An Interview with H. L. Mencken

The 2008 Democratic National Convention will soon be underway in Denver, and political pundits of every stripe are pouring into town for the event.

Today, I had the opportunity to interview one of the most notable political analysts and commentators of the 20^th century. Not only are his thoughts on politics among the most widely quoted in the media, he also has the singular distinction of be the only dead reporter attending this year's convention.

I refer, of course, to H.L. Mencken.

Q. Although the campaign hasn't "officially" begun, how do you see the campaign season so far?

"What is any political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put in a set who are thought to be better?

"The former assumption, I believe is always sound; the latter is just as certainly false. For if experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar."

Q. Well, since no one has ever accused you of being partisan, what do you think of this year's candidates?

"The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost...

"All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

"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. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

Q. So you aren't impressed by the Presidential candidates. What about the congressional races?

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule -- and both commonly succeed, and are right.

"Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

"The typical lawmaker of today is a man devoid of principle-a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology, or cannibalism.

"The theory behind representative government is that superior men-or at all events, men not inferior to the average in ability and integrity-are chosen to manage the public business, and that they carry on this work with reasonable intelligence and honesty. There is little support for that theory in the known facts.

"Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?"

Q. So you think that, no matter which party wins in November, as far as government it will be business as usual?

"I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.

Q. What about the federal bureaucracy? Is it capable of fulfilling its mandate to serve the public?

"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights."

Q. You've been commenting on American politics, and society, for almost a century. What would you say is the most important thing that you've learned in that time?

"The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom."

Q. You have plenty of criticism for the system but don't seem to have a solution ...

"It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office."

"The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake."

Q. If you are so disgusted with democracy and the political process, why are you here?

A. "Why do people go to zoos?"

n.b. All quotations are taken from the works of H.L. Mencken (1880-1956). The man was ahead of his time.