charles pierce on john edwards

[jfb]

The current issue of Esquire has a cover story by Charles Pierce on John Edwards, my favored candidate: how he's changed since his 2004 campaign, how the mainstream narrative about him is constructed, and the political context in which it operates (can you tell I went to a liberal arts school?). Here's a passage that doesn't mention Edwards at all:

The important thing to remember is that toughness is a semiotic dumb show now. In that same debate in which Mike Huckabee flexed for the camera, John McCain pointed out that in his experience, which is considerable, torture doesn't work. On this, he was disputed by a former mayor of New York, who once was tortured by the thought that his second wife would not vacate the mayoral digs in favor of his second mistress, and the former governor of Massachusetts, who once was tortured by the fact that gay people were getting married. Toughness was now a performance skill in a cowardly country taught to fear the best things about itself.

A candidate's actual biography doesn't matter; George H. W. Bush flew fighter planes when he was a teenager, and he couldn't overcome the "wimp factor" against Ronald Reagan, whose primary combat experience was battling his way to the bar at the Brown Derby. In the three major national elections of his life, George W. Bush, who couldn't find Alabama while he was serving in the National Guard, defeated three men -- Al Gore, John McCain, and John Kerry -- who had volunteered to go to Vietnam, and he did so by out-butching them. Kerry's awkwardness in hunting clothes somehow trumped Bush's fear of horses.

Wikipedia identifies Pierce as a sportswriter, which is puzzling to me because I know him primarily as a political writer and secondarily as a panelist on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I guess Keith Olbermann is a sportscaster, too. Did you guys see his "go there and fight your war yourself" commentary?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That's funny, I still think of Charlie Pierce as the clinically manic guy that makes WBUR's "Only A Game" something other than a George Will-style exercise in elitism. One of the few personalities reliably two steps ahead of where my joke compass is pointing.

I get my fix over on Altercation. One example: http://mediamatters.org/altercation/200707200009 . Massive elite points for using the term "agate".

[(Anonymous)]

Heh. I stopped reading Altercation sometime during the long Pierce drought, and never picked it back up... but I'm always glad to see his work wherever I run across it.

I actually saw that particular edition when someone else linked to it; one thing I like about Pierce is the small (I hope) percentage of his jokes that go over my head. I had to Google just now to find out what "bowling agate" meant--on my previous read I just sort of blipped over it.

[(Anonymous)]

I credit the school district for making our classes boring enough that reading the dictionary with its rather meta section on type preferable to lecture. But then again, you're one of those spoiled North kids.

[(Anonymous)]

BTW, a very Keillor theme, edited out of current reality: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fixed_income_arbitrage&oldid=70499482

"The practice of fixed-income arbitrage in general has been compared to that of running in front of a steam roller to pick up nickels lying on the street [...]"

Just say it: picking up nickels in front of a steamroller.