In the florid words of my good friend Repulski: “A great and testy old fart steps up to the
plate in those worn and dusty spiked shoes before the indifferent crowd. He knocks the
spikes against the bat, just to clean the bullshit of old games away, the ugly hard toil of
yesteryear, remembering when he was a confident extra-base hitter. Some called him a slugger.
Things are different now. He loosens up his arthritic shoulders and swings — and It’s Out of the
Fucking Ballpark! Praise the Blood-Soaked Lord!”
In other words, if you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at Norman Mailer’s commentary in the Nov. 4 issue of the New
York Review of Books. (Scroll way down). It begins:
A victory for Bush may yet be seen as one of our nation’s unforgettable
ironies. No need to speak again of the mendacities, manipulations, and spiritual mediocrity of the
post–9/11 years; the time has come to recover from the shock that so abysmal a record (and so
complete a refusal to look at the record) looks nonetheless likely to prevail. Who, then, are we? In
just what kind of condition are the American people?
It goes after Ahnold:
A quick look at our movie stars gives a hint. The liberal left has been attached
to actors like Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. They spoke to our cynicism and to our baffled
idealism. But the American center moved their loyalties from the decency of Gary Cooper to the
grit and self-approval of John Wayne. Now, we have the apotheosis of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He captured convention honors at the Garden in the course of informing America, via the
physicality of his presence, that should the nation ever come to such a dire pass as to need a
dictator, why, bless us all, he, Arnold, can offer the best chin to come along since Benito
Mussolini. Chin is now prepared to replace spin.
“Bush’s appeal is, after all, to the stupid,” Mailer continues. “They, too, are inflexible — they
also know that maintaining one’s stupidity can become a kind of strength, provided you never
change your mind.”
Then comes the topper, hitting a vein that nobody has dared to use before. It’s
deeply personal, more revealing about the character and religiosity of the
Ignoramus in Chief than anything anyone else has said in public, and it spurts real
blood:
It is cruel but true that he has the vulnerability of an ex-alcoholic.
People in Alcoholics Anonymous speak of themselves as dry drunks. As they see it, they may
no longer drink, yet a sense of imbalance at having to do without liquor does not go away. Rather
the impulse is sequestered behind the faith that God is supporting one’s efforts to remain
sober.
Giving up booze may have been the most heroic act of George W.’s life, but America could
now be paying the price. George W.’s piety has become a pomade to cover all the tamped-down
dry-drunk craziness that still stirs in his livid inner air.
Mailer knows from boozers (ex- and otherwise). His words
have the ring of truth, and those are just the highlights. Go read, while keeping your
fingers crossed the irony will not come to pass.
