I vote Bloomberg.
No, not really. But George Packer's "Talk of the Town, Comment, Mr. Independent" in the July 2 issue really wowed me. As long as we're picking favorites this morning.
I liked the serious insights - on the history of independent candidates, on "the power of faux symbols in our political life," on Bloomberg's money as "a profoundly undemocratic force in public life." And I think I laughed aloud and with glee at the possibility of the demise of the Sun Belt attitude, "no one from the Northeast has a chance to win, or should even be considered American."
This was a nice mix of serious and funny, too: "Last week, Bloomberg ended his affiliation with the Republican Party, as he did seven years ago with the Democratic Party (thereby changing his political registration as many times as Hillary Clinton has had a geographical makeover and Rudolph Giuliani has torn up his marriage license)."
It got me to thinking about the glorious (now, in all seriousness) instability of our current or future representatives - Giuliani cannot represent "family values," Hillary (what with her cosmopolitan globetrotting, from New York State to Illinois, etc) cannot represent "home" and Bloomberg cannot toe a party line. Oh yeah, and Obama's "race" and "religion" are all vexed and vexing too. Hooray!
I liked the serious insights - on the history of independent candidates, on "the power of faux symbols in our political life," on Bloomberg's money as "a profoundly undemocratic force in public life." And I think I laughed aloud and with glee at the possibility of the demise of the Sun Belt attitude, "no one from the Northeast has a chance to win, or should even be considered American."
This was a nice mix of serious and funny, too: "Last week, Bloomberg ended his affiliation with the Republican Party, as he did seven years ago with the Democratic Party (thereby changing his political registration as many times as Hillary Clinton has had a geographical makeover and Rudolph Giuliani has torn up his marriage license)."
It got me to thinking about the glorious (now, in all seriousness) instability of our current or future representatives - Giuliani cannot represent "family values," Hillary (what with her cosmopolitan globetrotting, from New York State to Illinois, etc) cannot represent "home" and Bloomberg cannot toe a party line. Oh yeah, and Obama's "race" and "religion" are all vexed and vexing too. Hooray!
Labels: currentevents, newyorker
posted by zoe p. at 1:36 PM
2 Comments:
I also liked this: "Or, at least, the glittering constellation of news and entertainment companies, Wall Street firms, political consultants, civic boosters, paid gossips, columnists, pundits, publicists, and solipsists who feed—and in turn batten on—the impression that unless something happens in New York it doesn’t happen"
This was a really great ToT. So short, so few words, yet so full of information, insight, and ideas.
Short, but smart. So rare.
Post a Comment
<< Home