(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
Control
[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Friday, May 31, 2002
"The new thing is to care passionately, and be right-wing." -- ad executive to George Harrison, A Hard Day's Night.
I seem to be walking in rhythm, as the Blackbirds used to say, with the Zeitgeist. Right after I began to notice the tendency of warbloggers to respond to their elders and betters with childish insults, Michael Kelly migrated the annoying habit to the traditional pundit press:
"Susan Sontag and Noam Chomsky and Edward Said and Harold Pinter got their names in the papers again... You're still here? You're still talking? Why? The most obvious fact about the people who bravely -- oh, so bravely, so bravely -- dared to tell truth to power in the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, and the Cosmic Review of Blah-Blah, was how old they were... Old, old, old. Also tired, tired, tired. These people -- precisely these people -- have been saying these things -- precisely these things -- since, in many cases, the early Dylan years (Bob, mostly, although in some cases Thomas)... How interesting, gramps, how interesting; did you really know John Reed..."
This is a little wordier than the adolescent flip-offs used by the blogbrethren (e.g., Matt Welch to Gore Vidal: "Whatever, freak!"), but the animating spirit is the same: we are the New, you are the Old, so let's not even bother with you, gramps.
This can be an amusing approach when you're talking about fashion faux pas and such like. But if you're talking about war and peace, I should think that age and achievement would warrant more respectful attention.
I mean, Pinter wrote several of the 20th Century's best plays; Kelly wrote this stuff. You tell me who's irrelevant.