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Live from New York!

That’s right, I’m now on the scene, blogging from a corporate box in Madison Square Garden, where the Republican National Committee has helicoptered me in from central Pennsylvania.  It seems that they’ve been reading this blog over the past two days, and they really like what they see.  Thanks, guys!  You’ve been very sweet to me.  And the helicopter ride rocked.

Unfortunately, not everyone has been so sweet lately.  Some of my former friends in the Democrat party have been getting pretty wild-eyed, just like their stumbling standardbearer, and a few of you have even posted some nasty remarks about me on various liberal blogs.  “A traitor to the left,” says one.  “He was always horrible,” says another. “You are the least shrewd, most willing-to-be hornswoggled academic I’ve ever run into,” says a third-- on this very site!  Everyone wants to know:  how could I do it? After a lifetime of believing passionately in egalitarian social justice, in democratic secularism, in human rights for every living human regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or disability, how could I flip to the Republicans in only one night of watching the convention on TV?  Exactly how stupid or craven am I? 

Well, let’s try to figure out just whose horn is being swoggled, people. Do you know how much money we’re talking about here? I’ve spent my adult life as a member of the liberal cultural elite, living in college towns and teaching literature.  I thought I was pretty sharp, with my “postmodern” this and my “cultural studies” that.  But do you have any idea how the real elite in this country live?  Holy mother of God in a public creche, folks, you can’t begin to imagine the perks around here.  To hell with the cultural elite-- they couldn’t see Dick Cheney’s tax bracket if the entire English department at Harvard stood on each other’s shoulders.  The political elite is where it’s at, people, the economic elite.  Now there’s an elite.  And let me tell you, it is mighty, mighty fine up here.  No more Genny Cream Ale in cans for me-- there’s nothing in this suite but Macallan and Stoli.  And the servants couldn’t be nicer.  Everyone here treats them with honest-to-God conservative compassion, and they seem to be just fine with that.

Where is all the money coming from, you ask?  Well, from many sources, all of them legit, not like your drug-running, Holocaust-avoiding Soros fellow.  But the main pipeline (so to speak!-- that’s a little joke in our suite) is Iraq appropriations.  Remember that $8.8 billion that went “missing” last week?  I’m looking at some of it right now, people.  It’s in a suitcase next to the hors d’oeuvres, and it’s pretty goddamned impressive.  Think Pulp Fiction.  I can’t say anything more at the moment, but I can assure you that it’s being put to good use as I type.  So here’s to Iraq-- let freedom reign!

This afternoon, Rich Lowry of the National Review stopped by to offer me a guest spot at NRO.  He was really nice-- he suggested that I’d fill a crucial niche over there, since, as he put it, nobody at the magazine knows “jack shit” about American culture.  “No one on our staff has seen a play, gone to a movie, listened to a new CD, danced at a club, or read a work of fiction in the past five years-- seriously, it’s just Jonah and his ‘Republicans-can-quote-the-Simpsons-too’ routine.  You’d basically have the entire field to yourself.” He’s right, you know.  They’re not crazy about my hockey thing, but I’m sure we can work that out.  After all, the great thing about America is that Republicans can disagree with each other!

Whoa, gotta run-- I’m meeting Lynne Cheney for cosmopolitans at the Royalton.  We have a lot to catch up on-- and I’ve got a list of names I have to give her before she goes on tonight.  Back later with the results of Cheneyfest!

Posted by on 09/01 at 12:26 PM

  1. ” How do you ask a man to be the last man in the atrios comments section to not get the gag? “

    Posted by c bianco  on  09/01  at  03:10 PM

  2. Say...could you say a good word about me to those elites?

    If the pay was right, I might be willing to say a few kind things about creationism, and perhaps rant a bit about the horrors of unfettered stem cell research. There might be lots of academics who’d turn Republican for a tiny slice of the pie.

    Say, how much did Horowitz sell his soul for?

    Posted by PZ Myers  on  09/01  at  03:27 PM

  3. I understand that Lynne Cheney has to pretend that she is heterosexual this week. Make sure she pays for your drinks and see if you can get us bloggers some day jobs.

    Posted by Blondesense  on  09/01  at  03:30 PM

  4. I dunno, PZ.  You have a lot to answer for, so your conversion narrative better be pretty compelling.

    Horowitz, though, in this as in so much else, is sui generis.  He had a genuine crisis of faith when he realized he was the last white guy on the continent supporting the Black Panthers in their decrepitude, and I believe he has told this story once or twice before.  He didn’t get invited to the corporate suites until well into the 1980s, though.  Now, of course, he has a couple of club boxes all to himself here, and I might add that his taste in white wines is exquisite.

    And Blondesense, I don’t want to kiss and tell, but let’s just say that my friend Lynne knows all about gender trouble.

    Posted by  on  09/01  at  03:54 PM

  5. You damn sellout.  HOW COULD YOU?  I hope you choke on your caviar. 

    I can’t believe you would sell out like this.  For a few tawdry gimcracks.

    If you give them my name, I’m coming for you, Berube.

    Posted by  on  09/01  at  04:43 PM

  6. god this blog is funny.  monsieur berube’s latest gag (along with the somewhat, um, tighly-wound reaction to it among the atrios commenting community) and jon stewart are the only things standing between me and an RNC-induced aneurysm.

    as an aside, i happened to catch a few minutes of an interview by bwokaw of bush senior last night, and in response to a question about the media’s treatment of his son, the elder bush, still true to form even at his advanced age, began a rant but was promptly interrupted, while selecting the proper dismissive GOP-approved epithet for the east coast elites who run the liberal media, by one of those verbal train wrecks that run in the family where you can almost literally see the oncoming words pile up behind his temporarily paralyzed tongue, and only managed to spit out ... “bunch of wine drinkers.” it was such an archetypal bush moment that i almost experienced a moment of nostalgia for the old guy.

    all of that to say, thank you, thank you, you wine drinker for making me laugh.

    Posted by  on  09/01  at  05:10 PM

  7. But just think how impressive my conversion would be! I’d be like...like...Zell Miller.

    Oh, wait a minute. Do I really want to be known as a crazy-assed hypocritical rat bastard? Hmmm.

    I think my price just went up. Way up. Way, way, way up.

    Posted by PZ Myers  on  09/01  at  06:00 PM

  8. Been reading blogs c. 6 months & found yours thru that Mobius loop when you’ve followed all the blogrolls in all the gin mills . . and end up saving ones that feel most comfortable. When I read your 1st night of RNC, I spit so much gin/tonic/lime over my keyboard I had to pick it up, with the cat who was licking it up, & shake both of them out!
    Then I read bloggers who were SHOCKED at your “turning.” JesusH.Christ, ain’t there a quote: “Those who don’t curb irony are forced to repeat unintelligible mumbling in a corner they’ve painted themselves into”? It’s happened to me; I have the irony addiction & sometimes assume the subtext is clear in the context. And when it isn’t, when you’ve misjudged? You stand there, shrugging, spreading your hands (like Christ-on-a-cross), blushing, looking foolish. Or not. Either way, it’s a bad choice.
    Cf. “The Columbia Guide to Standard American English.  1993. IRONY (n.) is specifically the use of language to mean something quite opposite from what the words literally say. Irony is usually either sardonic or humorous in intent: She looked out at the rain and fog and said, ìWhat a lovely day for a picnic!î Things ironic are not what they at first appear. Irony can be a two-edged sword: if your hearers or readers miss or misinterpret it, youíre worse off than if youíd never tried it. Compare BURLESQUE; SATIRE. See also BLACK HUMOR; SICK HUMOR.” http://www.bartleby.com/68/26/3426.htm
    Ah, that old two-edged sword, the Catch-22 dilemma for us ironists, when dealing with hearers who don’t “get it,” ones we care about: we can explain that we were being ironic, & make them appear the ass; or we can remain silent, & appear an ass ourselves. There aren’t any other options--at which point it becomes a moral dilemma, eh?
    Wanted you to know I laughed my ass off at 1st entry; thought the 2nd was less successful, too over-the-top and explicit but others thought it was great. I wanted to say: you have a “faithful fan” in Buffalo (ironically, who knows nothing about hockey)--a former Eng. quasi-academic, who’s taught handicapped kids, who reads & LOVES your blog--the intelligence, insightfulness, compassion, & the irony that gets us in trouble! I know, from when I “respected” my audience, gracing them with my clever irony, only to find them confused, or offended. And there wasn’t a damn nice thing I could say! How ironic! 

    Posted by  on  09/01  at  07:02 PM

  9. The political elite is where it’s at, people, the economic elite.

    The economic elite, you say?  Must be fun to hobnob with all those small business owners.

    Posted by thehim  on  09/01  at  07:37 PM

  10. Irony can be a disaster in schools, particularly in “higher” education. The first time I TAed a class, the professor recommended that I avoid all humor. This was later reinforced by an experience I had with an email.

    The night before the second midterm, I sent the class a list of many different ways to solve a certain engineering problem. The first five were standard fare, but by the time I hit the sixth it was all beginning to seem rather ridiculous. In that spirit, I added the items:

    6. Bring a laptop to the test. Use Maple [symbolic math software] to solve problem.

    7. Bring a grad student of your choice to the exam. Go to cybercafe [downstairs] while grad student takes exam. Return in 50 minutes.

    Instantly, emails poured in asking whether I was serious about number 6. I sent the obvious reply. I went to sleep.

    The next day a student showed up with her pet grad student in tow, ready to take the exam. (For the record, they were joking too.)

    Any crazy stories from the liberal arts, Michael?

    Posted by  on  09/01  at  07:57 PM

  11. Digby had me worried - my mouse hasn’t clicked that fast in a long time! Had to read a bit once I got here before I got it; then I LOVED it!

    Thanks for helping make the Republican convention even more fun than the Democratic convention - satire makes my world go ‘round.

    ;-}

    Posted by  on  09/01  at  08:06 PM

  12. You can’t be too hard on those who have trouble seeing Michael’s irony. If some time traveller would have told me four years ago the half of what this administration was going to do, I would have laughed hard enough to rupture my spleen.

    Hell, if halfway through Cheney’s speech he had suggested eating Irish babies, who would have even blinked?

    Posted by  on  09/01  at  08:08 PM

  13. ha--some friends of mine occasionally use an acronym, SDNWOTW ("sarcasm does not work on the web") to get themselves out of email trouble. Perhaps Mr BÈrubÈ should take “IDNWOTW” to heart.
    Except of course, I thought it worked and worked brilliantly! ROTFLMAO etc.  jw, who spent the Week of the Republicans cravenly sequestered in Brooklyn

    Posted by  on  09/06  at  06:52 AM

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