Thursday, August 31, 2006
Literary Shipdit
Visit the current events section in any local bookstore and you'll find more anti-Bush screeds than you can shake a stick at. There are books in which each and every member of the Bush Administration is portrayed as either a crook or a liar -- or both. There are also books in which the president is not only attacked for the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, he's blamed for the hurricane itself. And you can find books in which President Bush is portrayed as the most amiable of Republican amiable dunces.
So what's unique about John Egerton's new book (see this week's Nashville Scene)? Nothing, of course. All Egerton's done is take the America's a Right-Wing Hellhole argument and spin it as a political fairy tale. But I'm willing to bet a dollar to anyone's dime that a left-wing press somewhere has already churned out an allegorical fantasy taking aim at the high crimes and misdemeanors of one George W. Bush.
Even Edgerton's feeble attempt at whimsy is nothing new. Egerton names one of his characters Colon O'Scoppy (how clever), but even the anti-Bush potty humor is so yesterday (apologies to Hilary Duff). Kurt Vonnegut recently told Rolling Stone how pissed he is that he must live in a country governed by a "Colon, a Dick and a Bush." Since Edgerton claims to be incapable of cynicism, perhaps he should team up with ol' Kurt, who fancies himself quite the satirical cynic, to tell us how George W. Bush the Dumbass was able to mastermind the greatest criminal conspiracy in U.S. political history.
So what's unique about John Egerton's new book (see this week's Nashville Scene)? Nothing, of course. All Egerton's done is take the America's a Right-Wing Hellhole argument and spin it as a political fairy tale. But I'm willing to bet a dollar to anyone's dime that a left-wing press somewhere has already churned out an allegorical fantasy taking aim at the high crimes and misdemeanors of one George W. Bush.
Even Edgerton's feeble attempt at whimsy is nothing new. Egerton names one of his characters Colon O'Scoppy (how clever), but even the anti-Bush potty humor is so yesterday (apologies to Hilary Duff). Kurt Vonnegut recently told Rolling Stone how pissed he is that he must live in a country governed by a "Colon, a Dick and a Bush." Since Edgerton claims to be incapable of cynicism, perhaps he should team up with ol' Kurt, who fancies himself quite the satirical cynic, to tell us how George W. Bush the Dumbass was able to mastermind the greatest criminal conspiracy in U.S. political history.
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Thursday, August 31, 2006 
