Jerome Doolittle here pulls a Hunter Thompson gem out of the historical hat. It reminds us once again of the utter brilliance that was Hunter S. Thompson, how absolutely on target he was no matter how bizarre his poesy and hyperbole.
Thompson’s words here in any event tend more to the understatement than to the hyperbolic. And they are so freaking appropriate to Dubya and our times that we once more are reminded of the grand old saw: the more things change the more they… well, you know the drill.
Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / December 23, 2008
How Low? (Indeed…)
By Jerome Doolittle / December 21, 2008
This was Hunter S. Thompson’s last dispatch from the presidential campaign of 1972. Try substituting George W. Bush for Nixon and John Kerry for McGovern. It isn’t a perfect fit, but it’s close enough for government work.
This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms about killing anybody else in he world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his imprecise talk about ‘new politics’ and ‘honesty in government,’ is really one of the few men who’ve run for President of the United States in this century who really understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon.
McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for.
Jesus! Where will it all end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?
It all ended on November 4 of 1972, when our nation of used car salesmen relected Richard Nixon in a landslide, George McGovern carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
This in spite of the fact that almost a month before election day the Washington Post had led the paper with a story that began as follows:
FBI agents have established that the Watergate bugging incident stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon’s reelection and directed by officials of the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President.
That’s how low you have to stoop.
Source / Bad Attitudes
