You Brought Me Draft Beer In A Plastic Cup

Matt Taibbi, who shows up semi-regularly on Bill Maher's HBO show and in Rolling Stone magazine, troubles me.

In this book, he excoriates the 2000-2006 Republican-led congress for doing little public work besides naming post offices while its real deeds were hidden in committee and late-night special apropriation meetings. He also decries the 2006-2010 Democratic-led congress for not being much different, and for failing to (and in fact purposely avoiding any attempt to) carry out their constituents' demands to end the Iraq war.

He also argues that a dissatisfaction with the workings of politics and the media that covers them leads some citizens into fringe areas -- here he examines the evangelical right wing and left-wing 9/11 conspiracy "Truthers." In an epilogue and an afterword, he essentially tries to make the case that cronyism and special interest lobbiests beneft from a distracted populace, and particularly from a divided and hateful populace, and that the "Red vs. Blue" meme we are all supposed to embody is essentially a ruse used against us. So, a lot of stuff we already sort of know, but it's always nice for someone to put things into words on our behalf.

I'd be more likely to accept this Aesopian "moral" at the end of the story, though, if Taibbi weren't himself so hateful -- often excellently, hilariously so -- in his own coverage. About half of this book concerns Taibbi's experience "undercover" as a new member of John Haggee's conservative Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, TX. Most of his interactions are with non-leadership members of the church such as discussion group leaders and fellow new inductees, and it's these people -- regular old folks, it seems -- that Taibbi riddicules, fools, and exposes, which strikes me (and, at times, Taibbi) as a bit sour. For example, when Taibbi meets a fellow church-goer who, in comments about the death penalty, seems to stand just on the precipice of doubt, Taibbi uses evangelical arguments to essentially bully the fellow back in line with church doctrine, all so that he can demonstrate to his reader how spineless and malleable the Cornerstone population can be. Meanwhile: a missed opportunity to help this person change his mind, to lead him to a more forgiving and perhaps Christ-like perspective.

The book also creates a sort of false dichotomy, a tactic of the same kind of "Crossfire"-bred mainstream media Taibbi decries. To suggest that Democrats are just as boring and awful and corrupt as Republicans may be true on its face, but it's a bit "pox on both your houses," a bit juvenile in it's proud assertion that while one Emperor may have no clothes, the others are poorly dressed. The flip-side of the Evangelical right is not the conspiracy buff left, is it? Do they hold equal power? Do they carry the same cultural heft?

Anyway, in the end, Taibbi comes off for me as somewhat like Chuck Klosterman -- someone who's bright and talented and a decent writer, but also a bit of an assh*le.