2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumGarrison Keillor on Hillary powering through illness
From his Facebook page:
So its no surprise she pushed herself to the point of collapse the other day. Whats odd is the perspective, expressed in several stories, that her determination to keep going reveals a lack of transparency ---- that she shouldve announced she had pneumonia and gone home and crawled into bed.
Ive never gone fishing with her, which is how you really get to know someone, but I did sit next to her at dinner once, one of those stiff dinners that is nobodys idea of a wild good time, the conversation tends to be stilted, everybodys beat, you worry about spilling soup down your shirtfront. She being First Lady led the way and she being a Wellesley girl, the way led upward. We talked about my infant daughter and schools and about Justice Blackmun, and I said how inspiring it was to sit and watch the Court in session, and she laughed and said, I dont think itd be a good idea for me to show up in a courtroom where a member of my family might be a defendant. A succinct and witty retort. And she turned and bestowed her attention on Speaker Dennis Hastert, who was sitting to her right. She focused on him and even made him chuckle a few times. I was impressed by her smarts, even more by her discipline.
I dont have that discipline. Most people dont. Politics didnt appeal to me back in my youth, the rhetoric (Ask not what your country can do for you) was so wooden compared to so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, so I walked dark rainy streets imagining the great novel I wouldnt write and was still trying to be cool and indifferent well into my thirties, when other people were making a difference in the world.
Hillary didnt have a prolonged adolescence and fiction was not her ambition. She doesnt do dreaminess. What some people see as a relentless quest for power strikes me as the good habits of a serious Methodist. Be steady. Dont give up. Its not about you. Work for the night is coming.
The woman who does not conceal her own intelligence is a fine American tradition, going back to Anne Bradstreet and Harriet Beecher Stowe and my ancestor Prudence Crandall, but none has been subjected to the steady hectoring that Mrs. Clinton has. She is the first major-party nominee to be pictured in prison stripes by the opposition. She is the first cabinet officer ever to be held personally responsible for her own email server, something ordinarily delegated to anonymous nerds in I.T. The fact that terrorists attacked an American compound in Libya under cover of darkness when Secretary Clinton presumably got some sleep has been held against her, as if she personally was in command of the defense of the compound, a walkie-talkie in her hand, calling in air strikes.
Extremism has poked its head into the mainstream, aided by the Internet. Back in the day, you occasionally saw cranks on a street corner handing out mimeographed handbills arguing that FDR was responsible for Pearl Harbor, but you saw their bad haircuts, the bitterness in their eyes, and you turned away. Now theyre in your computer, whispering that the economy is on the verge of collapse and for a few bucks theyll tell you how to protect your savings. But lacking clear evidence, we proceed forward. We dont operate on the basis of lurid conjecture.
Someday historians will get this right and look back at the steady pitter-pat of scandals that turned out to be nothing, nada, zero and ixnay and will conclude that, almost a century after womens suffrage, almost 50 years after Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law, a woman was required to run for office wearing concrete shoes. Check back fifty years from now and if Im wrong, go ahead and dance on my grave.
https://www.facebook.com/garrison.keillor.14/posts/10154046259773892
Lucinda
(31,170 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)He sums it up beautifully
betsuni
(25,456 posts)planetc
(7,805 posts)Hekate
(90,642 posts)Nitram
(22,791 posts)The man is a national treasure.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)great comments !
mountain grammy
(26,614 posts)redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)Nothing like sitting on my porch with a cup of tea and the radio, going back to a simpler time... Love Garrison.
lillypaddle
(9,580 posts)Will never understand where all the hate has come from. This is wonderfully apropos.
niyad
(113,255 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)Sophiegirl
(2,338 posts)But I will never be in the same universe as him. He can cut to the chase like no other.
lupinella
(365 posts)SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)Laser102
(816 posts)2naSalit
(86,528 posts)evillemike2009
(13 posts)He didn't say it (re: her decision to try to tough it out). Keillor didn't do the usual conjectural connection, so I will:
If Hillary had announced the diagnosis, and if she'd taken a day or two off, the Press Poodles and The Wingnuts would've slagged her anyway.
There would've been a great chorus of:
"Oh dear, maybe her health is really as bad as some people say"
"What else has she been hiding from us?"
"She might not be up to the challenge"
"What a complete wuss - I've been sick and I still managed to get my work done"
She's been up against this crap forever. The simple fact that she hasn't told us all to just go blow ourselves is a pretty good indication of how tough and resilient and tenacious she can be.
There're actual issues involving Hillary's policy positions and her approach to governance that I'd like to see addressed. The ISDS provisions in TPP for example. As long as we're off in the weeds with all this non-troversy baloney, we'll never hear anything of substance.
Put the heat on the Press Corps Poodles to step up their game, get off the fluff, and start acting like they've actually earned their credentials.
niyad
(113,255 posts)jcgoldie
(11,631 posts)I miss you so much already.
niyad
(113,255 posts)NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)Love Garrison Keillor
Farmgirl1961
(1,493 posts)the way he speaks is both soothing and striking, all at the same time. How could we kick this back to him and suggest he 'go radio' with this?
Festivito
(13,452 posts)Odd indeed.
Marthe48
(16,934 posts)If she worked to exhaustion--DAMNED
Best to ignore the critics. No matter what she does, they will find a way to twist it into the wrong thing.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)Answer over and over, again and again.
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)Tommy_Carcetti
(43,173 posts)Just not the same.
The guy is an absolute master at wordsmith.
Liberal Jesus Freak
(1,451 posts)I have been a reluctant Clinton supporter up until this moment. How simple and how profound. I will be making my second political donation in my 60 year old life. Thanks, Garrison
Basic LA
(2,047 posts)It's been my way of keeping in touch with this great man on a daily basis, especially valuable since he retired from radio.
renate
(13,776 posts)"... but you saw their bad haircuts, the bitterness in your eyes, and you turned away."
That's a really good point. The only equivalent on the Internet that I can think of is bad grammar. If you read something by someone who seems relatively coherent, it can be tempting to believe them just because they present their case well--even if their case is a fever dream.
spooky3
(34,438 posts)The media's treatment of HRC has been.
As a professional woman I've seen many instances of double standards over my lifetime as have many other people. This could not be more clear in Clinton's case.
burrowowl
(17,638 posts)Miss his show!