JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MATTHEW NORMAN IN THE TELEGRAPH

But most heroes are glamorous only for now.

That has always been the case.

It is called celebrity, and it has the lasting qualities of the froth on a beer.

There are a few genuine heroes here and there, and most go uncelebrated.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MATTHEW NORMAN IN THE INDEPENDENT

Now?

Where has Matthew Norman been the last thirty years or so?

The Republican Party has long been a breeding ground for hate and stupidity.

Spiro Agnew’s many ridiculous and shabby words at a time he was taking brown paper bags of money in his vice-presidential office?

Phil Gramm and all his dumb talk about what his mama used to say about “gettin’ down outta the wagon to he’p push the wagon”?

Nixon and wife Pat’s “Republican” cloth coat and their little dog?

Nixon’s filthy, vicious first Congressional campaign won by insulting an honest and capable woman?

Every word ever uttered by that dense chunk of sod, Bush?

Dick Cheney’s organized programs of murder, hate, and denial of rights?

Rumsfeld’s murder of 3,000 prisoners in Afghanistan?

Dan Quayle and everything he ever said?

The late Senator Roman Hruska and his claim that the Supreme Court should reflect all groups, including mediocrity?

Lamar Alexander and his ridiculous custom-made red lumber-jack shirts and his ideas about having a part-time government?

The absurd former Senator Bob Smith and his claim that Clinton was running a “damned concentration camp” when they rescued that poor Cuban boy Elian from his hateful kidnappers in Miami.

Tom Delay and his name-calling and spitting venom while all the time running a crooked fund-raising scheme?

Pat Robertson’s claims that natural disasters were God’s vengeance on America for immoral ways plus just about everything else ever uttered by Robertson?

Newt Gingrich and his “family values” crap while divorcing a wife dying of cancer?