Every four years or so, a British diplomat will pass through Columbia, and want to talk politics — mainly
presidential, but they have some interest in knowing what’s happening on the state level.
For instance, when Martin Rickerd, Her Majesty’s Consul General out of
Atlanta, came by last week, he had been asking some local folks about our governor. But mostly he was curious about what the presidential candidates were saying when they visited here — Georgia being somewhat less favored in the primary schedule than S.C.
Of course, I did my usual joke about who was he really, collecting political intelligence this way — SIS? That allowed me to segue to John LeCarre novels, which he also enjoys (although he hasn’t read The Night Manager, and he should), and in other ways avoid serious talk as long as I could, which is my strategy in most meetings. But I eventually shared some thoughts with him that I hope were helpful.
In return, he provided an update on how things are faring politically over on his side — which I found helpful because, let’s face it, I’ve been less interested in following such things since Tony checked out.
Here are some video snippets you may or may not find interesting:
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Brad, you may want to redact some of the information on that card photo, unless Mr. Rickerd’s phone numbers and email address are public.
Brad, you’ve done a pretty good hatchet job on John Kerry and John Edwards. I have yet to see one iota of criticism about anything the wacky republicans have done. Perhaps it’s just because there is so much to write about you can’t decide which scandal to address first. I’ve defended you against the charge of being a shill for the Republican party in the past. Make me look good by showing a little BI-partisan balance.
I don’t own a hatchet, nor have I done a “hatchet job” — which I believe translates as a rather messy, less-than-artful metaphorical execution — on anyone.
But even if I had — even if my Edwards column were such a “hit,” rather than being what it was, a rather unassuming followup to something I’d said on my blog — what in the world did I ever do to Kerry?
As for what the “whacky Republicans have done”… please go talk to those people who think I’m so mean to Andre Bauer, or Rich Eckstrom, or the governor, or whatever darling of theirs that they think I pick on. Tell them how nice I am to Republicans. They won’t believe you, but at least it would get them yelling at you for awhile instead of me.
Speaking of Andre — did I see somewhere that our Gov Lite was seriously thinking about running for the United States Senate, against the smartest senator we’ve had in a while? Was that a bad dream? Or am I going to have to go get me a hatchet?
what in the world did I ever do to Kerry?
-Brad
Here’s the entire disgusting article:
John Kerry’s second adolescence
Not being overly fond of all the partisan tit-for-tat that seems to stir so many earnest hearts in the Blogosphere, I’ll first admit that I have not sought out much information about John Kerry’s gaffe.
Of course, you absorb a certain amount without trying. I know what he said, I know what he said he meant to say (which was every bit as revealing of character as what he said), I heard that he said he wouldn’t apologize, and then he did apologize — sort of.
Nothing new in any of that. It just reminded me, in case I had forgotten, why we couldn’t bring ourselves to endorse the senator for president in 2004, even though we disagreed with about 90 percent of what President Bush was doing. (Of all the Democratic candidates who had come in to speak with our editorial board, Sen. Kerry was the least engaging and the most off-putting. Take your pick — Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, and any others I can’t think of at the moment — all were more favorably impressive than he.)
But in what little I have absorbed on the subject, one thing has been missing. If someone else has said it, please point me to it.
The thing that struck me immediately at the very first report — before I knew how the GOP was hyping it or anything else; I’m talking about the moment I first heard the words he spoke to those students — I thought he was having a Vietnam flashback. Not to his days in combat, but to the much longer period when he was denigrating his own service and that of others.
Young John Kerry’s peers — to the extent that he would have acknowledged having any — thought of soldiers drafted to go to Vietnam pretty much the way Mr. Kerry spoke of today’s soldiers last week.
Yes, he took a commission in the Navy and went over as an officer and a gentleman and did his part, and God bless him for that. But based upon his actions afterward, I don’t think the preppie mindset toward the average grunt ever went away.
Anyway, that’s what flashed through my mind.
Posted by Brad Warthen at 12:58 PM in Blogosphere, In Our Time, Military, Parties, War and Peace, Words
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"Well, my disgustingness is my best feature."
— Woody Allen in "Love and Death"