George Sauders’ “The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil”
I just finished reading George Saunder’s novella, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. It is nothing like what you would expect, but yet is everything you could want in a political satire for our times. Instead of rushing headlong at the subject as I am wont to do (and did do in my own novella Homeland), Saunders started from a much more exploratory place and wound up with what is essentially a Dr. Suess book about genocide.
More from Saunders on how the book was written on the flip…
Flake endorses Shadegg for House majority leader
Know-Nothing Ron Drake
Richard A. Clarke’s “The Scorpion’s Gate”
Graf, Tancredo, and Buchanan: Tres Banditos en Tucson
Tom Tancredo (R – CO) and Bay Buchanan (sister of Pat Buchanan, director of the American Cause, and the manager of Pat’s Presidential campaigns) came to Tucson on Friday in support of Randy Graf’s unending campaign for Congress in CD8. The Bay and Tom show isn’t just a one-off for Graf’s benefit though, it is a national tour called the "Secure America Now" tour. Sound familiar? It should. It taps into the same issues and supporters that Arizona’s "Protect Arizona Now" initiative did. At the breakfast one could find many of the same people who worked on PAN, not the least of which was Randy Graf himself.
"Secure America Now" is the road show for Team America, a Political Action Committee dedicated to border issues founded by Tom and Bay. Only by understanding the significance of the SAN tour and the history of the Buchanans in American politics does the full significance of the tour’s stop in Tucson really have a useful context. Randy Graf is only a small part of the story.
Bill O’Reilly Goatses Vermont
