The Reform Candidate
Pappy O"Daniel: "We need a shot in the arm. You hear me boys? In the bleepdamn arm! Election held tomorrow, that sumbitch Stokes would win it in a walk!"
Junior O'Daniel: "Well' he's the reform candidate, Daddy."
Pappy O"Daniel: "Yeah."
Junior O'Daniel: "A lot of people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some."
Pappy O"Daniel: "I'll reform you, you soft-headed son of a bitch. How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent? Is that the best idea you boys can come up with? Reform?! Weepin' Jesus on the cross. That's it? You may as well start drafting my concession speech right now."
Junior O'Daniel: We could hire our own midget [woman], even shorter than his.
Pappy O'Daniel: Wouldn't we look like a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies, bragging on our own midget, don't matter how stumpy.
***
From a comment by mujeriego (9/5/08, 1:38 pm), at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/05-0 .
I am so scared.
Junior O'Daniel: "Well' he's the reform candidate, Daddy."
Pappy O"Daniel: "Yeah."
Junior O'Daniel: "A lot of people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some."
Pappy O"Daniel: "I'll reform you, you soft-headed son of a bitch. How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent? Is that the best idea you boys can come up with? Reform?! Weepin' Jesus on the cross. That's it? You may as well start drafting my concession speech right now."
Junior O'Daniel: We could hire our own midget [woman], even shorter than his.
Pappy O'Daniel: Wouldn't we look like a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies, bragging on our own midget, don't matter how stumpy.
***
From a comment by mujeriego (9/5/08, 1:38 pm), at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/05-0 .
I am so scared.
posted by Tabula Rasa | 9/06/2008 08:09:00 PM
10 Comments:
Ya, me too.
Though I have to say that in a perverse kind of way I'm also impressed. This is a whole different level of spin.
It's a bit like watching Shane Warne destroy the Indian batting, isn't it? You really want our side to win, and you sit there watching the ball turn itself inside out and you shake your head in disgust and think - "wait a minute! he can't do that!" knowing all the time he can.
whoa! falstaff just talked cricket!!!
SB: Yes. It's a measure of just how frightened I am by this whole McCain-Palin thing. I know it's ridiculous, but I keep imaginging the world's greatest nuclear arsenal in the hands of a woman who shoots wildlife from the air for fun and can't spell nuclear? It's like Paddy Chayefsky meets Kubrick.
If it makes you feel any better, this is how the story ends.
---------------------------
The band has launched into 'Man of Constant Sorrow', precipitating a huge reaction.
A cry from the crowd:
VOICE
Hot damn! Its the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Everett and the boys, still singing, exchange bemused looks. A shrug, and they lean into the song with a will.
Everett performs an impromptu buck-and-wing, bringing the crowd to new heights of hysteria.
PAPPY
Holy-moly. These boys're a hit!
JUNIOR
But Pappy, they's inter-grated.
PAPPY
Well I guess folks don't mind they's
integrated.
Stokes is also staring at the band, frowning. He murmurs to himself:
STOKES
Wait a minute...
Everett catches Stokes' look. The two men look at each other, aghast.
Stokes raises his voice accusingly:
...you's miscegenated! All you boys!
Miscegenated!
Everett raises the volume of his singing. Stokes cries out:
Get me a mike-a-phone!
A mike is thrust into his hand and he bellows into it, overwhelming the music, which the boys eventually abandon. Stokes continues bellowing into the silence:
These boys is not white! These boys is not
white! Hell, they ain't even ol'-timey! I
happen to know, ladies'n gentlemen, this
band a miscreants here, this very evening,
they interfered with a lynch mob inna
performance of its duties!
The crowd stares at him, stone-faced. Stokes plows on:
It's true! I b'long to a certain society,
I don't believe I gotta mention its name,
heh-heh...
Nobody joins in the laugh; Stokes slowly strangles on it.
...Ahem. And these boys here trampled all
over our venerated observances an' rich'ls!
Now this-here music is over! I aim to -
Boos start up among the crowd.
I aim to hand these boys over to - listen
to me, folks!
The boos are growing in volume. There are cries of 'More music!' and
even one 'Shut up, pencil-neck!'
Listen to me! These boys desecrated a
fiery cross!
More boos. Waldrip approaches and nudges the microphone away to murmur confidentially in Stokes' ear. Stokes excitedly retrieves the mike and struggles to be heard:
And they convicts! Fugitives, folks,
escaped off the farm!
This cuts no ice; the boos have become overwhelming.
Folks, these boys gotta be remanded
the 'thorities! Criminals! And I happen
to have it from the highest authority
that that Neegra sold his soul to the
devil!
He is hit by a tomato.
--------------------------------
How I would love it if McCain/Palin got the tomato.
I am not sure that it matters very much who wins. I will go along with Tolstoy to a large extent. But I think that individual leaders do matter in times of great crises and we are not there yet.
falsie:
more like muralitharan, if you believe he's cheating. (thanks for the link.)
sb:
he does it, once in a while, when he feels the urge to communicate.
anonymous:
yes, we know.
swarup:
i have a sinking feeling that it matters a lot. there's some indication in history as to what happens when the world's strongest power veers to the right in the midst of an economic crisis, and has leaders who sanction military action, the banning of books, and claim to follow divine directions.
You've seen this?
TR,
It was Kennedy who marched in to Vietnam. It was Clinton who lifted a crucial banking regulation. Obama does not want to recognize Cuba, wants to increase US presence in Afhanistan. Look at the 'left-leaning' Mark Thoma post:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/09/learning-the-le.html
I do not see US left as a whole as progressive.
I could be wrong. May be this is the way the world ends 'not with a bang but with a whimper'.
TR,
Martin Wolf seems to be with you. See:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/78274ce0-7917-11dd-9d0c-000077b07658.html
spacey:
i hadn't -- thanks.
swarup:
i'm no big fan of obama either, and the democrats are hardly a left-wing party. however the republicans, if what one saw at the convention is any indication, have now become a party of extremists. the groundswell of public support for their strident empty-headed posturing is what is so terrifying.
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