I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.
Garrison Keillor

I really, really do NOT like Garrison Keillor. His homespun homilies and crackerbarrel charm is as phoney as his deep concern for the common man. Just to show that when you are a zealot, that consistency is your enemy, and because I wish to give Garri the finger, I present this little study in contrast.

From the current issue of Time.

Of course, the Terminator is no Jesse (the Body) Ventura. The Body was a troubled soul who, we discovered in the course of four years that got longer and longer, truly despised politics and the limelight and growled and ranted and threw snits and went and sulked in his tent. He was like the turkeys that are bred for white meat and grow enormous chests and are unable to walk around on their little ankles and have to be kept in hammocks and fed through a tube. He was something of an embarrassment. The Terminator is a charming man with a geezer brain trust of Warren Buffett and George Shultz, and the three of them may give Gray Davis, who was too clever for his own good, his comeuppance. But I doubt the Terminator would win if he were running in Minnesota. We've seen that movie already, and we wanted to leave after the first 20 minutes.

From a Wellstone lefty screed.

(Jesse Ventura, of course, wouldn't have been caught dead blathering at an F. Scott Fitzgerald dinner about how proud we are of the Great Whoever-He-Was and his vision and his dream blah-blah-blah, and that was the refreshing thing about Jesse. The sort of unctuous hooey that comes naturally and easily to Norm Coleman Jesse would be ashamed to utter in public. Give the man his due. He spoke English. He didn't open his mouth and emit soap bubbles. He was no suck up. He had more dignity than to kiss the president's shoe.)

Time.

You go for a walk on a summer night and notice the little ramps carved into curbs at street corners. People sat through a lot of meetings to get that accomplished. It was a boon to the wheelchair crowd and also to parents pushing strollers and kids riding bikes. It made life slightly more civil and friendly. Government works through small, incremental changes, and action heroes are much too high and mighty to take notice of these or other small details, but the changes are real, and in the end, we prefer government to heroism. My 5-year-old daughter can look forward to opportunities larger than those her grandmothers enjoyed, in a world in which men and women move freely as equals. No hero strode upon the scene and brought that about; it happened through politics. It wasn't based on anger toward men but on the love of liberty. You will never hear about it on Fox, but that's the truth, baby.

The Black Flag.

It was a dreadful low moment for the Minnesota voters. To choose Coleman over Walter Mondale is one of those dumb low-rent mistakes, like going to a great steakhouse and ordering the tuna sandwich. But I don't envy someone who's sold his soul.

He's condemned to a life of small arrangements. There will be no passion, no joy, no heroism, for him. He is a hollow man. The next six years are not going to be kind to Norm.

Well, cough, which is it Garri? Arnie shouldn't win because we don't need heroes in politics, Coleman should have lost because we do. While we're at it, are you schizo all the time, or just this time?

The Black Flag.

Norm got a free ride from the press. St. Paul is a small town and anybody who hangs around the St. Paul Grill knows about Norm's habits. Everyone knows that his family situation is, shall we say, very interesting, but nobody bothered to ask about it, least of all the religious people in the Republican Party. They made their peace with hypocrisy long ago. So this false knight made his way as an all- purpose feel-good candidate, standing for vaguely Republican values, supporting the president.

Time.

You don't hear this from AM radio, which is packed with angry men with chain-saw voices chewing into liberals 24/7, or from Ann Coulter, who is selling the old Stalinist line that dissent equals disloyalty. Or from the aging adolescents at Fox News, who enjoy peeing in the political swimming pool. But when you get among the real people who are actually engaged in public life, they tend to be well-mannered and respectful of the process and the humanity of those who take part. That's the difference between entertainment and politics. Of course, the Terminator could choose to go this route, and if he did, he could be a good Governor and make up for all the god-awful movies. There is always that hope.

I am willing to be lectured on political hygiene from several people, about proper and respectfull debate. Garrison (The Republicans will get you) Keillor is not only not on the list, I feel like I need a shower after reading his swarmy ,heh, wisdom. Having a soft monotone voice may get you on MPR, but it's hardly proof of intelligence, let alone wisdom. I resent being talked down too, I resent hypocrisy for a quick partisan shot, I resent being taken for a boob by a guy who probably let himself get chased home from school everyday, and I resent that he spouts this crap unmindful of the fact some of us can remember what he said the day before yesterday.

Stick to kiddy books Garri, you aren't very talented at this.