shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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 Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 5:09 am Post subject: The Hamlet Men |
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A long article, but oh so eloquent!!
| Quote: | April 09, 2006
The Hamlet Men
"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all" -- Hamlet
IN THE END it was not through the application of money, the calling in of favors, or the deft manipulation of the rules and regulations of the Democratic Party that raised John Kerry to become that Party's candidate for President of the United States. It was because he was, in all senses, the perfect man for the job. Kerry was the single politician who reflected the deep soul of the what the Democratic Party had become; the standard bearer for the resurgent Left, exemplified by Hollywood and MoveOn, and the corpulant decadence of classic liberalism as seen in Ted Kennedy. Kerry was The Hamlet Man of the moment, and perfectly suited to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in the puffy shirt. Kerry was, to paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan, "The very model of a modern major Democrat."
As the designated Hamlet, Kerry had many things to recommend him to the faithful. Above all, he looked the part. Beyond that, he was a convincing amalgam of the other candidates. Kerry was all of Sharpton's bleached Iago and Dean's muddled Malvolio. He incorporated the treachery of Wesley Clarke's stupified Macbeth. He contained that whisp of untrustworthiness sensed in Moseley Braun's botched Goneril, and mirrored, without merit, the vanity of John Edwards' shrewish Katerina. From his recently discovered campaign demands we now learn that Kerry's "requirements" echo the performance by Kucinich of a puckish Oberon in drag and in mime. Kerry even had his own quadrophrenic Ophelia, Teresa, who entertained by inviting her multiple personalities of Empress Tamora, Queen Gertrude and Lady Macbeth to join her in regular noonish wine and cheese parties on their private jet, "The Flying Squirrel".
Kerry contained these aspects all, but most of all he was Hamlet: ever doubting, parsing, posing, and pondering, and yet never advocating without equivocation any actual action. His plans, like those of his party, were all mired in reaction. In this he was taking a turn from Clinton's memorable interpretation of Falstaff, but without the gravitas.
Like all politicians who aspire to high office, Hamlet was not who Kerry was, but who Kerry felt he had to embody in order to mirror the base, the core electorate. Politicians long in Washington and with large ambitions are never more than Peer Gynt's onion. They may begin their careers from a small seed of integrity, but they end as many layers tightly bound around a core of nothing. And although that nothing once existed at the core of a realm made of blue smoke and mirrors, in these smokefree campaigns only the mirrors remain; mirrors which in reflecting Kerry reflected the Party and the political philosophy that chose him, above all others, as their Champion. The chose him because he best expressed what they had and would become.
The man who would be King is politically dead. Long live the Party that would be King, the Hamlet Party.
After years of greater and greater defeats, the Hamlet Party draws in upon itself more and more to ponder the larger questions of how to live and how to govern without elected power in this most dangerous of times; a period more dangerous than the Cold War since it is more insidious. It has no new answers , nor even any new questions, but it does act with an ever increasing intensity
Continued: http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/006289.php |
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“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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