As the Obama era commences, I find myself pausing to reflect upon the lessons I’ve learned over the last eight years. Feeling somewhat shell-shocked by the sudden surge of America-love exploding from the far-left corners of the Hollywood universe, I am otherwise oddly drained of emotion. Besides an inner, rumbling disquiet – perhaps due, in part, to the burrito I ingested at lunch – I can pinpoint another peculiar sensation: relief. As if I’ve just been sprung from an elementary school classroom full of spoiled, vicious, ten year-olds engaged in a perpetual, two thousand, nine hundred and twenty-day temper tantrum.
Let me explain. I am the product of political “diversity.” My father – a retired professor and classics scholar who speaks six languages – was raised “a Kennedy Democrat.” Involved in east coast politics, he actually met Jack and Bobby on several occasions and briefly toyed with the idea of moving to Washington to work in JFK’s administration (as per an invitation, mind you). Bluntly acknowledging that today’s Democrats have more in common with Karl Marx than JFK, he is currently disgusted with the whole lot of them. My mother, also a retired professor, is a direct descendant of a family who came to America in the 1660’s. A legacy Republican, her ancestors fought in every American war and her 18th Century, childhood home was used to house escaped slaves. Not surprisingly, I was raised to seek out at as many facts as I could lay my hands on before opening my mouth at the dinner table. Improperly rationalizing an opinion could lead to a deadly, thirty-minute lecture featuring etiological references in both Greek and Latin. More importantly, I was raised to be polite. “Polite: showing good manners towards others, as in courteous behavior and speech. Civil, refined, cultured.” (more…)
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