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David Brooks, author and TV commentator, often engaged in major circular TV chatfests grew curiouser and curiouser regard old leftists with a radical bent and declining youth. He followed some around to their new haunts, found they were comfortably ensconced in houses with "kitchens as big a aircraft hangers, with plumbing.." Thus he described "Bo Bos" to Gwen Ifell on PBS, June, 2000. He was promoting his book, "Bo Bos in Paradise," and found this newly minted term applied to those now living in toney enclaves across the nation, including California's Silicon Valley known for its high-end, upper middle-class suburbs. Brooks noted inventively, "they were half-yippie bourgeois and half-hippie bohemian." So, this is where many Obamaphiles dwell, those skewing the 2008 elector processes in a mad rush to some lost utopia they felt promised for their anti-establishment rants and protests of long ago. Now a modicum of revenge could be visited upon the hated nonvisionaries who deprived them of self-actualization. They find in Barack Obama an anti-hero, a skinny, feckless fawn who will mature into a leader with great, impressive twelve-point antlers, both inspiring and imposing in his simplicity. Children's dreams never entirely outlive the imagination. And they can be infectious running around the society until exhausted. Our American media is showing signs of having been bitten. Many are from the heady, free-wheeling age and remain true to those tenets while professing journalistic distance. Some are merely as susceptible to wrong-headed liaisons as any other segment of the culture. Bob Somerby has defended Al Gore since the 2000 campaign on "The Daily Howler" site. Somerby has a knack for cutting bait that brooks no nonsense and leaves no confusion as to his point of view. He is left to wonder why the vaunted Eastern media denizens were so apt to diss the Clintons and Al Gore. He was not offended by Barack's pastor disaster, rather felt there was some merit to Rev. Wright's summation of our nation character. But he isn't buying an elitist ploy to divide poor white southerners or poor white working class people anywhere from the Bo Bos David Brooks discovered sipping imported wine and snacking on brie; it is an artfully-employed political scheme. Why do the media cast stones at Hillary, Bill and Al? Why are the wannabes of the press going along in duck step to be counted among their detractors? Somerby thinks it is a snoot factor. Southern whites and the working poor white folk are given their own demographic in these recent elections; they represent the throw-aways who just don't get it. They remain stuck in neutral when the more savvy move on. Where they plan to go is open to speculation as long as you keep moving. Moving is synonymous with progress defined by the maintenance of their status quo. Don't get in their way. The media see a family resemblance in Obama that seems to go beyond color; it is a meeting of minds and a spirit of new vistas. He is nearer to their generational hopes and dreams. Of course, this image is sheer contrivance but that does not deter the faithful. In an editorial at "The Howler," Somerby proffers this indictment of the American media which is sinking into its bad habit of manipulating the vote. "You see they {journalists} were sure they knew then, as they're sure they know now, which Dem hopeful had better character. Sadly, we're in Iraq because these dopes were our leaders." The other Dems he referenced are Governor Michael Dukakis in primaries against Al Gore and Bill Bradley. The press favored Bradley, the existentialist intellectual from New Jersey, and fairly eviscerated Al Gore in the 1988 primary and later in the 2000 general against G.W. Bush. When the question of the Willie Horton ad surfaced in 1988, Gore was said to be the culprit who played the race card; it was untrue and Bradley was no more honest about the issue than the Bush campaign. http://dailyhowler.com/ Somerby believes the reason behind these attitudes is an antipathy for a southern mentality as perceived by northerners in general and the Manhattan media in particular. It is the snob factor carrying over into political judgments. How odd the leftist liberals find themselves in a counterintuitive position, bashing the underdogs who favor Senator Hillary Clinton. Of course, we know the long-term consequences of the 2000 debacle when the county fell victim to intrepid journalists who broke the most fundamental law of their profession: do not put yourself between the story and your reporting. If voters in 2008 aren't carefully following these continuous gyrations, they aren't paying attention and will waste their vote again. Let the Bo Bos' illusions go unrequited; it is more important to save our country than to placate the leisure class.
I do have writing credits in a major newspaper--long ago. Currently, I write for online political boards with a definite liberal bias. Proud parent, grandparent and aspiring poet and novelist. I never stopped aspiring. Finally managed to earn a BA degree in communications/ American lit. Love romantic fiction that also stretches the intellectual muscles. And am mad about romantic Russian composers. I take life seriously but tend to look at it with a healthy skepticism which sometimes translates into satire. Satire is usually the only genre that captures faithfully our theater of the absurd.
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