I'm no fan of Maureen Dowd's but . . .

[realthog]

. . . the concluding sentence of her NYT piece the other day about Sarah Palin's various homicidal attacks upon vocabulary, grammar and (in the larger sense) syntax deserves mention. It is a very simple observation that should be made more often:

True mavericks don’t brand themselves.

Comments

[louismaistros.livejournal.com]

If you were to put this in a work of fiction it would be deemed implausible to the point where folks would complain about their suspension-of-disbelief being seriously tampered with.

As it is, my suspension-of-disbelief regarding actual events is on hiatus. Please wave some sort of flag when it's safe for me to re-engage. I cannot keep up on my own.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I put things like this into The Dragons of Manhattan and at least one of the reviewers has complained the satire is "too broad".

I mean, it's fuckin' real life, isn't it? I never dared posit something like Troopergate -- now that, I'd have thought, would've been straining credulity: not because of the level of corruption, which sadly we've come to expect of the Republicans (and even some Democrats, perhaps three of them. See? I can do "balance"!), but the sheer fuckwitted banality.

The only thing Trooper Wooten did right according to Gov Palin and the First Dude was, it seems, not be black.

[louismaistros.livejournal.com]

at least one of the reviewers has complained the satire is "too broad".

That is too funny.

Someone famous once said something along the lines of: the main difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction has a responsibility to maintain plausibility, whereas nonfiction has no such constraints. It might have been Mark Twain, I don't know.

Ond day I'm sure "Dragons" will make the leap from "too implausible" to "not fictiony enough." I would actually bet money on that, and I am not a betting man.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"the main difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction has a responsibility to maintain plausibility, whereas nonfiction has no such constraints"

I know the quote but, like you, can't for the moment place it.

[louismaistros.livejournal.com]

Well, whoever said it, the sentiment is, unfortunately, pretty damn timeless.

The human race sure is an interesting group. A species whose sheer showmanship is unparalleled in the history of the earth. So we've got that going for us.