Convention Day 2

From Berube:

Next up were the twins, Barbara and Jenna. And here, I think, is where my new party revealed a genius I didn't know it had. For years, progressive-left literary types like me used to taunt Republicans: "nyah nyah, nyah nyah," we suggested, "you don't know anything about surrealism, nyah nyah, never heard of the European avant-garde, la la la la la la." We thought we were the last word in urbane sophistication, and that Republicans could not begin to comprehend– or even catch– our allusions to figures like Bréton and Bataille. But then along come the Bush twins, and ooh la la, surrealism is born anew! "My Dad already had a chief of staff– and his name is Andy!" said Jenna. It is beyond humor, it is beyond your petty-ironic Democrat understanding. "Our parents' favorite term of endearment for each other is Bushy," they said, following this with "we had a hamster too, but our hamster didn't make it." What does this mean? you ask. Foolish liberal Democrats, fretting about "what does this mean, this strange talk of bushes and lost hamsters." It is not about meaning. It is about the irruption of the unconscious into the very fabric of everyday life, where the eye becomes an egg and the hamster disappears into the bushy undergrowth, there to be transformed into the heart and soul of America. Hah! Now we find that Republican diversity is even more diverse than Michael Steele and Arnold Schwarzenegger– it extends even to the domain of live performance art, where Barbara and Jenna Bush evoke Bréton and Bataille and Beavis and Butthead in an intertextual performance that leaves you girlie-men cultural-studies Democrats gasping for air. I especially liked the bit about how their parents taught them to respect everyone. Except the people we run against-- them we slime! Heh. Heh heh. Heh.