Posted by JumpyPants
E.B. Farnum, erstwhile hotelier and mayor, the spineless, desperate, vain and venal creature, created by David Milch and William Sanderson on the woefully canceled HBO series Deadwood, is alive and well and walking among us, using the name John McCain.
If you never had the chance to see this wretch in all his poetically pathetic hilarity, Deadwood is re-running on HBO now. Meanwhile, you can watch McFarnum run for president in a way that no one in modern memory has run for president. The last 24 hours alone are Farnum-esque: sinking in the polls, McFarnum pretends to be apolitical while in fact being supremely political and “suspends” his campaign, all the while continuing to campaign. The move fools no thinking human. McFarnum goes to Washington with great show, and, once sequestered behind closed doors, utterly cocks up the negotiations on the bailout, sitting mostly silent until nearly the end, then offering up the detritus of a bad idea which he then almost immediately backs away from as if from the smell of his own vile stench. And then by this morning, perhaps recognizing that his play has failed utterly, reverses himself once more to say he will attend tonight’s debate, all the while lobbing metaphorical turds at Senator Obama to suggest that Obama is somehow at fault for not agreeing to McFarnum’s earlier, proffered political stunt designed purely for McFarnum’s own benefit, the ridiculous fifteen town hall plan.
And all the while, this invertebrate drags around with him his vaunted titles – Senator and POW, not necessarily in that order – as proof that he is not, in fact, the pitiful little thug you see before you but, in fact, a hero, a champion of the people. For an increasingly large number of the citizenry, we see McFarnum for who he truly is now, in this moment, not in some mythologized yesteryear, and see him for who he has been for quite some time now, with his billionaire wife/campaign underwriter, his deep taint from the Keating Five scandal, his $5,500 make-up appointments, his choice of a running mate not qualified to be dog catcher, his attempted buyouts of the media with grilled meats, his covert medical records, his endless highway of hypocrisy. We see this scuttling thing for what he is.
This is America. Anyone of proper age, being born within our borders, can seek the presidency. But this modern-day Farnum, in so seeking, has disgraced not just himself and his party but is in danger of disgracing the entire process, not to mention the office itself. And that office, after the last eight years, needs no further shame brought upon it.
