Editorials: Mailer Dominance / Pervasive Politics
Jr ., R . Emmett Tyrrell
"Editorials: Mailer Dominance / Pervasive Politics" by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Mailer Dominance San Diego The Republicans chose a geographical jewel for the site of their convention. San Diego claims to have more sun than any...
...Prizefighting...
...I could have been off to lunch with Mozart or Aristotle...
...What I have noticed about these Democrats is that they see almost every aspect of normal life in political terms...
...The Republicans are not even allowed to file caveats about Hillary's veracity, though documents - some written by Hillary's own colleagueskeep coming out and proving that she has lied repeatedly about Travelgate and the cover-up she orchestrated at the late Vince Foster's office...
...The term sounds stilted...
...Eliot undertook to do in his own writ ing and in his encouragement of others...
...You can guess with whom he served...
...Our Ceremonial Figure waves his arms toward the passer-by...
...This is particularly true for me...
...In the culture of the Democrats, the Democrats are what they say they are, and so are the Republicans...
...They are ardent to reform Americans' diets, mating habits, recreational pursuits-and the American "love affair with the automobile...
...Wounds from the melee caused him to limp, and in his great old age he took to a wheelchair...
...These are the New Age Democrats...
...Step aside, there," he commands...
...Live dangerously, I say...
...San Diego claims to have more sun than any other city in the Republic...
...Yet he is not the only ridiculous figure from the press...
...If the protesters of yore are here, I can tell you that they are no longer in fighting-or should I say bombing?-trim...
...I like to think that at some point he was accosted by a squad of health-nut nazis and beaten horribly about the head and shoulders...
...The WashingtonNew York press giants are not joyous...
...His voice is as deep as his tan...
...He sees drama and theme where the idiots back at the hotel lobby see only statistics and an opportunity to pontificate...
...They all talk to each other grimly...
...The political point of view is intense and far-ranging...
...I even waved it on screen, right in the face of my leftwing antagonist, Molly Ivins, and lived to tell about it...
...yesterday's best sellers, rare, un usual, fascinating books for every interest...
...I make a horrible blunder...
...it should be edited by a man of conservative instincts-a man, that is, who takes a positive attitude toward the traditions of West ern civilization-but the first consideration should not be Conservatism, but quality...
...Bullfighting...
...Joyous Republicans are everywhere, and when Jack Kemp's vice presidential nomination is announced the joyous Republicans become almost delirious...
...These Democrats differ significantly from Republicans and Independents and Americans of the non-political type...
...hundreds of new arrivals each month...
...He is amenable, even agreeable...
...Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Times column syndicated by Creators Syndicate...
...The television news personalities are America's Ceremonial Figures, our Royal Familyno brighter or more accomplished...
...It reaches back decades to the glories of the New Deal, but over the decades it has acquired so many left-wing refinements that it is nothing like the New Deal...
...Those must be the nutrition fanatics...
...He is smoking a gigantic cigar in a hall that the refon-ners of his ilk have tyranically made non-smoking...
...The kind of social faux pas from which one never recovers among the Washington-New York press corps...
...It ought also to boast of its fine sea breezes and its cleanliness...
...They rarely smile, and when they laugh it is a bitter laugh...
...Mailer is particularly happy when the conversation turns to bullfighting and to boxing...
...He talks of a young bullfighter he knew with a case of the nerves...
...There is a boast among the Democrats and their sympathizers in the media that the radicals of the 1968 riots have mellowed and joined the Democratic fold...
...A couple of aides clear the way...
...Their ideas and ideals are all informed by a political point of view...
...They think nothing of talking about the Republican opposition in shockingly derisive and inaccurate terms...
...Possibly they have made good on their boasts, but rarely have I seen so many fat people, anxious people, and disgustingly skinny ones...
...Though they might deny it, the Democrats here assembled are very ideological...
...I hope Mailer recognizes that only DoleKemp can liberate us from the storm troopers of political correctitude...
...No one else has dared light up...
...It is their burden to serve as the conscience of the Republic, or at least pretend...
...Their salient characteristic is a huge and unhappy self-importance...
...Back in the lobby the giants of the press corps dominate...
...By and large this is a city of health enthusiasts, with many of its older citizens wearing peculiar straps on their knees and forearmsthe consequence of one jog too many or a tennis swing that went haywire...
...He talks as a novelist...
...Great grandfather Tyrrell fought in the Haymarket labor riot...
...San Diego sparkled in the sun, but it is historyless...
...In Mario Cuomo's, they were exploiters of humanity...
...They want his picture...
...Beautiful art and nature books...
...Cooking...
...Is he having trouble digesting his breakfast, or is it the grim specter of this radical Dole taking over the White House...
...For this, we need to encourage new talent, and one means, almost the only means, in fact, of doing this, is good periodicals...
...E D I T O R I A L S by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Anyway, Norman is in excellent form...
...Jackson's allegations of Nazism and Fascism against Republicans have been C repeated in Democratic con- C vention after Democratic convention since 1948...
...There were indeed more blacks here than in San Diego, but they were all the same, government employees or school teachers...
...It is said that security is tight here, but I actu ally smuggled a chubby black cigar into the United Convention Center past the cops, past the fruit juice fanatics and the tobacco patrols, and into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's skybox, which doubled as CBS's skybox...
...great grandfather had lived to be the sole survivor...
...For them, government is a sure cure...
...One of their many false pieties is a reverence for "mass transportation...
...Al Hunt looks particularly miserable...
...Over 60 subject areas: Politics, Biography...
...He is fascinated by the convention...
...or "Forsooth...
...The political culture of the country would erupt in colossal indignation-in part because Democrats control the political culture, in part because America has become accustomed to these kinds of charges from Democrats...
...I have no doubt that many prefer Socialism to Capitalism, but nowadays they settle for softer reforms...
...In 1876 great grandfather Tyrrell cracked the plot to steal Lincoln's body from its crypt down in Springfield...
...Mailer is no spring chicken, yet he laughs readily, moves quickly across a wide range of topics, and is vastly interesting...
...Yes, the Chicago Democrats brag about bringing the spirit of 196o's reform into their convention...
...When, in 1970, the left-wing Students for a Democratic Society bombed the statue, I took their impudence personally...
...P1oi' wIkinxN(%rt'R'ct.>uh>,1>Ifi.ulwificr.>F Name Address City 1 state) Zip HAMILTON 5196 Oak, Falls L'i1L u,c' (7 06031-5005 17 The American Spectator - October r 9 9 6...
...I tell one of the giants that I am off to lunch with Norman Mailer...
...Gardening...
...As a boy in short pants I was called upon by the Chicago Police Department to lay wreaths at the Haymarket Memorial to the fallen Chicago police...
...Anyway, this Ceremonial Figure is particularly preposterous...
...My transgression could have been more embarrassing...
...He operates from instinct...
...My guests and I fill him in on our observations...
...Thousands of titles...
...Neither of these frauds was kidding...
...They differ in terms of culture...
...16 October 19 9 6 • The American Spectator Pervasive Politics Chicago Brawny Chicago, with thousands of Democrats en masse...
...What will he intone next-"Avast...
...This was supposed to be a national Republican convention with people coming from all parts...
...One of the talking heads of the evening news comes through the lobby...
...Yet at the Marriott the same old Washington-New York personages hog the show...
...The only endangered species here is the litterbug...
...Science...
...Possibly some of the SDSers are here in convention, assembled...
...In Jesse Jackson's speech, the Republicans were Nazis...
...His political party, the Democratic, is in ruins...
...They turn to government as the first instrument for solving almost any problem...
...A cigar after lunch...
...There were women, but again, from the same bureaucratic class...
...starting at $3.95...
...He knows nothing about politics," the giant informs me...
...Henry Regnery, "A Conservative Publisher in a Liberal World" OCTOBER 1971...
...For that matter, so is every aspect of the outside world...
...I don't mean a conservative magazine...
...His suit is flawlessly tailored over a curiously desiccated frame...
...By my calculations they were breakers of at least five of the ten commandments, and Mario meant regular, devoted breakers of those commandments...
...After imparting his words of wisdombriefly-he proceeds magisterially through the lobby out into a wide hallway beneath clouds of cigar smoke...
...What characterizes them...
...Nonetheless, he is a much happier fellow than the grim giants back at the Marriott-the giants who claim to have no political affiliation...
...America's Biggest Selectionat up to S(°/o savings.+ • Recent publishers' overstocks, imports, reprints...
...Down below on the convention floor sameness was purring under the banner of diversity...
...Two young female pressies rush to him with their disposable camera...
...He talks of Muhammad Ali being afraid of Sonny Liston until, in their first round, Ali suddenly saw an opening, and-whammo-no more fear...
...He was with the Secret Service here surveilling counterfeiters...
...Naturally, joggers, bikers, and energetic lady walkers aboundthe latter pumping their little fists back and forth, some carrying light dumbbells...
...Into the milling crowd of pressies comes Sidney Blumenthal, the leftwing writer for the New Yorker...
...25 YEARS AGO IN The American Spectator What we do need, I think, is to develop a body of literature of high quality by people of conservative instincts-what, for example, TS...
...History...
...Fiction...
...The hallway is clearly marked by no smoking signs...
...Ironically many of Mailer's lusty interests are now ruled politically incorrect because of these idiots...
...Over at the Marriott by the marina the political journalists have congregated...
...We talk as reporters...
...Chicago has been a staging ground for generations of Tyrrells...
...Can you imagine Republicans today calling their Democratic counterparts Communists...
...The culture of the Democrats is an illusion, but it is a pervasive illusion...
...The men were pretty much out of the same mold, too, and whether they were small businessmen or big businessmen theirs were either businesses that service government or were part of the entertainment industry...
...As his aide snaps the pictures, a passer-by intrudes...
...Chicago is New York City by the prairie, and it is not historyless...
Vol. 29 • October 1996 • No. 10
