for 8 September 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Chickenhawk Down
Nice column of questionable questioning on Dick Cheney's veracity and strategic judgment, but for venality and ineptitude, he'll have to go far to match Joe Lieberman's 1970 vanity book on East/West relations, the sum of which was that, hey, the U.S. and the USSR are morally equivalent, so, like whatever. As with many "neo" liberals, Joe has spent the past decade quietly slipping away from past flings with the truly "Evil" Empire. Hey - "veracity," "venality," and "vanity!" Alliteration aweigh! Ralph Ward <rward@boardroominsider.com> I absolutely promise that Vinegar Joe will get his, soon and often, from the good folks at Suck. We just, you know, have a list we have to go through. Hang in there. Ambrose Beers  Wow, that's a hell of a piece. I'm now fifteen minutes late for class - I had to stick around and finish it! Of course, I never liked Cheney, so I suppose I'm biased to begin with :) I found it a little odd, though, that you didn't once use the phrase "vice president" even while talking about Al Gore. Was that intentional, I'm curious? John Murphy <john_murphy_42@yahoo.com> Never even occurred to me. I guess I just figured everyone knows who Al Gore is. You know, Al Gore - the, uh... oh, that guy. (The one who drinks all the iced tea, and isn't sure why he's hanging out with the monks.) Ambrose Beers Hey Soldier Boy! Thanks for another one of your brilliant essays! I knew there was something about Dick Cheney that I didn't like. (As much as the idea of a 'Bush/Dick' ticket cracks me up) It's pretty evident that were going to have yet another election involving selecting the lesser of two complete morons (and their running mates) Terry's cartoon of Cheney's military advice is classic!! I also love the bit about Gore's big sob story about tobacco killing his sister, and then continuing to take kickbacks from big tobacco - maybe he needed some extra funding to invent the internet - and those buddhists just weren't getting the bills paid. Keep on sucking in the free world!!! Robert C. <robert@logixx.com> I love it when you call me soldier boy. Ambrose Beers Stop it - you're scaring me! Of course, the military mind Cheney's most resembles belonged to General Haig - not Alexander, Nixon's in-house Norm Crosby knock-off and my personal vote for "Most Likely to Be Revealed as 'Deep Throat' on his Deathbed" - but rather Sir Douglas, the mass murderer of the Somme campaigns. Only instead of "Boys Own Paper" tales of derring-do against swarthy Rajas and voodoo-chanting fuzzy-wuzzies, Cheney's primary education on tactical doctrine has clearly been "A Bridge Too Far" and "Rambo." On the other hand, I feel compelled to point out that genuine military commanders have, as a rule, been less than magnificent Presidents, notably Grant and Polk (the latter's illegal war on Mexico was probably an impeachable offense). Worse yet have been the part-time warriors who fancied themselves battle-scarred heroes who knew what it is to fight toe-to-toe. Men like Jackson, Kennedy and TR tended to see policy making as a game of brinkmanship, where the winner was the one who ran headfirst toward disaster fastest. (Jackson's effective invasion of South Carolina could actually have set off the Civil War 40 years earlier, for example.) Sadly, no one currently up for the job of Commander in Chief right now looks to have the faintest idea how to conduct business as the last Supreme Global Military Power in existence. And I would include Nader, who, despite being unelectable, is also unqualified. Where is Harold Stassen when you need him? Dr. Robert <rss2@idt.net> Wouldn't it be really comforting to not worry about finding a commander-in-chief who had the desire and ability to conduct business as the head of the "last Supreme Global Military Power in existence"? The only response that ever really occurs to me, watching all the bellicose posturing that passes for campaigning, now, is: My god, will you people just calm the fuck down? But probably the kind of people who think to go after the presidency aren't the kind of people who know how to do that. Why buy the toy if you aren't play with it? The whole thing just makes me want to take a nap. Ambrose Beers Ambrose, A while ago you left suck to — what sounded like — enlist in the military. Are you writing your excellent essays from the barracks or what? Michael Fox <mfox@rambus.com> Yep. Thirteen months to go. Ambrose Beers Hit & Run I was reading Suck and just when I clicked the JackinWorld link my roommates walked in and saw the page. Now they think I am weird. Thanks, Suck. Thanks a lot. Oh well. Off to watch that lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) tape I just got. apg <apg@uswest.net> It's best that they know the truth from the start, kids. Maybe you should back away from the computer and go eat some fried cheese with them next time. It's really best to make friends early in the semester, you know. Cut down on your media diet and start interacting with other humans. Do you really want to end up like us? We thought not. Sucksters First of all, the Honeymooners didn't paint a bleak picture of domestic life at all - it was the world outside of the Kramdens' marriage that was bleak. Ralph had a low-paying job that required him to deal with irascible people all day long. He had little chance of ever getting the things he didn't have - responsibility in the form of being a boss, respect from Alice's mom, more money to have a nicer home. Ralph was a guy with big dreams, one who wanted to be important, who wanted people to look up to him, and who wanted to be able to provide for his wife. But his lack of education, refinement, and connections meant that the only way he could ever hope to better his lot in life was from too-good-to-true get rich quick schemes. The only things that WEREN'T bleak about life were domestic relationships -Ralph's friendship with Ed, and his marriage with Alice. It hurt Ralph deeply that he couldn't give Alice everything he wanted to, and so he tried myriad schemes to get rich. Alice fought with him because he didn't want him to jeopardize his job with risky ideas, and because she saw that Ralph was usually too prideful about things. Ralph fought with her because he was frustrated with life, and frustrated that the person "most in his corner" wasn't being supportive of him in his endeavor to provide for her.Eventually he would remember that his wife loved him for who he was, failings and all. The underlying premise of the show was that a passionate love between two people is what is most important in life, and is what sustains people when the outside world deems them unimportant. Bleak is two people in a loveless marriage, who care only for themselves and certainly not for each other (you know, the type of relationship you guys write about endlessly). Such people would never embrace in appreciation, love, and forgiveness as the Kramdens did virtually every episode. Lastly, Gleason and the writers made damn sure that Ralph was never portrayed as coming close to hitting Alice. Ralph loved her too deeply to consider it. Moreover, do you for a second believe that Alice would have stood for that?!? Alice moved out when he insulted her mother. She would never have tolerated any affront to her dignity, much less physical abuse. She never backed down from Ralph's yelling, instead standing toe-to-toe and demanding that her voice be heard and taken into account. It's amazing - Alice Kramden was a groundbreaking character who insisted with every ounce of strength that her husband not override her autonomy in the name of love, and not only are NOT extolling her, but you're casting her as a woman who would allow herself to be victimized. You've missed the entire nature of her character. Thanks for your time, Jeff Snow <JSnow@snl.com> You're right. Even if Ralph didn't love Alice too deeply to consider beating the shit out of her, Alice would never had stood for that. How could we have misjudged these fine people - er, characters - so badly? How could we not show more empathy for people - um, characters - who are obviously really struggling with some difficult issues? How could we mock such people - or, uh, characters - when they're clearly in pain, and desperately crying out for our help? You're a real character, Jeff. Let this be a lesson to you kids at home. That media diet is warping your mind. Unless you want to end up working for Saturday Night Live, you'd really better rethink your priorities. Sucksters Chickenhawk Down I'm sure I was at least as creeped out as you by Gore's deathbed narrative, but I think you're wrong to question his story about planting tobacco as a kid. As far as I know, he did spend summers on the farm in Tennessee as a kid (good photo ops for his senator dad). James Gibson <jgibson62@excite.com> I'm not questioning the fact that Al Gore planted tobacco as a kid, much as my instinct to never believe a word the man says wants me to. It's just that he tends to present a really selective personal history - gasp - so that, in his big convention speech, he noted that he'd studied religion at Vanderbilt, that he'd gone to Vietnam, and that he'd been an "investigative reporter," but neglected to mention those little temporary detours through Yale and St. Albans. Maybe he just forgot. He adjusts the narrative to suit the audience, is all. And he always drops the "g" on the end of -ing words when he speaks to what he perceives as working-class audiences: We're fightin' for the workin' man. Irritating. Uh, sorry: Irritatin'. I wonder if anyone else notices this? Paul Wellstone does it too. These are the kinds of things I notice, despite all those years of electroshock treatments. Please help me. Tired, Ambrose Beers |
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