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Ya, you betcha!

heinz ketchup packet

In the Summer before the 2004 presidential election, Jon Stewart interviewed John Kerry and asked him ”Is it true that every time I use ketchup your wife gets a nickel?” Do you remember this? Remember his answer?

“Would that it were, would that it were” Kerry intoned, squeezing the four syllables out his nose in a lugubrious patrician drawl. Any normal person would have chirped, “I wish!” but no…John Kerry had to go all Thurston Howell III up in there.

I still have a bug up my ass about this. Christopher Buckley. Heather McDonald. Peggy Noonan. These avowed conservatives have embraced Obama and/or rejected Palin simply because he’s a “would that it were” kind of guy and she’s a definite “I wish!” kind of gal.

And the problem with that is that “would that it were” is stupid. It isn’t clever. It’s not le mot just. It conveys the exact same sentiment as “I wish!” but not as crisply. It’s the kind of empty gasbaggery that regularly leaks out of a second-rate intellect that has been dragged through a first-class education.

It’s dumb. And YOU’RE dumb if you get so hung up on accent you miss the underlying ideas.

Every day of the week, chatty Joe Biden utters a thing so shockingly stupid it makes milk come out of Dan Quayle’s nose. Barack Obama says “pie” fifteen times in 104 seconds and it’s like he just yanked Excalibur out of a rock. The governor of Alaska says “doggone it” and she’s a moron. The verdict of dimwits.

You know what I really hate about our elites? YOU GUYS ARE NOT ELITE. You’re ruthlessly average. You’re second-raters who went to good schools, and you know it. You’re desperately insecure about your gifts and social position or you wouldn’t use big words when little ones suffice or yowl like scalded cats when a lady with a Western twang gets a seat at the head of your table.

Feh. I went to prep school too, my fellow assholes. Alma mater is no guarantor of smarts or ability. Or success.

Would that it were, would that it were.

October 17, 2008 — 10:30 am
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