A reader writes:
Your Sunday Times column "That way, son" was on point. Only Shakespeare could have done this story justice. If Clinton was a comedy, W. is, clearly, a tragedy. And you’re right – that Wednesday after the election was W’s lowest moment:
"The moment of discovery or ‘anagnorisis’, which comes at the end of the tragic plot, is not simply the knowledge by the hero of what has happened to him . . . but the recognition of the determined shape of the life he has created for himself, with an implicit comparison with the uncreated potential life he has forsaken." – Northrop Frye, "The Mythos of Autumn: Tragedy", page 128.
I could not but reflect, however, on the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Iraqi lives – not to mention our own troops – lost to fuel this family psychodrama. And I wonder when we as a nation will experience our anagnorisis.
This last election was it. Now we have to deal with the wreckage, good and bad.
The Dish 