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The second most overused term of the decade is used primarily for films and books, and occasionally other works of art: triumph. The most overused term seems deployable for anything and everything, and it appears that the very merry, overbrimming fungibility of the c-word itself inspires both its plastic ubiquity and its forced uselessness. It is the silk flower bouquet of American emotion, and it has stormed the People's House. Thus Boehner:

"Whether you're a Republican, Democrat or an independent, this is a cause for celebration."

This being the arrival of Nancy Pelosi to the shimmering glory of Shangri-La, the Speaker's Chair. Take one look at that picture fronting Drudge for a taste of the celebration. The "fun" and "empowerment" -- whoops, I mean "triviality" and "vulgar farce" -- warping Pelosi's and Boehner's contorted faces far outstrips Bill Clinton's good old fashioned lip-biting routine, a positively chaste expression of poseurish emotement by comparison. Logic, reason, basic sense, the dignity of according the words that come out of one's mouth with their meaning prior to the act of speech -- all these things seem to have escaped Boehner under the spotlight of defeat. Why not elect no one but women to Congress and let the real celebration begin? Wow, wouldn't that be a corker? It'd be the most historic event ever! (Until they all swore in with the Koran. At which point the joy party, presumably, slips the surly bonds of Earth and passes into celebratory Nirvana on a wave of politico-orgone energy.)

Nancy Pelosi, of course, wasn't elected Speaker, and the head of an increasingly fractured and harebrained GOP is complementing no one but the fractured and harebrained leadership across the aisle. As for myself, in my adopted states of California and North Carolina I've managed to render myself unrepresentable by three female Senators, one of whom even got my vote to not represent me, what with her inscrutable, alien female perspective on the nature of human existence and all. So don't call this a knock against women. Call it a knock against the cult of celebration, one step ahead of the cult of celebrity in its dumbbell grip on the American elite, from the Halls of Congress to Oprah's green room.

topics:
Nancy Pelosi, Bill Clinton, Books, NATO, Energy