2008 Role Models
posted by April 7 at 9:48 AM
onCivil Rights historian Taylor Branch published an essay this weekend to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the King assassination.
As usual with Branch (overrated, check out David Garrow instead) the piece was unwieldy and imprecise. He does a mashup using the Rip Van Winkle story, one of King’s favorite parables about Lazarus, and a media critique of the “spin” age, failing to hone in on any point.
He also typed up this weird sentence:
Democratic balance has slept for 40 years, and we face a world like Rip Van Winkle run backward. We wake up blinking at Tiger Woods, Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama, while our government demands arbitrary rule by secrecy, conquest and dungeons. King George III seems reborn.
I get that he’s saying we’ve made advancements—a serious chance for a black President—that are offset by grave signs of devolution: Bush’s suspect war on terror.
But Tiger Woods. Really?
Really. And it sort of proves that Horsey was on to something.
Comments
Hone in on?
Hone this mo'fucker!
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