Ontogeny and Skynet

Josh Marshall finds that the McCain campaign reminds him of that famous dictum of nineteenth century embryology: Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny. (development replays evolution).

And yesterday I had an political epiphany. As the McCain campaign staggers toward its conclusion, with electoral columns and pediments standing since 1966 buckling under their weight, the party seems to be cycling back through its history of character assassination, McCarthyism and wedge politics flimflam, only now with an desperate and parodic impotence taking the place of punishing rhetorical violence.

Southern strategy race-baiting, check! Hyper 9/11ist 'the Dems are terrorists' character assassination, check! Rep. Michelle Bachmann's neo-McCarthyite manifesto and call for a new HUAC, check! 'The Democrats want to bring socialism to America', check! Who lost Georgia? Aspirational neo-Cold Warism, check! Mix these in with a general stew of 70s-90s soft-on-crime, Dems are pedophile weirdo-freak-loser wedge politics and we've basically got the full ground covered.

Well, OK, but after I thought about it for a minute, I was reminded of the fiery end of the shape-shifting T-1000 in Terminator II. After terrorizing our heroes in a variety of forms during the movie, he falls or is pushed into a pool of red hot molten iron. As he struggles, each time he goes under he re-emerges in another one of his guises until at last his computer is melted and he returns to atoms.

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