Liars and Saints

 In my family, there is great fondness for Pete Buttigieg. Those half-whispered cool-as-ice takedowns on CNN and Fox News. The slightly embarrassing obsession he has with "the Dave Matthews Band." We sometimes listen multiple times to "Buttigieg sound bytes"--as if we're replaying (and re-replaying) a Whitney Houston riff. We really enjoyed his recent personal essay. A personal essay from Pete Buttigieg! He had been targeted by a right-wing nut. Someone made a false claim to Child Protection Services--and Buttigieg was forcibly separated from his family and required to stay in a hotel overnight. Buttigieg is not Nora Ephron; the essay is not overflowing with glittery observations. But it is plainspoken, and I imagine it has helped to "open" many, many eyes. The Pete Buttigieg philosophy seems to be "keep calm and carry on." I'm sometimes able to listen--but not on Sunday nights, when I inevitably feel anxious and choose (unwisely) to eat ...

There are a few things to notice about Pete Buttigieg's verbal skill (skill that seems to be unmatched right now, unless maybe we're talking about Michelle Obama). One thing I'll call: "I come not to praise Caesar but to bury him...." This is when you subtly do the thing you claim not to be doing.  Buttigieg says, "There's an old parlor game where you try to find daylight between a candidate and his running mate....and we could play that all night....We could ask why Pence, an evangelical Christian, has yoked himself to a man caught with a porn star.....We could ask about the immigration policy Pence once called unconstitutional....But I think the American people really just want to talk about being sure they have adequate health care coverage...."  It may be that some think that Americans just really want to talk about health care coverage--but, in his heart, Buttigieg knows that we are indeed interested in the Christ-loving zombie yoked to a man ca...