Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

This blog will pay for itself.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

You are here: Home / Let this be real

Let this be real

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According to the blog Mondoweiss, Leon Wieseltier not only gave this as a wedding toast, but emailed his friends copies of it after the toast (via Matt Yglesias):

All of us here live our lives in plenitudes, even excesses, of significance. We serve our field, our art, our profession, our community, and our country importantly; we believe that we are important enough even to change the world, and in some ways we may be right. We flourish in the awareness of what is larger than ourselves, though it does not always leave us with the awareness that we are small. We are ceaselessly in motion, spinning up and out, mentally and physically; we roam the globe the way our ancestors roamed the town, or the hills just beyond the town. We deny distance and we revere speed, not least as proof that we may bend reality to our wishes and our needs; and we have taught ourselves to think swiftly, and also to feel swiftly. We are accustomed to celebrating ourselves, and to being celebrated, and what we accomplish in our various callings is often worthy of celebration. On our best days, we are moral, smart, purposeful, strong, glamorous, useful, and wide; influences on our history; patriots and cosmopolitans; public people, giving and gaining; the ornaments, and the trustees, of our traditions. This is our time.

I realize that not all of you find ridiculous pomposity as amusing as I do, but I’d like to think at least a few of you do.

I’m not 100% convinced this isn’t some kind of a spoof.

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  1. 1.

    Dave S.

    At a friend’s wedding his best man’s toast consisted of a recitation of the (rather long) list of the groom’s previous girlfriends, with a few salient facts about each. I thought it was the last thing anyone would want to hear at a wedding.

    Now, it is second to last.

  2. 2.

    jenniebee

    We deny distance and we revere speed, not least as proof that we may bend reality to our wishes and our needs

    Yay us! We know how to ride a fucking train!

  6. 6.

    Mark S.

    Geez, this is only one snippet of the whole thing, which must have gone on for about twenty minutes.

  11. 11.

    jeff

    Friends, upon this Ash Wednesday we again, as always, reflect on Eliot’s conversion poem as he muses on his world-historical humility:

    Teach us to care and not to care
    Teach us to shut the fuck up

    Sadly, too few of us have lived up to the latter imprecation; or should we rather blame the Virgin? Who knows? I just thought this was really pompous, and am offering it in the spirit of assholes everywhere.

    cf. http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-7/ash_wednesday_t_s_eliot.htm

  12. 12.

    Midnight Marauder

    All of us here live our lives in plenitudes, even excesses, of significance.

    The irony. It is delicious.

  13. 13.

    Chyron HR

    @Mark S.:

    Geez, this is only one snippet of the whole thing, which must have gone on for about twenty minutes.

    Yeah, but it sounds a lot better with Chris Squire’s bass solo in the middle.

  14. 14.

    ellaesther

    Welllll…. Mondoweiss are the folks who thought that my email to Andrew Sullivan about his use of the word “colonization” in talking about the Israeli settlement project must have come from a shadowy, powerful Jewish media friend-of-Sullivan and Israeli-policy-apologist from whom he was taking heat (no, really), so, they are known to jump to the occasionally wildly inaccurate conclusion.

    In fairness, they did correct the record when I wrote to say: Hi there, it was me! But, yeah….

  17. 17.

    russell

    On our best days, we are moral, smart, purposeful, strong, glamorous, useful, and wide

    On our worst days we are pompous pricks.

    Also: wide?

  18. 18.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    This is the self-consciously high-brow version of “I AM A GOLDEN GOD!!”, but that guy (in the movie, and I assume Robert Plant) was hopped up on booze and drugs, seventies drugs, which I am told were more powerful. Wieseleiter was fueled by nothing but arrogance and self-regard. I like to think Samantha Power discreetly breathed an “Oh my fucking god” to her groom at the head table.

  25. 25.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    OT: I am watching Rachel Maddow and Gail Collins discuss the filibuster, and they are in agreement that it is a very complicated subject. I was a political junkie even before I drank the Kool-Ade Of The O-Bots, but I don’t find it that complicated. I get that not everyone is a pol-junkie, one of my key beliefs about our politics is that most people get their news from three minute snippets on Classic Rock K107, but even I’m not so elitist as to think this is complicated.

  28. 28.

    El Cid

    We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom…

  30. 30.

    eastriver

    He wrote the shit down first. Edited it. Let it sit for a bit. Went back in, fiddled around, decided it was better the first way. Came back to it a day later, punched it up, hit Spell Check, Save As to another drive, considered it Locked. Loaded. Ready.

    AND THEN HE READ THE CRAP ALOUD.

    IN FRONT OF OTHER PEOPLE.

    WHO WERE AWAKE.

    AND SPOKE ENGLISH.

    Where do people get 1) the nerve, and 2) the time?

  33. 33.

    Comrade Luke

    If this was the toast at my wedding I’D BE SO PISSED.

    On the other hand, I assume many people would know who he was as soon as he got up so they would have just rolled their eyes, gone to the bar and ordered a double bourbon on the rocks. And if they didn’t also order one for me and give it to me while he was talking I’D BE SO PISSED.

  38. 38.

    BombIranForChrist

    Sometimes, when I read political thought by certain people, I think, “how the hell does this person even get to the mental planet that allows him to come up with outrageous bullshit like this”, and I usually come to the conclusion that some people’s thoughts are not the result of a philosophy but of a mental illness. Some people think they are Jesus. Others think they are Napoleon. Others, like Wurlitzer and the Moustache, think they are Prime Movers of Human History, the Benevolent Ideologues of our Benevolent Prosperity. But really, they are just a bunch of fat white men with bad hair styles and simple chronic halitosis. They are different in degree but not in kind from teenagers with bad hair styles who fulfill their megalomaniacal fantasies as Level 60 supersonic space elves in some online costume party masquerading as a computer game.

  39. 39.

    Proper Gander

    Morbo @ #5

    Send it to Sully as a Poseur nominee.

    Funny, I read that as “Poseur wannabe.” I think I’ll have to use that one, it could be fun.

  41. 41.

    jeff

    @Siubhan–hey thanks, but I meant to ridicule Wieseltier, not DougJ…or is Brick Oven a parody, too?

    Teach us to care and not to care
    Teach us to STFU already

    has been in my head since morning, when my assistant told me tomorrow is Ash Wednesday (I wouldn’t have known, being an atheist-presbyterian).

  43. 43.

    jl

    Sorry. I don’t get it. What was it about? A wedding?

    But, I’m not Ivy League, so it’s probably far above my head.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    It has been my honor to call Cass a friend, and to regard him increasingly as a brother, for thirty-two years. When I met him, what he knew most about was Samuel Beckett –the beginning of his long road to Ireland, I suppose. When Cass and I talk about Bentham now, I remember Beckett then; and I further reflect that the supple and concrete and wry view of human behavior that Cass has developed in his groundbreaking work of recent years may be described as Bentham diversified by Beckett.

    Geez, my matron of honor just talked about the road trips we took in college and how much fun we had being friends when she gave her toast at our wedding. I guess that’s what I get for having a best friend who’s not a pompous ass.

  45. 45.

    JGabriel

    And in a different, more threatening, kind of pomposity:

    David Barstow, NYTimes:

    … in Indiana, Richard Behney, a Republican Senate candidate, told Tea Party supporters what he would do if the 2010 elections did not produce results to his liking: “I’m cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I’m serious about that, and I bet you are, too.”

    Oh yeah, this is gonna be a fun mid-term election cycle.

    .

  46. 46.

    Midnight Marauder

    @eastriver:

    He wrote the shit down first. Edited it. Let it sit for a bit. Went back in, fiddled around, decided it was better the first way. Came back to it a day later, punched it up, hit Spell Check, Save As to another drive, considered it Locked. Loaded. Ready.
    __
    AND THEN HE READ THE CRAP ALOUD.
    __
    IN FRONT OF OTHER PEOPLE.
    __
    WHO WERE AWAKE.
    __
    AND SPOKE ENGLISH.
    __
    Where do people get 1) the nerve, and 2) the time?

    You can close down the intertubes, ladies and gents. We have our winner tonight.

    +3

  47. 47.

    rootless_e

    we are vain and we are blind
    I hate people when they’re not polite
    pompous editor
    Qu’est-ce Que C’est

  49. 49.

    hilzoy fangirl

    After carefully scrutinizing Mr. Wieseltier’s speech, I am troubled to find that it contains an undercurrent of anti-semitic rhetoric.

  51. 51.

    danimal

    I’m not 100% convinced this isn’t some kind of a spoof.

    The master appreciates true art when he sees it.

  56. 56.

    jl

    oops. I obviously am not Ivy League. Clicked the link and saw the text of the supposed wedding toast.

    Too long. I won’t read it, whatever it is, spoof or not. I will never know. I am an ignorant lout.

  58. 58.

    jl

    @freelancer:

    Tunch is the reason the galaxy is tilted.

    You don’t read this blog regularly, do you?

    Everyone here knows that.

    There is an interactive blog graphic someplace where you can explore the galaxy and universe using the Tunchcentric frame of reference.

    I forget where it is.

  60. 60.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @freelancer: This is true. Used to be you had to be a certified holocaust denier with at least one published paper on the topic or have one drop of Arab blood in yer veins to be an anti-semite.

    Now ya just gotta find Rahm Emanuel distasteful.

  62. 62.

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason

    This is so bad it reflects badly on Cass Sunstein to be associated with someone like this. It’s a shame, because I like Cass Sunstein.

  63. 63.

    Tyro

    It has always been my belief that people who give wedding speeches are normally beset by intense feelings of jealousy that the bride and the groom, not them, are the center of attention and thus make an effort to do everything they can to try to put the spotlight back where they think it belongs: on themselves.

  65. 65.

    Anne Laurie

    @Annie:

    Since this was an Irish wedding, hopefully everyone got up in the middle and went to the bar…

    If this was a real Irish wedding, the only people who pulled their faces out of their glasses / plates when Leon opened his yap were those preparing to heckle him non-stop.

  68. 68.

    Anne Laurie

    @different church-lady:

    Whom among us does not love pomposity?

    … the way my dog loves chew-toys: something to be snatched, run away with, crunched up in haste & the saliva-smeared remnants cherished at leisure.

  71. 71.

    FlipYrWhig

    To be fair, the portion DougJ quotes is immediately followed by “And yet none of these attainments and none of these flatteries are pertinent to what has transpired here today.” Which suggests to me that it’s supposed to be intentionally overblown and self-congratulatory… so that the rest of the speech can be about the special qualities of the couple. The problem is that the rest of the speech _still_ sounds overblown and self-congratulatory. For that reason, it doesn’t work as a tonal or thematic shift.

    But, honestly, this doesn’t strike me as particularly embarrassment-worthy or suggestive of spoof. Needs pruning. It’s a movers-and-shakers wedding, so that’s why it has so much of A Soaring Address To Ye Publick in it. And, again, to his credit, he does work in a joke about how it’s not an honorary degree presentation, it’s a wedding. OK, a quasi-joke, or an extruded joke-like substance. Still, too much honorary degree in there.

  72. 72.

    ppcli

    Unfortunately that speech (really – you have to read the whole thing!) can’t be described in the English language without new resources. The trouble is that we lack a word that would be the solution to x in the analogy:

    medium-sized is to astronomical as gasbag is to x.

    I propose that we introduce the word “Leon” (or better: “Léon”) as the unit of measurement corresponding to exactly the amount of bloviatude radiated by that toast.

    With that groundwork, I announce ppcli’s Conjecture:

    The amount of poseurishness in the assembled pseud’s corner entries in the history of private eye + the collected works of Slavoj Žižek is strictly less than
    1 milliléon.

  75. 75.

    FlipYrWhig

    @DougJ: Could be. It’s like he knows all along that it’s a bit of The Wieseltier Monologues instead of a wedding toast and tries to absolve himself with a few token jokes at his own expense… but also in hopes of justifying his persisting with more and more of The Wieseltier Monologues.

  76. 76.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @JGabriel:

    I love how the story is headlined out of Sandpoint, Idaho. The Idaho panhandle has been a home for such scum as Richard Butler, former head/minister of the Aryan Nations movement and other minor hate groups. There are some crazy-assed nutjobs in that neck of the woods. Having grown up in Spokane and traveled all over the area I am well aware of how bad it is up there. I’m not surprised to see a story on the teabaggers originating out of there.

    Eastern Washington is a beautiful part of our country but I am glad to be out of that place. The cops suck, the local governments suck and the people who like it that way it suck.

  79. 79.

    Tax Analyst

    @Bruce (formerly Steve S.):

    Isn’t there supposed to be something about the happy couple in there?

    Shorter Leon Wieseltier:

    “Well, yes. But fuck them because everything is really always about me.”

    Also:

    “On our best days, we are moral, smart, purposeful, strong, glamorous, useful, and wide; influences on our history; patriots and cosmopolitans; public people, giving and gaining; the ornaments, and the trustees, of our traditions. This is our time.

    He forgot:

    “We are stardust, we are golden,
    We are billion year old carbon,
    And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

    (Joni Mitchell, “Woodstock”)

    Jeezus, Leon certainly is a self-important putz, isn’t he?

  81. 81.

    fraught

    Did he read this stuff off his palm or was it extemporaneous and recorded and then transcribed? It sounds like three-sheets-to-the-wind blarney at an Irish wake. And I thought we O’Fraughts were full of it.

  82. 82.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    To be fair, the portion DougJ quotes is immediately followed by “And yet none of these attainments and none of these flatteries are pertinent to what has transpired here today.”

    Whatever happened to, “Bill, you’re a great guy [slurring a bit] — oh, did I say great guy? I meant big jerk! [laughter] — but Susan is a great gal! You’re the luckiest sonofa…..gun [laughter] on the face of the Earth! I wish you all [slurring a bit] the best happiness and stuff! I love you guys [eyes welling, slurring]!” Now that’s a toast.

  83. 83.

    JGabriel

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):

    There are some crazy-assed nutjobs in that neck of the woods.

    I think the focus on that area is a consequence of Barstow’s thesis, in that people so far to the right, such that they view the GOP as part of a liberal conspiracy in cahoots with the Dems, are pretty much going to be the craziest-assed nutjobs of the whole tea party movement.

    Although I can think of some parts of Pennsylvania that are on par with that kind of crazy, and I suspect it’s the norm in most parts of Alabama and South Carolina.

    .

  87. 87.

    General Winfield Stuck

    @JGabriel:

    Worried about hyperinflation, social unrest or even martial law,

    Yes, the too little discussed triad of Obama’s program for America. These fools don’t like the color black in their white house is all. A thousand whack-a-doodle rationalizations won’t change that a bit.

  88. 88.

    JGabriel

    FlipYrWhig, quoting Wieseltier:

    To be fair, the portion DougJ quotes is immediately followed by “And yet none of these attainments and none of these flatteries are pertinent to what has transpired here today.”

    Then why fuck bring them up? I’m with DougJ on this one – that just makes it worse.

    .

  89. 89.

    Tax Analyst

    After a toast like that I think it’s fair to say this marriage is doomed to failure.

    I’m imagining that immediately after the wedding the bride is berating the groom, “Why didn’t you at least try to stop that asshole?”, followed by an intensely frustrating episode involving a failure to adequately consumate.

  90. 90.

    Citizen_X

    And nobody farted or belched loudly, or drunkenly yelled, “Shut the fuck up!“?

    What the hell kind of a wedding is that?

  92. 92.

    JGabriel

    rootless_e:

    hello, Texas is paging you.

    Possibly I’m wrong, but I think Texas is too big to maintain the same ratio of high-level wingnut crazy as AL and SC, even though it certainly has a place there.

    .

  95. 95.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    I grew up camping, snowmobiling, dirt biking, boating, swimming and every other outdoor thing you can do all around that area. I know the place like the back of my hand, same with the people. Later I serviced watercraft on many of the lakes that dot the area and I got to know the locals in those areas real well. There are some good people around there but they are outnumbered by the assholes and idiots.

    My wife and I both grew up in Spokane and neither of us would go there again if we didn’t have any family there. It’s a nice place but I wouldn’t want to live there (again). We got a few teabaggers down here on the south Oregon coast but they are few and far between. Our daughter keeps track of them for entertainment and says that their last ‘rally’ had less than ten people there.

    She works with the public and runs into these people all of the time. Everyone pretty much ignores them which is just fine with me.

  96. 96.

    JGabriel

    @freelancer: Dunno. Just as well maybe. The Ahab references would only sidetrack into Moby Dick references, and, I hear, that mixing Thompson and Melville is just begging for a harsh trip, man.

    .

  98. 98.

    asiangrrlMN

    Holy shit. I clicked on the link and tried to read the whole speech, but, oh, hell no. My eyes kept glazing over involuntarily–and I love words.

    @Tax Analyst: I’m with you. If my hypothetical fiance had a best man who gave that speech, I would seriously question my choice of hypothetical husbands.

    Someone really needed to tell him to STFU.

    In the excerpt above, I started reading it three or four times and could not get through the first sentence. I had to skim after that.

  99. 99.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    Regarding Leon and his windy speech?

    One word describes Leon. Coincidentally it’s a word that Republicans revile.

    Elitist.

    This is what happens when you are insulated from reality, when you live your life in a bubble.

  103. 103.

    FlipYrWhig

    @JGabriel: I think the premise is that normally when Important People like them are gathered, it’s to alter the course of the world. It’s the literary-politico-academic nexus of the universe. But this time it’s a wedding. BUT just because it’s a wedding doesn’t mean it still won’t be something that alters the course of the world.

    So for me it’s hugely self-important in premise and the style can only be described as “tumescent.” But it has a few somewhat humorous notes and it’s not incoherent. And it is–eventually–about the couple. Though frankly I find that part to have a higher squick factor than the excerpt.

  104. 104.

    Phoebe

    Holy shit holy shit. That is breathtaking. I tried to read the original too, and failed. And Matt Y LIKES IT!

    I pulled this pretty much at random:

    “When my boy grows older, I will teach Cass to him, which is to say, I will teach him that smart and sweet can, no, must — go together. What is the use, or the beauty, of reason if it is not human reason?”

    I might agree with the substance, I suppose. I’m all for smart-n-sweet. Who isn’t? But It doesn’t matter. The way he said it is just foul. The fact that he WROTE “can, no, must”. Imagine having to sit through that whole thing. I would start hallucinating.

  105. 105.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    Imagine having to sit through that whole thing. I would start hallucinating fake a heart attack to save everyone.

    Fix’t.

  106. 106.

    silentbeep

    @Phoebe: um is this a new way of being snarky that I’m not aware of? Matt Y. called it “absurdly egomaniacal.” I don’t think that translates into like.

  109. 109.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @scav:

    I thought that version of the ‘save’ was when the large colon turns inside-out and he disappears.

    I’d pay to see that.

    I wonder what would have happened if someone had started laughing hysterically about half-way though that vomit-inducing masturbatory abuse of the English language.

  110. 110.

    scav

    @DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): That would work and I’d certainly chip in some cash along side you to watch that version. Rather Olympic in a sort of: “We’re approaching perhaps the most difficult part of his program tonight: the triple live-action inverting Mobius endo-colonic.” I was originally just going for 42. Equally valid parallel universes.

  112. 112.

    brantl

    There needs to be a biography written about this guy, it should be called “The Accidental Cocksucker“. I friend of mine used to say, you might as well of jazzed on the sidewalk, as had that.

  113. 113.

    Svensker

    @RedKitten:

    At the end, all it needed was the immortal Vicki Lawrence to say “You sure that little asshole’s through?”

    The first time I’ve ever actually SEEN anyone ROFL.

    Hilarious.

  114. 114.

    Egypt Steve

    Lion Weasel-Creature. There’s a hell of a pun in there somewhere. I do feel bad about posting this but cannot resist.

  116. 116.

    dino goposaur

    Let’s see if this helps…

    awl uv awr heer liev awr livez in plenitudez, even excessez, uv significance. We serve awr field, awr destructiev-art, awr professhun, awr community, adn awr mutch-widah-pissin-territory importantly; we bewievez dat we iz important enough even ta change teh wurld, adn in sum waiz we may b riet. We flourish in teh awareness uv whut iz largah than ourselvez, though eet duz nawt olwayz leef awr wif teh awareness dat we iz small. We iz ceaselessly in moshun, spinnin up adn owt, mentally adn physicawly; we roam teh gloeb teh wai awr ancestorz roameded teh widah-pissin-territory, or teh hillz jus beyond teh widah-pissin-territory. We deny distance adn we reveer speed, nawt least az proof dat we may bend reelity ta awr wishez adn awr needz; adn we haz teached ourselvez ta finks swiftly, adn also ta feel swiftly. We iz accustomeded ta celebratin ourselvez, adn ta bein celebrateded, adn whut we accomplish in awr variouz cawlingz iz often worthy uv celebrashun. Awn awr betterest daiz, we iz moral, smart, purposeful, stron, glamorouz, uzful, adn wied; influencez awn awr history; patriotz adn cosmopolitanz; public peeps, givin adn gainin; teh ornamentz, adn teh trusteez, uv awr traditionz. dis iz awr tyme.

    crap, not even lolspeak can save this.

  117. 117.

    Nick

    This reminds me of Kodos’ electioneering speech from the Simpsons:

    My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

  120. 120.

    psychobroad

    It wasn’t “Spaceballs” , it was “The Princess Bride”. And are we sure that speech wasn’t written by Pegginton Noonington?

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