1992: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
Onto a new section with a nod to Hunter Thompson (who, you
may remember from the July 26, 2013 post, is no friend of Leonard's).
“If Mario Doesn’t
Run, The Rest of US May Have To”
Leonard’s rant about the state of affairs in US Politics and
finances leading up to the 1992 election. He bemoans an economy based on exotic
financial instruments (sound familiar?), a President who seems utterly
disinterested in being President (Bush I) and an electorate that takes being
lied too for granted. He laments that we were more disturbed by Milli Vanilli
then we were about Reagan and Bush (remember Iran Contra?)...“why should we
have higher standards for MTV than we do for the Oval Office?” Of course, he
didn’t see this weeks Miley Surus performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Leonard calls for Mario Cuomo to step up, the only
politician who “speaks his poetry and his anger in his own accent.” Instead, as
you may recall, it was Bill Clinton who stepped forward. Not exactly known for
truth and candor.
New word: deva-raja = god-king (Cambodian religious sect),
like Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.
New
learning: Good quote from Whittaker
Chambers in a note to William F. Buckley, Jr. commenting on a John Foster
Dulles trip to Peru, “What on earth could have taken him there - hints from the
Incas on how to lose an empire?”
No comments:
Post a Comment