News of the day...

Apparently cartoonist Aaron MacGruder struck a nerve at the recent birthday celebration for The Nation. The Boondocks creator said that the American left-wing should "be mean" if necessary, doing whatever it takes to win power. He even--horrors!--castigated Gore for losing in 2000. "Noble failure is not good enough," he said.



He's right. Let's get rid of the fucking politeness police that switch sides whenever some liberal actually shows a little anger. "As much as I disagree with [insert poisonous right-wing windbag here], but there's no reason that Michael Moore has to be so angry. Is that really the way to change people's minds about [incredibly offensive and obvious social/economic ill]? We're all reasonable people, and you can get your point across just as well--maybe better--without being uncouth about it."



THAT's the attitude, the mournful, Nerf-soft opposition, that's given us Nixon and Ford, Carter despised for weakness, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and now Bush. The chunk of people out there to be swayed by political argument respect passion. Aren't we all? They think, "Boy, that person really feels strongly about it, there's probably something to it. People don't get mad for no reason." Meanwhile, everybody left of FOX News thinks life is a college seminar, and you get points for courtesy, graceful argument, and respect. It's pitiful.



What MacGruder doesn't understand is that there's a whole generation in place--maybe more than a generation--who've become so used to being "the loyal opposition" that the prospect of actually running things terrifies them. A Republican in Democrat's clothing is plenty good enough for them--and a real Nixonian villain the best of all. Who do you think would do a better job of running things, the staff of The Nation, or the Weekly Standard? Conversely, who would you rather take a college seminar with?



The ascension of the American left isn't good for The Nation; a truly left-wing President would probably drive them out of business. The American left has had to nourish itself for so long on impotent outrage that it has come to prefer that to the real meat of power. How dare MacGruder actually call for change? How dare he prefer concrete improvement over the usual agreeable, well-shaped, nice rhetoric? Doesn't he realize that the indignation of the outsider is what The Boondocks sells? How dare he consider the improvement of society more important than the continuation of his own cozy place in the menagerie of useless political knickknacks? He's right, and he's got balls, too. Let's celebrate him.



In other news, there's gonna be a Spy book. I, of course, will be waiting at the bookstore when the trucks arrive. I think it will be fascinating, though I can't imagine it will earn back a $1 million advance. (Spy's circ at its peak was somewhere around 250,000.) I also want to see how Messrs. Carter, Andersen, et al. finesse the issue of making their bones tearing the NY publishing establishment a new a-hole, then working in it quite happily ever since. I understand one can't expect satirists to renounce the world, but what they've done since 1991 robs Spy of whatever rebellious frisson its great pissy prose might've once generated.