The Misanthrope’s Corner

DAY ONE: Another load of cow flop, another Campaign Diary. My coverage of the Dems’ convention got off to a bad start when I inadvertently missed Hillary’s speech. I say inadvertently because it was Shark Week on the Discovery Channel and I didn’t realize I wasn’t watching her.

I switched back in time to see Bubba’s interminable trek through the bowels of the convention center. Choreographed by Harry Thomason, it was widely interpreted as a “lone gladiator” entering the Colosseum for the last time, or Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig heading stoically for the Yankees locker room, but what it actually suggested should bring Harry Thomason’s career as a choreographer to a rapid and merciful end. Whether subconsciously or deliberately, this touted Friend of Bill was getting even for the ostracism he and his wife suffered after the travel office and haircut episodes of 1993. It requires the brain of a convention delegate to find anything heroic or flattering about this cinder-block hegira. To me it symbolized the instinctive dread of labyrinths that pervades mythology, or the universal nightmare in which we try to reach an unnamed something that keeps getting farther away. A Clintonized interpretation might be the condemned prisoner’s last mile; specifically, the French ladykiller Landru marching to the guillotine. At the very least it suggested JFK’s rake’s progress through the subterranean passageways and boiler rooms of hotels he used for assignations.

About the Author

Florence King

Florence King was a contributing editor of National Review.

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DAY ONE: Another load of cow flop, another Campaign Diary. My coverage of the Dems’ convention got off to a bad start when I inadvertently missed Hillary’s speech. I say inadvertently because it was Shark Week on the Discovery Channel and I didn’t realize I wasn’t watching her.

I switched back in time to see Bubba’s interminable trek through the bowels of the convention center. Choreographed by Harry Thomason, it was widely interpreted as a “lone gladiator” entering the Colosseum for the last time, or Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig heading stoically for the Yankees locker room, but what it actually suggested should bring Harry Thomason’s career as a choreographer to a rapid and merciful end. Whether subconsciously or deliberately, this touted Friend of Bill was getting even for the ostracism he and his wife suffered after the travel office and haircut episodes of 1993. It requires the brain of a convention delegate to find anything heroic or flattering about this cinder-block hegira. To me it symbolized the instinctive dread of labyrinths that pervades mythology, or the universal nightmare in which we try to reach an unnamed something that keeps getting farther away. A Clintonized interpretation might be the condemned prisoner’s last mile; specifically, the French ladykiller Landru marching to the guillotine. At the very least it suggested JFK’s rake’s progress through the subterranean passageways and boiler rooms of hotels he used for assignations.