The Campaign As Soap Opera

A reader writes:

Politics has always been soap opera.

All the warp and woof, the scrutinizing of the daily faux pas of each candidate, the indignation expressed by this one and that one, is it not  the constant drumbeat of Talking Heads: Same as it ever was?

You know as well as anyone that nothing of substance has been (or will be) offered in this campaign.  The very nature of political campaigns is to again and again speak in cliches.  Any attempt at clarity only serves to alienate, thus those who stand behind the podiums speak only in generalities. And the Ron Paul's are seen as the village idiot (a word that few really takes time to consider--idiotes--from the greek for private person--quite possibly the first to incarnate the rational ego--but cast in political science as the one's who would not participate in the polis. He is trickster. Go figure.)

The Republicans of course will repeat ad nauseam the mantra of tax cuts (borrow and spend), God, and the ancient papal encyclical engendering the crusades against Islam of "kill them all and let God sort it out."  Augustine, the great rationalizer of war, goes not easily into that sweet philo-theological night.  They are forever enthralled to "provide for the common defence."  The Democrats, repeat ad nauseam the mantra of taxes (tax and spend), spirituality, and the not so ancient history of "promote the general Welfare."

They parse the whole, never ever quite able to understand the entire vision. And, today, the clinically abandoned--but philosophically intriguing--notion of hysteria remains the uncommented upon.  Yet, there is no other explanation for Iraq except for hysteria--the wandering womb of Greek Patriarchal medicine.

Again, politics is our soap opera. But, we do lack the Shakespearean appreciation.