Wednesday, December 27
"So much of what ails us dates from the Seventies"
Mark Steyn on Gerald Ford:
"Understanding the enduring damage Vietnam and Watergate would do to the body politic, Ford attempted to lance the boils. He failed, but it was an honorable effort by an honorable man."
***
Those who weren't alive at the time can't quite imagine the nation's emotional climate; I was 10 years old in another country and still sensed it, via tv -- that bitter, corrosive yet oddly sacharine pall. You could, I suppose, choke down a handful of ludes and watch The Ice Storm, Nashville, Winter Kills, The Conversation and The Parallax View all in a row (in no particular order) on a brilliantly sunny day but with the curtains drawn, to kind of, sort of simulate the environment. I developed my bad habit of sighing deeply and repeatedly around this time, unable to get a decent breath; other girls probably took up nail biting. Chowchilla was sort of our Columbine -- an emblematic event in which strangers unwillingly act out fears you never knew you had, as part of a claustrophobic, vaguely embarrassing puppet show.
Unfunny sitcoms used laugh tracks then, and the rumour persists that the canned laughter had been taped twenty years earlier then recycled over and over. In other words, the people laughing weren't just fake, they might even be dead. Urban legend or not, that factoid was perfectly "70s" -- right down to its disputed authenticity.
Was pardoning Nixon the right thing to do? Could the populace bear a presidential trial? The hearings had been enervating enough; that low, buzzing testimonial drone followed you from house to house to bar to department store and lingered in the room, even after the tv was finally turned off.
Yet justice must be seen to be done. And Nixon seemed to "get away with" -- well, something. The average person was hard pressed to tell you what, exactly; but in poll after poll, Nixon beat Hitler as Most Hated Person of All Time through the rest of the decade. Such a lack of perspective indicates a population whipped into a thoughtless frenzy that only the sheer boredom of a tedious trial might have soothed.
(Also: if the pardon cost Ford the election, that means it helped Carter win. Not good.)
"Understanding the enduring damage Vietnam and Watergate would do to the body politic, Ford attempted to lance the boils. He failed, but it was an honorable effort by an honorable man."
***
Those who weren't alive at the time can't quite imagine the nation's emotional climate; I was 10 years old in another country and still sensed it, via tv -- that bitter, corrosive yet oddly sacharine pall. You could, I suppose, choke down a handful of ludes and watch The Ice Storm, Nashville, Winter Kills, The Conversation and The Parallax View all in a row (in no particular order) on a brilliantly sunny day but with the curtains drawn, to kind of, sort of simulate the environment. I developed my bad habit of sighing deeply and repeatedly around this time, unable to get a decent breath; other girls probably took up nail biting. Chowchilla was sort of our Columbine -- an emblematic event in which strangers unwillingly act out fears you never knew you had, as part of a claustrophobic, vaguely embarrassing puppet show.
Unfunny sitcoms used laugh tracks then, and the rumour persists that the canned laughter had been taped twenty years earlier then recycled over and over. In other words, the people laughing weren't just fake, they might even be dead. Urban legend or not, that factoid was perfectly "70s" -- right down to its disputed authenticity.
Was pardoning Nixon the right thing to do? Could the populace bear a presidential trial? The hearings had been enervating enough; that low, buzzing testimonial drone followed you from house to house to bar to department store and lingered in the room, even after the tv was finally turned off.
Yet justice must be seen to be done. And Nixon seemed to "get away with" -- well, something. The average person was hard pressed to tell you what, exactly; but in poll after poll, Nixon beat Hitler as Most Hated Person of All Time through the rest of the decade. Such a lack of perspective indicates a population whipped into a thoughtless frenzy that only the sheer boredom of a tedious trial might have soothed.
(Also: if the pardon cost Ford the election, that means it helped Carter win. Not good.)
