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and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Sunday, January 08, 2006

ADVICE FOR GARY HART

parenthetically put, along his
New York Times interview
in today’s Sunday magazine



"As everyone knows, your second bid for the presidency ended virtually overnight, in 1987, with accusations of adultery, and I am wondering if you feel bitter.

It's not my nature to feel bitter. I've been away from Washington for 19 years. Mostly I talk to my neighbors in Kittredge, Colo., real Americans, not Jack Abramoff. [Need to watch the “real Americans” rhetoric here. Precisely in what way is Jack Abramoff not a real American?] I am an outdoorsman. I chop wood. I take hikes with my dog, Winston. [Gruff outdoorsman thing here is plainly imitative of Dubya, esp. the wood. Do you hunt? It would‘ve been better to describe yourself doing that.]

You can't really stay this calm about events in Washington.

I don't. I go out and kick trees. I don't just hug them, I kick them. And what I am going to do is accept a professorship. [Strange transition. Along with kicking trees you work out your rage about the world by accepting a professorship?]

At what school?

I can't tell you. It hasn't been announced.

So why not announce it now?

The University of Colorado will announce on the 15th of January that I have accepted an endowed professorship. …I have never believed in careerism. [Then why, in a casual interview, did you find time to put “endowed” in front of “professorship”?] The founders thought you ought to serve and move on. Otherwise, you become a captive of the system. You've got to raise millions and millions of dollars to stay in office, and you can get that from lobbyists, and what you trade is access. It's a corrupt system. It's massively corrupt. [Have you kept track of the University of Colorado system? It makes Washington look clean.]"