This Is What It Sounds Like When Moose Cry

As you know, occasional contributor Mr. Eugene Debs is mysterious; his whereabouts are unknown and his intentions are variously incomprehensible, dismal, or opaque. As usual, his new piece appeared on my computer without explanation or signs of entry. Attached to it was a note that virtually begged that we not accept it. —RB

I confess to feeling a mite gypped* that Our Subarctic Lady of Perpetual Betcha has bailed on us. I was really looking forward to the Palin Administration, and not just as a last-chance vindication of the unacknowledged potential of Dan Quayle.

WWIII and — in the second term — marauding caribou-riding neo-barbarians and ubiquitous cannibalism promised to be excitingly atmospheric.

But it looks like we'll have to do without that. And as if that weren't enough, PalinFAIL has had the unfortunate side effect of causing a thought to occur to me, namely, that the long-term intellectual dry rot of the American right is getting a bit out of hand, like a house in which the termites have finally eaten through the load-bearing posts and beams, causing visible slouch.

By way of illustration, No More Mr. Nice Blog has a cogent meditation on the puzzling continued respectability of Pat Buchanan. During the first US election I experienced firsthand —1992 — P-to-the-B-Dog was the rightmost bound of good taste — beyond him there be naught but manticores and Grand Wizards. But Buchanan was at least not a fool; he could express complex ideas, if generally loathsome ones.

The Buchanan/Palin comparison is like Augustine vs. Aimee Semple MacPherson, and besides Palin makes Buchanan look moderate.

Or to put it differently: some time ago I read — well, glossed — "The Naked Communist" (a very misleading title, BTW; I'm stll steamed over the absolute lack of a Valentina Tereskhova centerfold, or at least Ninotchka showing some leg). Fifty years ago, it may have been the angry face of raw Bircher populism, but if you subtract the obvious insanity, it seems by contemporary standards almost charming; wheedling, plaintive, didactic — even the obviously insane parts are oddly decorous, such as the chapter in which Presidents Truman and Eisenhower are politely accused of being Soviet agents. I defy anyone to find a given hour of modern talk radio in which the Democrats are not accused of trying to legalize child molestation; the word "treason" is tossed around so casually as to have lost all meaning, like accusing someone of not separating their recyclables or being a Nazi. As for the gravitas of ideas, that will have to wait for Joe the Plumber's Untitled "Aaaargh, My 15 Minutes Are Almost Up!" Project,** featuring a rare preface by the self-effacing, publicity-shy Newt Gingrich.

Anyway. All of this describes a trajectory; and while the moral arc of the universe may bend toward justice, this thing appears to bend in a direction not known to mainstream topology, into a willful, Borges-like denial of reality (with a quick stopover at Cletus the slack-jawed yokel's shack). Frankly, I have no idea if there is a natural bottom to this phenomenon, though I suppose a candidate need at least be ambulatory and continent. In another generation or two, Palin and Huckabee may be the voices of sanity and moderation, whereas God only knows what rough — but lotioned-up-for-HDTV — beast may be slouching toward New Hampshire, waiting to be served pancakes.

*My dictionary does not suggest that this term has anything to do with Gypsies: "ORIGIN late 19th cent.: of unknown origin." So there. [RB]

**Maybe this is unfair; the modern Left has a gaping lack of vision, too. Gore Vidal is a poor substitute for Bertrand Russell (OK, yes, not an American. Whatever).