Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Anyone hoping to hammer into a coherent ideology Mark Twain’s robustly critical admonitions on politics and politicians is bound to be disappointed. Here is Twain on the Congress of his day: “An honest man in politics shines more there than he would elsewhere.” That is taken from A Tramp Abroad, written in Hartford, Connecticut . Twain wrote most of his important novels in Hartford, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ,  The Prince and the Pauper ,  Life on the Mississippi ,  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Towards the end of his life, tragedy became the uninvited guest at Twain’s table. He lost his beloved wife, both a spiritual anchor and a literary censor. Twain did not believe writers should self-censor. Olivia Clemons was concerned about her husband’s place in the world, as all good wives should be, and worked to keep his combustible politics from bursting into flame – at least publically -- and sing...

Even Greece at the height of its powers had a “gadfly.” The Greek term was used by Plato to signify the rather uneasy relationship between Socrates and the political scene in Athens. Plato described Socrates as the goad of Athens, a city he compared to a dimwitted horse. Athens, as we all know, had the last word in its dispute between the city’s most famous gadfly and city fathers who could not abide what Socrates himself called the sting of truth: “If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.” Socrates considered his role as that of a public critic whose purpose it was “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth." Athens convicted Socrates of corrupting the youth of the city and forced hemlock upon him as a remedy to quiet his fearless outspoken tongue. Not to put Senator Len Suzio in quite the same category as Socrates or even Jeremiah, the irritating prophet who compared Egypt to “very fair heifer” but note...

Lucian, the second century satirist, once wrote a dialogue called “The Sale of Creeds” in which he held up to ridicule such famous philosophers as Socrates, Diogenes and Pythagoras. In Lucian’s drama, some of the philosophers were a bit of a hard sell. Only a few weeks ago, to judge from commentary in Connecticut’s press, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman might have been sold at bargain prices. But now comes a piece in Politico that raises his price considerably. Some leading Democrats and Republicans -- not among them Chris Healy, still the state’s Republican Party chieftain, though Mr. Healy himself recently sought to auction himself off as a National Republican Party Chairman – would be happy to purchase Mr. Lieberman, mostly for tactical reasons. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Politico reports, “is quietly urging the Connecticut lawmaker to run for a fifth Senate term in 2012 — and to stick with the Democratic side of the aisle.” Now that the House has fallen to Republicans and th...

Colin McEnroe – radio talk show host, columnist, former religious reporter for the Hartford Courant, and a member of the illuminati – is now off the air, and there are grumblings right and left. A fan writes in the Courant: "I am inexpressibly SHATTERED by the unforeseen and unforgivable loss of Colin. What is wrong with those MORONS at WTIC? Can they not recognize the sublime genius and JOY that is Colin? Please, oh please, BARRAGE them with "Bring Back Colin" missives to: 10 Executive Drive, Farmington, CT 06032. Talent of his caliber does NOT come along very often in one lifetime, and I deplore and despair loosing this tremendously precious human being. Say it ain't so...SCREAM it ain't so…God Help Us...And GOOD RIDDANCE to STUPID, BORING, and TRAGICALLY MYOPIC WTIC." The contras were legion, brief, brutal and short. But Colin’s talents cannot be denied. He has flair with the language and a ready wit. And then, of course, there is his saving friendship wi...