Monday, October 13, 2003

Arnold, California and Disneyland

FRANK RICH, NTY: The Audio-Animatronic Candidate
This is a wonderful essay, it captures a kind of horrified bemusement, the terrible fascination of watching an oddly comical train wreck with real people on board.

American is not in very good mental health these days.

Having lived through the Ventura administration, I hope California will not do too badly -- at least in the near term. Arnold may end up being an entertaining facade while his "advisors" make their backroom deals. True, it's not democracy, but maybe we're not ready for democracy any more.

Another lesson from Ventura is that the achilles heal of people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a hypersensitivity to criticism. Jesse did a decent job vetoing some bad legislation, but even mild criticism set him back on his heels. I wonder if Arnold will show the same weakness.

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