October 12, 2004
DO THE KERRY FOLKS REALLY THINK BOSTON BRAHMIN IS A POLITICAL VIRTUE?:
Key question after Bush-Kerry debates: Why the mutual dislike? (James Bennett, 10./10/04, NY Times)
After two debates in which the presidential candidates have clashed over Iraq and North Korea, drug prices and jobs, a central question remains unasked: Why do these two guys dislike each other so much?
It is not as if they have nothing in common. Since World War II, no two candidates have had such strikingly similar backgrounds of class and privilege, with so many points of overlap. These two not only attended Yale University two years apart, but were also members of the same secret society there, Skull and Bones. [...]
[O]ver and over, Bush tapped a foot as he listened to Kerry's challenges to his record, and then exploded off his stool when given the chance to punch back. In making his arguments against Bush, Kerry often turned his back on him. While listening to the president, Kerry stared at him with heavy-lidded eyes, his expression stern and frozen.
"He's never in an environment where he's contested," Michael McCurry, a senior spokesman for Kerry, said of Bush. Advisers to both candidates say that the competition is personal as well as political and that it stems partly from the similarity of their backgrounds. Aides to Bush said Kerry reminded him of the Brahmins he met, and disliked, at Yale and Harvard Business School. [...]
[McCurry] speculated that Bush saw in Kerry "that phalanx of New England liberals who made fun of me at Yale." [...]
Kerry is said by his friends and associates to regard Bush as intellectually lazy and cynical. Ticking off a list of other political rivalries, another Democratic operative who has advised Kerry noted what made this one unusual.
"Johnson and Kennedy, it was class," he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the personal nature of the subject. "Clinton and Bush - that was class. But these guys are the same class."
Two questions:
1. Is the Times actually suggesting there's a good reason for anyone to like Kerry in the first place?
2. Why does the Times assume class really means anything in America? Bush is considered an ordinary guy because he acts like an ordinary guy, which is all most Americans care about. Meanwhile, his opponent acts like Frasier Crane channeling Robin Leach. Posted by Matt Murphy at October 12, 2004 2:02 PM
Well, it's pretty much standard Tranzi doctrine that everyone is primarily a member of their class, not an individual, so their confusion isn't surprising.
In my experience, the people who really hate each other are usually the ones who are very similar, not those who have no common points of reference to fight over.
Posted by: mike earl at October 12, 2004 2:13 PMBush's whole life is a rejection of the Skull 'n Bones world. He's heart and soul a kid from Midland, TX. He got a Harvard MBA, but he used to sit in class with a paper cup to spit his tobacco juice into...
(And even his dad is only partly the New England aristocrat. He doesn't live in Texas for nothing...)
He probably is annoyed with Kerry because he's thinking, "Didn't we pound a stake through this Boston Brahmin nonsense? Is this guy a zombie from the last century? Is he going to follow me with shambling gait through this whole darn movie?"
Bush apparently knew and was known by almost everyone in his Yale class. Kerry was regarded as too elitist and arrogant by his fellow preppies.
Posted by: David Cohen at October 12, 2004 3:19 PMThanks for posting, OJ. Speaking of "class," I think I know which of these guys actually has some.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at October 12, 2004 8:46 PM"In my experience, the people who really hate each other are usually the ones who are very similar, .."
And competing for the same job. This is a contest for power, when did it become common to like someone who is trying to take your job away?
Posted by: Robert Duquette at October 12, 2004 10:04 PMDo-nothing, gold-digging snobs may be able to climb certain ladders in MA, but probably not in TX. Class has nothing to do with it, but attitude certainly does.
Did anyone in Midland ever call the city to get a fire hydrant moved? Did anyone from Midland ever curse at a horse for throwing him (the SOB knocked me down)?
More to the point, did anyone from Midland ever boast about being a war hero, having slimed all his fellow soldiers?
I suspect Bush's reactions to Kerry are reflective of how millions of Texans feel about just watching him.
Posted by: jim hamlen at October 12, 2004 11:04 PMWell hold on, OJ--Frasier was actually a lovable schlub. Kerry's just a haughty, arrogant jack***.
Posted by: jsmith at October 12, 2004 11:31 PMjsmith:
OJ didn't write the post, I did. And surely you think Frasier could be rather haughty at times?
Posted by: Matt Murphy at October 12, 2004 11:42 PMKerry seems much more like Thurston Howell III without the common touch.
Posted by: Bart at October 13, 2004 9:01 AM