{"id":76,"date":"2004-12-03T13:25:30","date_gmt":"2004-12-03T17:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/12\/03\/h-l-mencken\/"},"modified":"2004-12-03T13:27:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-03T17:27:00","slug":"h-l-mencken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2004\/12\/03\/h-l-mencken\/","title":{"rendered":"H. L. Mencken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2004\/11\/09\/are-we-still-fighting-about-this\/\"> one of my earlier posts on the evolution debacle<\/a>, I was lamenting the lack of Mencken-like reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Now (via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.williamgibsonbooks.com\/blog\/2004_11_01_archive.asp#110188512690428622\">William Gibson<\/a>) I find a quote that causes me to lament even more for the broader political arena<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;&#8230;the larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, the first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide&#8230;the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre&#8230; The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people&#8230; On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart&#8217;s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a moron.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;H.L. Mencken, writing in The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">In one of my earlier posts on the evolution debacle, I was lamenting the lack of Mencken-like reporters. Now (via William Gibson) I find a quote that causes me to lament even more for the broader political arena &#8220;&#8230;the larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, the first-rate man occasionally fights his way through,&hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2004\/12\/03\/h-l-mencken\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-1e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}