I Did Not Clap for Tinkerbell
The brilliant Mary Steyn has an op-ed today that is up to his amazing best. I don't normally link to such things as op-eds because they are out there and those who have an interest are already reading them while those who don't have an interest will be bored with the linkage. However, there are uses of language in this piece that deserve to be scribed in stone.
"Mr. Edwards, on the other hand, driveling on like a Depression-era sob sister about how the 'bright light' of America now 'flickering' is one of the funniest acts I've seen in years.
...
I think the Edwards smarmarama is ridiculous. It's all about oil, as the antiwar lefties say, and on Tuesday night the oiliness was practically oozing through the TV screen and all over the floor. If every Democratic candidate was as unctuous and oleaginous as Mr. Edwards, gas would be 50 cents a gallon and we could tell the Saudis to go to hell."

"Smarmarama." Wish I'd thought of it.

But the heart of the matter is here:
"Asked about his qualifications to be vice president and thus — in the event of John Kerry being felled by a grisly windsurfing tragedy — president and commander in chief, John Edwards talked about what 'the American people want in their president and in their vice president.' First, he said, 'they want to know that their president and their vice president will keep them safe.'
Oh, phooey. That would be a neat line if the American people had all got lead-poisoning and hired you to file the all-time class-action suit on their behalf. But no president can guarantee safeness in unsafe times."

Exactly. Edwards seems to believe that Americans have a magic wand in their President and Vice-President. And I'm thinking that Americans who engage in such magical thinking will vote Kedwards. I can see them now in their voting booths, squeezing their eyes shut, crossing their fingers and saying, "It was better with Clinton. It was better with Clinton." When they emerge, they can click their heels together three times and repeat "There's no place like home." The likelihood of their being whisked home by Glinda precisely matches the likelihood that they will be safer if the John Boys are elected.
And to explain the title, even as a child I knew that my clapping had no effect on the longevity of that moronic, poison-drinking fairy. And I'm not about to start believing in magic in the voting booth.