The Silly Season Starts Early
I don't remember when I first heard it referred to that way, but some pundit somewhere started calling the election cycle the Silly Season. Wikipedia says it's a British term for the slow late summer news cycle, but it would appear the term has been re-purposed on this side of the pond.
Just like Spring, its heralds are brightly colored and often blustery-- and rarely mistakable. Strident public discourse, sniping among differently minded friends who, in saner times, get along swimmingly, the wholesale retiring of senses of humor, gotcha political cartoons and commentaries (although, what one considers "gotcha" depends, really, on whether or not the item in question supports or denounces your view, right?).
Really, this quadrennial's (?) silly season might be deemed to have begun with the debt-ceiling debate. (Actually, debate is far too grown-up a word for what was essentially a mud-pit tug of war with both ends tied to tractors, but I digress.) It was certainly here by the time the GOP started their primary debates (again, a strong word for a bunch of people trying to sell you different brands of the same cereal. I was going to say corn flakes, since they are the most generic of cereals, but I would not wish to be misinterpreted as casting specific aspersions upon the GOP aspirants. And, again, I digress.). No matter how you slice it, we are in full silly season mode more than a year before the General Election.
Who I want to win and why I want him to win is likely apparent, but also irrelevant. It is as irrelevant as the facts that are and will continue to be trampled in what my friend calls fact-free rhetoric; as irrelevant as the straw-man arguments that will continue to draw attention away from our real and pressing issues. You know, the ones where people-with-way-more than-most try to pit the various flavors of the have-not-so-much against one another for blood sport, hoping we won't catch them absconding with our nation's promise. That was definitely not a digression.
Anyhoo, looks like we're in for the longest, ugliest haul of our Union. I really hope our better angels take flight. But I am also a child of the 70s who had a Magic 8 Ball:* "Very doubtful."
*FYI, Mattel has an online Magic 8 Ball here.
Just like Spring, its heralds are brightly colored and often blustery-- and rarely mistakable. Strident public discourse, sniping among differently minded friends who, in saner times, get along swimmingly, the wholesale retiring of senses of humor, gotcha political cartoons and commentaries (although, what one considers "gotcha" depends, really, on whether or not the item in question supports or denounces your view, right?).
Really, this quadrennial's (?) silly season might be deemed to have begun with the debt-ceiling debate. (Actually, debate is far too grown-up a word for what was essentially a mud-pit tug of war with both ends tied to tractors, but I digress.) It was certainly here by the time the GOP started their primary debates (again, a strong word for a bunch of people trying to sell you different brands of the same cereal. I was going to say corn flakes, since they are the most generic of cereals, but I would not wish to be misinterpreted as casting specific aspersions upon the GOP aspirants. And, again, I digress.). No matter how you slice it, we are in full silly season mode more than a year before the General Election.
Who I want to win and why I want him to win is likely apparent, but also irrelevant. It is as irrelevant as the facts that are and will continue to be trampled in what my friend calls fact-free rhetoric; as irrelevant as the straw-man arguments that will continue to draw attention away from our real and pressing issues. You know, the ones where people-with-way-more than-most try to pit the various flavors of the have-not-so-much against one another for blood sport, hoping we won't catch them absconding with our nation's promise. That was definitely not a digression.
Anyhoo, looks like we're in for the longest, ugliest haul of our Union. I really hope our better angels take flight. But I am also a child of the 70s who had a Magic 8 Ball:* "Very doubtful."
*FYI, Mattel has an online Magic 8 Ball here.
posted by YankeeHobbit | 1:21 AM
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