Parenthesis, Empty And Filled Poem by gershon hepner

When empty, a parenthesis
provides mysterious emphasis;
when filled, you wonder whether
the contents weigh more than a feather.

George Will reviews Rick Perlstein’s “Nixonland” in the NYT Book Review, May 11,2008. The editor introduces the review with this:
No conservative writer was tougher on Richard Nixon than George F. Will, the longtime columnist for The Washington Post and Newsweek — particularly on the subject of “the 784-day Watergate debacle, ” as he once termed it. “The Nixon White House ran amok as no other has done, and its abuses were uniquely lurid and sinister, ” Will wrote on Aug.8,1974, the day Nixon announced he would resign from the presidency. Will, who returns to the subject this week in his cover review of Rick Perlstein’s “Nixonland, ” thinks the Nixon presidency now looks “even worse than it seemed at the time, ” he said in an e-mail message. “Regarding domestic policy, which Nixon dismissed as ‘building outhouses in Peoria, ’ his disdain for the subject did not, alas, produce benign neglect.” In foreign policy, Nixon’s “‘realism’ was unrealistic — too pessimistic about America’s stamina for protracted containment, too optimistic about the Soviet Union’s adaptability to modern economic exigencies. His policy toward China lives on: we are wagering that prosperity will subvert tyranny.” How, then, does Nixon fit into the larger story of modern conservatism? “He doesn’t. His tenure was an empty parenthesis.”

5/12/08