'Amazing Grace' in the Garden ; Making Twinklies Squirm at a Grand Old Party

Summary

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Politics is theater, and politicians are merely the performers. Candidates - like Hollywood stars - seek the best writers and scripts they can afford, and we judge them on how they play their roles. To the winners go the trophies of office.

Candidates have always had to appeal to a variety of audiences - we call them voters - but now that everything must be entertainment first, every candidate must show versatility in different kinds of performances, often playing against type. Why else would John Kerry, a stiff New Englander (no matter what his multicultural antecedents are) go on cable-TV's Comedy Central to make fun of his Vietnam heroics?

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Extract

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'Amazing Grace' in the Garden ; Making Twinklies Squirm at a Grand Old Party

In a convoluted attack on President Bush, the show's host, Jon Stewart, interrupts the senator with a deadpan question: "Were you or were you not in Cambodia?" The two spar nonsensically until the h...

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