It is dawn on Mount Winchester, and my gaze turns skyward. For autumn rises, and soon Lippmann, my trusted bald eagle and patriotic inspiration, will return home to his perch, bringing me happy news of hatchings and migration. But while I wait for him to, literally, peregrinate, my thoughts turn, as they often have lately, to blogging.
A new form of journalism has arisen in our fragile republic, which, as I pointed out in my essay collection The Fascist Autocracy, is actually a fascist autocracy. No longer content with the dreary “objective” half-truth-telling of the gray sheets of elite opinion, tired of the loudmouth ramblings of pseudo-populist TV commentators, America’s seekers of truth have turned where they always turn: To the Internet. The ascendancy of the unafraid has begun.
This, then, is my blog. I welcome you, friends, to nealpollack.com, your one-stop Internet shopping source for news and opinion. My vast experience, both journalistic and sexual, has qualified me well for this task. I will take the news and make it my own. I will take other people’s comments on the news, mock them, deconstruct them, and titty-twist them until they cry uncle. I will do so without political allegiance, because politics, like Play-Doh, is malleable. I remember that there was a time in America when liberalism meant something more than fealty to the outdated notion of progressive taxation, and there was a time when Republicans smoked pot in the House antechamber.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having those times back, without the segregated restrooms. But my nostalgia for the past, combined with my well-formed vision of the future, means that you can trust me. First of all, I have a computer. Second of all, I have read the complete works of every political philosopher who has ever lived, including Cicero, Montaigne (whose essays never fail to leave me in stitches), and our own bard of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken. I have more than a passing familiarity with Marx, and also Art Buchwald. Often, you will see me turn to, and quote, my mentor from Oxbridge, the political philosopher Francis Crapshoot, most famous for writing, during the siege of Stalingrad, “excessive force often leads to hubris, and it is the duty of the citizenry to remind its leaders that bloodthirsty vigilance trumps arrogant pacifism in times of crisis. The Nazis are fucked.”
At this moment, I want to add that my leg injury, sustained in an unfortunate snow-blowing accident, prevents me from getting out much. I will watch the news so you don’t have to. Baby, I’m on the stick.
I will not spare the New York Times, now run by Howell “Raines of Terror,” who has secret agendas so unspeakable that even I cannot spell them out. The evil Rasputins who run the Wall Street Journal editorial page should expect regular whippings, and don’t get me started with the Washington Post, greatly diminished since the death of my beloved friend, Katherine Graham, affectionately known to me, in bed, as “K”.
But the most savage catfighting will come in the pits with my fellow bloggers, none of whom know what they’re talking about, all of whom resort to cheap McCarthyite tactics when attacking their supposed enemies. Well, I well say this: Known homosexual Andrew Sullivan had better not mess with me. Mickey Kaus, of whose alcoholism I have documented evidence, needs to back off. Kottke, I have compromising pictures of you. And as for MediaWhores Online, well, let’s just say that it takes one to know one. Salonand Slate also suck ass, and I’m not afraid to say so unless they want to throw some freelance work my way.
I suppose I should give you an example of what I’m talking about. In today’s Post, the hawkish David “Saint” Ignatius makes the case for war with Iraq. He writes: “What the Bush administration needs to do now is fashion a strategy for the Middle East in which its strike against Iraq won't seem crazy, but part of a sensible plan for a new and stable order in the Middle East. That shouldn't be impossible; the status quo, after all, is a mess -- and has been for decades…That's the problem with those who argue for caution and inaction. They're defending a status quo that's rotten -- one that has left the Arab world perpetually unstable, and one in which U.S. interests seem constantly at risk. A new order would benefit everyone, most of all the Arabs.”
At last, someone who’s not afraid to say that the carpet-bombing of Baghdad, that most backward and cultureless of ancient metropoli, is a GOOD idea. While I oppose war with Iraq at any cost, let me list ten things that President Bush (or whoever is in charge of this, our most Banana of Republics), must prove before we singe the hairs off Saddam’s mustache.
- That Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction.
- That he is a certifiable threat to the stability of the Middle East.
- That he funds the Al-Queda terror network and provides training and support facilities for Osama bin Laden.
- That he is a homosexual.
- That he is providing funding and support for the kidnapping of teenage girls in the United States.
- That he makes more than two million dollars a year and refuses to impose a salary cap on himself.
- That he is developing a reality television show with Ben Affleck.
- That he provides funding and support for the setting of wildfires in the American West.
- That he sold off thousands shares of his company, at massive personal profit, even while encouraging others to invest.
- That he hates liberty and all that we stand for as freedom-loving Americans.
Then, and only then, can we bomb the shit out of him. We cannot listen to the ramblings of peaceniks like my sworn enemy Eric Alterman, who has written, “Bruce Springsteen is our lord and savior. Bow down before him humbly.”
Do you disagree? Enter the fray, people. There will be fresh postings at least three times a week, guaranteed. Email suggestions, comments, and anger to me at npblog@aol.com. Send me fan fiction at nealfanfic@aol.com. Follow my movements across the United States. This is the beginning of a great voyage. As my dear friend Axel Rosen, the Lionel Trilling Emeritus Professor of Literary Criticism at Columbia University, once wrote in The American Mercury, “welcome to the jungle. It gets worse here every day.” Indeed.
