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Change You Can’t Quite Articulate

A long time ago, in a decade called the 90′s, there was a brave and brilliant little website known as Suck.com, which featured daily essays — presented in a charming but sometimes hard to read "snaking" format like this — … Read More

By / February 11, 2009

A long time ago, in a decade called the 90′s, there was a brave and brilliant little website known as Suck.com, which featured daily essays —

presented in a charming

but sometimes hard to read

"snaking" format like this —

about politics, culture, technology and everything in between. Today it’d be written up in a New York Times trend piece about "snark" because that was that general tone of the site, although Suck wasn’t mean for the sake of mean; it was mordant and smart. David Denby may have even assailed it in his misfire of a book, but I wouldn’t know because I haven’t read it, being just the sort of emblem of aloof disdain — calling it a "misfire" without having read it — Denby doesn’t like very much.  Anyway, among the contributors to Suck who have gone on to reach the dizzying middles of media celebrity is one Nick Gillespie, now editor and web TV wizard of the libertarian magazine Reason. (He and another former Suckster Tim Cavanaugh once participated in a Jewcy feature called Movable Snipe, wherein they read and made fun of preselected blogs.)

Nick’s slightly mocking tone doesn’t always come across in blog posts or learned essays about the Modern Language Association, but he’s found himself in ReasonTV. Check out the following episode of on-the-street interviews with Obama supporters on Jan. 19. They all somehow feel they’re the change they’ve been waiting for, yet can’t quite explain what they’d have done differently if John McCain had been elected president.

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  • Alex Chaihorsky

    Any new blood in a political party to do anything substantial has to get rid of old guard. Even Hitler who was loved by Nazis from day one, had to get rid of Roehm and old-timers. Same way Stalin had to get rid of old Bolshevik guard. While Obama cannot do it as straightforward and quick, he can do better – to put the old guard on the front line and let them fail on their own. Then, later he will bring his own guard.

    Remember Richardson’s depart? Because old fox Bill knows when to take a step back. Mind you, Richardson will have Hillary’s job when she will fail miserably on a diplomatic front. Remember how old Kennedy yanked Caroline? Because its not the time to be in the first row. How easy Daschle backed up? They needed an excuse to stay in the second echelon, but still have a claim on respectful positions.   Those who did not want to kiss the ring, the cocky and the ambitions, those who think that Obama ows them, will got the honor to fell the first. Poor Geithner! "The uniquely qualified one!" Qualified for what? You
    heard him yesterday. The only thing he is qualidfied uniquely is to be
    a whipping boy. Obama cannot say to the spoiled American public – brace yourself and just let the fire burn out, he has to create an illusion of trying hard. And, BTW, use the crisis to devalue dollar in the process, we cannot jump start industrial sector without dollar losing at least 2/3 of its value. BTW it will also help to take much fat out of upper class, which grew out of proportion in thge last 20 years.So expect gold at 2,500 to 3,000.

    Obama is an exceptionally clever man, he knows that there is no way he can control or divert the crisis, it has to burn for at least two years well into 2010 or most probably 2011. He will use the time for building his own troops and allow old guard to die. And hard will they die, mind my words. 

  • Ismail

    Even allowing for the selection effects of Gillespie’s piece, this sort of thing breaks my heart and is exactly why I nearly came to blows with longtime friends over their unanalytic and schoolkid-like crushes on the vaporous lad from Chicago.

    Why is it that Americans treat politics as they treat preferences in music or snacks? Why is the model of consumer the dominant one ("I know! I’ll buy a Prius!")?

    In Argentina, people across the spectrum apprehended that the system itself was rotten and went into the streets to topple it. Here, bankers get billions in public funds and award themselves tons of that money as bonuses while Obama squeaks about salary caps for execs (note to the idiotic RW: Don’t worry, I’m sure the majority of those guys were gentiles).

    This is like watching Leno’s jaywalking bit except that they’re talking about my kid’s future.