![]() Yes, you still can buy a Moon Pie in Ol' Dixie, but the rumpled rustics who inspired Al Capp to create a comic-strip politico called Sen. Now, 44 years later, you still can "experience the old-fashioned traditional corn flavor of Golden Bantam," as one seed company puts it, but the old-fashioned traditional corn flavor of Southern politics is as dead as Earl Long himself. That was 1960, when the first article in Liebling's series about Earl Long, then governor of Louisiana, appeared in the New Yorker. The consumer forgets that the corn tastes different where it grows." By the time they reach New York, they are like Golden Bantam that has been trucked up from Texas - stale and unprofitable. They lose flavor with every hundred yards away from the patch. "Southern political personalities, like sweet corn, travel badly. ![]() You are dazzled by the wit and acuity of Liebling's prose, you want to keep on reading for as long as he keeps on writing, and you are struck by how deeply the character of American politics has changed in the four-plus decades since "The Earl of Louisiana" was first published. ![]() ![]() Liebling's "The Earl of Louisiana," and three things happen. An occasional series in which The Post's book critic reconsiders notable and/or neglected books from the past. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |