Sunday, February 13, 2005

That will be news to Zelda

Does anyone remember the movie "Getting Straight"?
It was Elliot Gould's best movie, and Candice Bergen's too. Among many great scenes, the greatest was the Master's Oral.
It culminated in a bit of business between Gould and one of the Masters examiners, who was trying to get Gould to agree that F. Scott Fitzgerald was gay. Seeing his degree disappearing unless he could appease this examiner, Gould tried mightly to find some ethical way to agree with the examiner's belief. He twisted and turned, but he just couldn't do it, finally bursting out with "well, that will be news to Zelda". Needless to say, the Oral deteriorated from there. ("The greatest expression of English literature is...the Limrick!")
I was reminded of this scene when I read this post Matthew Yglesias: Thinking Things Through about the Social Security debate in the US. The right-wing politicians and economists are trying so hard to find some way to support Bush's plan, twisting and turning to make sense of it, and to try to make it sensible. But they just can't do it. It DOESN'T make sense, it will never make sense, the emperor HAS NO CLOTHES.
And that won't be news to Zelda at all.

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