Let there be no commerce between us

Here’s an example of why there can be no cooperation or interaction between vehement but still rational Bush opponents, like myself, and the disgusting and repulsive Bush haters on the left.

Gail Collins

I noticed a New York Times op-ed piece by Gail Collins that began with this observation:

[Bush] has been saying goodbye for so long, he’s come to resemble one of those reconstituted rock bands that have been on a farewell tour since 1982.

That struck me as pretty funny, so I thought I’d give Collins—for whom I normally have zero regard—a chance and read the rest of the column. As a reward for my open-mindedness, two paragraphs later I came upon this:

So far, the Bush farewell appearances have not drawn a lot of rave reviews. (Most striking, perhaps, was a critique of that final press conference from Ted Anthony of The Associated Press: “It all felt strangely intimate and, occasionally, uncomfortable, in the manner of seeing a plumber wearing jeans that ride too low.”)

This vulgar, contemptible statement about the president of the United States, unacceptable anywhere, appeared in an opinion column in the nation’s premier “elite” newspaper, written by that paper’s former editorial page editor. The liberal elite of today are on a far lower cultural level than the average American thirteen year old was in 1965.

* * *

For readers not familiar with the reference, the title of this entry reverses the final line of Ezra Pound’s poem to Walt Whitman:

A Pact

I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman—
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root—
Let there be commerce between us.

- end of initial entry -

Terry Morris writes:

“…in the manner of seeing a plumber wearing jeans that ride too low.”?

I agree with you that this is inappropriate to say about the president, but I’m not sure I understand the analogy to start with. Doesn’t the stereotypical plumber always wear jeans that “ride too low”? Aren’t all plumbers, stereotypically, low-riding jean wearers? Isn’t it enough to say, therefore, “in the manner of seeing a plumber.”?

LA replies:

The reference is to someone whose pants are so low that when he or she sits or bends over his or her behind shows, as has become a common sight today. Though maybe not in Oklahoma, fortunately for Mr. Morris.

LA writes:

By the way, I googled “Let there be no commerce between us,” and this present entry was the only page that had it. I seem to be the first person to have thought of that play on Ezra Pound’s famous line. Maybe it’s because only a dyspeptic misanthrope (one of Robert Spencer’s descriptions of me), a thin-skinned hater of humanity such as myself, could have thought of it.

Seriously, I’ve always liked a certain type of frankly negative, but not cruel or degrading type of statement. I talked about this last September, in the entry, “How to tell Muslims we don’t want them around,” and gave examples from fiction and movies of what I meant. There’s something life-giving about it, but I’d have to think about why that’s so. Of course Bob Dylan in his mid 1960s period was the absolute genius of negative statements that produce positive, not negative, energy.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 16, 2009 12:36 AM | Send