Garrison Keillor: Wearing his politics on his sleeve (and the rest of the book)

Minneapolis Star-Tribune ^ | July 13, 2004 | Bob Von Sternberg

[jdege]

Garrison Keillor: Wearing his politics on his sleeve (and the rest of the book)

Bob Von Sternberg, Star Tribune
July 13, 2004

Radio humorist Garrison Keillor has never shied away from the dreaded "liberal" label, placing his progressive politics front-and-center in many of his monologues and writings.

But he's now aggressively embraced a complementary label: partisan Democrat, appearing at DFL functions and, now, publishing his newest book, "Homegrown Democrat; A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America."

The book, to be published by Viking on Thursday, is a combination of personal reminiscence, an attempt to define Minnesota culture, interlaced with political screeds that are at once tendentious, fed-up and funny.

Among them:

• "Republicans have perfectly nice manners, normal hair, pleasant smiles, good deodorants, but when it comes right down to it, you do not want them to be monitoring your oxygen tube or running your child's school. Like the hall of mirrors at the carnival, they are all about perceptions, the party of Personal Responsibility, which conceals enormous glittering malice and is led by brilliant bandits who are dividing and conquering the sweet land I grew up in. I don't accept this."

• "Liberals stand for tolerance, magnanimity, community spirit, the defense of the weak against the powerful, love of learning, all American values worth conserving. The people who call themselves conservatives stand for tax cuts, and further tax cuts, annual tax cuts, the only policy they know. Cut taxes. Use the money you save to buy a gun and an attack dog to take with you when you drive the Hummer out of the security gate of Republicanville ..."

[...]

[mikrofon]

Good points all -- well said...

[tracer]

""Homegrown Democrat; A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America."

Keillor is by no means the heart of America, given that most of his publicity photos have been taken through a proctoscope....

[alloysteel]

We had a laboratory example of just that same set of parallel experiments, in the division between East Germany and West Germany. Both started off at the same level, bombed-out shells of a once beautiful country and culture, that had gone to blight and total destruction. One side was structured, with all the social "safety nets" in place right away, and a static economy to provide for the workers. The other was put on a "sink or swim" basis, founded on idealism, with open opportunities for anyone willing to take even a moderate degree of risk, and an economy that rewarded those risks.

For a few years, the West bloomed, one of the great stories of recovery and the generation of wealth, while the East languished, seemingly locked in a time warp, reliving 1945 over and over. The divide was so striking, the East Germans and their overseers, the Soviet Union, had to build a fence to keep their entire population from decamping and rushing to the West. The Wall stood for for 28 years, but the cracks had begin appearing much earlier. Some of the former "East" people began longing for the economic security and structured life they once knew, but rather than risk going back to the East, they tried to recreate the same economics and integrate it with the much greater wealth of the West. Thus we had a growth, within West Germany, of a social system mirroring what had been in place in East Germany, but better funded. When the Wall came down, the social impact was not all that great by then, but Germany as a whole underwent a negative growth as the decades of neglect in the East were cleaned up, and Germany has still not fully recovered from that economic disaster resulting from incorporating the eastern provinces.

AS a result of reintegrating the two parts of Germany, we have a clumsy and blundering nation, no longer sure of its place in the world, and subject to assault by foreign ideologies, as well as unresolved conflicts within its own culture.

If the experiment is going to be tried in America, there cannot be allowed the drift out of the "Blue Zone" into the "Red Zone" as there was out of East Germany to West Germany. The trickle of refugees carries in its core the disease that destroyed the economic strength of the collapsing state from which it came, without the inspiration that made the prospering state what it was.

True, some would find themselves, by accident or adverse circumstances, stranded on the wrong side of the divide, and there should be some mechanism for repatriation to the more agreeable side. I cannot conceive of how this arrangement between the two parallel countries could be constituted or kept in force. The poverty side would always be looking for ways to extract the wealth from the prosperous side, or failing that, attempting raids over the boundary.

Situation inherently at a state of eternal instability.

[Minn]

"Republicans have perfectly nice manners, normal hair, pleasant smiles, good deodorants, but when it comes right down to it, you do not want them to be monitoring your oxygen tube or running your child's school.

Yes. Democrats have done such a marvelous job of running schools in the best interest of children and educational excellence. They've wandered not at all into self enrichment political machine building.

How frightening it would be if Republicans ran your child's school. Wait! If your child attends private school, chances are Republicans do run it. Care to explain the performance discrepancy Mr. Keillor?

[jellybean]

IowaHawk's satire is much funnier and he's a better writer.

[RightWingAtheist]

[tophat9000]

Looks like he has Maureen Dowd syndrome

[jdege]

Garrison's biggest problem is that he's always wanted to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, and he has never figured out why he hasn't gained the respect from New York society that he deserves.

That one, he doesn't deserve it, and two, their "respect" isn't worth anything, just doesn't seem to register.

[Asclepius]

Cut taxes. Use the money you save to buy a gun and an attack dog to take with you when you drive the Hummer out of the security gate of Republicanville

I will name my ugliest, stinkiest, meanest, and least house-broken dog, Garrison. If he ever snarls or snaps at me I will shoot him repeatedly with the glock I bought with my tax refund.

[ozzymandus]

Remember when this clown left the country because he hated America so much, then came back because he missed the adulation? Typical NPR product.

[jdege]

Remember when he got pissed at Minnesota, because we didn't honor him enough, and he ran off to NYC, where he ended up doing his show in an run-down old movie theater in downtown Brooklyn?

[john_virtue]

Do you want to talk about the ultimate liberal media whore. Look no further than this, my friends.

Keillor's political donations:
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?last=Keillor&first=Garrison

Game. Set. Match.

[steve-b]

Radio humorist Garrison Keillor has never shied away from the dreaded "liberal" label, placing his progressive politics front-and-center in many of his monologues and writings.

LOL!

[steve-b]

Defending the powerless against the powerful is a basic task of government

No, defending the persons, property, and liberty of citizens against agressors who would infringe on them (without regard for which is the more "powerful") is the basic task of government.

[Richard Axtell]

I may be inviting an barbecue of flaming by recounting many happy memories of listening to Keillor's distinctly NON-political material over the years, but read on a bit.

Keillor's best material is in my estimation excellent, and if he, like Barbara Streisand and Bruce Springsteen had wisely stuck to what they knew, he like them would have avoided making utter asses of themselves. Had they stuck to the occupation of entertaining an audience, instead of pompously pronouncing inanities in a field they were totally ignorant of and unprepared for- politics, they would certainly have a much higher standing in the eyes of millions of real, middle class Americans.

But, driven by the nature of leftist ideology and ignoring the hypocrisy of their elitism, they feel the need to abuse their fame, and so spread lies and the most pedestrian propaganda we are likely to hear during this campaign for President. The stale and uninspired observations Keillor offers us in his recent monologues and writings aren't worth the time it takes to click off the radio. Shame, really. When he tries, and sticks to what he knows, he can be quite clever and very funny. But he is awkwardly juvenile and obtusely outside reality when it comes to his distorted view of political and social issues. He would be no opponent in an honest factual debate, going by the lame and pointless tenor of his latests political-hate based rants.

\ I was shocked and very offended when he insisted on floating idiotic conspiracy nonsense regarding the air crash death of Wellstone and his family, finding libelous and insane reasons to like that tragedy to George Bush and the Republicans. I suggest he read the book "Ron Brown's Body" and realize how very off-base and how wrong a side he has chosen to stand on.

I've always said, "...there are two kinds of Liberals, the deceivers and the deceived." Keillor writes his own talking points, like a classic leftist deceiver, but his understanding of the issues, and of America, is that of a pathetically deceived and disoriented mind. Shame, is all I can say.

[TC Rider]

"Republicans have perfectly nice manners, normal hair, pleasant smiles, good deodorants, but when it comes right down to it, you do not want them to be monitoring your oxygen tube or running your child's school.

My recollection is that it's the Dems like the ones in Oregon who want to pinch the O2 tube. Running the schools? Give me a break.

Use the money you save to buy a gun and an attack dog to take with you when you drive the Hummer out of the security gate of Republicanville ..."

I actually did buy a Glock with my GW tax rebate in August of 01, already had an SUV and the attack Schnauzers, I wish I had a hummer.

[TC Rider]

Ugh, a face made for radio.

[TC Rider]

Exactly. He's a dressed up version of Michael Moore.

Seems like I've heard that like Moore, Keillor, the homespun humorist of the plains, has an upper west side condo in NYC.

[Antoninus]

Gee, now there's a shock. A guy who made his career on PBS is a flaming, partisan Democrat! Doesn't that just beat the Dutch!

[weegee]

"Republicans have perfectly nice manners, normal hair, pleasant smiles, good deodorants, but when it comes right down to it, you do not want them to be monitoring your oxygen tube or running your child's school. Like the hall of mirrors at the carnival, they are all about perceptions, the party of Personal Responsibility, which conceals enormous glittering malice and is led by brilliant bandits who are dividing and conquering the sweet land I grew up in. I don't accept this."

We are not the party of euthenasia, murdering nurses, abortion on demand, etc. Your breathing tube is much safer in our hands.

We are not the party that shields sex abusers in school (that is the NEA and homosexual lobbyists). Your children would be much safer with us; right now there is rampent liberal indoctrination going on there (as well as at least one reported incident of a liberal teacher who burned his flag in class after 9/11/2001).