THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

A MAN WITH A MEMORY LOOKS AT "CRITICAL ELECTIONS" | 2004-10-30

This is the fifteenth presidential election I personally remember. Every single one of them was "the most critical election of our generation." We always heard that line at party conventions. The whole point of a presidential convention is to make its candidate look important.

On Tuesday, October 26, the Fox News Network announced that the 2004 election is "the most important election of our generation."

Last week in our Fun Quote I repeated the following Henry Kissinger statement

"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."

For most of us who inhabit Planet Earth, that is the problem with the 2004 election. As Gertrude Stein said about Los Angeles, "There is no THERE there."

The 2004 election? WHAT election?