So Like Us

I suppose I hadn't really thought about it, but it makes sense that Bobo might regard himself as the Jane Goodall of the political primate set. Since he is neither Type A nor an alpha male, his observations are by necessity too generalized to be useful, too broad-brushed to be insightful.

I can buy that a certain level of emotional stuntedness comes with that higher ground, when it comes to business and politics. For a well-groomed corporate running dog, everything is a commodity, including -- hell, especially -- other people. They are there to be conquered, after a fashion. They're either in competition with you, or they work for you.

And pols by definition have to gladhand every sentient body who approaches them. That's the gig; it's probably not habit so much as second nature with most of them. They only deal with people they want something from, and everyone who talks to them wants something from them.

And this is not a revelation either, but elite call girls make elite money to go home and to be discreet, something mistresses cannot typically be relied upon to do.

Still, what I don't buy is that, given the necessary differences in personality between "them" and "us" (and again Bobo, though he goes to the same parties and drinks from the same poisoned well, proffers this bemused detachment as if he had been dropped in on all this from another planet; klaatu barada appletini, indeed), that there is a necessarily higher preponderance of unseemly behavior in that crowd.

If anything, a good chunk of the reg'lar folks most of us encounter in our daily lives are as emotionally stunted as Larry Craig or Eliot Spitzer. Maybe their "wide stance" simply takes a more socially acceptable, economically opportunistic form; instead of hustling random cock in a public bathroom, they have jacked up their F-350 a couple feet, and race about as if they actually had somewhere to be. There's more than one way to overcompensate for shortcomings. It's all about what people can afford, and what they think will impress the neighbors.

That's what the "more in sorrow than in moralistic anger" tone elides, that people are on the run from themselves, and if they could afford to, they might very well become the party pig that thinks every woman is there to fuck him. I mean, nobody in their right mind actually wants to line up outside of Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving to save thirty bucks on a DVD player. They've just conditioned themselves to understand that that's the best they can hope for.