Not Exactly Subtle

So, David Brooks, the Antonio Gramsci of the American Right, has picked up a neat litle rhetorical trick in today's column - innocently imply that Kerry is like a Communist in his attention to detail.

"Every time he'd launch into another Castroite soliloquy - on the history of the Middle East or the pay structure of the civil service - the audience would groan."

Of course, the speech isn't Castroite in outlook, merely in length. But in case you missed the reference, he throws in another Communist orator:

"I didn't realize that a country barraged by a decade of Gingrich, impeachment, hanging chads and war may actually be looking for a Brezhnev to give it a break."

I know David Brooks commands a lot of respect among the lefterly, but I find him a pretty slimy pundit. The strategic assertion of this campaign is that the Democrats are rabid, wild-eyed haters. But the campaign isn't really reflecting that. So, in Brooks' prose, it's focus on outlining an affirmative vision naturally reflects sublimated hatred!

"If the convention program reflected the collective party subconscious, the first night would feature a life-size rubber Dick Cheney doll, and the speakers would take turns throwing it around the stage."

We have to find a way to slide in our spin on the events that didn't happen... From the article's false air of studied boredom to the slippery deployment of classic outrageous smears masked as innocent metaphors ("really, Communists talk more than red-blooded Americans!")... it's a masterpiece of insincerity.