Targeted Gloating
YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAA!
At the time of writing ?— 1:45 A.M. Wednesday morning ?— George W. Bush needs just one Electoral College vote to get him over the top. I'm going to take this as a done deal, and start gloating.
Now, gloating is of course bad ?— coarse, heartless, insensitive, and ill-mannered. Magnanimity in victory, that's the thing. Humility, grace, gentlemanly forbearance, there but for the grace of God...
So let's talk about targeted gloating, precision gloating. There are, I mean to say, people who deserve to be gloated at, and people who don't.
John Kerry is in the latter category. He wasn't my guy, and I think he would have been a lousy president. What he did back in '71 was disgraceful and inexcusable. He's a pompous, stuck up, do-you-know-who-I-am? walking entitlement catalog. Still, he campaigned with energy and determination, and mainly with good manners. Nice try, John. No gloating at you.
I'm not even much inclined to gloat at the media shills who, under the cloak of high-minded, objective journalistic professionalism, did all they could to help Kerry get elected. Sure, they are dishonest.
It's the kind of dishonesty that mostly consists of deceiving yourself, though. These aren't fundamentally bad people. Watching the bloggers bring down Dan Rather was of course royal fun, but it was also a spectacle tinged with melancholy.
In fact, I can't even summon up much of a gloat for the Hollywood lefties. They are too stupid, their opinions too vaporous. Who really cares about them? ''Vagabonds and strumpets,'' was the old English view of the acting profession, and I think this is one we got right back then.
That still leaves us plenty of gloat-worthy targets, though. I am going to have no compunction about gloating at Michael Moore, who has done more to boost anti-Americanism world-wide than Farrah Fawcett did for big hair. I was talking to some young English people the other day. They didn't know much about U.S. politics, and half of what they knew came from watching Fahrenheit 911.
In cultures yet further removed from our own ?— in China, in Latin America, in India, in the Muslim Middle East ?— Moore's poisonous brew is swallowed without a hiccup, and has become the stuff that ''everybody knows...''
Nor do I have any reservations about gloating at George Soros, who has squandered stupendous sums of money in a lost cause.
Then there's the foreigners: the Guardian and Independent newspapers and the BBC in England, the French and the Greeks, Kofi Annan and Mohammed El Baradei...and of course that Friendly Giant to the North. How incredible it must seem to them, to these self-styled sophisticates, that a crude, swaggering boor like George W. Bush should retain the affections of his countrymen after all his crimes and blunders! Well, deal. You're stuck with an honest to God (literally) American conservative ?— and a conservative America ?— for another four years. Get used to it.
They knew that, for all his podium salutes and tough talk, Kerry would be another Jimmy Carter, another groveller, another guilt-addled cringing apologizer for America's sins, past and present. Now, instead of a boneless wonder, they are faced with a resolute and determined opponent, a commander-in-chief who actually inspires his troops, and who knows that, as Winston Churchill usefully noted, you can't win wars without fighting.
O.K., Iowa looks good. We're home and dry. There might be some lawyering in our future, but I don't believe the country will stand for much of it ?— and look at the popular vote. We've won; we're over the top. Let the gloating begin!
By Targeted Gloating
YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAA!
At the time of writing ?— 1:45 A.M. Wednesday morning ?— George W. Bush needs just one Electoral College vote to get him over the top. I'm going to take this as a done deal, and start gloating.
Now, gloating is of course bad ?— coarse, heartless, insensitive, and ill-mannered. Magnanimity in victory, that's the thing. Humility, grace, gentlemanly forbearance, there but for the grace of God...
So let's talk about targeted gloating, precision gloating. There are, I mean to say, people who deserve to be gloated at, and people who don't.
John Kerry is in the latter category. He wasn't my guy, and I think he would have been a lousy president. What he did back in '71 was disgraceful and inexcusable. He's a pompous, stuck up, do-you-know-who-I-am? walking entitlement catalog. Still, he campaigned with energy and determination, and mainly with good manners. Nice try, John. No gloating at you.
I'm not even much inclined to gloat at the media shills who, under the cloak of high-minded, objective journalistic professionalism, did all they could to help Kerry get elected. Sure, they are dishonest.
It's the kind of dishonesty that mostly consists of deceiving yourself, though. These aren't fundamentally bad people. Watching the bloggers bring down Dan Rather was of course royal fun, but it was also a spectacle tinged with melancholy.
In fact, I can't even summon up much of a gloat for the Hollywood lefties. They are too stupid, their opinions too vaporous. Who really cares about them? ''Vagabonds and strumpets,'' was the old English view of the acting profession, and I think this is one we got right back then.
That still leaves us plenty of gloat-worthy targets, though. I am going to have no compunction about gloating at Michael Moore, who has done more to boost anti-Americanism world-wide than Farrah Fawcett did for big hair. I was talking to some young English people the other day. They didn't know much about U.S. politics, and half of what they knew came from watching Fahrenheit 911.
In cultures yet further removed from our own ?— in China, in Latin America, in India, in the Muslim Middle East ?— Moore's poisonous brew is swallowed without a hiccup, and has become the stuff that ''everybody knows...''
Nor do I have any reservations about gloating at George Soros, who has squandered stupendous sums of money in a lost cause.
Then there's the foreigners: the Guardian and Independent newspapers and the BBC in England, the French and the Greeks, Kofi Annan and Mohammed El Baradei...and of course that Friendly Giant to the North. How incredible it must seem to them, to these self-styled sophisticates, that a crude, swaggering boor like George W. Bush should retain the affections of his countrymen after all his crimes and blunders! Well, deal. You're stuck with an honest to God (literally) American conservative ?— and a conservative America ?— for another four years. Get used to it.
They knew that, for all his podium salutes and tough talk, Kerry would be another Jimmy Carter, another groveller, another guilt-addled cringing apologizer for America's sins, past and present. Now, instead of a boneless wonder, they are faced with a resolute and determined opponent, a commander-in-chief who actually inspires his troops, and who knows that, as Winston Churchill usefully noted, you can't win wars without fighting.
O.K., Iowa looks good. We're home and dry. There might be some lawyering in our future, but I don't believe the country will stand for much of it ?— and look at the popular vote. We've won; we're over the top. Let the gloating begin!
By Targeted Gloating
