The Siegelest Form of Flattery

David Weigel | August 25, 2006

Julian Sanchez heard that George W. Bush was reading L'Etranger for summer vacation, and responded with a satire in The American Prospect that knocked it out of the park. Commenter Ajay noted that it read "like the first half of Flowers for Algernon." Over at The New Republic, Lee Siegel demonstrates what the satire would have read like if Charly wrote it - and never took the smart pills.

Comments

|8.25.06 @ 8:50PM|#

Over at The New Republic, Lee Siegel demonstrates what the satire would have read like if Algernon wrote it

Algernon was the mouse.

|8.25.06 @ 9:14PM|#

Of course, George W. pronounces it "KAM-uss"...

|8.25.06 @ 9:56PM|#

The satire wasn't all that great. *shrug*

|8.25.06 @ 10:01PM|#

Okay, I was leaving this for one of our more left-leaning commenters, but I can't hold it in anymore. The existentialist book Bush was reading wasn't Camus' The Stranger. It was Sartre's No Exit.

wingnutx|8.25.06 @ 11:21PM|#

what the satire would have read like if Algernon wrote it

"Squeak, squeak... squeak"

Maybe next he can write it from the flower's point of view.

Kevin B. O'Reilly|8.25.06 @ 11:47PM|#

Julian, you're forgetting an important corollary -- libertarians should only read libertarian publications. But I guess if that were the case, how would we know when our favorite libertarian writers strayed?

|8.26.06 @ 5:17AM|#

I sent the link to Cries and Whispers at The New Yorker, in the hope of raising the tone over there.

Can't wait til Musil makes it to the top of the bedside pile at the ranchhouse

|8.26.06 @ 7:18AM|#

Hater,
I thought Reason was an out-reach sort of publication (as opposed to Liberty which is primarily an in-house publication) so it doesn't seem odd for Reason writers to write for other publications that don't toe the straight and narrow libertarian line.

Phil Lip,
Now don't go getting all magnanimous on us - c'mon, just once pretend to be superciliously smug.

|8.26.06 @ 1:28PM|#

"Phil Lip,
Now don't go getting all magnanimous on us - c'mon, just once pretend to be superciliously smug."

You are a gigantic douchebag.

|8.26.06 @ 1:37PM|#

"You are a gigantic douchebag"

That was mighty white of you. Now get back to licking your eyebrows.

|8.26.06 @ 5:30PM|#

Not that I'm not totally hep or anything but; so Julian is no longer with Reason/H&R? I sure miss his stuff on philosophical matters and his philosophical take on things.

|8.27.06 @ 11:49AM|#

Rick Barton,

Do you know something I don't?

Reason is not a jealous Magazine, I believe Reason writers are permitted to write the occasional article for other publications.

|8.28.06 @ 12:42AM|#

crimethink,

Well, Julian's name isn't on the page with all the other editors and it seems like we haven�t seen much of him of late.

|8.29.06 @ 12:31AM|#

I'm still on the masthead as a contributing editor, which means I'll still be writing for the mag occasionally and posting here when I can, but I'm off staff and working on some other stuff now, about which I promise to keep y'all informed.