Lying Sacks of Shit

Wednesday, July 25, 2012
I'm just curious. Is there a politician out there running for any office higher than dog-catcher who isn't a lying sack of shit? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

I thought not.

Here it is, only July, and I'm already so disgusted by the entire political process I'm considering forgoing podcasts, television and radio until about February of next year. Seems like this year has gotten awfully nasty awfully quickly, and even though I'm enough of a liberal that I'd need my head examined if I decided to vote for Romney, the Obama campaign is making me just as ill as Romney's.

My friend David, a professional historian specializing in the birth and early years of our nation, tells me that our founding fathers were far nastier than today's political hacks. I'm sure that's true, but I wonder - did the citizens of our newborn nation hate the political season as much as we do today? I would never fail to vote, or vote in an uneducated way, but it does seem to me that performing my civic duty becomes more and more distasteful every year.

Angels and Ministers of Grace, defend us.

16 comments:

The Mechanicky Gal said...

Just so's you know - I have had to give up news (other than what I get on Gawker, etc.). My brain, it esplods.

Warner said...

This is the first presidential election since 68 that I haven't been involved in from a broadcast perspective, and only the second election night coverage missed since 72.

It is very quiet.

Steve Buchheit said...

I like to think I was, and I think Councilman was higher than dog catcher (although dog catchers are usually County Employees, so maybe not).

Is Colorado a "battleground state"? Here in Ohio, it's pretty much wall to wall already. And they're expanding to cable channels this year, so no rest for the wicked.

Thordr said...

It makes it difficult to be an informed voter when everything makes you twitch and turn away.

Janiece said...

Steve, Colorado is a battleground state. Hence the problem.

I'm afraid Thordr has the right of it - everyone's lying their ass off, so it's hard to know whose lies are the most egregious.

David said...

The citizens of our newborn nation probably didn''t pay nearly as much attention to the politics around them - the 1790s was the tail end of deferential politics, when politics was still presumed to be the preserve of gentlemen, so most of it went over their heads.

That said, that sort of politics was quickly fading over the course of the decade, and I'd imagine that more than a few citizens found it either a) distasteful or b) guiltily pleasurable [or c] both] to see their supposed betters engaged in such vitriolic politics.

Of course they were 18th-century writers, so it was an elegant sort of abuse. My favorite line is a Federalist criticism of Thomas Jefferson for inventing a pivoting chair - "the celebrated whirligig chair which he invented purely to check the eddying motions of his watery brain by a counterturn for every occasion."

Janiece said...

David, I keep forgetting that they were too busy trying not to die of smallpox and amoebic dysentery. Slavishly following politics is game for the prosperous.

Eric said...

I don't know that I'd agree with David about how much attention the citizens of the early Republic paid to politics, although he's much more of an expert than I am and I do have a great deal of deference for his expertise. But it was also an era of political graffiti (e.g. a personal favorite, objecting to the Jay Treaty of 1796: "Damn John Jay! Damn everyone that won't damn John Jay! Damn every one that won't put lights in his window and sit up all night damning John Jay!") and criminal prosecution under the Sedition Act of citizens who criticized the President. And there's another point David references that I think deserves emphasis: the calibre and breadth of a gentleman's education in the era meant that the quality of the vitriol was much, much better, and it's easy to forget that some of the things politicians and pundits said about one another were no less awful or uncalled-for than something you might hear from Limbaugh or a Congressman calling the President a liar almost to his face, they were just said much, much, much more eloquently and with far more wit; phrased so prettily, indeed, that we get caught up in the intelligence of the phrasing and forget that the meaning was vicious, sometimes slanderous, and occasionally qualified as fighting words that could provoke a duel unless cooler heads prevailed. (Sometimes they didn't.)

The other thing I wanted to say was that there are even days on which a party that ran as a candidate a bag of manure that just sat there--a literal lying sack of shit--might get my vote over some of their rivals.

Eric said...

I realize I should clarify: the point about 18th Century eloquence isn't just something David references, it's a point he makes. I just wanted to underscore it and express my agreement. Sorry if my original endorsement came off as weak.

Janiece said...

Lying Sack of Shit for President!

Eric, I think the marketing for that might be problematic.

Eric said...

Really, Janiece? Because I think there was a point in the Republican primary season where Lying Sack Of Shit could have beat Romney in one or two states. Hell, if Newt Gingrich could do as well as he did, I think an immobile and silent Lying Sack Of Shit could have done at least twice as well as that.

The big issue for many GOP core voters would be whether or not Lying Sack Of Shit was a conventional Christian; I suggest its handlers drape a crucifix over it and see if they can get Sarah Palin's endorsement.

Eric said...

Once Lying Sack Of Shit has cleared the primaries, I suggest its handlers try to bring in swing voters by using part of Lying Sack Of Shit to fertilize a pot plant and issue a statement to the effect that Lying Sack Of Shit would never authorize a drone strike or any kind of military action at all, since it has no hands to sign an order and no mouth to give one. BAM! You just got the Ron Paul independent liberal swing voters.

Janiece said...

And Lying Sack of Shit could get the Green Vote, too! No chemicals, all natural fertilizer!

Hell, yeah! Lying Sack of Shit for President!

Steve Buchheit said...

LSoSfP 2012!!!!

Sorry you're also in a battleground state. If it helps, Colorado isn't mentioned much in the national news as a "must win" (like VA and OH). So hopefully you still get to see the Sham Wow! guy every now and then.

And if only one good thing can come from the Aurora shootings, at least the amount of political commercials have (temporarily) reduced to just annoying levels. Not that the price was worth it .

Eric said...

Lying Sack Of Shit: the consensus candidate for 2012.

David said...

Eric, they did pay attention – that John Jay graffiti is one of my favorites too, and I use it in my HIS101 class as an example – but they weren’t as clued in as we are. The technology was slower and less intrusive – newspapers, horse-delivered mail, and coffeehouse gossip – and the general consensus was still largely that politics was the preserve of gentlemen (some states didn’t even allow citizens to vote for president until the 19th century – there are no Constitutional rules that say they have to). There were no political parties in the modern sense, just collections of like-minded gentlemen – and even that was seen as a sign of decay in the republic by many (George Washington, for example).

That said, popular participation was increasing during that decade, in part because deferential politics was collapsing in the aftermath of the popular participation in the Revolution and in part because the stakes of politics were so high – counting the Crown, the Constitution was the third basic framework of government Americans had lived under in less than fifteen years, and everyone feared the consequences if it should fail.

You make a good point about the centrality of the fact that these were gentlemen – highly educated, deeply focused on honor, and mainly addressing each other. Their slanders and libels were vitriolic in the context of the day (and even sometimes by today’s standards), and they were squarely addressed to destroying their opponents’ honor, a mark we can’t really wrap our heads around today. And from there it gets complicated.

Part of the horror George Washington felt over Thomas Paine’s open letter to him (“And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any”) was the assault on Washington’s good name, and part was that Paine was not, by any 18th-century standard, a gentleman and Washington did not hold with being ill-treated by inferiors, particularly not publicly. It was the public politics that really got to people.

Thanks for this discussion. I needed a break from the modern world. :)