Jerry Springer: The Perfect Politician
MSNBC reports that Jerry Springer may make a run for the U.S. Senate in Ohio. I have no qualms about admitting that I was a die-hard Springer fan at the peak of his popularity. I stopped watching after the prudish Chicago City Council forbade him from having "common folk" slugfests -- usually grounded in an admission of sexual infidelity (or some other titillating secret) -- that became the show's trademark. At the end of the program, Springer would have his personal take on the day's burlesque, ending with the phrase "take care of yourself... and each other."
Springer, the one-time Mayor of Cincinnati, was notoriously caught for soliciting a prostitute with a personal check. I doubt that Springer was much of an advocate for the decriminalization of prostitution as a public official, but he has handled the "scandal" fairly well since becoming the king of trash TV. As prostitution should be legal, I have no problem with his prior transaction, unless he had the indecency to place a "stop payment" on his check. Springer is at least self-aware enough to note that his current profession is one which gives bizarre people the opportunity to let it all hang out. And given the obesity epidemic in America, particularly in cities and the rural South, that can be quite a lot.
What makes Springer the perfect politician is that he is accustomed to associating with people others would call "low-lifes" and otherwise "unseemly." At the same time, he doesn't admit to the irony of preaching virtuous maxims and earnest advice in the very same forum. Whenever I hear a politician speak on matters of morality, or even ephemeral humane principles, I cringe. Their power is grounded on larceny of private property and the evisceration of individuals' liberties. There a few political actors who even remotely recognize this, particularly in this post-9/11 age -- where the progress of the welfare-warfare state is presided over by those claiming an ideological affinity for limited, constitutional government. Preaching virtue with an air of self-righteous indignation is stock-in-trade for a politician, even when standing in a pool of his own moral excrement.
I have yet to see Springer's foray onto the silver screen, the aptly titled Ringmaster, and I probably never will. But I much prefer his current (sanitized) freak show to the truly macabre house of horrors he wants to enter. I can't think of a single transvestite, stripper, horse-lover, infantilist, whoremonger, transsexual or dominatrix who has exercised brutal power over others' persons and property under the banner of the "public interest." I would have added dullards, drunks and sex-addicts to the list, but both halls of Congress are already replete with those.
Perhaps the United States Senate isn't such a bad fit for Jerry Springer after all.
(Postscript: Many apologies to those "everyday" people I had the temerity to lump together with Congressmen and Senators.)
Springer, the one-time Mayor of Cincinnati, was notoriously caught for soliciting a prostitute with a personal check. I doubt that Springer was much of an advocate for the decriminalization of prostitution as a public official, but he has handled the "scandal" fairly well since becoming the king of trash TV. As prostitution should be legal, I have no problem with his prior transaction, unless he had the indecency to place a "stop payment" on his check. Springer is at least self-aware enough to note that his current profession is one which gives bizarre people the opportunity to let it all hang out. And given the obesity epidemic in America, particularly in cities and the rural South, that can be quite a lot.
What makes Springer the perfect politician is that he is accustomed to associating with people others would call "low-lifes" and otherwise "unseemly." At the same time, he doesn't admit to the irony of preaching virtuous maxims and earnest advice in the very same forum. Whenever I hear a politician speak on matters of morality, or even ephemeral humane principles, I cringe. Their power is grounded on larceny of private property and the evisceration of individuals' liberties. There a few political actors who even remotely recognize this, particularly in this post-9/11 age -- where the progress of the welfare-warfare state is presided over by those claiming an ideological affinity for limited, constitutional government. Preaching virtue with an air of self-righteous indignation is stock-in-trade for a politician, even when standing in a pool of his own moral excrement.
I have yet to see Springer's foray onto the silver screen, the aptly titled Ringmaster, and I probably never will. But I much prefer his current (sanitized) freak show to the truly macabre house of horrors he wants to enter. I can't think of a single transvestite, stripper, horse-lover, infantilist, whoremonger, transsexual or dominatrix who has exercised brutal power over others' persons and property under the banner of the "public interest." I would have added dullards, drunks and sex-addicts to the list, but both halls of Congress are already replete with those.
Perhaps the United States Senate isn't such a bad fit for Jerry Springer after all.
(Postscript: Many apologies to those "everyday" people I had the temerity to lump together with Congressmen and Senators.)
posted by Nikos A. Leverenz @ 6:29 PM
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