April 28, 2015

"We become cynics because we desperately don’t want to be moralists, and because earnestness is boring, and because skepticism is a hard and elusive thing to master."

"American education, by and large, has become an education in cynicism: Our Founders were rank hypocrites. Our institutions are tools of elite coercion. Our economy perpetuates privilege. Our justice system is racist. Our foreign policy is rapacious. Cynicism gives us the comfort of knowing we won’t be fooled again because we never believed in anything in the first place.... This is the America that the Clintons seek to enlist in their latest presidential quest. I suspect many Democrats would jump at an opportunity not to participate in the exercise... But they will go along with it, mostly because liberals have demonized the Republican Party to the point that they have lost the capacity for self-disgust....  As for the rest of the country, Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy offers a test: How much can it swallow? John Podesta and the rest of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign team must be betting that, like a python devouring a goat, Americans will have ample time to digest Mrs. Clinton’s personal ethics..."

From "Hillary’s Cynical Song of Self/The Clintons are counting on America to digest their ethical lapses the way a python swallows a goat," by Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal.

Stephens asks many good questions, but since I pounced on Lanny Davis's animal analogy yesterday — the rooster crowing and the sun rising supposedly explained away Hillary's "Clinton Cash" problems — I've got to take a closer look at that python devouring a goat. Davis's analogy was bad because it didn't do what he needed it to do: illustrate coincidence. Does Stephens's analogy function properly? He isn't saying Americans will be able to do the equivalent of slowly digesting the a goat, only imagining that Clinton's people must be hoping that will happen. But the slow digesting can only occur if the goat is swallowed. The python performs 2 tricks: swallowing the goat and digesting the goat. The swallowing must come first. Without the swallowing, the devastating evidence is preserved. 

I will not take one more step down the metaphorical path established in the previous paragraph. And to refresh your brain, I offer this story about a captive python named Houdini who swallowed a queen-size electric blanket (including the cord and control box). The blanket was there to keep the cold-blooded creature warm, and he was provided with rabbits to eat, but somehow he decided he'd have the blanket. (Oh, I always take the rabbit. Tonight, I'll try the blanket!) Was the python able to slowly digest the electric blanket? We'll never know, because the blanket was surgically removed. I'd like to think of a political predicament for which that could be an apt analogy.

31 comments:

Chris said...

"I will not take one more step down the metaphorical path established in the previous paragraph."

Aw. :-(

(Not a path, a canal.)

Nonapod said...

In this analogy Americans are the python and the goat is Hillary (or specifically Hillary's troubled record).

Goats are known for being sturdy, sure footed beasts who can and will eat many things including shoes and tin cans. Hillary is fairly sturdy, she's weathered a lot of storms, although I'm not sure if she's eaten a shoe or a can ever.

Goats are known for bleating in comic ways that often sound very human. I find Hillary's noises aren't as comic or human sounding.

Fen said...

Perhaps a better one would have been a snake eating its own tail. We've entered the stage where Corruption feeds on itself.

If America ever falls, it will be due to something like President Hillary being owned by foreign interests.

rhhardin said...

False moralism produces cynicism as distancing.

The trick is to get the right morality in the first place.

rhhardin said...

A man, a plan, a canal : python.

rhhardin said...

Python swallowing a scapegoat.

Wince said...

I will not take one more step down the metaphorical path established in the previous paragraph.

"My God, he shits like a mastiff."

Hagar said...

The Daily Mail has x-rays of an anaconda swallowing and digesting an alligator.

sparrow said...

There's nothing hard about being a skeptic

Laslo Spatula said...

"Was the python able to slowly digest the electric blanket? We'll never know, because the blanket was surgically removed. I'd like to think of a political predicament for which that could be an apt analogy."

Were we able to digest what was in Hillary's emails? Those were 'removed' before any digestion could take place.

And as the removal of the blanket was to keep the snake alive, the removal of the emails was to keep Hillary's ambitions alive.

Glad to help.

I am Laslo.

chickelit said...

As for the rest of the country, Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy offers a test: How much can it swallow?

Swallow this!

Prescient, huh?

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

The Clintons' scandals will be ignored until one day they aren't. It's just like the impeachment- eventually one of the scandals couldn't be forgotten and it consumed Bill Clinton's second term.

One of these scandals, at random, will be the one that sticks. I can't predict which one, but it will happen. The only question is when.

DKWalser said...

I thought the analogy was apt. To vote for Hillary, voters must do two things: First, they must swallow Hillary's story -- her 'factual' narrative that other large charities routinely make the same kind of 'innocent' mistakes that have required the Clinton Foundation to amend 5 years of tax returns, for example. Second, after swallowing her narrative, voters must become comfortable with having someone with her track record of mismanagement being President.

Voters might accept that she nothing wrong (swallowing the goat), but she obviously didn't do a lot of things right. She didn't use the State Department's email system. Her foundation failed to disclose hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions (violating both the tax law and her agreement with Obama). Etc., etc., etc. Even if voters accept that none of these failures were prompted by mal intent, they may be uncomfortable electing someone who has demonstrated an inability to follow the rules that apply to everyone else.

Sebastian said...

"The Clintons' scandals will be ignored until one day they aren't."

Depends. Only if Dems have a credible alternative.

I like Stephens but am not sure the metaphor works because it is open to competing interpretations, swallowing as swallowing & digesting vs. swallowing as killing once and for all.

Anonymous said...

Lots of Americans swallowed two Brobdingnagian servings of Obama with no digestive problems whatever.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

In a gallant attempt to save the class from 'a breaking point' I will butter up my way with Dylan lyrics.

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation an’ they gave me a lethal dose
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”


The snake achilles heel... wait.

virgil xenophon said...

LarsPorsena speak heap big medicine. The same leftoid lemmings that blindly went over the cliff for Obama are still somehow alive and kicking and will gladly do it all over again for Hills.

JSD said...

Hillary is a tsetse fly that causes the sleeping sickness known as Clinton Fatigue. Fox has already taken the bait by running Clinton Cash 24/7. Soon it will just become another catch phrase like Benghaaaazi!

Pookie Number 2 said...

Fox has already taken the bait by running Clinton Cash 24/7. Soon it will just become another catch phrase like Benghaaaazi!

Probably true. It's a shame that the media's response depends on what politicians (a largely dopey class) do.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Elective Surgery...

McCoy: I choose the danger...

Bruce Jenner: I'm a woman

It all makes sense, I must be losing my mind.

damikesc said...

Just think, if a certain woman swallowed, most of Clinton's 2nd term headaches would've been non-existent.

I'm disappointed Laslo didn't note that.

bbkingfish said...

That might be a record for straw men in one paragraph.

buwaya said...

The goat is already swallowed, and digested.

Much worse things have been accepted than the penny ante dealings of the Clintons. and most of those responsible are already siting in Washington, presuming to lecture the rest of us on ethics.

Am I cynical ? No, because these are facts.

Big Mike said...

Teddy Roosevelt had a phrase that aptly describes the Clintons: "malefactors of great wealth." And he might as well have been writing about them in 1895 when he wrote "To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing."

To Hell with your "cruel neutrality," Professor, I intend to fight.

Will said...

"As for the rest of the country, Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy offers a test: How much can it swallow? "

Bill Clinton has devoted his whole Life to this question

Skeptical Voter said...

Let's just say that in a just world, Shrillary would choke on one of those "miniscule" two and a half million dollar bribes---er, "contributions".

Smilin' Jack said...

(Oh, I always take the rabbit. Tonight, I'll try the blanket!)

"Look at all that warm fur! There's just gotta be something yummy inside!"

LuAnn Zieman said...

Bill Grogan's goat was feeling fine. Ate three red shirts from off the line. Bill took a stick; gave him a whack, and tied him to the railroad track. The whistle blew; the train drew nigh. Bill Grogan's goat was doomed to die. He gave three groans of awful pain, coughed up the shirts, and flagged the train.

Peter said...

'Nonapod' said, "In this analogy Americans are the python and the goat is Hillary (or specifically Hillary's troubled record). ... n this analogy Americans are the python and the goat is Hillary (or specifically Hillary's troubled record)."

If you're ever around goats you'll notice that what best characterizes their behavior is that they'll head-butt you, hard, as soon as you turn your back to them.

Unknown said...

EDH, let's not mix similes with metaphors!

Unknown said...

Prof. Althouse: don't you think boiling the frog is a better metaphor for this situation?