Tuesday, October 19, 2004

BERTIE WOOSTER IN MIAMI As a lifelong fan of P.G. Wodehouse, always looking for references to the great master, I found this gem (do read the whole article): "If the Kerry campaign had some imagination, it could create a devastating ad out of this week's first Presidential Debate. So John Kerry did reasonably well, but really it was Bush who stole the limelight. It would require a PG Wodehouse to do justice to the president's performance. It was Wodehouse who had nuggets like, 'What he did not know about the subject could fill a library', or 'What he knew about it could be written on the back of a postage stamp' (adding, 'with room to spare'). Mark Twain observed that 'We are all ignorant, only about different things', but Mr. Bush quickly demolished Twain's theory. He kept us riveted with an astonishing lack of command on a whole range of subjects, and with a thorough vacuousness. At times he seemed to believe that he was in some mind-association game where the answer to any question lay in popping out the name of some foreign leader (the first name to emphasize an even deeper knowledge of that country - Vladimir). This prime-time disintegration, before an estimated audience of 60 million in the US, was accompanied by a range of facial gymnastics which would have left Ernest Borgnine and Archie Bunker in the dust. As when Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster addressed the girls' school, one got the wild sense that he might say anything, such was the seeming expanse of uncharted seas upon which the president appeared launched. ... The Kerry campaign should make a simple ad, with a picture of Nixon and the words, 'I am not a crook', underneath. Next to it, a picture of George W. Bush from yesterday's debate, with the words, 'Of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that'. If after this performance, the American people still want Mr. Bush as their president, PG Wodehouse had another one to console us, '...we are not brought into the world for pleasure alone'." 12:57:10 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Hetty Litjens.