The Art of Ridicule
A provocative article in the Huffington Post today -- not that it provoked me to agree. Yes, I know... in the last post I was agreeing with Michael Medved and now I'm calling out the Huff Po. Black is white. Up is down.
If the right has mastered the smear, what they've really excelled at is ridicule. Gore, Kerry, Hillary, Murtha, Pelsoi, Carter, et al... it's a non-stop festival of sneers and jeers for the Republican media machine. Pushing ridicule through their finely tuned echo chamber has become an insidiously effective technique for spinning ordinary smears into conventional wisdom. They say things like "Gore said he invented the internet!" and suddenly everyone is creeped out to think Gore actually said that. They say things like, "Kerry said 'Who among us does not love Nascar!'" and people believe it as if it were actually true. I don't know which angers me more, the liars or the rubes, but surely we've got plenty of both.
The Republicans have not cornered the market on ridicule, though. They may execute with deadly precision but they don't own the field. The left is growing more proficient in the art, although in an awkward and uncoordinated way. Bush has made the learning easy... it's like he put training wheels on ridicule and encouraged the Democrats to take it out for a ride. The secret, you see, is that the act of ridicule is reserved for those on top.
Part of me enjoys the burgeoning trend since I find few so deserving of ridicule as Bush, Cheney, Santorum, Delay, et al. Occasionally I engage in it myself. But part of me is exhausted by 14 years of see-saw animosity. Political retribution has become less interesting than political virtue.
Which explains, I think, the broad, rockstar appeal of the article's subject, Barack Obama. People gravitate toward him like moths to a candle (myself included). He is a phenomenon everywhere he goes. I cannot argue against his relative inexperience but he has a lightness that is rare and desirable... there appears to be no animus in him whatsoever. And I find it highly -- highly -- unlikely that the right will find much in him to make fun of.
If the right has mastered the smear, what they've really excelled at is ridicule. Gore, Kerry, Hillary, Murtha, Pelsoi, Carter, et al... it's a non-stop festival of sneers and jeers for the Republican media machine. Pushing ridicule through their finely tuned echo chamber has become an insidiously effective technique for spinning ordinary smears into conventional wisdom. They say things like "Gore said he invented the internet!" and suddenly everyone is creeped out to think Gore actually said that. They say things like, "Kerry said 'Who among us does not love Nascar!'" and people believe it as if it were actually true. I don't know which angers me more, the liars or the rubes, but surely we've got plenty of both.
The Republicans have not cornered the market on ridicule, though. They may execute with deadly precision but they don't own the field. The left is growing more proficient in the art, although in an awkward and uncoordinated way. Bush has made the learning easy... it's like he put training wheels on ridicule and encouraged the Democrats to take it out for a ride. The secret, you see, is that the act of ridicule is reserved for those on top.
Part of me enjoys the burgeoning trend since I find few so deserving of ridicule as Bush, Cheney, Santorum, Delay, et al. Occasionally I engage in it myself. But part of me is exhausted by 14 years of see-saw animosity. Political retribution has become less interesting than political virtue.
Which explains, I think, the broad, rockstar appeal of the article's subject, Barack Obama. People gravitate toward him like moths to a candle (myself included). He is a phenomenon everywhere he goes. I cannot argue against his relative inexperience but he has a lightness that is rare and desirable... there appears to be no animus in him whatsoever. And I find it highly -- highly -- unlikely that the right will find much in him to make fun of.
posted by Logic101 at 12/11/2006 06:53:00 PM
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