Tom Wolfe Hits It Right On The Head
“Here is an example of the situation in America,” he says: “Tina Brown wrote in her column that she was at a dinner where a group of media heavyweights were discussing, during dessert, what they could do to stop Bush. Then a waiter announces that he is from the suburbs, and will vote for Bush. And … Tina’s reaction is: ‘How can we persuade these people not to vote for Bush?’ I draw the opposite lesson: that Tina and her circle in the media do not have a clue about the rest of the United States. You are considered twisted and retarded if you support Bush in this election. I have never come across a candidate who is so reviled. Reagan was sniggered it, but this is personal, real hatred.
“Indeed, I was at a similar dinner, listening to the same conversation, and said: ‘If all else fails, you can vote for Bush.’ People looked at me as if I had just said: ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, I am a child molester.’ I would vote for Bush if for no other reason than to be at the airport waving off all the people who say they are going to London if he wins again. Someone has got to stay behind.”
Where does it come from, this endorsement of the most conservative administration within living memory? Of this president who champions the right and the rich, who has taken America into the mire of war, and seeks re-election tomorrow? Wolfe’s eyes resume the expression of detached Southern elegance.
“I think support for Bush is about not wanting to be led by East-coast pretensions. It is about not wanting to be led by people who are forever trying to force their twisted sense of morality onto us, which is a non-morality. That is constantly done, and there is real resentment.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1340525,00.html
Did Wolfe state that voting for Bush means that you are not voting for someone who is always trying to force their morality on you? Is he f*cking serious? I thought he was supposed to be intelligent? What does he think Bush and his far right, faith-based agenda has been doing for the past four years? Sorry for all of the question marks.
What morality, or, I’m sorry, “non-morality” is the East Coast elite forcing on the nation? Why even ask? That’s such a laughable sophistry on its face. Tom Wolfe is still one of my prose idols, he can write lucidly on any subject (had he been employed to write VCR instuction manuals back in the day, a whole generation of hack comedians would’ve been robbed of the flashing “12:00” as a cultural touchstone), but it’s hard to deny that his powers of precise, withering observation have… well, withered. To see him parroting that garbage about the East Coast Liberal Elite, which plays into this most recent spasm of “anti-intellectualism” used to foment hatred and suspicion in Middle America of the left’s agenda — it’s now code for curtailing religious freedom and declaring war on the unborn — is dispiriting.
That said, I wouldn’t dream of not reading I AM CHARLOTTE SIMMONS even if A MAN IN FULL was wildly off the mark.
“I wouldn’t dream of not reading I AM CHARLOTTE SIMMONS even if A MAN IN FULL was wildly off the mark.”
Ugh. The cost of posting in a rage.
I love guys who are supposedly from the MIDDLE of
the country, living in the NYC, telling me how
I, a member of the middle of the country, should
or does feel. Yes. We all LOVE THE BUSH. As
Carville said this morning, “the 41 percent too
stupid enough to see what’s going on in this world.”
Yeah I have to deal with my share of W the President
stickers, but it does not mean all of us in the middle
of the country are at war with the EAST COAST or
the WEST COAST. If there’s a war; it’s between
the people who get it and the people who are simply
too caught up on riding a fucking idiot’s jock to
looking around and notice what has happened to this
country.
It’s a war between two sides all over the land.
Chris Matthews might believe this country will be
happy if Bush wins but changes directions, but some
of us in this whacked out culture war understand
that we will never be happy until this guy has to
take up residency in Crawford full-time.
How Wolfe functions on a higher level remains a
mystery.
John Kerry is a “Liberal!”
New York City is “liberal!”
9/11 is “Liberal!”
Osama Bin Laden is Alive and Free!
Think!
You’re telling me you think you could find a guy hiding in a cave with nothing there in the middle of nowhere with the best of the best looking for him?
Get a clue.
Kerry would be the worst commander and chief in a war time. When 85% of the military votes for Bush doesn’t that say something to you?
Why is this titled “hits it right on the head” –David are you saying you agree with Wolfe here? What kind of morality are we trying to force onto the red states. No wait… I am. It’s the morality of respecting the rights of your fellow citizens and not using personal religious beliefs to dictate what they can and cannot do with their life. Here’s a concept. Maybe they have a different religion?
Ooh we gays are so evil. That agenda we are constantly forcing on everyone “live and let live” is so insidious.
I have ZERO interest in making straight people live the way I live. Why the hell are so many Americans so stupid as to assume that they should be able to dictate how I do? They are furious whenever anyone even suggests something that affects the way they live (like say gun control, or tax increases) and yet they have the hypocrisy to think they have the right to deny me civil rights.
I am disgusted by this country. And I’m disgusted by the notion that Tom Wolfe is “right” and that people can actually view freedoms of the personal, religious, and sexual variety as a “non morality”
Theres a reason he’s a great author. Good ideas and opinions.
mnacol-online.com ” she urges early on