I can't stand it anymore. I want Garrison Keillor to leave the state of Minnesota. Preferably on the business end of a cattle-prod wielded by an angry Nun.
In lieu of that, I'll attempt a Fisking for the first time.
Minnesota's shame
A fitting title for a piece by Keillor
Republicans don't like my criticism? Too bad.
My, what a mature response. Did you pick that up in Kindergarten?
They have to answer for Norm Coleman's campaign, which exploited 9/11 in a way that was truly evil.
As opposed to Walter Mondale's campaign, which exploited a dead Senator in a way that was truly appalling.
And in what way did Coleman exploit 9/11? However he did it, it sure slipped by me. I never heard him mention it, other than in the context of national security. I guess I'm a bit feeble-minded, in that I expect politicians to address national security. Shame on me. That's EEEEE-VIL.
The hoots and cackles of Republicans reacting to my screed against Norman Coleman, the ex-radical, former Democratic, now compassionate conservative senator-elect from Minnesota, was all to be expected, given the state of the Republican Party today.
Yep, they're nothing but cheap glory-hounds, basking in the glow of a crushing defeat of the Whining Losers, er, the Democrats. How dare they make fun of you! Don't they know you're trying to be serious and down-homey and all?
Its entire ideology, top to bottom, is We-are-not-Democrats, We-are-the-unClinton, and if it can elect an empty suit like Coleman, on a campaign as cheap and cynical and unpatriotic as what he waged right up to the moment Paul Wellstone's plane hit the ground, then Republicans are perfectly content. They are Republicans first and Americans second.
As opposed to those that are Democrats first, National Apologists second, and sore losers third.
As for We-are-not-Democrats, I thought that was the whole point of being Republican, or Green, or Libertarian, or what have you. I'd be less than confident in someone who was Republican AND Democrat. Sounds a little conflicted.
And Unpatriotic? Those darn Republicans. How dare they put America first. Few things are more Patriotic than cow-towing to the UN, or forming nude letters for peace.
The old GOP of fiscal responsibility and principled conservatism and bedrock Main Street values is gone,
To where? Cabo?
my dear,
Please, Sir. I'm spoken for.
and something cynical has taken its place.
Yeah. A strong, cynical disrespect for wacko liberals who foam at the mouth when presented with the idea that people should take responsibility for their own lives. Not to mention a cynical dislike of Elitist assclowns that wave the finger at us and tell us how naughty all us Minnesotans are for not following orders.
Thus the use of Iraq as an election ploy, openly, brazenly, from the president and Karl Rove all the way down to Norman Coleman, who came within an inch of accusing Wellstone of being an agent of al-Qaida.
A pity he died, just before that Treason charge got pushed through. We nearly had Welly pinned to the wall on that one! So much easier to arrange than that tedious Cannibalism smear campaign.
To do that one day and then, two days later, to feign grief and claim the dead Wellstone's mantle and carry on his "passion and commitment" is simply too much for a decent person to stomach. It goes beyond the ordinary roughhouse of politics.
How dare he refrain from speaking ill of the dead. That son of a bitch. And we had the mantle retailored for Fritz and all. Do you know how much that costs?
To accept it and grin and shake the son of a bitch's hand is to ignore what cannot be ignored if you want your grandchildren to grow up in a country like the one that nurtured and inspired you.
You mean like when all the Immigrants adapted to American culture and learned the language? When the country actually defended itself against aggressors, rather than bow its head in guilt over its good fortune? Where the taxes didn't go up every year because of the growth industry known as "the less fortunate"?
I would rather go down to defeat with the Democrats I know than go oiling around with opportunists of Coleman's stripe, and you can take that to the bank.
Knowing what I know about the Publishing world, why do I disbelieve you?
I've run into plenty of Coleman supporters since the election and they see me and smirk and turn away and that's par for the course.
Oh, so you're used to that reaction.
I know those people.
And they know you. Hence the smirk.
To my own shame, I know them.
Ah. Then you know how I feel about you living in Minnesota.
I'm ashamed of Minnesota for electing this cheap fraud, and I'm ashamed of myself for sitting on my hands, tending to my hoop-stitching,
Insert obligatory down-home reference, in an attempt to appear accessible to the common man...
confident that Wellstone would win and that Coleman would wind up with an undersecretaryship in the Commerce Department.
And I had a twenty on that, and the bastard went and died on me.
Instead, he will sit in the highest council in the land, and move in powerful circles, and enjoy the perks of his office, which includes all the sycophancy and bootlicking a person could ever hope for.
Where do I sign up for this Politics thing? Sounds like there are a lot of really cool perks.
So he can do with one old St. Paulite standing up and saying, "Shame. Repent. The End is Near."
Are you really sure you want to cast yourself as the long-haired kook in the sandwich board, bothering people on Nicollet Mall?
The Republican exploitation of 9/11 for political gain is the sort of foulness that turns young people against the whole business, and for good reason.
Better the Democratic exploitation of 9/11 for political gain, which has a totally different foulness. A refreshing, breezy foulness, that leaves your soul energized and vibrant. The young people will flock!
All sorts of people went down in the World Trade Center, execs and secretaries and bond traders and also the dishwashers in Windows on the World and secretaries and cleaning ladies. Think of all those portraits of the victims that ran daily week after week in the Times that we read, read tearfully, saw ourselves in those lives, and the wave of patriotic tenderness that followed was genuine and included us all.
"You see? You see? I'm for the common man! I'm not afraid to use an appeal to emotion in my arguments! Believe in me! I grieve like no Republican ever could! They're all so cold and indifferent, but I bleed with you!"
For a cynic like Norman Coleman to hitch his trailer to that tragedy is evil --
Like you just did?
call it by the right name.
Loretta?
To exploit 9/11 and the deaths of those innocent people on that beautiful day in Manhattan -- to appropriate that day and infer so clearly that there is a Republican and a Democratic side to it, is offensive to our national memory and obscenely evil, and it was rewarded by the voters of Minnesota.
Man, you're taking a Bobby Fischer kind of turn there. Have you lined your parka hood with Reynolds Wrap yet? I think the Mind Control rays are starting to penetrate that frightening skull of yours. Better look out, before the black helicopters start circling!
Ordinarily, there should be a period of good feeling after an election, of relief, or relaxation, when we join hands and become one people again,
We pretty much have, except for the odd exclusionary gimps like you.
but Norman Coleman doesn't deserve any Democrat's hand.
That's why he specifically requested feet.
We had come together as one people already -- the precious gift of 9/11 -
If you EVER refer to 9/11 as a precious gift again, I will personally scour St. Paul until I find you, and slap you hard. What an unbelievably asinine thing to say. That's like saying AIDS is a great honor, or a major earthquake is unbelievably fun. What the Hell is the matter with you? Do you think no-one reads these things? Are you this dense on purpose?
- and he used that as a campaign ploy against us, suggesting that Democrats are unpatriotic, and he is not to be forgiven for it. I personally don't believe he had anything to do with the crash of Paul's plane. Plenty of people suspect he did. I don't. But I do think he is a cynical politician who should make himself scarce for the next few years until people start to forget his campaign.
I didn't vote for him to make himself scarce, I voted for him so that he'll WORK for Minnesota. I expect him to do that. You want to talk about a politician who made himself scarce, go look for Mark Dayton. Where the Hell has HE been for two years?
Lord, America does love a winner. When you're riding high, people can't do enough for you, and when you fall down low, they don't want to be around to see. I know something about that -- every performer does -- and you quickly recognize your false friends, the people who clutch your hand and grab your elbow and give you a gigantic smile and tell you how much they love your work but they get the name of the show wrong, or the day of the week, or they mispronounce your name, and you see them clear for the phonies they are.
But enough about me.
Norman Coleman is that very person, the false knight upon the road, and he always has been and always will be. Paul Wellstone was a real person who led an authentic life. The contrast couldn't be clearer.
Wellstone is DEAD. Move on. Quit with the "Coleman is evil" routine. It's already gotten old, and we haven't even come to the end of your annoying diatribe yet.
All you had to do was look at Coleman's face, that weird smile, the pleading eyes, the anger in the forehead.
Better we should look at Keillor's face. No, no, I just can't! It burns, it burns!
You of all people shouldn't be pointing the freak finger at someone else's looks. Not with the massive glass house YOUR jowly bitter face lives in.
Or see how poorly his L.A. wife played the part of Mrs. Coleman, posing for pictures with him, standing apart, stiff, angry. Or listen to his artful dodging on the stump, his mastery of that old Republican dance, of employing some Everyguy gestures in the drive to make the world safe for the privileged. What a contrivance this guy is.
Are you really this stupid? Have you never ever seen a Politician before? Surely they have them in St. Paul. Oh, that's right. St. Paul. The city that did splendidly under Norm Coleman's watch. Yep, eight years of contrivances and artful dodging, and what have you got to show for it? A revitalized downtown, a reduction in crime, a new Hockey team, expanded museums, a brand new stadium, etc...
Paul Wellstone identified passionately with people at the bottom, people in trouble, people in the rough. He was an old-fashioned Democrat who felt more at home with the rank and file than with the rich and famous. (Bill Clinton, examine your conscience.) He loved stories and of course people on the edge tend to have better stories than the rich, whose stories are mostly about décor and amenities.
Dead, Keillor. DEAD. Look it up. I'll wait.
Paul walked the walk. He was a wonder. Everyone who ever met him knew that he lived a whole life and that he and Sheila were crazy about each other. To be in love with one person for 38 years is nothing you can fake: Even the casual passerby can see it.
And this has WHAT to do with Norm Coleman?
To die at 58, having lived so well and so truthfully, is enviable, compared to the longevity of a man who invents his own life in order to achieve the desired effect and advance himself.
Oh, I see. It's an ironic comparison, and a suggestion that Normie is an automaton, and that we are all doomed for electing someone so soulless, so uncaring, so manipulative.
Rebuttal: Eight years in charge of St. Paul, and the city is better than it's been in a long, long time. He can invent his own life as much as he likes, if he can deliver the results.
To gain the whole world and lose your own soul is not a course that Scripture recommends.
But then, Scripture doesn't recommend that you act like an arrogant blowhole either, but you've sidestepped that quite nicely.
You can do it so long as God doesn't notice, but God has a way of returning and straightening these things out.
Apparently the divine mechanism this time was a tendency to vote Republican.
Sinner beware.
Oh, blow it out your prayer book.
Garrison Keillor is the creator and host of the nationally syndicated radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," broadcast on more than 500 public radio stations nationwide.
Now with fifty percent more Divine Retribution, and three times the biting political vitriol!