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Article: Fields of Glory.(W.C. Fields)
- Article from:
- Reason
- Article date:
- May 1, 2000
- Author:
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The absurdist anti-politics of W.C. Fields
Like many Americans, I'm having trouble getting excited about this year's presidential race. Somehow the candidates don't measure up to my standards of political greatness. Confronted with this group of diminutive talents, I think back nostalgically to earlier days of American politics, when giants strode the earth. Take 1940, for example-- the last time an authentic Great Man ran for president of the United States. No, I don't mean Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and not Wendell Wilkie or Norman Thomas either, but the one candidate in the race who had the right attitude toward the government: W.C. Fields.
Few people ...