Who’s this Godot guy, anyway?

 
There’s been lots of nattering over here about Nick Clegg’s appreciation of Samuel Beckett and how no American politician could survive a statement like the one Clegg gave to the Guardian. This is the bit American bloggers and columnists are talking about:

“The unsettling idea, most explicit in Godot, that life is habit—that it is all just a series of motions devoid of meaning—never gets any easier.

“It’s that willingness to question the things the rest of us take for granted that I admire most about Beckett; the courage to ask questions that are dangerous because, if the traditions and meanings we hold so dear turn out to be false, what do we do then?”

But Matthew Yglesias, in a nice, concise post, wonders.