Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Time to do stuff

Congress's approval is up to 31%. Surprise, surprise: voters like it when our governmental institutions do stuff. They also like it when said stuff makes a difference in what they see in their own lives. The latter is the point that the Bush Administration never got. Spin doesn't change reality on the ground for these folks--it might work for a little while, but you can't talk about "the greatest economy ever" and expect people to believe it when, you know, it isn't. The Bush team figured they could just distract people with intemperate shouts and misdirection, and for a little while they did, but the fact that they thought spin could replace governance bespeaks an incredible cynicism about the American public (I know, it's so hard to believe). Ultimately, the two most prodigious spinners of our time--George W. Bush and Tony Blair--were ultimately felled by not grasping this same lesson (though Blair did a better job of running the economy).
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The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.