For his 88th birthday, McGovern went skydiving. For his 54th birthday, I believe Kass took a couple Vicotin and woke up in his own drool.
In Wednesday’s Tribune, wannabe satirist John Kass wrote a column regarding the prospective White House hiring of Bill Daley, saying,
“Right now, Obama sits somewhere to the left of the late George McGovern, but he’ll need to become a certified centrist again when he runs for re-election in 2012.”
Despite the fact that any Poli Sci 101 student could point out the obvious error of considering a center-left pragmatist ‘Left’ of a longtime Dovish liberal, there was an even greater inaccuracy in that statement. “The late” George McGovern, as Kass called him, is not ‘late’ at all. In fact, he’s alive and well – or at least as alive and well as can be for an 88 year old living in South Dakota.
John, I understand your schtick. Pithy, colorful columns about the culture of Chicago politics that are sometimes clever, yet rarely insightful. A clear dislike for the President and the Daleys, and a 3 year obsession with trying to criminalize Obama for paying 15% below list for his Hyde Park property. What a hot scoop!
But John, contempt for the Mayor or the President doesn’t give you free journalistic reign to shovel dirt on the empty grave of anyone, much less a longtime public servant such as McGovern.
No wonder your column was so unabashedly brimming with excitement. With the hiring of Daley, the door is open for you to stay in bed and pen 6 more months of vapid ’Chicago Way’ columns without opening your eyes or bothering yourself with the heartbeat of any geriatric political figure.
As far as you’re concerned, you can put down James Baker or reanimate Harold Washington without it having any effect on your one-way pseudo-political analysis. How do I get a gig like that?
John Kass, Stop messing up my ‘Dead Pool.’ Clown.
Good stuff my man. I can’t wait to hear your take on Mitch Albom when you move to MI.
I’d really like to punch John Kass and hope I get the opportunity.
The policies Obama has passed have not even been center left. In my opinion, they’ve been smack down the center. I do think Obama is a liberal and generally has liberal views and perspectives except, notably, on gay marriage. But most liberals in our era would be considered centrists in the time from WWII to Reagan. Kass would be calling Eisenhower a tree hugging, leftist pacifist had be been writing during his term and when he made is profound anti military industrial complex exit speech. But reagan happened and…well, Reagan happened. And today, tea partiers lionize him and his bygone era of record deficits, 2 recessions, extreme poverty for some and general economic stagnation for all those except the top 10%. Funny thing is, I long for Reagan republicans in this era of know nothing, poorly informed repubs elected by the fear ridden villagers whose mantra of small government and lower taxes doesn’t pass go as soon as you ask for details.
There, I got it out for the day. That’s probably about as hard John Kass thinks and works for his column, and he gets paid.
Anytime I hear anything about George McGovern (um, not often) I can’t help but think of the Uneasy Rider song by Charlie Daniels, which took me years of practice to nail down into memorization. It was soon after my obsession to memorize “We Didn’t Start the Fire” via fast-forwarding and rewinding on cassette. (C’mon – I was in either 8th grade or high school.)
Anyway –
“Would you believe this man has gone as far
As tearing Wallace stickers off the bumpers of cars
And he voted for George McGovern for President.”
“Well he’s a friend of them long haired, hippy-type, pinko fags!
I betchya he’s even got a commie flag
Tacked up on the wall inside of his garage.”
“He’s a snake in the grass, I tell ya guys
He may look dumb but that’s just a disguise
He’s a mastermind in the ways of espionage”
that’s an awesome reference, dawn. btw, ‘mcgovern’ would make a great middle name.
With this many McGovern references the Google Alerts of pinko-commie-scum across the land just went bonkers.