Crush All Boxes!

Despite the oceans of journalistic spew which spatter our country like acidified widely-scattered-showers day after day, there are always back-stories which few ever quite manage to talk about, even thought many people know them - like the punchline to a joke - in their heart of hearts. 'Polite company' and all. They aren't always 'uber-narratives', but they are geared differently, usually having more 'torque' than the everyday yack. For example, the changed role of the US Vice President. There is a clear narrative line from Clinton through Kerry. Clinton chose Gore, another Southerner, and actually gave him some things to do during the administrations - something of a first; the imaginary corpus called the 'Bush Team' responded, 'Ha! We'll pick a VP who will actually run the White House, and at the same time, allay fears about our pres. candidate's callowness'. Kerry has now continued the story: 'OK. I see your Cheney and raise you Edwards. I'll choose someone who the GOP is most scared of (and who I'm a little scared of) and give him a bigger role in both the campaign and in the administration - at least rhetorically, cause I need help there - than Gore had; sooo, I'm too vain and pompous to name someone who might outshine me? HA! I will not only choose him, but encourage him to outshine me - to my benefit'. Complete campaigns are so rare, relatively speaking, that pols study every previous campaign like it were sacred text. It's a kind of continuity....

In a polity as dysfunctional as ours, back-stories naturally loom especially large, and there are many of them. Juicier ones to follow.