Its seductions are many, hence the ancient annual Catholic baptismal vow renewal, that we reject “the glamor of evil.”
We all fall for “cool.” It is that powerful. Greg Gutfeld wants to talk about it, and does a mostly great job:
Witness how the media mocked a gentle mess like the Tea Party but embraced the soiled rag of Occupy Wall Street. To the network and newspaper hacks, one was simply way cooler than the other. One reminded them of their parents, the other reminded them of themselves. Without a bath.
Why is this duopoly, the cool vs. the uncool, so important? It won an election. (…)
In the meantime, the cool kids have to try to govern. Which is kind of like James Dean trying to drive. Unfortunately, we’re all in the passenger seat. Unfortunately, we’re all in the passenger seat. But we’ve got two years to find another driver, folks. Ladies and Gentlemen: start your engines.
***
Alas, Gutfeld is too optimistic. You can wait too long to “get another driver.”
Look at Rolf Wutherich. He miraculously survived the Dean Porshe crash, which took place during a drive that was supposed to be short and fairly routine.
And Rolf was a mechanic. He knew how cars worked. He was an expert.
Rolf was Mitt Romney to Obama’s James Dean.
But his sober, proven expertise didn’t prevent the crash. It didn’t magically rub off on Dean (or Turnupseed) as if by osmosis, even though he was sitting beside the star, working literally as a chaperone.
By the time of the crash, it was obviously too late for anyone involved to “get another driver.”
And Rolf survived, but was never the same. He eventually died in a similar crash, years later, no longer the competent expert, but a sick, reckless man.
Reduced to sick recklessness by the notorious crash in which he’d once been the competent, chaperoning expert — in the passenger seat.
