-------------------------- [excerpt] ------------- Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close.... -------------------------
~~ from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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-------------------------- [excerpt, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, by Robert Dallek] ------------------- On the eve of the Republican convention in July, Lou Harris released a national survey showing that "on eight out of 10 issues facing the country, the American people feel they are in sharp disagreement with the Arizona senator.
. . . Rarely has a man in such a commanding position for a major party Presidential nomination found his political positions -- as understood by the public -- to be so diametrically opposed by the voters themselves."
But in 1964 conservative Republicans, who had seized control of the party machinery and assured Goldwater's nomination, were more interested in trumpeting their ideology than in winning an election. At the Cow Palace in San Francisco,
where the Republicans began their convention on July 14, Goldwater's supporters showed no mercy for their political enemies -- the liberal press, moderate Republicans, and Great Society Democrats.
When former President Eisenhower lambasted "sensation-seeking columnists and commentators . . . who couldn't care less about the good of our party,"
and attacked indulgent liberals and weak-minded judges for "maudlin sympathy" toward criminals "roaming the streets with switchblade knife and illegal firearms," the delegates exploded in a display of raw emotion that offended some and frightened others.
But it was mild compared with the reception given Nelson Rockefeller.
Speaking against extremism or the "kooks" he saw lined up on Goldwater's side, Rockefeller's words were the equivalent of a red flag to a bull.
The Goldwaterites jeered and yelled, shook cowbells, blew horns, and beat drums in a concerted attempt to drown him out. Warming to the challenge, Rockefeller
derided them for "Communist and Nazi methods," which provoked them all the more.
A tall, thin, blonde woman in the galleries, incensed by Rockefeller's words, made an indelible impression on one reporter. She stood, "her fists upraised and shaking, screaming at the top of her lungs: 'You lousy lover, you lousy lover, you lousy lover!'"
The journalist added, "As the TV cameras translated their wrath and fury to the national audience, they pressed on the viewers that indelible impression of savagery which no Goldwater leader . . . could later erase." ------------------------------ [end, excerpt] -----------------
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"You lousy lover" - ?
...And -- who gave them drums?
Maybe 2016 isn't the craziest and strangest presidential election we've had in the past hundred years of history...I don't know...
("Lousy lover"?)
The only other place I've ever heard that phrase was in a Fleetwood Mac song, written by Stevie Nicks, titled "Gold Dust Woman" --
Lousy overs -- pick their prey
But they never cry out loud
Cry out
Well did she make you cry
Make you break down
Shatter your illusions of love
And is it over, now --
Do you know how --
Pick up the pieces and go home ...
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"you lousy lover" -- That's a weird phrase, and a strange context in which to scream it...
The Fleetwood Mac song, included in the Rumours album, was written 11 years later...
-30-
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