"...[I]t says something unflattering about our era that prominent
political figures --
who used to write declarations of independence, preambles to
constitutions,
Gettysburg addresses, and such -- now use the alphabet only to make
primitive
artifacts, like the letter-inscribed tablet that Charlemagne is
said to have put
under his pillow each night, in the hope he'd wake up literate.
Conservatives,
including most of the Founding Fathers, have always worried that
the price of a
democratic system would be a mediocre nation. But George Washington
and
William F. Buckley Jr. put together could not have foreseen, in
their gloomiest
moments, the rise of Clinton-style über-mediocrity -- with its
soaring
commonplaces, its pumped trifling, its platinum-grade triviality.
The Alpha-dork
husband, the super-twerp wife, and the hyper-wonk vice president --
together
with all their mega-weenie water carriers, such as vicious pit
gerbil George
Stephanopoulos and Eastern diamondback rattleworm Sidney Blumenthal
--
spent eight years trying to make America nothing to brag about.
They failed.
And that is, ultimately, what makes 'Living History' such a good
nonread. If
they're going to throw the book at us, and the book is by Hillary,
the republic will
endure (and the Republicans will prevail)." --P.J. O'Rourke
