I don't believe for a second that Hillary Clinton, by invoking RFK's assassination, was somehow offering public hopes that a similar fate would somehow befall Barack Obama. I trust she meant what she said: That RFK was merely a marker that presidential nominating contests have a history of going into June.
It's still not a great comparison to make. Presidential contests used to revolve around slavery too, but it would be silly to be running on an anti-slavery plank in 2008.
What do I mean? This: In 1968, there were primary elections -- but they weren't really meaningful, because everybody knew that all the real action would take place in the proverbial "smoke-filled back rooms." Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination in 1968 without entering a single primary -- and that was his strategy.
So it was different historical moment -- today we expect caucuses and primaries to decide these things, which is why conventions aren't fun to watch anymore -- and thus silly for Clinton to dredge up.
For what it's worth, I'm about half-through with Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland," and though it does have its goofy moments, it's valuable as a corrective to all the RFK hagiography that's gone on since his death -- and which we'll certainly be treated to next month. Even in his final months, RFK was no saint -- he was as dithering and calculating a politician as you could hope to find. Better than what we got? Probably. But a saint? Hardly.
2 comments:
Joel, you're not the first person to point up the "Something was happening here" line as somewhat silly, so at first I had regrets about including it. The more I've thought about it, though, the more confident I am that the line stands up. In its original context in the Buffalo Springfield song, it's the perfect expression of that certain narcissism of the baby boomer left/counterculture: the idea that "we're" chartering a brave new world, that everything follows in our wake, that "we're" just like Time says we are--Man and Woman of the Year, if not Man and Woman of the Century. When I detourne it from that original context, it signifies the limits of that left-baby boomer narcissism--pointing up that their confidence that they represented the direction of history was, in fact, hubristic. What was "happening here" was the coming hegemony of the right--with the embrace of "Up With People" as a leading indicator, missed at the time for all the fawning over the new left/counterculture.
What do you think?
RP
Wow. I love the Internet. 15 years ago I could've made a half-assed remark about a book, and the author never would've known! Or cared!
So I'm thrilled Rick Perlstein took the opportunity to respond. And let me say, too, that though I sit on the left side of the spectrum -- and I know you do too -- one of the things I'm enjoying about "Nixonland" is not just your portrayal of Nixon's mastery of the politics of resentment, but also how you demonstrate that hubristic well-meaning liberals and narcissistic boomers (with plenty of overlap) gave him *lots* of material to work with. And still do: There's a reason the whole "latté-swilling Volvo-driving" image exists. And there's also a reason -- as you point out -- that this country suffers from Boomer fatigue.
That said, going back and reading that particular line with the context of your additional discussion here ... no. Sorry. Still rings kind of cheesy to these ears.
(To be fair, though, I'm pretty sure I've dropped silly song references into my writing on a number of occasions. And as an editor, I may once have had a standing bet with an intern that she couldn't legitimately work the term "House of Pain" into a story. So I really shouldn't be casting stones here.)
But I sure hope that my half-assed comment about one line doesn't come -- in this wonderful blogging age of ours -- to stand as my judgement of the entire book. Because, as I said, I'm only halfway through. I've got a few days of reading and thinking to do before I can discuss the entire book with any remote sense of intelligence. And when that happens, I hope -- selfishly -- that you'll return.
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