Love the sin, hate the sinner or whatever

Forty five-odd years ago, a popular poster, sweatshirt etc. showed the Peanuts character Linus (blanket in tow), protesting loudly, "I love mankind -- it's people I can't stand."

That flashed back to me last week when I read Marco Rubio's justification for a fresh round of budget terrorism:

“I have tremendous respect for this institution,” Mr. Rubio said in an interview on Friday. “But I’m not all that interested in the way things have always been done around here.” 

"The way things have always been done" in this case means reconciling House and Senate budgets without tying those negotiations to a threat of national default.

The Times editorial board reminded me of that flashback this morning. Their take on Rubio's comment: it exemplifies the mindset of the latest crop of high profile Republicans, who "want to dismantle government, using whatever crowbar happens to be handy, and they don’t particularly care what traditions of mutual respect get smashed at the same time."

As Peanuts characters used to say from time to time: I'd be foolish to deny it.

(Re)birth and (forecast) death of a genre

Chris Beam's inspired bit of ventriloquism, imagining What if political scientists covered the news?, has swiftly inspired a spinoff spoof by Conor Friedersdorf in which, as Jonathan Chait retitles it, "A Sociologist Covers the News." Chait groans, "I foresee a progressively less-amusing internet trope" -- a preemptive strike against a newborn bloggy genre within a week of its apparent birth.

Not to worry. Every literary birth is a rebirth. Beam's "What if political scientists covered the news?" is good son to Woody Allen's If the impressionists had been dentists" (1978):

Dear Theo
Will life never treat me decently? I am wracked by despair! My head is pounding. Mrs Sol Schwimmer is suing me because I made her bridge as I felt it and not to fit her ridiculous mouth. That's right! I can't work to order like a common tradesman. I decided her bridge should be enormous and billowing and wild, explosive teeth flaring up in every direction like fire! Now she is upset becuase it won't fit in her mouth! She is so bourgeois and stupid, I want to smash her. I tried forcing the false plate in but it sticks out like a star burst chandelier. Still, I find it beautiful. She claims she can't chew! What do I care whether she can chew or not! Theo, I can't go on like this much longer! I asked Cezanne if he would share an office with me but he is old and infirm and unable to hold the instruments and they must be tied to his wrists but then he lacks accuracy and once inside a mouth, he knocks out more teeth than he saves. What to do?
Vincent 

Compare Beam: