Ten years on, our politicians and our parliamentary institutions are objects of wide contempt, a process that can be said to have begun with Iraq.
There are many Americans who are, frankly, unnerved by his frequently demonstrated contempt for due process.
In that setting, he communicates without contempt for the process or the people who take it seriously, as they should.
WHEN he was the boss of Apple, Steve Jobs made little secret of his contempt for the process of selling to big businesses.
The war hero Coriolanus stands blindfolded on a chair soliciting popular votes for the consulship, and his palpable contempt for the process leads to ugly street fights.
And Mr. Spacey and Mr. Mendes add their voices to the din of derision by presenting a Richard who drips with tasty, venomous contempt for the process of becoming head of state.
Indeed, since the Hastings impeachment got under way in 1787, before the French Revolution started, he set the Jacobins an example of what demagogic oratory and contempt for due process could achieve.
Back and forth the debate went, more and more reflexively, more and more soaked in contempt, in a process of Manicheanization (forgive the ugly word, but it describes an ugly thing) that is not yet done.
No matter how managed, an event that ritualizes the choice of the country's leaders is under way, and the networks have disgraced themselves in showing their contempt for that process.
In a sense, she succeeded in transforming the hearings into the kind of political theater that better-known dissidents like Abby Hoffman had made famous in the 60's, with her attempts at clownish humor and her displays of contempt for the process.
