The Nation: "dreary"

[Carl Remick]

>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
>LA Weekly - AUG. 30 - SEPT. 5, 2002
>
>ON
>Bubble Wrap
>The Nation vs. The Weekly Standard
>by John Powers
>
>...But over the last two decades, the joy has gone out of the left -- it 
>now feels hedged in by shibboleths and defeatism -- while the right has 
>been having a gas, be it Lee Atwater grooving to the blues, Rush Limbaugh 
>chortling about Feminazis or grimly gleeful Ann Coulter serving up bile as 
>if it were chocolate mousse, even dubbing Katie Couric "the affable Eva 
>Braun of morning television." (Get your political allegiances straight, 
>babe. Katie's the Madame Mao of morning television. You're Eva Braun.)
>
>These same high spirits course through The Standard, whose editor William 
>Kristol constantly shows up on TV grinning like a catfish. His magazine 
>features catchy covers, a reader-friendly layout, breezy headlines (a hit 
>piece on Lula was called "Brazil's Nut") and a core of enjoyable writers, 
>notably David Brooks, Christopher Caldwell (whose article on Islam in 
>France is one of the best things I've read this year) and David Tell, 
>probably the country's most compelling editorialist. Although driven by a 
>devout ideological agenda -- it's for unfettered free trade and war on Iraq 
>-- Kristol and executive editor Fred Barnes know how to mix things up, 
>running a parody page (often mirthless, to be sure), funny articles by the 
>likes of P.J. O'Rourke (who reminds us that reactionaries make better 
>humorists than liberals) and sharp, short items designed to keep readers 
>amused on that long march to Baghdad.

Can't imagine "why the joy has gone out of the left" considering what a laff 
riot the last two decades have been.  Glad to know that "long march to 
Baghdad" will be well stocked with mirth.  Too bad Crosby and Hope aren't 
available for "On the Road to Baghdad"; I wonder how Dorothy Lamour would 
look in a chadri.

Carl

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