It's Convention Time!

The Dem's convention is going on this week. Naturally, commentators are commentating like crazy. For years now, one of the favorite themes of commentators of a certain type is the motivational psychology of William Jefferson Clinton. It has become an article of faith with them that he is unable to utter any statement, no matter how simple, without parsing and reparsing it, calculating several levels of interpretation, and examining his utterance for potential personal image enhancement. They deconstuct his every sentence and claim to see only ego, never substance. For people like these, the appearance of his book atop the best seller list must be causing a severe acid reflux reflex.
In the last week or so I've seen a lot of "analyses" of the effect on the assembled Democratic Party's mental health of the convention speech of the ex-president. Apparently, he must be articulate, but not too articulate. And interesting, but not too interesting. And, of course, there is the appearance of candidate-in-waiting Hilary Rodham Clinton. She also must be energizing and riveting, but not too much so. Her book, sitting next to husband Bill's at number two, must also be galling to the commentators of the right. I'm delighted, even though I can't afford either book. I confess to doing a lot of shopping at the remainder tables of bookstores, where I do not have the opportunity to buy a Clinton book, but where I can always pick up a copy of Rush Limbaugh, should I so desire. The relative salability of these books gives me great hope that the size of the army of enraged radio talk show caller-inners, and their influence, is a lot smaller than one is inclined to believe from their loudness. Perhaps, like my tendency to write numerous letters-to-editors, the callers are not as much numerous as persistent. A few hundred determined malcontents endlessly calling into talk shows can create a large impression. Just as a few letter-writers (such as myself) can. This is a good thing, even if I find those particular malcontents irritating (which I admit is the case only because they do not agree with me).