Political Invective

From the Valve:

The Valve - A Literary Organ | Ferocious Goat, or the Decline of Political Invective: Posted by Sean McCann on 06/09/05 at 01:13 PM: Ayjay worries about the declining quality of web calumny and asks us to study the masters.

Just came across this passage today, Eugene Debs on Teddy Roosevelt, January 1918:

This political pet of the plutocrats, this bogus reformer, this shreiking charlatan, this raving mountebank, this crazy-horse of Oyster Bay ranch, this blood and thunder prophet, this opera bouffe ghostdancer, this blatant quack hero, this freak of froth and foam and buncombe, this nauseating moralizer, this dysenteric scold, this chattering midwife and meddler and all-around nuisance has buncoed the people long enough and they at last know him for what he is, at least those of them who have mentality above a shell-fish, and who can tell a jibbering fraud after he has exhibited himself to them daily for a score of years.

I particularly liked "crazy-horse of Oyster Bay ranch." O, for a Debs now.

Comments

[Gene O'Grady]

I'd settle for a Roosevelt.

[bad Jim]

Would Debs have words enough for Bush, or, if he did, would we live long enough to hear them all?

"this blatant quack hero, this freak of froth and foam and buncombe, this nauseating moralizer"

No, he already had our guy sized up.

[anne]

"O, for a Debs now."
O, for a Roosevelt.

[chris]

oh, oh

[repoman]

Oh, for Bill Clinton now...

[Donny]

George Galloway showed us how to do it. Bush is a malignant imbecile; a festering pustule on the face of America. It's time to start saying so.

[glenn]

Bush is the grubworm of Washington, a feckless silver-spooned toddler plagued with big-brother-itis, a heavy-handed malcontent with woefully vacuous morals.

I'm getting the hang of it.....but with Bush, it's easy.

[charles]

Cussing was clearly more imaginative back then than it is now. Vocabularies seemed to be larger than the few cuss words repeated infinitely today. Another lost art, that perhaps the blogosphere can help resurrect--like Glenn, above.

Charles

[Jason]

The above are too long-winded. We really need to emulate the Right when it comes to name calling. Follow the KISS philosophy. It is enough to call Bush a "F**NG IMBECILE" or a "FECKLESS COWARD". Just repeat this slow and louder until people "get it". Pick something vicious and catchy. Reapat Ad nauseum. I think we can call this the "Rove policy". Hell, it works for Coulter.

[Emma Zahn]

I like the beginning line but think most of today's public speakers' tongues would trip over it.

"The political pet of plutocrats."

LOL.

[tante aime]

It is easier for a rich man to dance with 1,000 angels,
than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

We're going to need a lot more than namecalling when:
1) Iraq blows back bigtime, and DoD starts the draft;
2) The short bond return crosses the long bond return;
3) A housing bubble bursts as Wall Street goes August;
4) Kim Jung Il launches "the big one" in a missile test;
5) A DoD Black Ops transport is shot down over Bolivia;
6) The new head of Hezbollah in Lebanon is assassinated;
7) Trade deficits with China bump up, even with tariffs;
8) Domino-ing State:Local cuts torpedo the US economy;

Here, the Country is yours, Brad. Now what?

Most horrifying to me? Jon Stewart hosting Colin Powell.
Did Bush make him an offer he couldn't refuse? That why he's dodging Downing Street Memo and Iraq body count?

"O-o-o-h, we didn't know. Don't hate us, we didn't know.
You're reading too much into this. We all gave CiC our opinion and relied on best intelligence. OK? You good?"

In decades to come, the Rovians will have completely rewritten history so this whole Bush Iraq-Big Oil thing reads like the Chairman's Shining Path Little Red Book.

[Tony Vila]

I don't get it?

The piece seems to overblown, and so obviously wrong, that it only reaffirms my faith that modern discourse isn't that bad. Debs sounds no better than a modern third party candidate or leftist pundit.

I'm sure it sounds cute and esoteric to us intellectuals that get amused by old stuff, but that's not the same as well-written for the purposes of communication or convincing.

[Auros]

http://www.liberaloasis.com/bushin41point2.htm

[Ari]

Patrick

No; your example is just plain meanness.

[Auros]

Also, Ari, it's already been thoroughly discredited by Gandelman.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/06/another_welcome.html

[Auros]

(With "it" referring to Patrick's idiotic example, not anything Ari said. Damn pronominal antecedents.)

[Ari]

Dear Auros,

Forgive me, my complaint would never have had you in mind. The comment above yours, I do not care to even mention it, was no more than fearful meanness. Forgive me Auros.