The Gimlet Eye

Them’s My Sentiments

WHAT do you run on, America? Well, as “Rocket” Morton of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band used to say, we run on beans. We run on laser beans. The laser beans of sentiment keep our nation’s psychic thrusters powered. In the absence of an established church, sentimentality is the nearest thing we have to a national religion—one which even provides us with a de facto Test Act if we would but use it. To wit: any candidate for political office who adheres to the national faith should be instantly disqualified. That would rid us of Bill Clinton and George Bush at a stroke.

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Bill Clinton

George H. W. Bush

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Them’s My Sentiments

WHAT do you run on, America? Well, as “Rocket” Morton of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band used to say, we run on beans. We run on laser beans. The laser beans of sentiment keep our nation’s psychic thrusters powered. In the absence of an established church, sentimentality is the nearest thing we have to a national religion—one which even provides us with a de facto Test Act if we would but use it. To wit: any candidate for political office who adheres to the national faith should be instantly disqualified. That would rid us of Bill Clinton and George Bush at a stroke.