PUBLIC OPINION AND THE MAKING OF A BOOR
Plunkitt, George Washington
PUBLIC OPINION AND THE MAKING OF A BOOR GEORGE WASHINGTON PLUNKITT In this, the second of Mr. Plunkitt's prize-winning essays on politics in America, the author lucidly discusses "public...
...To find glamour in this quintessential scoundrel has become an art form and the Alsops, Restons, and Cronkites have, for over ten years, competed in incrusting the knave in Goteondas of gaudy charm...
...These transcontinental hinds, con— Continued on Page 12 3 PUBLIC OPINION -Continued from Page 3 cealed behind sunglasses and silly smiles, whoosh across the land but never through it...
...Old Joe, Sr., the millionaire saloon-keeper, has endowed the pundits with more than PT-109 tie clasps to assure their exertions dn Bobby's behalf...
...their criterion for acceptability seems to be "Am I really in...
...Decocted in slimy vats by public opinionmakers, the resulting gruel is dispensed to queues of morons, agape before their boob tubes, awaiting the Establishment's chalice of hokum...
...How the great questions of our time suffer...
...For him to participate publicly in the obscenities of public opinion would be the most inexpiable form of indecent exposure...
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...Yet how many idiots in America, over delectations of mutton and beer, drool in televised communion with Establishment mullahs filling them with the mythology commonly referred to as public opinion...
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...How could he when he lacks even the equipment to create one...
...However we need not disquiet ourselves over the war's ending, Bobby is seeing to that...
...NR won't...
...Therein lies the pathos, for the public characters of our time can not offer a grunt or draw a metaphor indigenous to the sights, smells, and sounds of American life...
...That the characters of the American scene appear most frequently on nocturnal screens dominated by Johnny Carsons and Joey Bishops is articulate expression of their endemic frustrations...
...a first-rate fraud, this prosaic rogue so challenges the pundits' imagination they have maintained him in the public's eye longer even than his old mentor Joseph McCarthy...
...Recently, social exigency forced'me to dine with an utter nitwit who demanded we "watch da news...
...TRUMAN CAPOTE recently rated NR one of the four best editorial journals of opinion in America...
...Themost spurious occurrence or dullest jackanapes attract public opinion's ephemeral blare...
...Consider the fading estimate of Pope John XXIII, Harold Stassen, or yogurt, and can you imagine America five years hence, still echoing with ooohs, for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, J. William Fulbright, or Winston Churchill...
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...With such clods about, Bobby's popularity will endure though occasionally eclipsed by the discovery of a new banana in Central America, the admittance of a Negro of Chinese descent into the Black Muslims, or the staging of a democratic election in Latin America...
...The result has been a veritable potlatch of superlatives...
...Banal and tawdry, public opinion is the fabrication of the vilest mountebank on the American stage—The Establishment pundit...
...In fact the axiom seems to run, the sillier the subject the more intense the national This apothegm has received olamic affirmation in Bobby Kennedy's amazing endurance as the darling of public opinion...
...While still enticing, these counterfeit spectacles and mediocre frauds are garnished on the editorial page of the New York Times, basted in accolades and stuffed with all manner of lofty purposes...
...Only a fellow possessing the most vaporous talent endures as a subject of the public's gabble...
...Though occasionally a hapless gentleman of reason and luster has found himself the inescapable vortex of public opinion, generally it swirls about Super Bowls, George Plimptons, and Mia Farrow...
...Though no more than the fourth-rate brother of a thirdrate president-and If you have seen this man, contact your local police — he is unarmed and dangerous...
...WHO: In an age of doubtaverred faith In an age of indolenceaverred devotion In an age of infidelityaverred truth In an age of violenceaverred peace And who has not died in vain The Editors !§$*] Floral Co...
...For a palace eunuch to celebrate Father's Day would appear no more preposterous...
...cram an apple in their yawning mouths and they are the roast pigs of the Establishment...
...In years to come, historians will discover a deeper cause than stupidity and money for Bobby's top billing on the marquee of American Burlesque...
...Bobby has endured in the light of public opinion because of the ineffable drabness of the post-war American scene...
...Were public opinion merely banal, ubiquitous, and artificial it would present no greater annoyance than moderate Republicanism or the ADA, but as public opinion changes with the winds, it is far more flagitious...
...For then America's most vigorous elements would return, expelling the louts who dominate the American scene, and ejecting Bobby along with his "leagues of youth...
...what civilized fellow would, at 11 P.M., disrobe with Joey Bishop...
...Plunkitt's prize-winning essays on politics in America, the author lucidly discusses "public opinion" and how it has affected the Chester Arthur of our era, Robert Kennedy...
...Yet more than improbable stupidity maintains Bobby as the subject of national gloat...
...Cessation of Vietnamese hostilities is the only worrisome shadow over Bobby's future...
...Written with flair and elegance...
...On flashed a Vietnamese battlefield with a CBS correspondent incongruously standing amidst the shatter and carnage, idiotically clad in Hawaiian beach attire, and discussing the erstwhile battle as if, in truth, our Marines were the enemy...
...Imagine some cave dweller in the Bronx actually having an opinion...
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...Read William Buckley's NATIONAL REVIEW Write 150 E. 35th St...
...What is more, it is to endorse the most eroded idea, the most jaded ideal—the lowest common denominator...
...Assailing the most obscure reaches of society, this prefabricated public opinion possesses a relentless allure enrapturing all save the most enlightened of God's images...
...From dens in New York and Washington these journalistic saprophytes, either in their own writings or through the electronic bellowing of Huntley, Bunkley and Mudd, whip public opinion to hurricane proportions, leveling the nation in gusts oftommyrot...
...Whereas McCarthy's limited pigishness and finite kidneys soon dated his appeal, Bobby has combined vulgarity with stupidity and prevailed through the 'fifties and 'sixties...
...But with public opinion neither anchored to philosophy, reason, nor virtue, the fellow who one day is a lovable tweaker of cheeks is the next a reprobate lecher...
...To partake in public opinion is to dine at the public trough, slurping indecently amidst the hooves of one's fellow bovine...
...No part of this essay may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever by instructors or graduate students without written permission from Mr...
...t t Subscribe Now To NATIONAL REVIEW Where our English Department has failed you...
...The Republic crawls with homogenized dull fellows intent on showing the world what "swingers" they are...
...NATIONAL REVIEW exposes the ridiculous dimensions of American politics today...
...In this era of self-doubt read the journal of confidence...
...Think of it, scarcely more than caprice governs the American Zeitgeist...
...The result is an evenly artificial culture characterized by immaturity, neurosis, and warts...
...One thing a civilized manwilldemurfromsharing with his fellow man is public opinion...
Vol. 1 • April 1968 • No. 5
