ALARM! :: I should have told you that movies in the afternoon are my weakness.

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Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Joe Klein's Theater Critic Politics

In Jonathon Chiat’s article on Joe Klein in this week’s TNR, he calls Klein’s new book, Politics Lost, a “theater critic interpretation of politics,” summarizing it like so:

The theory outlined in Klein's book will be familiar to readers of his Time columns or watchers of his regular appearances on "Meet the Press." Politics, he writes, "has become overly cautious, cynical, mechanistic, and bland." It needs less boredom and more spontaneity, color, and charisma. The bulk of the book consists of his recounting of various presidential campaigns over the last three decades. The highlight is Robert Kennedy's moving, off-the-cuff speech in Indianapolis announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The low point is John Kerry's dismal, overly scripted 2004 campaign. (Unfortunately for Klein's premise, which postulates a steady decline, the two most spontaneous campaigns he describes--John McCain in 2000 and Howard Dean in 2004--took place within the last two election cycles.) He closes with a rousing call for a politician "[w]ho believes in at least one idea, or program, that has less than 40 percent support in the polls. Who can tell a joke--at his own expense, if possible. Who gets angry, within reason; gets weepy, within reason ... but only if those emotions are rare and real. Who is capable of a spontaneous, untrammeled belly laugh." In fact, we have a president right now who does all those things. (There's hardly a Bush idea these days that does crack 40 percent in the polls.) Somehow, though, these are not the best of times in American politics. Which suggests that having authentic, regular-guy candidates may not be the cure-all that Klein envisions it to be.

Calling this “theater critic” politics is close, but Hollywood idealism might be even closer. What Klein seems to be looking for is a legend, not a person, an icon, not a politician. He wants a West Wing-style politics of passion. He wants candidates who are crafted literary characters with the spontaneous wit and brilliance of a team of seasoned screenwriters, who run campaigns with human vigor and maybe a bit of personal folly. Not soap operas (which often provide sideshows now), but classy, literate dramas for the latte set—an urban liberal’s fantasy universe of intellectual excitement and world-changing decisions.

Unfortunately for Klein, the business of government is far less sexy than the zesty dramas he imagines, and when candidates and campaigns that approach his view do pop up, they’re outlandish and untenable. He hails Kennedy, McCain, and Dean as examples. But McCain and Dean failed, and their failures had much to do with the fact that they did what Klein wants and made things personal. Personal devotion and "authenticity" look great on screen, but campaigns are more often won by a combination of strategy, doggedness and focused messages, not stirring conviction. Kennedy, on the other hand, is so enmeshed in myth and legend that it’s difficult to remember that he too was just a man who made many mistakes. Out collective memory has enshrined him in glamour, cutting away the mundane; was he really such a towering figure in his own day? Death has a way of obscuring memory.

Films, TV and novels, it’s no secret, idealize political life, prizing personal fervor and authenticity, grand pronouncements and heart-wrenching last minute resolutions. As Jonah Goldberg recently wrote, “in Hollywood’s Washington, speeches are usually a substitute for action.” Klein champions a politics of superficial glitz and show, but as every good critic will tell you, all the show in the world is worth approximately zilch unless it’s about something.

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