The Third Cowboy....

Cowboy worship, a creation of 19th century dime novels and the movies, forms the heart of modern conservative iconography.
Cowboys (so the rightical chic theorists intone), are strong, simple, decisive, polite, market-oriented, and conquer through sheer laconic will power.
A cowboy "doesn't cotton much" to "big gummint" and so on...
It is a winning symbol, remote and yet pervasive...all too necessary for a hyper intellectualized political movement with limited appeal to the working class.
Barry Goldwater, a department store heir from Arizona, was the first serious conservative cowboy aesthetic....jut jawed and plainspoken to the point of inanity he embodied the 1960's "Gunsmoke" zeitgeist.
Goldwater loved to contrast the free and bountiful west with the government dependent, cramped and crabbed northeast.
He all but rode a horse up the steps of the Capitol to make his point.
Unfortunately, Barry was also simple minded to the point where he couldn't avoid contradicting himself from one day to the next when out campaigning.
Nevertheless, he blazed a trail, made certain images a vital part of the conservative movement.
Along came the Second Cowboy, Ronald Reagan.
His claim to fame was he played cowboys in the movies...to back up the assertion he owned a ranch and was frequently photographed on horseback.
Reagan also legitimized the right's embarrassing anti-intellectualism and passed himself off as unread, unlettered, yet righteous.
Unlike Goldwater his spiritual godfather,Ronald Reagan went all the way and never abandoned his slow, strong, and simple cowpoke persona even as senescence took it's grip.
Reagan of course, having one set the tone for all modern American conservatives since 1980...all one way or another have to present themselves as simple-minded heroes or the apologists thereof.
Now comes what I call "The Third Cowboy", George Bush Jr.
Like every other politically active member of his family, Bush is self selective in regards to his religion and his regional origin...in other words he chose to become a Baptist Texan.
He is, however, the first serious national politician to raised exclusively inside the conservative mythology...Bush is in every way from his crudity to his dogmatism a third generation conservative along the line of Laura Ingraham or David Horowitz.
Even as his ideology ossifies, like a bad multi-generation xerox, the details on Bush's cowpoke persona have started to fade and blur.
The President hates horses, his ranch is a naught but a campaign backdrop (bought in 1999 just prior to running for the White House)...one doubts he could quick draw without shooting off his own pinky toe.
But in so many other ways Bush is the embodiment of conservative cowboy imagery...he is incurious anti-intellectual, famously impressed with his own resolve...simpleminded and primitive in his religion...his attitude and outlook breath the very essence of Wyatt Earp by way of television.
It is nonetheless a degraded and degenerated brand of conservatism the President espouses in his immaculate cowboy hat.
It is enduring conservative myth that asserts a strong simple man must take a doubting and liberal ridden republic by the hand in a crisis.
It is in some ways the very foundation myth of conservative pseudo theology going back to Barry Goldwater's complaints about slow procurement of B-52 bombers in the 1960's.
Therefore one can see 9-11 as "conservative prophecy" the national testing time that will uplift a whole ideology and it's ideologists.
The problem is, that a heroic type is necessary for the ideology/mythology to work...and these days Bush's heroism is a labored artificial thing and the ideology it symbolizes has grossly degenerated since its palmy days under Goldwater's tutelage.
It is a sad end for modern conservatism, mired in spendthrift policies and frantic with the desire to expand government intrusion into our bedrooms nationwide.
It is shadow time for the olde tyme faith, its greatest defender is a sad little punk who became a millionaire atop a pile of bilked investors and displaced homeowners.
Teddy White complained about "the liberal theology" back in 1972, now today we are beset by the "conservative mythology"...a set of tattered symbols wholly at variance with current policy.
And yet our President, the cardboard cowpoke and an even more unreal and affected saddletramp than Saint Reagan, soldiers on....encrusted with pretense, bereft of any ideas and ever more dependent on cliches to get his point across.
This the likes of Mike Barnicle calls...authentic.
The decline of conservative ideology though, is the central crisis of our times.
The internal contradictions of the movement, it's appetite for revenues, it's refusal to countenance war taxes, and it's intrusiveness are fairly breathtaking to behold.
As a movement it has "promised itself to death" and will make any bargain in order to win...even if it means winning ugly.
Even if it means damaging the constitution beyond repair...that once sacred document dear to the hearts of Goldwaterites everywhere.

Cosmo, We hardly knew Ye.....


Wha?...the Boston Herald is all bet out of shape because John Kerry is ditching Sunday's interminable and all too annual Saint Patrick Day's breakfast?
Que Lastima!
Not for nothing though but the Herald's crocodile tears are as irritating as ever, for all their respect for this heartwarming commercial experience the testy tabloid would happily see every one of the attendees consigned behind barbed wire at Guantanamo Bay.
If Senator Kerry can't make it tough, the nation doesn't revolve around Boston and it won't ever even if our boy wins this fall.
***
Alas and alack, Herald writer Cosmo Macero's blog has gone "on hiatus" and no longer links to the Chimes at Midnight. I can't say that I agreed with Cosmo about much, but he gave some props to this chesty unsubtle blog and for that I am grateful.
I hope he gets back to bloggin' soon, cause' frankly Chimes at Midnight needs the click-throughs....
:)

Item!

Rumor is, that if the Joyce-Straus bill passes in the state legislature, then Barney Frank will definitely run for the U.S. Senate.
Purists will note said bill mandates a new senatorial election be called within ninety of a vacancy in one of our U.S. Senate seats.
Purists will also note this bill will have to pass over the inevitable veto of Governor Romney since it would end his prerogative to appoint a two year interim senator.
Of course, all this is contingent on John Kerry carrying the day in November.
On the other hand the rumor mill goes on to note that if the law stands, Kerry wins, and Romney appoints some worthless hack to the sinecure, then Congressman Frank probably won't be a senate candidate come 2006.
In addition to holding onto his own seat, a gay marriage amendment either with or without a civil union clause will go on the ballot and the congressman made need do some campaigning on this issue.
His plate would be too full to make the race in 2006 in other words.
Of course, if the current statute stands, Romney could well appoint himself to the senate.
Granted the Kolobian Viceroy would have to break a promise to serve out his first term....but so many of Romney's solemn pledges have been broken nigh these two years that one more can't make a difference to this famously cold self serving man.
Or it could be Romney versus Frank come this time next March...that is an intriguing race to contemplate.
Foolishly, the Boston Globe has come out against Joyce-Straus.
They'd sell a lot more papers covering a Frank-Romney head to head election race next spring....I advise the Globe to rethink their opposition.
Otherwise we are stuck watching Romney appoint either himself, a corruptard like Joe Malone, or some haggard hack like Steve Pierce to the seat.
Not much excitement there I'm afraid.
As I've said before, when it comes to potential U.S. Senators, the Massachusetts democratic party has the edge in experienced players.
I hope some of them get in the game this time...

You know what....?

If you ignore the homophobia, the wowserism, the phoney aw-shucks persona, and a creepy veneration for the President, then Senator Orrin Hatch's approach to gay marriage doesn't differ too much from John Kerry.
The jowly querulous Bush Idolater from Utah was on the Imus program yesterday, sounding surprisingly unconfrontational on the issue of homosexual nuptials.
He didn't like the idea (well....duh), however he was decidedly cool to the idea of Bush's federal marriage amendment.
He even went on to assert that the matter was one for the states to decide!
Oh you waffler! The very nub of John Kerry's take on the matter, what is this world coming to??
This was a revelation to me, it marks the first time Hatch had allowed any daylight to get between him and his darling President since before the 2000 election.
Oh don't get me wrong, Hatch is still an anti-abortion fanatic, he'd happy consign you over to the Department of Justice on that issue if he could.
But for some reason I can't discern he almost sounded human in regards to the issue.
Maybe he has seen some scary polling data, usually this is the only thing to stop the GOP when it gets kultural crusading on the mind.
Ghod what do you suppose will happen this fall when GWB goes into his fagbashing Pontifax Maximus trance and John Kerry quotes Orrin Hatch back to him?
Or even (dare I say it?) Dick Cheney?

Thought for the day...

Governor Romney is recruiting a mighty host of video store night managers, zombies, and comic book store owners to run for the State Legislature this fall.
He hopes to secure enough GOP representation in the State House to uphold his veto power.
Privately, no doubt he grossly fantasizes about a GOP sweep this fall that will give him nigh royal power in this state and pave the way for the mass deportation of queers and freaks.
All typical stuff I suppose....
My only question is will the Kolobian Viceroy once again import Mormon mercenaries from out of state to do election day campaign work?
Like the underage girl and the abortion a young George Bush Jr supposedly paid for, this is a touchy subject for a lot of people.
To this day, no one has ever offered up a reasonable count of just how many of the Governor's "friends and co-religionists" made their way to Massachusetts on election day 2002.
but they were out there....smiling oddly accented people with their hideous blonde children, all carrying Romney signs.
Granted the GOP has an ongoing manpower problem, but importing out of state gazoonies to do visibility at the polls and the usual phone banking seems kinda extreme.
Then again, this is Mitt Romney we are talking about the cuddly pepsodent extremist.
The use of out of state "volunteers" is what sent me up to New Hampshire to campaign for John Kerry back in December-January....if they can do it I can do it.
I got called out, one local called Kerry and "asshole" and referred to me as a "ka-ahpetbahhhguh".
Well so be it then, Mitt Romney and his "win-at-any-cost" campaign ethic sent me up there and it may well send me up there again come the fall.
And if there are New Hampshire-ites reading this who don't like that, my sincerest apologies.
I managed to steer clear of presidential politics in the Granite State for forty one years til' now....so if you have a complaint, tell it to Mitt!

Gosh all fish hooks!!

On MSNBC tonight Chris Matthews will discuss whether or not George Bush's use of 9-11 imagery is a good idea.
Geez you don't think they will be too hard on the President do you??
Good God we really do have robot journalism on cable TV now....two spineless centrists, two attack dog GOP thugs and smiling and smacking his lips at it all, Chris Matthews a grotesque public hedonist.
We don't even need to watch, we all know what the outcome will be,the centrists will quaver and waver, the attack dogs will yell on about how great the adverts are and Chris Matthews (who worships force the way some venerate the Virgin Mary) will chuckle at how the ads make Bush look like a "take no shit guy".
Hypocrisy is a venal sin, some call it the duty that vice pays in a world run by virtue.
However epidemic hypocrisy, wherein all profess one set of values ("unbiased journalism") and act on another (partisanship) is a symptom of something more sinister which is rank corruption.
This is what is at stake when we see another one of these hopeless Bolshevik line ups on cable yakkers...corruption.
Not only is it okay for Bush to use the horrific imagery of 9-11 for his own gain it's also okay for Chris Matthews skew the debate on his show in favor of the President.
So there are two layers of political putrefaction festering away here...we are in big trouble in this country mostly because we've gotten used to these kind of excesses.
And that gentle readers is a bad thing.

So now it's "stock footage"...

A clip of some actors impersonating fire fighters in President Bush's latest commercial has been defended by his campaign flacks as "stock footage".
Now anyone who know knows anything about film realizes that stock footage is a catch-all term for all that old movie film pilin' up in the warehouse. Its utility is linked primary to it's legal status...who owns it versus whether or not it is in the public domain.
It doesn't surprise me Bush would pull a boner like this, the man exudes a dry-drunk's contempt for his audience.
Can you blame him?
Thanks to Korsakov's syndrome the President's audience periodically morph into giant singing dancing Jack Daniel's bottles.
It is enough to make a squinty eyed thug out of the hardiest of men.
However if the President and Karl Rove want some cheerful upbeat images to buttress their contention that America's current shit hole is not of their making, why not go with some old "Keystone Kops" footage?
Nothing puts the masses in a jolly forgiving mood than the sight of Buster Keaton falling off the back of the firetruck....Fatty Arbuckle piling on top of him is but the crowning touch.
Think about it George...