Glenn Reynolds Credulity Award/Philistine Pig Ignorance Edition

A double-award: to Mike Barnicle, and unsurprisingly, Glenn Reynolds. Take some time to savor this:

MIKE BARNICLE ON POLITICAL RHETORIC, from Hardball:

[T]he difference between listening to John Kerry and listening to George Bush is the difference between reading Elmore Leonard and James Joyce. The language of his campaign is so lame that he can‘t connect. He has not yet connected with the American voter. You listen to the president of the United States, whether you agree or disagree with Iraq. . . . his language is direct.

The other problem for the Kerry campaign is that Kerry probably thinks it's a good thing when you're compared to James Joyce. . . .[Emphasis mine]

Got that? The language of James Joyce is lame and the joke's on anybody who appreciates being compared to him. Since that latter category includes every post-Joyce novelist of any worth in practically every language, Reynolds has finally, after trying so hard for so long, placed himself beyond parody, into a realm of simple anti-intellectual cretinism. Here's some lame Joycean language (I report, you decide):

O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. (Ulysses, Bk. 24, ll. 1598-1609.)

And:

Can't hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flittering bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome? What Thom Malone? Can't hear with the bawk of bats, all thim liffeying waters of. Ho, talk save us! My foos won't moos. I feel as old as yonder elm. A tale told of Shaun or Shem? All Livia's daughtersons. Dark hawks hear us. Night! Night! My ho head halls. I feel as heavy as yonder stone. Tell me of John or Shaun? Who were Shem and Shaun the living sons or daughters of? Night now! Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night! (Finnegans Wake, 215-216.)

I take it back. Glenn's probably right. Given the choice between being a third-rate adventure-schrifter who won't be remembered a year after his decease, versus being the progenitor of a canon that transcends literature and whose inspiration is felt everywhere from art galleries to rock concerts, I think it's pretty clear that it's better to be Elmore Leonard.