Does it just seem so, or has the political arena actually turned into a theater of the absurd this year?
First came the 11-month run of a play that could have been called "The Candidates," in which six provincial hacks tried to convince their audience they were qualified for the starring role in an international production. It was a tragedy of hubris, as each player self-destructed.
Now we have the single performance of a one-man show in which the second banana demands government funding and organizational mobilization for arming trigger-happy volunteers to shadow us from cradle to grave just to protect us from the mortal fallout of laws he says are a constitutional right. How terribly comforting.
Isn't there some way we could bring down the curtain on these shows and send in the clowns?
Oh, wait; as Steven Sondheim so trenchantly noted, they're already here. They're in Congress — and in charge.
ROBERT M. NOTTKE
Schenectady