Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

An R. Emmett scribbler links to this Sean Wilentz piece about the death of decent political writing that concludes as follows:

Democracy has been broadened far beyond what Jackson himself could have imagined, but our politicians' prose is reduced to, at best, hollow sentimentalism and, at worst, a manipulative semi-literacy of a kind that would have made the supposed barbarian Andrew Jackson wince. The memory of a time when American party politics was worthy of a writer's respect, let alone professional involvement, has almost disappeared. American literature has distanced itself from an essential part of national life, and American politics has debased what was once an uplifting language of democracy.

...and of course our Emmettian has to get in what he supposes the last word:

I think Wilentz is a little too zealous here. For one thing, he omits the literary talent involved in politics in the latter half of this century (though he does mention Gore Vidal), such as William F. Buckley, Tom Wolfe, Christopher Buckley, or Ayn Rand (forgive me for lumping them together), among others (I'm also thinking about Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy, though I doubt someone of Wilentz's preferences would agree)....

We must conclude our scribbler has probably done a few "frankly"s and "in this country"s and "the perfect is the enemy of the good"s and "if not now when and if not us who"s and "I knew (fill in the blank) and you're no (fill in the blank)"s for hack politicos in his day, and five of these six have the advantage of being the sort of hacks you'd meet at Beltway cocktail parties to flatter over their aimless typing, and the sixth is conservative PC. Professor Wilentz is right. Our politicos are semi-literate -- we say aliterate at best -- and so are their toadies.