tales of copper city

The dumbing down of American politics

The real problem of the Reverend Wright story is not the narcissism of Jeremiah Wright, nor the Democrats' God problem as Walter Shapiro argues, but the narcissism of the American media that gleefully reduces every issue to a form of political gossip and guilt by association.

If you want to read a truly thoughtful discussion of religion and politics today go to John Nichols' piece in the Nation.

The media loves the shrinking of political reporting to political gossip because it makes the gossip columnist or pundit as much the center of the story as the intended victim. Everyone becomes a narcissist because everyone wants into the circle of celebrity.

"Is There Any Word From the Lord?"

On a recent evening, after a wonderful dinner with friends, all of us deeply interested in politics, we of course ended by talking about the presidential election. Although divided between the two strong Democratic candidates, we cheerfully could support either. But our fears that we might be disappointed again were not far from the surface. Just before leaving, I said, dejectedly, “I think it is possible that we may lose the election in the fall.” 

More on short novels: Ward Just's "An Unfinished Season"

Ward Just's An Unfinished Season is another, shorter novel that is really marvelous, a novel set in Chicago after WWII and during the Korean War.  I have read all of Ward Just that I can get my hands on.  He is one of the few American novelists of our time to treat politics with the seriousness it deserves. 

And of course Ron Carlson's Five Skies, a beautiful novel set in the West belongs on any list of superb, shorter novels of our time. I have already reviewed Five Skies here.

A commenter to my post on shorter novels mentions Waker Percy's The Moviegoer as a wonderful short novel. I agree and I should have mentioned it.  The Moviegoer is very important to me, for a lot of reasons.