I had a great interest in a truly lovely girl. A very bright girl as well, at least far better in class than I. I attempted deep discussion, we didn't communicate. "What a deep and complex mind this girl has," I said to myself, "I just can't figure it out." Years later, the ardor having passed, I did figure it out: there was nothing there. Lovely, yes, as was appropriate to youth, and bright, yes, she sure could take a test, but a mind utterly untroubled by thought. That complexity I saw was a projection, not so much of any complexity I had yet achieved in my own thought, but a projection of the complexity of those things with which I struggled. "So calmy she faces these issues," I thought, and as, in-beauty-is-truth, I recognized that her understanding was beyond anything I could fathom... In fact she didn't have the faintest idea what I was talking about. I've since come to recognize her as sweet and nearly perfect; just not deep.
And so I recognize Harriet. It's true Harriet does not have the loveliness of youth, but she does have the one great loveliness that Bush prizes above all else, the absolute devotion and loyalty expressed in bright eyes as she looks upon him. I've argued this idea before, that what Bush sees when he sees her is himself, because...there's absolutely nothing else to see!
So anyway, by this perception, which pretty much came in the first hour, I find it a bit silly to puzzle over her qualifications, there are none; I find it silly to puzzle over his deep strategy, there was none; and I find it odd that people find it odd that the nomination has been so ineptly handled; a man enamored is always inept.
So much for George Bush the Greek Tragic Hero. What about Katrina, who to my ear doesn't sound so much Greek as maybe German, or Russian? Supposedly she destroyed New Orleans. This is a stick of mine, but I don't think so. I think by the time Katrina hit the floodwalls there wasn't much more force in her than there's intellect in Harriet. Other things than force destroyed New Orleans, but that's another post. What's the same is this: It wasn't the girl that destroyed the government, it was the government that destroyed the city. This whole abysmal mess, this great damage to the conservate cause, to this administration, to the unity of party, is a creation of George Bush, not of Harriet, and not because he's not a man of intellect, but because in this case he's a man blindly enamored of devotion.
Sometime later I'm going to consider the strange case of Hugh Hewitt. Just what in the world is his...ah...tragic flaw?
posted by mouse at 12:50 AM
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