I meant "deal with" as in "cope with." These people - Quayle, Gore, Clinton, etc. - have contempt for us, the average citizen not just the left, so I see no reason not to reflect it back. It would be masochistic not to. Unfortunately, the point is our relative weakness. I think it would have been better if Clinton had faced serious reprecussions for his Wag the Dog bombings, rather than "Make Love Not War" or "No Blood for Blow Jobs" protest signs.
>expense, or Clinton's. I just don't see where, concretely, the
>political use of irony comes in. I'm willing to be persuaded, but
>the persuasion has to come from an analysis of political practice,
>not from an analysis of irony as such. Show me where and when
>irony has significantly affected the political practice of reasonably
>large numbers of people.
You've studied irony a lot more than I have, so I'm all ears. A time or place where irony has significantly affected the political practice of reasonably large numbers of people? Would the fall of communism in Eastern Europe count? It is noticeable when irony's absent, for example in the cult of personality phenomenon, war hysteria or in certain leftist groups whose admission policy seem to go as follows: new members have to listen to the ten funniest stories in the world and, if they don't smile once, they're admitted.