Tuesday, April 01, 2003

R.I.P. DPM

You had to land on page 11A in today's issue of USA Today to see a picture of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's funeral cortege as it left the Church yesterday.
One black and white photo with no accompanying article...
Possibly the excess of "war news" scaled back the coverage of the great man's final journey.
Or more than likely USA Today is edited by a pack of naive' hammerheads who have somehow internalized the notion that the rush to bad journalism is the only thing holding the nation together.
It's just the sort of institutional churlishness these hapless wetnoses would learn in college.
Be that as it may, Daniel Patrick Moynihan has gone to the throne of our savior, we shan't see his like again. Scholar, libertine, contrarian, all these pompous jackasses who infest Sunday morning chat shows can but WISH they were D.P.M.
He could've been President if he'd a played his cards right.
I suspect though, he gave the job a pass on the Gore Vidalian grounds that running for President is a process of burdensome debt incursion...even if you win big you owe too much to too many to do anything worthwhile.
Yup he's gone and the punditariat passes over his death in near silence, it's like they don't even pretend to care anymore.
Mike Barnicle (on the Imus Show) yesterday merely spun a yarn about periodically meeting Moynihan for breakfast at the Wursthaus in Harvard Square back in the 1970's. With a horrible little giggle Mike noted that Moynihan occasionally needed "beer for breakfast"....
I don't know what happened at the Wursthaus back in the day, but I do know that the excise laws of the Commonwealth are as strict for me as they are for Harvard Profs on their way to a seat in the U.S. Senate.
But why wax bitter about Mike's vulgarity? He is who he is...
However just you wait for the launch into eternity of Ronald Reagan, it'll be weeks of very stagy public breast beating and the rending of garments.
Barnicle will weep manly tears indeed...I can hear his sobs now.
I think Daniel Patrick Moynihan was worth one torn garment at the very least...he certainly did more for the country than Reagan.

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