March 4, 2008

Overreaching

The late William Buckley, one of our brighter and more articulate conservatives, once said that he’d rather be governed by the first 2000 people in some handy telephone directory than the 2000 people on the Harvard University faculty. That he was a Yale graduate may have somewhat colored that remark, but given his usual reputation of fairness for his opponents, I think not.

His comment comes to mind inasmuch as once more the electorate of the United States is being insulted. The so-called presidential debates to which we have been of late unceasingly treated and the campaign of which they are a part are making one of those unfortunately inevitable turns. Those who are increasingly anxious about losing and apparently unable to deal with the issues in some other more productive way, are again resorting to character defamation. They’re resurrecting and riding on the “swift-boating” and fear-mongering of the past seven years. The grandiosity and denial so common to incompetence once more rear their heads and reveal their usual uncanny ability to stumble apparently unaware not only into self-deception, but into self-description, as well.

Indeed, it might have seemed at one time that we were headed toward an intelligent, open, and fair presidential campaign, one free of such delusional overreaching as takes us so for granted, hellbent on stealing another election.

March 3, 2008

Texas

Yesterday was Texas Independence Day. We made ourselves a republic in 1836, and we’ve never got over it. We had actually become a country all on our own, had already had five flags here and about, and got ourselves a sixth so we could inspire snappy titles for theme parks.

When we first moved from Texas to Tennessee a few decades ago, we got a lot of gas about Tennesseans founding Texas. One time, a New Englander, of all people, told us how to respond to such beleaguering. She said, just agree. Then say that when people were traveling from the east coast out west and came through Tennessee, there were signs that read This Way to Texas. She said to remind them that those who could read went on. Telling it was an endearing experience.

The notion of independence has never been all that attractive to me, because nobody truly is independent. Lewis Thomas, the brilliant biologist-philosopher, once likened this earth to a living cell bounded by the atmosphere, said that we are all — animal, vegetable, mineral, whatever — inseparably connected one to the other. We’re interdependent, we are, anything but independent. Even we Texans. But please be gentle in reminding us.