Whether or not you can tell a book by its cover, you can generally tell a country by its books. If most political books are any indication, the way we argue now has been shaped by cable news and Weblogs; it's all ''gotcha'' commentary and attributions of bad faith. No emotion can be too angry and no exaggeration too incredible.
Yet if the technologies used by bloggers and hardballers are new, the form is older than the Republic. While they appear as books -- and are staples of the best-seller lists -- today's give-no-quarter attacks, as George Packer noted recently of bloggers, have their origins in the pamphlets of the colonial era.
Yeah, I know, I was refraining from any political posting, I'm so full of shit and hey, while I'm at it I'll lose 20lbs by the end of next week! Or not. But I liked this article on The New Pamphleteers, essentially the origins of all the political books on the shelves right now and blogs. Years ago when something pissed us off we made pamphlets and passed them out to all that would take them. Nowadays, its a much larger pissing contest and thanks to the technology behind blogging we are pissing outside of the lines and directly into your homes, yippee.
The one horrifying aspect of the article was the mention of Ann Coulter's new book, which I won't link to, mostly because I'm not a middle aged man with a boner hanging on her vitriol imbued bullshit. However, I will refrain from calling Ms. Coulter a succubus as I have in prior posts, no matter how true that might be, I'm practicing a nicer approach for the greater good of not spreading the negativity that I'm sure you'll find in the pages of her book. I'm certain Ms. Coulter is a fine woman and as a child I imagine her showing her cotton covered crotch for attention or just to be able to hang with the boys at the treehouse, who can say, its just my imagination. Anyhoo, no matter how you get your fix of political spew, practice your rebuttals with sickly sweet imagination like I do, remember, its for the greater good of a more positive society. ;)
