Gary Larson Published Nov. 27, 2002 LARS27

Watching a tantrum is the pits. Immaturity is not pretty, particularly in 60-year-olds such as my University of Minnesota classmate Gary Keillor ('66), today known as Garrison, and pretty well-known at that. His tizzy fit about a Republican midterm victory flashes a political rancor not lately seen in Minnesota, except in snippets at the infamous "memorial service" for Sen. Paul Wellstone and his ill-fated party.

In "Empty Victory for a Hollow Man" (on Salon.com Nov. 7) we find a pretty funny, above-average humorist transfigured into a loony partisan hellbent to attack Wellstone's duly-elected successor. Not content with one snit, he tossed in another ("Minnesota's Shame" on Nov. 11), slam-banging his native state's voting -- gasp! -- for a Republican. Both op-eds reveal hallucinatory depths of despair. The talented creator of Lake Wobegon is plainly losing it.

For Keillor, inflammatory stuff is old hat. He's practiced, elevating incendiary remarks practically to a new art form. In his foreboding political pieces we find hints at dark conspiracies, vast and otherwise. His copy oozes pathological hatred for GOPers. Scariest of all, like party-first editorial writers mainly in the mainstream (letter writers, too), Keillor seems actually to believe his fanciful, frightful, far-out takes on politics.

Consider: In 1998 Keillor called Republican policies "evil, deeply evil." His link-up with every mean-spirited liberal shibboleth burned brightly then, in full-court defense of Bill Clinton, whom he praised mightily as "full of soul." Take that, all you faithful Lake Wobegonites. To hell with your foolish family values, your down-home honesty.

While hundreds of journals urged an unrepentant Clinton to resign, Keillor savaged the GOP like a party hack. "This is a criminal party," he hissed. House members bringing charges for impeachment -- perjury, at minimum -- he labeled "Thirteen Angry Republican Managers." Not true, but then, truth never did have a relation to party lines that paint foes as nonbelievers.

Keillor's histrionics show a disdain for Minnesotans. He is "a stranger with memories of people I knew there." Estrangement is complete. Most backwoods lake and prairie folk like us in rural Minnesota -- idiots all? -- voted for the Republican he despises.

To this apostasy a smug Keillor shrugs: "To my own shame, I knew them. I'm ashamed of Minnesota for electing this cheap fraud." Thus he crowns his new hate object; "Hollow Man" succeeds "The Body" as prime target for his egotistical wrath.

Sore losers are exposed in stressful situations. Crybabies lash out, poisoning the landscape. (This affliction strikes both left and right.) Keillor asserts GOPers are "cheap, cynical and unpatriotic," and "Republicans first, and Americans second."

Consumed by hatred, Keillor is looking at six years of hard time in purgatory. My classmate at the University of Minnesota will be 66 when his Much-Despised Coleman is possibly reelected. Talk about woe! Or will maturity -- medical eligibility, perhaps? -- soothe his seething, hate-filled heart?

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2002

Answers

You mean he wasn't trying to be funny?

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2002