Tuesday, April 24, 2007

SEATTLE: REPORT FROM BEHIND ENEMY LINES

So, the wife and I spent a few days in Seattle visiting some of her relatives. It was actually quite an enjoyable trip, and Seattle was surprisingly nice and well kept for a big city. We did the usual tourist stuff, including wayyyy too much shopping, none of which, to my chagrin, involved any sporting goods, hardware or book stores. Down on the water front, we had dinner at a nice restaurant where, for $36, you can get almost as much fresh fish as you would from catching a medium-sized bluegill.

While we were eating, I couldn't help but overhear the high-pitched, nasal pronouncements of the uber liberal behind me at the next table. He minced out every pearl of wisdom with the haughty, self-inflated pomposity of a celebrity. He "conspiratorially" mentioned his blog about every other sentence, hinting wistfully at the pure genius it contained. Every time his table companion attempted to make any point, or really just say anything, he smarmily issued forth great pronouncements from on high about how and why she was close but wrong, using arguments that seemed rather long on his ego and opinion and very short on facts pertaining to the real world.

I wish I had written down some of his nose-in-the-air pontifications. Of course Al Gore and Global Warming were discussed, this being their Religion, to be defended against the blasphemers with all the zeal of a jihadist suicide bomber. The only quote I can remember verbatim came during their (actually his) "Hillary or Obama as the Greatest Single Human Entity in History" spiel. From the weenie, and I quote: "I don't care about their platform! I don't care about the issues! I just want strong leadership!" I could not allow such a ludicrous comment, no matter how forcefully lisped, to go unnoticed, earning me my usual elbow in the ribs from my wife.

But really, think about it. You don't care what your leader stands for as long as he leads? That's where Concentration Camps and Gulags come from, in the end. This guy didn't care if our "leader" took us briskly straight down the highway to Hell, as long as he/she did it with style.

As we left, I found myself sadly guilty of stereotyping. Listening to this weenie mincing and pontificating for a half an hour, I had pictured some zit-encrusted 20-year-old college boy with glasses and that "kewl" slovenly and unkempt look, with maybe 2-4 seconds of actual Real World experience, trying to impress some equally shallow co-ed.

In actuality, this guy was a clean-shaven, well-dressed, fit and affluent individual in his mid-50's. His wife or girlfriend was a nice-looking blonde in her 40's who had sat curled up in the booth beside him and had not uttered a word during the whole conversation. The person Thad had been primping and prinking for was another woman in her late 40's, a brunette, who bore a less-than-thrilled expression, but appeared to be willing to let him have "won" their discussions.

I tried to make sheep noises as we passed by in leaving the restaurant, but my wife's elbow is deadly.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In the diatribe against liberals, you forgot to mention a few key points which seem to be a crucial part of any conservative rant. So, in no particular order: Any anti-Bush comments made are surely unpatriotic, if not treasonous, during a time of war; this fat cat (who probably listens to NPR and drives a hybrid) spending so much money on a dinner is definitely not a hard-laboring man of the people like Bush, Brownback, etc.; tree-huggers concerned about environmental warming (that most scientists not working for the Bush administration agree is a real problem)must surely value dung beetles over human beings; as a liberal, he is no doubt a godless sinner working to ban Christmas trees and Easter bunnies from all public places.