Even by the state’s contemporary standards, though, Allen is a dunce. One of the few politiicans, in fact, who could make people refer to John Warner as "the smart one."
Which, needless to say, could make him a hot prospect for the GOP presidential nomination.
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May 2, 2005
Billmon: Being There
Comments
Being Nothing popped up somewhere on a thread last week. It’s worth inserting here again, I think.
This article appropriates ideas from Being There and Baudrillard’s Gulf War pieces in order to propose that George W. Bush is a simulation, a virtual figure upgraded from a prototype like that of Chance the Gardener. I am not interested in George W. Bush’s corporeal being but rather in his flatness and in the way that his obvious deficiencies are “spun” by supposedly disinterested media pundits. Bush’s estrangement from the real — evident in his unfamiliarity with geography, history, ordinary English syntax and semantics, and a fund of common knowledge — stems from his own lack of reality. George W. Bush does not exist.
Posted by: beq | May 2 2005 12:22 utc | 1
And as to Geo. Allen: Yup, he’s got all it takes; a cowboy hat and boots. Just another “all hat and no cattle” cowboy. Yehaa.
Posted by: beq | May 2 2005 12:26 utc | 2
And his father was a famous football coach. Can’t get more ‘mericun than that.
Posted by: Aigin | May 2 2005 12:38 utc | 3
In a rant from superdestructor:
…George Allen was Governor of Virginia, and he’s been a life-long Senator ever since, running unopposed (realistically speaking), and even riding a horse in the Fourth of July Parade in my small town every summer ever since I’ve lived here. He and his horse’s gait has never changed since 9/11.
Used to go to that parade but didn’t have the stomach for it anymore after seeing another politician playing at cowboy.
Posted by: beq | May 2 2005 13:07 utc | 4
I recall that Allen’s father had a penchant for wearing out franchises with his “future is now” blather. He would think nothing of trading good draft picks for a veteran with maybe one good season left. It was a winning strategy for about 3 years before the well ran dry.
I could see Allen Sr. on Easter Island, exhorting his charges to cut down that last tree, “because we need it now, dammit” and Jr. bleating benignly, “well at least things are going to be a lot neater without those trees and hedges to trim.”
Posted by: bcf | May 2 2005 17:49 utc | 5
Yes, Chance was a moron as Senator Allen surely is. But the morons require co-conspirators to rise to power, so we had Russert in the role of the enabling, nodding Benjamin Rand.
Bill Scott once attended a Congressional briefing on nuclear weapons and asked why the briefers kept referring to silos…this wasn’t about farming, was it?
As Dave Barry would put it, I Am Not Making This Up.
Posted by: Fast-Moving Cloud | May 2 2005 21:09 utc | 7
Allen is one of my two senators, and I have to ruefully concur in all of the ridicule and opprobrium heaped upon him here and elsewhere. What a disgrace! What a charlatan! What an embarassment! What an idiot! What a brainless puppet!
Yes, Billmon may be right. He may be our next president.
Posted by: maxcrat | May 3 2005 0:26 utc | 8
Does Billmon have an email published? I want to send him a message but don’t see his email listed. Thanks
George Allen is a real piece of work, as was his come-from-behind victory in the 1993 governor’s race. if i remember correctly, shortly before the election a psychiatrist named William Gray came forward and claimed that Mary Sue Terry was a lesbian and he had “secret files” to prove it. who was Gray? at the time he was under investigation for taking sexual advantage of young male patients. he had, in fact, lost his medical license in California previously for this very thing. Mary Sue Terry, attorney general at the time, was livid that there was no interstate communication between medical boards and that Gray was allowed to set up shop in Virginia. hence, Gray had a *revenge* motive. in any case, Allen – of course – was victorious and Gray moved to the Philippines soonafter. do you think it worthwhile information that Allen’s political star was tied to the testimony of a vengeful pederast? i think it could be.
Posted by: C.S. Barrios | May 26 2005 14:11 utc | 10