{"id":6144,"date":"2023-06-21T20:14:07","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T01:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=6144"},"modified":"2023-06-21T20:14:09","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T01:14:09","slug":"updike-cited-in-political-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2023\/06\/21\/updike-cited-in-political-column\/","title":{"rendered":"Updike cited in political column"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>America is more politically divided than ever, but it seems ironic that John Updike, who had been accused of being not political enough in his writing, recently turned up in a political column. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-21-at-7.13.13-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"185\" height=\"293\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-21-at-7.13.13-PM.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6145\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Writing for the blog <em>PowerLine<\/em>, Scott Johnson invoked Updike for an ed-op piece titled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.powerlineblog.com\/archives\/2023\/06\/six-theses-on-hunter-bidens-plea-deal.php\">&#8220;Six Theses on Hunter Biden&#8217;s Plea Deal.&#8221;<\/a> In a wryly written column, Johnson wrote, &#8220;We can see why President Biden is proud of his son. He&#8217;s not only the smartest person he knows\u2014he&#8217;s smarter than President Biden, anyway\u2014he has unbelievable skating ability. Having declared his knowledge of Hunter&#8217;s innocence of wrongdoing for several years now, President Biden can now praise Hunter&#8217;s endurance in the face of this great injustice. In the same sense, President Biden is innocent too! Only more so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;One of John Updike&#8217;s stories about his alter ego Henry Bech is titled &#8216;Bech Third-Worlds It.&#8217; (The story is collected in <em>Bech Is Back<\/em>.) The United States has been Third-Worlding it for a while now. With the federal indictment of President Trump pending in the documents case, the Hunter Biden case reminds us that our system of justice has devolved into a ritualized Third World farce. It is useful in that sense.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>America is more politically divided than ever, but it seems ironic that John Updike, who had been accused of being not political enough in his writing, recently turned up in a political column. Writing for the blog PowerLine, Scott Johnson &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2023\/06\/21\/updike-cited-in-political-column\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":818,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular","category-updike-in-context"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6146,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6144\/revisions\/6146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}