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| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Well then on her birthday, her age will change. But it hasn't yet. And what's really more likely... that Bachman was actually thinking of John Wayne Gacy by accident, or that she knew John Wayne was born in Iowa and assumed it was Waterloo since his parents were from there? Come on. |
Quick! Call Kenny Star! Obama's lied and now he's got to pay the price.
At its best, it was a ludicrous gaff, revealing that she's under so much pressure that she was incapable of thinking straight. At its worst, it reveals a personal narrative that is so insular, misinformed, and aggrandizing, that it went without so much as a moment's circumspection when it was uttered. As big and indelible as John Wayne is, within the American narrative, John Wayne Gacy has as much if not more of a historical footprint.
Wayne's significance is fading while Gacy enjoys a certain permanent notoriety brought about by the absolutely shocking heinousness of his crimes. It is a notoriety which almost as heinously subverts the generational appeal Bachman was trying to tap into by invoking Wayne, in the first place. Her sloppy conflation of historical figures bleeds with irony as an American icon is all but replaced by the nightmarish clown.
The image her mistake conjures is one of John Wayne morphing into a self-portrait Gacy penned of himself. Rugged individualism and its ideal image has acquired a new meaning more pertinent to the current political atmosphere in America than any other honest analogy could hope for. It is the essence of exploitative psychopathy rendered in an apparently honest, strong, brave yet benevolent visage that only serves itself with a ruthlessness only truly known to its victims, buried in small plots throughout the foundation.
Gacy, it should be known, was quite the upstanding citizen. He had a somewhat elevated public profile with a reputation for proficient civic volunteerism. Had he not killed more children than Bachman's been able to foster (precisely one more than he was able to stuff in his crawl-space), he may well have made an appearance at her ill-faded Iowa press-conference as a supporter. This isn't just any gaff.
It will certainly be remembered as the day Bachman lost her bid for being any kind of serious presidential contender much like Hillary's "sniper fire" lie savaged her ambitions. Bachman's gaff, however, is so cosmically layered that it almost has to be some sort of practical joke that either her own subconscious mind or God pulled on her (depending on whichever you believe in). It is the truth which is stranger than fiction.
So, you can defend her to your heart's content. She's done. Finished. Finito. Moot. She's replaced a well-regarded American Icon with a serial killer as or more famous than Jack the Ripper. She's comically associated herself with the latter by comically attempting to invoke the former. She has demonstrated, however unintentionally or even unwittingly, a severe ignorance of contemporary American history and, in conjuring this hybrid Wayne-Gacy caricature, she's personified a common perception of the United States political system that projects an image of benevolence to its citizenry but actually victimizes them.
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my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012
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