But I'm A Cheerleader
I’ve always been rather mystified by the fact that the good folks at the Oregon Daily Emerald hired me as an opinion columnist when nearly all of the things I write never offer any sort of opinion. The other four opinion columnists are all accomplished, talented writers, and every last one of them is absolutely bristling with opinions about stuff. Every week, their columns advocate or impugn social or political issues. Research is done. Sources are cited. Sometimes, after reading one of their articles, I need a glass of water. Their stuff is intense, relevant, and hard hitting.
So I feel out of place following up the Tuesday article about the GOP’s role in our current financial crisis with an impassioned treatise about my bike. Sure, it’s funny, but there isn’t an opinion there; the only opinion you could hope to find in my body of work is “Things that happen to me are amusing upon analysis”. Generally, my blog updates and columns are less a tour-de-force and more a roller coaster ride: There’s a few bumps, a few laughs, a few thills, and then you’re back where you started, and maybe somebody has thrown up. My coworkers are four Edward R. Murrows, sticking it to the man with every article, whereas I am Garrison Keillor; talented and a national treasure, yes, but also just a guy who tells funny stories.
I’m very opinionated. For example, you will notice that I frequently have very few good things to say about our current government. However, I tend not to make these opinions the center of what I’m writing about because I go to the University of Oregon, and writing an opinion article here about hating the Bush Administration is about as groundbreaking and innovative as writing an article about how much you want the football team to win the next game. As an arch-liberal, my opinions are those of the masses in my environment, and if I were to write my opinions down and publish them in a paper circulated only in this highly liberal environment, I wouldn’t be writing an opinion column, but a propaganda column. Allow me to explain: As a proponent of gun control, I am a huge fan of Bowling For Columbine, with full knowledge that a good chunk of the facts stated in the film are, for lack of a better term, hella fallacious. The reason I enjoy it is because I like to forget about the other side’s feelings for an hour and a half and just get fired up about how supposedly right I am for agreeing with the filmmaker. People like Michael Moore* and Keith Olbermann** are basically ideological cheerleaders*** – they just pump up the liberals in the stands with carefully selected facts, hyperbole, and flashy editing. While I enjoy cheerleaders, I’m not sure if I want to be one just yet. As much as I’d like for my columns to foster intelligent debate about The Issues™, I feel that in the Oregon Daily Emerald they would be little more than “Rah rah impeachment, sis boom campaign finance reform!”
*Despite my thoughts on Bowling For Columbine, I hate Michael Moore. I think he’s condescending and kind of a weasel.
**Despite my words about ideological cheerleaders, I really like Keith Olbermann. He seems like a stand-up guy, the sort of liberal cheerleader I would want to ask to homecoming.
***Despite the seeming harshness of my words about ideological cheerleading, I mean absolutely no offense to my fellow writers at the Emerald. For one, many of them write about social issues or local events over which the campus community is considerably more divided. Also, ideological cheerleaders are essential – they give ordinary people the courage to be outspoken about their views, even when they’re not surrounded by their own fans.
That being said, you’ll notice that last week’s update from my column was a blistering critique of Sarah Palin’s statements about “the best of America” and the candidates’ insistence on their small-town simplicity as evidence of their trustworthiness. It was undoubtedly a piece of cheerleading, but I was proud to grab some pom-poms and don a pleated skirt because the very fact that an imbecile like Sarah Palin is allowed to waste our time with such carelessly inflammatory language offends me on a very deep level that transcends politics. So I wrote my column, saw it run in the paper, and was a little surprised to receive the following piece of hate mail on the Oregon Daily Emerald’s website.
As you will notice, I did “post him back”, dismantling his argument like a 250 pound bodybuilder stepping on the neck of a petulant six year old with polio. I think that, given the circumstances, I did an excellent job of defending myself, although there were a couple of other rebuttals I had in mind that were maybe a tad closer to his level of intellect.
In the end, though, I feel like this was a pretty valuable experience for me. As much as I’d like to say that the only reason I didn’t write opinion articles before now was because I didn’t want to pee into an ocean of similar opinions, the main reason was because I was scared of getting shouted down by detractors. Even though the University of Oregon is a liberal school, we do have our conservative community, and they are an awfully tenacious bunch given the fact that they’re so heavily outnumbered. My primary fear had been that I’d make an offhand statement I believed to be true, only to have it thoroughly disproved in front of everyone by a conservative reader who had done his homework. Hate mail gets a lot less scary when you realize that not all the people contesting your opinions are well informed and intelligent – some, like Jake Walker, are total fucking morons. Jake Walker, you are a total fucking moron.
Furthermore, I learned that I like cheerleading a whole hell of a lot more than I’d thought I would. For the first time, I was able to look at my article in the paper and actually feel like a halfway decent journalist, not just some wayward creative writing major who had been shuffled into the Opinion Desk amongst four professionals. I don’t know if I’m going to make a habit of liberal sideline dancing or not, but I have been watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann recently…
Truman Capps hopes he doesn't lose his job over any of this.
So I feel out of place following up the Tuesday article about the GOP’s role in our current financial crisis with an impassioned treatise about my bike. Sure, it’s funny, but there isn’t an opinion there; the only opinion you could hope to find in my body of work is “Things that happen to me are amusing upon analysis”. Generally, my blog updates and columns are less a tour-de-force and more a roller coaster ride: There’s a few bumps, a few laughs, a few thills, and then you’re back where you started, and maybe somebody has thrown up. My coworkers are four Edward R. Murrows, sticking it to the man with every article, whereas I am Garrison Keillor; talented and a national treasure, yes, but also just a guy who tells funny stories.
I’m very opinionated. For example, you will notice that I frequently have very few good things to say about our current government. However, I tend not to make these opinions the center of what I’m writing about because I go to the University of Oregon, and writing an opinion article here about hating the Bush Administration is about as groundbreaking and innovative as writing an article about how much you want the football team to win the next game. As an arch-liberal, my opinions are those of the masses in my environment, and if I were to write my opinions down and publish them in a paper circulated only in this highly liberal environment, I wouldn’t be writing an opinion column, but a propaganda column. Allow me to explain: As a proponent of gun control, I am a huge fan of Bowling For Columbine, with full knowledge that a good chunk of the facts stated in the film are, for lack of a better term, hella fallacious. The reason I enjoy it is because I like to forget about the other side’s feelings for an hour and a half and just get fired up about how supposedly right I am for agreeing with the filmmaker. People like Michael Moore* and Keith Olbermann** are basically ideological cheerleaders*** – they just pump up the liberals in the stands with carefully selected facts, hyperbole, and flashy editing. While I enjoy cheerleaders, I’m not sure if I want to be one just yet. As much as I’d like for my columns to foster intelligent debate about The Issues™, I feel that in the Oregon Daily Emerald they would be little more than “Rah rah impeachment, sis boom campaign finance reform!”
*Despite my thoughts on Bowling For Columbine, I hate Michael Moore. I think he’s condescending and kind of a weasel.
**Despite my words about ideological cheerleaders, I really like Keith Olbermann. He seems like a stand-up guy, the sort of liberal cheerleader I would want to ask to homecoming.
***Despite the seeming harshness of my words about ideological cheerleading, I mean absolutely no offense to my fellow writers at the Emerald. For one, many of them write about social issues or local events over which the campus community is considerably more divided. Also, ideological cheerleaders are essential – they give ordinary people the courage to be outspoken about their views, even when they’re not surrounded by their own fans.
That being said, you’ll notice that last week’s update from my column was a blistering critique of Sarah Palin’s statements about “the best of America” and the candidates’ insistence on their small-town simplicity as evidence of their trustworthiness. It was undoubtedly a piece of cheerleading, but I was proud to grab some pom-poms and don a pleated skirt because the very fact that an imbecile like Sarah Palin is allowed to waste our time with such carelessly inflammatory language offends me on a very deep level that transcends politics. So I wrote my column, saw it run in the paper, and was a little surprised to receive the following piece of hate mail on the Oregon Daily Emerald’s website.
A dramatic reading
As you will notice, I did “post him back”, dismantling his argument like a 250 pound bodybuilder stepping on the neck of a petulant six year old with polio. I think that, given the circumstances, I did an excellent job of defending myself, although there were a couple of other rebuttals I had in mind that were maybe a tad closer to his level of intellect.
In the end, though, I feel like this was a pretty valuable experience for me. As much as I’d like to say that the only reason I didn’t write opinion articles before now was because I didn’t want to pee into an ocean of similar opinions, the main reason was because I was scared of getting shouted down by detractors. Even though the University of Oregon is a liberal school, we do have our conservative community, and they are an awfully tenacious bunch given the fact that they’re so heavily outnumbered. My primary fear had been that I’d make an offhand statement I believed to be true, only to have it thoroughly disproved in front of everyone by a conservative reader who had done his homework. Hate mail gets a lot less scary when you realize that not all the people contesting your opinions are well informed and intelligent – some, like Jake Walker, are total fucking morons. Jake Walker, you are a total fucking moron.
Furthermore, I learned that I like cheerleading a whole hell of a lot more than I’d thought I would. For the first time, I was able to look at my article in the paper and actually feel like a halfway decent journalist, not just some wayward creative writing major who had been shuffled into the Opinion Desk amongst four professionals. I don’t know if I’m going to make a habit of liberal sideline dancing or not, but I have been watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann recently…
Truman Capps hopes he doesn't lose his job over any of this.