Start Making Sense

Lord Saletan tries to explain why his mishmash of a series on Kerry’s so-called “caveats and curlicues” doesn’t make sense to anyone. (Frankly, his explanation doesn’t make any sense either, but whatever.)

What he fails to admit is that the series is an extremely lame attempt by Slate at being “fair and balanced.” As seems to be the case across all of American journalism Slate apparently believes it is necessary that if one notices a certain politician doing something unusual — George W. Bush speaking in Martian rather than English, for instance — then it follows that in order to be fair, one must criticize his rival for the same thing.

The truth is that the “caveats and curliques” that Saletan finds so remarkable are the result of a political environment in which Kerry is required to speak in extremely precise terms because if he doesn’t, Ed Gillespie and his coven of shrieking talk show harpies will blast their faxes directly up his ass. (Ask Al Gore about that.) Bush, on the other hand, whom everyone knows is a total idiot, is applauded if he is able to string more than 5 words together without drooling on his tie.

The Kerryism thing isn’t working because Kerry just sounds like a hundred other Democrats who have to parse every single statement in order to avoid people like Saletan calling him a slippery, lying piece of shit (which Saletan calls him anyway.) Conversely, the Bushism series does work because it shows that the most powerful man in the world literally doesn’t make sense about half the time and the press rarely even mentions it. Now, that is noteworthy.

Maybe Saletan could try a series on Kerry’s hair or his eyebrows or his choice of athletic equipment. Oh wait. Kaus has already blown the lid off those scandals. Oh well. I’m sure he’ll think of something. Wouldn’t want to be unbalanced.

Update: The spelling of Saletan’s name has been corrected.