Introducing La Siège Silencieuse (Pat. Pend.)

Dear Dr. Bones,

Here, whight from the same goodvolks who brought you "The Silent Majority," ta-DAAAH:

Close, but not a bingoe (( fold here )) What the Funders of Fratboy L.L.C. ought ideally to instruct their operatives to seek is not simply "a whole hour of Warren talking about the middle class being hammered," beneficial though that show would be for the ElevenPercenter cause. Especially if the 89% could somehow be forced or frauded into tuning in. The "empty chair" strategy of Comrade Sutter and Citizen Paleologos is old and tired, every way unworthy of the Fingers of Fehrnstrom. No, what would suit America’s Otherparty best, both in the Mass. Senatorial election and in the great POTUSial foodfight, would be for Senator Fratboy (or Governor Romney) to be seen sittin’ on the said chair, but SEEN ONLY. What yoovolks want is rather a Silent Chair (Pat. Pend.) for your team, than an empty one for ours. ¡That would indeed be the catbird seat! (( Sir Galahad de Wrentham about to fill La Siège Silencieuse )) The Otherparty should play to their strengths, of which lookin’ good--whether lascivious or respectable--from a distance is undoubtedly one. That is speaking generally. With the Shirtless Cosmopolitan himself as a candidate . . . well, ’twere a pity if the Fratboy Funders were deaf to Ms. Opportunity hammerin’ like crazy Khazei on the back door. Happy days.

I guess Party Neocomrade Fehrnstrom is too young to remember the palmy days of The Silent Majority™, but presumably Republicanines actually do keep records, records to which the Otherparty may recur in a pinch, when Their Ford is not around to holler ¡bunk! I don’t remember the exact SM™ M.O. myself, but it stands to reason, ¿does it not?, that silence ought to call out to silence, awakenin’ transparent echoes in the bosom of every half-plausible candidate for future membership in the Daughters of Virtue & Sons of Wisdom Inc.

Even if Paddy is mistaken on that point, there remains the hits-one-in-both-eyeballs fact that Fratboy an’ Romney are far more photogenic than the good guys. Your [1] ideobuddy over to the Herald, Howard Louis Lawrence (¿?), zeroth Freelord Carr in the peerage of Foxcuckooland, likes to go on about "the Beautiful People," meanin’ us donkeys. Perfectly absurd--though admittedly the editors at his freelordship’s employin’ Corporation know better than Howie does, as witness their on-goin’ quest for the most repulsive snapshot yet of Perfesser Fauxchahontas of H*rv*rd. [2]

Fratboy is, of course, preëminently photogenic.  "The shirtless cosmopolitan," as Eye have spoofed already.  Should two years of warmin’ The People’s Seat™ have already made it insufferable to his freelordship to assist quietly while others harangue the mob, perhaps he need not sit in person.  A blown-up copy of the pertinent page of the pertinent national magazine could make the Chair of Silence almost as deadly a political weapon, and that arrangement would obviate all risk that the golden Silence gets broken by some ex tempore exuberance that could be used against.

I remember the other day the Fingers of Fehrnstrom did something or another, forget what, that caused Paddy and Eye to recall the late Nicholas Biddle's proposed handlin' of General Harrison von Tippecanoe, pen and ink to be forbidden as strictly as to a mad poet in Bedlam &c.  Ah, here it is:

Biddle To Herman Cope Phila. Augst. 11, 1835 My dear Sir, My theory in regard to the present condition of the country is in a few words this. For the last few years the Executive power of the Govt. has been weilded by a mere gang of banditte. [2]  I know these people perfectly — keep the police on them constantly — and in my deliberate judgment, there is not on the face of the earth a more profligate crew.... (...) I have but one remark more to make. If Gen1. Harrison is taken up as a candidate, it will be on account of the past, not the future. Let him then rely entirely on the past. Let him say not one single word about his principles, or his creed — let him say nothing—promise nothing. Let no Committee, no convention—no town meeting ever extract from him a single word, about what he thinks now, or what he will do hereafter. Let the use of pen and ink be wholly forbidden as if he were a mad poet in Bedlam. Gen1. Harrison can speak well & write well — but on this occasion he should neither speak nor write — but be silent — absolutely and inflexibly silent . . . .

America's Otherparty bein' of, by an' for essentially the same Biddle-oid goodvolks in 2012 as in 1835, that advice is likely to be better than anythin' neo-innovated by Fehrnstrom & Co.  So let us hope they never think of it.

Happy days.
--JHM

_____
[1]  This  article has a complicated provenance:  Paddy and Eye started out addressing it all to Dr. Cuteless personally.

[2] Cultivated despisers of Wingnut City should take care lest we become so extremely cultivated as to think tabloid tactics an’ the agitprop of a Howard Lawrence Lewis (¿?) Carr beneath notice.


[3] "Wielded by _banditti_" is no doubt what his freelordship intended.

Two boobooes like that perpetrated whight together cast a little doubt, perhaps, on the merits of "Due to his rapid educational progress, he entered the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 10. When the university refused to award the teenager a degree, he transferred to Princeton and graduated in 1801, at 15, the class valedictorian.

   

¡Qué lástima! that Old Nick should not be a fruit of Neohaven.