Camille Paglia is afraid that it may be too late for Barack Obama to turn his Presidency from an impending debacle brought about, she thinks, from a series of unperceived missteps. Why unperceived? Because of groupthink, collective blindness and a failure of critical thinking among the comrades. Most of her article in Salon is devoted to examining what went wrong.
I am outraged at the slowness with which the standing army of Democratic consultants and commentators publicly expressed discontent with the administration’s strategic missteps this year. … letting Congress pass that obscenely bloated stimulus package … a cap-and-trade bill whose costs have made it virtually impossible for an alarmed public to accept the gargantuan expenses of national healthcare reform …
Why did it take so long for Democrats to realize that this year’s tea party and town hall uprisings were a genuine barometer of widespread public discontent and not simply a staged scenario by kooks and conspirators? First of all, too many political analysts still think that network and cable TV chat shows are the central forums of national debate. …
AdvertisementElite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it’s invisible. … The Democratic brain has been marinating so long in those clichés that it’s positively pickled.
Paglia is one of those people on the Left who are unable to disengage their brains. For Paglia, facts still matter. Contrary to popular opinion, there have been many of those among the Progressives. But their fate is widely known. Paglia will be humored on the strength of her reputation; she will be allowed liberties. Later, she may be mildly reproved. But eventually they’ll give her the message, and what happens next is up to her. The record of history is clear. The Left has rarely been destroyed by its foes. That job has been accomplished largely by itself.
“If only Stalin knew!” For how many were these the last words in exile, in isolation — or worse? The very unity that gives the Left an inhuman strength is also its greatest weakness. Groupthink is its curse, some would say its fate. It thinks, indeed it must think, like a hive. And it may, as Paglia fears, be too late for Obama to turn things around, but that moment was foreordained from the moment he made his zero-sum move. Paglia still believes Obama was about “progress”; she misunderstands: it was all about power. The locomotive of history wavers not — until it goes off the cliff. Paglia can see it, but hesitates to make a clean break. It’s hard after all, because collectivity is a hideous strength.
The hardest thing of all was not to be blind to Obama’s mistakes, but to ignore the fact that everyone saw the errors and kept it to themselves.
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As a right wing former hippie, I have to say that it is rare that I read something by a hard lefty that makes me want to say, uh you know like for real, “Right On!”
Hi Richard,
Everyone on the mild left, who still tries to think a little, can’t believe that Obama would want to sacrifice his popularity and power for a left wing agenda. They keep telling themselves, why doesn’t he just move to the center and become popular? Like Bill Clinton? Bill did it, why can’t Obama?
But Obama is not Bill Clinton, and he probably doesn’t like or respect Bill Clinton. He knows that the semi-utopia is just around the corner if only he can pass the necessary socialist legislation. He’s willing to sacrifice himself, his party and his Democratic legislators to bring about that Utopia. He’s truly an idealistic guy.
Once you know that about Obama, the rest falls into place. The public doesn’t want what he is selling, so he has to do it by stealth. When he is found out, he has to find various slurs to attack his opponents. Once that doesn’t work, he has to use whatever political brute force he can muster to push it through.
To Camille it looks like mistakes. But its not mistakes. Its the only path that has a shot to bring about the dream.
Camille may eventually be pushed from the bus, and may be a little shocked at how vilified she is. But that’s just part of the process. She is one of those people who didn’t see the left wing agenda during the campaign, and now is surprised to find it alive and well. It must be a “mistake” to be corrected. It must be that the people around Obama aren’t doing their job correctly.
James
This shows that Obama has no executive experience at all. All the missteps are coming from his immature, partisan, corrupt and manipulative handlers.
The salient point of political correcitude is the mutually-assented mantra: “You’re not allowed to notice that”. Cheers for Ms. Paglia for her unsupported attempts to do all the noticing necessary to tell the story, and damn the torpedos.
No cheers for the progressive ostriches who leave their heads buried in the sand so that her news cannot reach them.
Stimulus bill, I’ll tell you who is getting stimulated. A homeowner in Broward County Florida can spend $43,000 on a rooftop solar panel with a 5000 watt peak rating. That homeowner can then recoup $13,000 in a Federal tax credit thanks to ARRA. Another $20,000 is to be had from the State of Florida, paid for out of ARRA money filtered through that state. On top of that, there is a 10-year property tax rebate in the amount of $760 dollars, kind of a negative property assessment on the “solar improvement” that decreases your assessment.
At the end of all of these credits and rebates, one as much as gets the electricity for free. Wow, free electricity to well-off homeowners. According to the “solar calculator” linked from the Web page promoting the program, as much as $860/year in free electricty.
Let’s see, $43,000 of largely taxpayer money to give a suburban homeowner $860/year of electricity works out to a payback interval (to the government) of nearly 50 years. That works out to $57,000 per average or equivalent baseload kilowatt, or about 10 times the capital expenditure on a nuke plant, if one were allowed to build one.
The New Deal did its “pump priming” and Kenesian “stimulating”, but it gave us the TVA. This deal gives us gold-plated “renewables.”
So that covers ARRA and “green energy.” OK, let’s talk about health care . . .
Paglia would have a different list of errors than I would. For her the errors are tactical, she decries that they impede the attainment of goals. For me the errors are strategic, I decry the goals and take comfort that the Democrats are less efficient than in their dreams.
In tonight’s speech Obama achieved an almost perfect disconnection from reality. The man who hired, or was hired by, Rahm Emanuel called for civility while implying crude threats. He gave lip service to traditional concerns about Federal Power but offered not a shred of analysis that would indicate any standard, either Constitutional, practical or moral, that would give rise to any limitation on the Federal government. He offered those who disagree with him absolutely nothing except a vague consideration of a future reform of the tort system, maybe by considering proposals to be examined by some unnamed future committee.
He hoped to match the impact of Mark Antony at Caesar’s funeral that resulted in the mob chasing the reactionary conspirator from Rome. He showed the corpse of Kennedy and spoke lovingly of its wounds. He mentioned the Will or at least a message from the departed endorsing their common vision. He delivered nothing. If you remember, in the play Anthony never actually does read the Will he promises.
Here is a young Brando as Antony http://tinyurl.com/l9xlx4.
“Paglia is one of those people on the Left who are unable to disengage their brains.”
Good for her! Over the years there has been a significant number of such people, if you interpret “on the Left” to include “mainstream” liberals. Many (most?) of them, following where their brains led, earned a new characterization: NeoConservatives. Most NeoCons “moved right” primarily (but not exclusively!) on foreign policy/national security. Is there hope for a new wave of (this time) domestic policy neocons? Unlikely.
Only a few on the left are waking up. Just those who have maintained some thread of free thought. For the great mass of groupthink pawns, they will never question openly for fear of expulsion.
Again this evening The One gave an speech both enchanting and seemingly reasonable unless facts and background information are know to the listener. In which case it is seen to be little more than propaganda.
James Lewis at AmericanThinker.com recently had an excellent piece “Obama as Leninoid” in which he analyses a number of parallels between the two – minus the blood.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/obama_as_leninoid_1.html
“If only Stalin knew!”
Brilliant, Wretchard, absolutely brilliant. To use a recent catchphrase – it’s a feature, Camille, not a bug.
LMAO
“Doublethink is for party members, W[inston]. Inner party membership has its privileges.” — O’Bbrien
Buckets and buckets of “it’s not a bug, but a feature.”
Run Camille. Run! It’s not too late to jump Obama’s ship and swim back to shore. America is still here, waiting for you – and this here citizen is flush with appreciation for your refreshing honesty.
First Jane Hamsher, then Camille Paglia – the left’s rhetoricians are chafing against the confines of their carefully decorated campuses. It’s as though the fancy goldfishes in their aquariums just realized that there is a world outside the glass, and that some “master” with his own designs has deliberately trapped them there.
(Q: When will Arianna Huffington grow a pair, and dare to escape the tank?)
On the issue of echo chambers, “marinating” minds, and “pandemic” brainwashing: if we all, Ms. Paglia included, think that America’s Democrats have fallen under a sort of group hypnosis rendering them immune to facts and resistant to course correction, then imagine the delusions that other insulated, centralized regimes like, say, China’s, might be suffering from.
Distracted by blinking lights and a “race” to achieve technological supremacy, desirous of international approval, intolerant of public oversight, and enamored of rigid, dictatorial ideologies, the CCP fits as neatly into Camille’s dispatch as does Obama. Which leads to a question: what is it that Beijing’s governing class is missing?
Here are just some guesses as to the kinds of questions that Beijing’s annointeds daren’t broadcast the answers to. Are China’s citizens really content with their government? Are military fronts sufficient to end the regular protests in the rural provinces? If America fails to adopt socialism, what is China’s response – will the CCP adopt more Americanisms (like a robust, competitive media market, States’ Rights, freedom of association and low taxes) to become more like us, or will the Party attempt more coercive means to influence us? Will Chinese joint ventures with foreign tech and commodity producers translate into ownership rights of innovative patents and Australian aluminium mines – or will their much sought-after technologies be obsoleted just in time for China to claim primacy for her “innovation?”
This is just a short list from a tired mind, but, as anyone can see, the CCP faces a minefield of deleterious facts outside of its aquarium glass. I’d expect that, as with Obama, China’s rulers are relying on a raft of pliable, controlled media organs to ensure that the mines stay buried, and that the temperature in their tank remains constant at a tepid 79 degrees fahrenheit.
Thanks for the post, Wretchard.
-Steve
PS: Let’s let these ladies rest a bit in their new poses before we unleash Whiskey’s thesis on them. Exposed too soon, his reasoned sexism might scare them back to the relative security of their tanks.
Wretchard
Paglia’s plea(s) for returning the liberals’ vanguard back to their primary causes and concerns was not included in your snippet and possibly beyond the scope of your examination.
She was taken aback by the citizens’ cries for liberty falling on deaf liberal ears.
Amazing.
If only Stalin knew!
This is brilliant.
I too see echos of the ’30s, in the current love of dictators by the Left.
And too, I fear the lights of freedom winking out all over the world. The Obamas, the Castros, the Chavezes, the Putins, the Taliban, the Ahmadinejads all are attacking freedom and democracy.
One of the keynotes of the transformation of the Democratic Party into an aspiring totalitarian movement has been the exile or elimination of those who actually attempt to think through their positions and justify them rationally. That rationality implies that they actually listen to counter-arguments and discuss things rationally. There have been very few remaining on the Left who have been able to do that. Joe Lieberman was functionally expelled from the party for not joining the mandatory hate-fests at all of the designated targets. Nat Hentoff, who is a First Amendment purist, has finally realized what Buraq Hussein is, and is now persona non grata with the apparatchniki. In a matter of days, I expect them to add the last person on the Left who argues honestly, Camille Paglia, to the list of non-persons. I suppose that all three can be grateful that as of yet the Party is not allowed to use the “Ramon Mercader” solution …… That may not be a permanent state of affairs. Noticing and speaking the truth is counter to the catechism of the Democrats.
Subotai Bahadur
Some years ago when Stephen Colbert insulted President Bush to his face at some dinner, the left got into its usual spasm about how brave Stephen was for doing so.
Richard Cohen no righty (not even close) said Colbert wasn’t brave or any such thing (truth to power blah-blah-blah) but a boor. For that, a full on e-mail attack was launched on him by the hard(er) left. I remember blogging about it at Blogger Beer & the Badger Blog Alliance and having some KKK (Krazy Kos Kiddie) criticize me for my defense of Cohen — funny thing was the guy claimed he was a conservative and rattled off his cred.s like the best seminar caller.
From tonight’s speech I think the quote (which I do not have so I’m paraphrasing) was “to those who wish to block this initiative, I have no concern for you.(something akin)” He thinks he is only talking to the Republicans in attendance but he is actually talking to a majority of Americans who have been expressing their concerns during town hall meetings. That particular advertisement almost writes itself and should be on loop for the next two years. Like Andrew Wilkow calls it : date rape; you are going to get it whether you like it or not.
“#15 Marceus Aurelius” should be “#15 Marcus Aurelius” Firefox does an autofill and apparently I have mistyped that in the past so if I’m not looking carefully that can happen. Thanks to Pascal Fervor for pointing this out.
2. James:
Hi Richard,
Everyone on the mild left, who still tries to think a little, can’t believe that Obama would want to sacrifice his popularity and power for a left wing agenda. They keep telling themselves, why doesn’t he just move to the center and become popular? Like Bill Clinton? Bill did it, why can’t Obama?
But Obama is not Bill Clinton, and he probably doesn’t like or respect Bill Clinton. He knows that the semi-utopia is just around the corner if only he can pass the necessary socialist legislation. He’s willing to sacrifice himself, his party and his Democratic legislators to bring about that Utopia. He’s truly an idealistic guy.
…….
With all do respect to LOTR’s sensibilities…there is another reason Obama may be acting as a one term president
Federal judge allows Obama eligibility case to go forward
“If only Stalin knew,” indeed.
That is where many people both right and left get it wrong—blaming the handlers, the subordinates, the middle managers. I can safely write, after 35+ years in State and local government in Chicago, that the guy on top ALWAYS knows and ALWAYS approves. There is no distinction, no lack of knowledge, no renegade subordinate, no one getting away with soemthing under the radar.
Congress took the lead on the stimulus bill becuase that’s what Obama wanted—unless, of course, they were following his direction and he just wanted it to LOOK like they were running wild. But, whatever happened, it was 100% aligned with his desires at the time.
He’s in charge and he is responsible and thinking anything else just gives away any accountability or understanding.
The main thrust of O’s foreign policy agenda has been to improve relations with the Muslim world and make progress in the Israel-Arab conflict. In this he has failed, and possibly closed any possibility of progress in the Israel-Arab conflict until he leaves office.
Recent opinion polls in Israel show that O is distrusted by almost all Jewish Israelis. Something like 4% of Jewish Israelis consider him to be pro-Israel. In order to make real progress in the peace negotiations the Israeli man on the street must trust the US. In only a few short months O has managed to squander trust built up over decades.
Paglia doesn’t mention the middle east or much if anything regarding foreign policy in her article but it is certainly an area where O is circling the drain.
Here is a copy of the court order
Del Shannon * RUN AWAY
Leo at Natural Born Citizen is promising a report on the action Charles has referenced above, soon as he does some research, you can follow the action there.
If this Judge Carter, former Marine, lets the case go ahead, with discovery, an immediate appeal will be made to–I think it would be the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals, wouldn’t it? Which doesn’t sound too promising, if that’s the case.
What happens when some of the darker and unseen powers in the Democratic Party / Left start to believe that Obama might be more of a liability than a benefit?
Bar-Kochba Treasure Discovered in Judean Hills
Ah, Camille, don’t step on toes
Please keep your profile low
The Left knows how to handle those
Who dare to let them know
That they are not the angel’s breath
That heaven from on high
Sent down to cause the bourgeois death
That they all think is nigh
What do they think of you, Camille?
They think of you as kept
A woman pere Dumas could feel
Was free to fly, except
She could not speak her mind at all
She could not say a word
She’s at her master’s beck and call
A painted, sainted bird
Camellias bloom, camellias die
The Left is always here
And that dear girl’s the reason why
You have a right to fear
The people now you think you know
The people of the hive
Pray look behind you for the blow
And you may stay alive
Another suit is being filed in the Columbus division of U.S.
District Court
Its likely Orly is attracting whole platoons of lawyers to do pro bono work for her.
I think this Kenyan birth certificate is a fakaroo, though if it would lead to O’s having to open up his files, it serves a purpose.
#24 Bob
Given the “enlightened” one-party dictatorship that Obama regime flack Thomas Friedman just called for [not without someone's approval, I suspect]; I think the judge and all concerned might have to worry about more than a rigged appeal to the Marxist 9th Circuit. I believe the German phrase was Nacht und Nebel.
Subotai Bahadur
Which doesn’t mean he wasn’t born in Kenya.
WND reported long ago—
Administrators and doctors at the hospital told WND sources that in 2004 a high-level team of Kenya’s National Security Intelligence Service came to the hospital and seized all files containing birth certificate documents from the years 1960 through 1963.
According to the hospital administrators and doctors interviewed at the hospital, it was not until four months later that Kenya’s National Security Intelligence Service returned the seized files to the hospital.
I’m not a birther anyway. He didn’t have two citizen parents, which is what I think counts.
After his performance tonight, The 0bamanation has declared who and what he is to all. There are no middle grounds, no compromises.
The last words/sentences were telling:
I…I…I…I… ad nauseum.
Paglia had best be careful. She may find herself consigned to one of our reeducation camps.
My question is what will The Won do when America erupts as it will?
What a hell of a mess.
29. bob:
I don’t disagree with you. The record is pretty murky. We won’t know until they open his birth files.
If they don’t open the files the suits will keep on coming–making it difficult for O to contemplate a 2nd term without the birth certificate issue coming up. His allies are getting weaker and his enemies are getting stronger.
I don’t think Paglia will get much hate from the internet. She has no blog, and most of her columns on Salon pass without comment. She’s been writing like this for a long time.
Well, I don’t know (or much care) where Obama was born, but I think we all saw his political death tonight.
A good deal of the fuel behind the TEA party movement is a sense that some important feedback circuits have gotten disconnected and government entities have gone out of control. Obama pretty much told everybody that yup, we’re totally disconnected from reality here in D.C. and you shouldn’t expect us to make sense any time soon.
I was searching for but did not find an old Twilight Zone episode which answers your question.
Paglia still believes Obama was about “progress”; she misunderstands: it was all about power. The locomotive of history wavers not — until it goes off the cliff. Paglia can see it, but hesitates to make a clean break.
So will Camille (et al.) take a bullet in the back of the head for “the team”?
Or, when she (et al.) decides, as she must (being Camille) that she won’t, will it be too late (as she, while kneeling, asks herself, no doubt along with many others, “How did I ever persuade myself to support this gorgeous tyrant?”)?
….And is Obama backing Zelaya because he senses (or rather knows) that Zelaya’s predicament will ultimately mirror his own?
> “It’s hard after all, because collectivity is a hideous strength.”
Love the C.S. Lewis reference. It’s so appropriate here. “That Hideous Strength” was a novel portraying the Apocalypse not as a great battle but as the inexorable, strangling coils of an inhuman bureaucracy, complete with its leftist claque of propagandists.
> “The very unity that gives the Left an inhuman strength is also its greatest weakness.”
What gives the Left its inhuman strength is its uniform and unrelenting hatred of God. It’s not just American exceptionalism that grinds their guts: it’s Creation itself. The general unfairness of life. Man having to scratch his existence out of the soil because of original sin. The outrageousness behind the biological differences between the sexes. The fanciful notion that marriage evolved arbitrarily with regard to sex. The unreasonable demand to grant God the love and worship that ought to be reserved for one’s own delightful self.
It’s a mindset that reminds me often of my favorite scene in the 1980s movie, “The Time Bandits.” The Devil (wickedly played by the great David Warner) explains his essential beef with God, and how he could have done a much better job as the Creator. “Men,” he scoffs, “with nipples!”
“How did I ever persuade myself to support this gorgeous tyrant?”
Except that she will not be excecuted, because she thinks he’s (ultimately) gorgeous.
Read deeper into her columns, and Ms Paglia will eventually admit that no matter how bad Obama is, she will never, ever vote for anyone who isn’t a Democrat and certainly not for anyone other than THIS Democrat. If Obama came out for setting busloads of children on fire, she’d tut-tut and then vote for him over literally ANY conservative.
The narrative must be maintained; white, conservative, capitalist, heterosexual Christians MUST be held as the greatest evil in the universe, no matter what level of self-dishonesty or contortions of logic or ignoring of the facts must be done to make it so. No matter what other groups do, no matter how wrong those other groups are, they are not permitted to be perceived as worse.
Folks like her are mocked by the far left but never executed, because no matter what squawking they do, they can be counted on for support in the end.
Do not be comforted by her critiques. Where it matters the most – the voting booth – Ms Paglia hasn’t moved one millimeter.
Paglia’s politics are wholly about aesthetics. If she balks at the Left-wing vices of totalitarianism, the the “campusing” of options and the the substitution of sloganeering and cant for “critical thought” this is not because of truly moral objections, but rather aesthetic ones masked as moral concerns.
What ultimately causes her to stray is the “feeling” that this all diminishes her vainglorious notions of her own self. The stagecraft clumsy, the costumes not quite right, the stage sets amateurish, it is no longer possible to suspend disbelief. The fantasy of superiority has been momentarily disrupted by halitosis, stomach aches and inept applications of makeup. She is merely grousing to the director and the stage manager.
But not to worry: her particular “niche” in the left’s “intellectual culture” has always been to be the playful, sassy and keen observer, who through her “erudite feminism” and pluckiness holds up a mirror to the Left. She is a touchstone of “nuance” and nostalgia to academics of a certain age and type–generally boomer, apostate catholic academics and/or those who still possess some semblance of culture and civilization. A sort of intellectual, leftist version of Guy Lombardo and H. L. Menkin. But the fact that that mirror he proffers is grimed with mud and rudely convex does not matter to her or her audience. Not one bit.
She imagines that she is a “philosopher”, but a true philosophy comprises an ethics, a logic, an epistemology, and metaphysics, which is to say an ontology, and an aesthetics (snd perhaps, in this day and age, a psychology).
That she can not tell the difference between all of these shows that she is more glib and garrulous than educted.
Should the stagecraft trim itself up, she will be out there towing the line with the rest of them.
It is little more than that to her recent “epiphany”. They are “musings” and nothing more. Do not get your hopes up for little has changed.
Make no mistake about it, folks. Paglia is not distressed that Obama said his Imperial Navy task force was going to escort the ship of state from New York to San Francisco when in fact he always planned to hang a left enroute and turn it over to the Somali pirates.
Hurricane Camille still thinks that the poor Somalis deserve to loot the ship. But she has become increasingly concerned that enemy air activity has increased and the Imperial Obama Navy ship Van Jones was sunk by a sub whose existence had been discounted as an ugly rumor.
She is afraid that the task force will be sunk and the gay revelers on board the luxury crusie ship will find themselves not in gay Frisco but in Mobile, or, worse yet, Houston, during an NRA convention, and the subject of entertainment at a traditional Texas necktie party and BBQ to boot.
She fears not for the state of the country but for the integrity of her own hide.
39. Lee Dise:
What gives the Left its inhuman strength is its uniform and unrelenting hatred of God. It’s not just American exceptionalism that grinds their guts: it’s Creation itself. The general unfairness of life. Man having to scratch his existence out of the soil because of original sin. The outrageousness behind the biological differences between the sexes. The fanciful notion that marriage evolved arbitrarily with regard to sex. The unreasonable demand to grant God the love and worship that ought to be reserved for one’s own delightful self.
……
I would like to see this carved on a building somewhere.
This is just my opinion, but you have to defeat these people on the issues and on the basis of their ideas. This whole “birther” thing will be a gift to President Obama. It will rally Democrats to his side and “provoking” a constitutional crisis — as it will be portrayed — at this time will simply allow the media to saddle conservatives and Republicans as being the cause of continued economic distress. Radicals promote chaos because they hope to profit from it. So why do it for them — and take the blame for the chaos they are already spreading? Having Alan Keyes as part of the suit is a bow on the gift to Presdent Obama (he’s the guy Obama beat for the Senate seat: sour grapes, anyone?)
Of course challenging President Obama’s legitimacy to hold office (which is unlikely to impress one person who voted for him) may be the right thing to do. It just won’t turn out well — politically — for conservatives. Bless you for not taking that into consideration. Some principles are more important than politics.
hdgreene, well either we have a constitution or we do not. If we no longer respect our laws, then let us openly proclaim this and prepare for war or tyranny.
It is now a time to stand on principles and law, and to stop thinking about “marketing”. We will certainly not “defeat” them in the arena of public opinion if we have become a lawless society.
We will never “defeat these people on the issues and on the basis of their ideas” otherwise. They will not be dissuaded in any event; they must be exposed and driven from power and influence (which I take to be your meaning).
Some of the “muddle” can be peeled off no doubt, but I’d wager that what really has to happen is that the broad disillusioned mass that avoid voting must be brought to the polls.
Getting the truth out of the administration is a start, as is pointing out that every bit of this man’s personal history has been suppressed.
Let us get the elctorate to ask why this is so?
What happens to us when Obama decides we are not worthy of him?
Health care, cap & trade, all of it, is just smoke and mirrors.
The primary goal of this administration is to weaken the US to where it loses it’s “superpower” status, economically and militarily.
It won’t take much in the way of strategic reductions, loss of maintenance/upgrades, ending boomer patrols, de-warheading minuteman ICBMs (what better way to take them off alert), to render the US vulnerable to a “red” first strike.
And all of these “reductions” and more will be necessary because the welfare state can’t be supported on tax increases alone, which of course will compound the “problem” of lack of revenue. Of course, the “problem” of lack of revenue is the solution, military cuts. The US would be much better off spending all that money on a “National Civilian Security Force”, AKA Obama’s ACORN Brownshirts.
T-72/BMPs coming to a town near you, just wait and see!
Or maybe if Obama’s brownshirted ACORN buddies can do a good enough job disarming the masses, the Reds will give us a pass and we won’t have to be eliminated with the WMDs that seem to be sprouting up everywhere(thanks to the Red team).
Being a partisan can be a tough thing. Last night President Brk condemned divisiveness and fearmongering while engaging in both. The Dems do their best Claude Rains with respect to Joe Wilson. It is hard to pretend you are as pure as primal snow when you are the madame of bordello and sometimes partisans slip and think.
On this Paglia is correct (similarly Chris Hitchens is good on the true nature of the totalitarian Islam, but most often he too is wrong), but, I don’t think the Dems (at least most in office, yet the krazy kos kiddies I am sure all certain it is all fake) are really convinced the reaction is “fake” but know they had better get this done now or it will be another 12 years or so before they get a chance.
The question is, why did they take this on after cap’n trade rather than before? Heck, they should have tabled cap’n trade once they saw how unpopular it was and took on health care first.
Anyway, got a chain I need to sharpen up!
Here’s more on the Obama birth court case.
There’s actually three hearings now scheduled.
They don’t claim that O is Kenyan but rather that he is Indonesian. there is pretty good documented evidence that he became a citizen of indonesia when he was adopted by sotero. so it may turn out that he is a naturalized citizen. but who knows.
Here’s a stunner.
After the campaign speech Barack Obama delivered to Congress last night the AP reported that O’s talking points were not true.
The Kenyan birth certificate is a fake. Any support for that line is a gift to the Democrats. Any adoption that happened while he was a minor does nothing to change his status as a Natural Born citizen. The only thing that would matter would be evidence that he claimed foreign nationality after his 18th birthday. That could be revealed in his educational records and in his passport records.
BHO has bounced up to -8 in the Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll Index. If he does not break through to even over the next 5 days then the speech was a bust and the slide will continue. The most important test coming up will be the local off year elections in 5 weeks.
Charles,
Good catch with the AP report. Low flying bacon alert.
Mongoose writes: “Paglia’s politics are wholly about aesthetics.”
Great post. You’ve saved me from writing something similar that would be a poor imitation of your essay.
Paglia may always vote for Obama, but she can tell which way the wind is blowing. I don’t expect Camille to be anything other than a liberal, but she’s valuable as a shroud telltale that indicates the coming catspaw. When people start mocking and laughing at Obama, you’ll know that the wind will soon be blowing from the other quarter entirely. (Whew, got to keep a steady hand on the extended metaphor tiller.)
It’s time for the GOP to take the inside tack, to the windward side of the Dems, and cut off the wind to their sails. There seems to be general consensus on the right re. directions in health care reform, and the GOP should get aggressive in pushing these (insurance portability/competition, credits, tort reform, etc.)
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin (change of metaphor alert here) is picking off the straggling wolves. From a helicopter, so to speak. Interesting asymmetrical encounter, now that she is not a target herself as governor, subject to lawsuits, etc.
OT,
This is going to be a HUGE story: How ACORN really works — the movie
[Andy McCarthy]
Run, don’t walk, to Breitbart TV, to watch hair-raising clips of ACORN in action.
This is an undercover investigation of how Alinsky-style community organizing works, meaning it’s a tutorial in how to violate the law.
It’s one thing to hear about it and know it’s going on.
It’s quite another to watch it in action.
Paul,
And the expected service life of the equipment is…? What a waste!
Not to mention you didn’t include any maintenance; now maybe in Florida there are no trees, leaves, dust or bird droppings, but elsewhere the homeowner either has to be able to do some kind of cleaning occasionally or hire it done or else the output drops just because the panel surface is dirty.
Richard, a suggestion: set up a permanent comment board for Birthers, maybe with a prominent link in the sidebar. I’m not passing judgement on whether or not I believe it, but the Birther comments on this thread are off-topic. Please consider giving people a place to exchange information and views on that subject, and then not allow it on posts where it is clearly a distraction.
I nominate “Rubric Cube” as a title for a future BC post.
(And you blue dog BC’ers better vote for it unanimously if you know what’s good for you.)
Mongoose, I don’t oppose the court cases, I’m just warning that the political fallout could be less than pleasing to conservatives. So why get caught up in it now? Wait and see what develops.
When the left is losing the argument, they love to change the subject. When they want to get their way they play the victim. The “Birther” controversy will allow them to do both. And they can let it simmer for a year and then boil it over whenever it suits their purpose. And who knows? They may hold a trump card they are keeping for that purpose.
I talk to Obama voters and I sense they will need ten logical reasons to leave him but only one, highly charged, emotional response to stick. They knew enough about his personal history that none of this is surprising. And who wants to admit they were wrong, especially when they have ignored the elephant in the room — in the last election the elephant was the boring, safe choice of John McCain over the new kid on the block.
The time to determine the eligibility of Presidential candidates is at the ballot stage. It is possible to start a movement to require states to do this before the elections, without being accused of trying to over turn the results. In fact, it could be combined with checking the ID’s of both voters and candidates to make sure both are eligible. But try to keep it as nonpolitical as possible, and unemotional.
hdgrenne, I do not kow why you are concerned with Obama voters. Only a small portion will be peeled away. The point is to uphold the law. It is specious logic to say that because duty was shirk prior to is election, that it should be shirked now. If he holds office illegally he, under the law ge should be removed. If officials in the States colluded with this, then they too should be held accountable.It has little to do with the responses of obama voters you happen to talk to. It is about the law and the principles.
I douby very much that conservatives will be “disappointed in the outcome”, but if there is blowbacck politically, it is a good time to point out the that the opposition is more concerned with rhetoric than the truth. If the electorate is so supine that enforcing the most basic of laws surrounding the office of the POTUS can be politicized against conservatives, then let us openly face it and go from there.
My guess is that there will be no real blowback. If anything, i would guess there will be calls for more of his background to be opened up to public review. One hopes that in these cases they subpoena his college records, particularity those if his undergraduate years.
“”"” 14. Subotai Bahadur:
One of the keynotes of the transformation of the Democratic Party into an aspiring totalitarian movement has been the exile or elimination of those who actually attempt to think through their positions and justify them rationally. “”"”
To me, the Democratic Party died when Daniel Patrick Moynihan did. I have no idea who these neutered pod people are who’ve taken over its corpse.
Mark (52),
Care, bro, I’m pretty sure Thomas Friedman has a “business method” patent on running aground via the overuse of extended metaphors.
#59 Roderick
Or when Scoop Jackson died. He was a family friend and came by our house on occassion. He was serious about his support of Israel. He was very keen on Jewish history – he did college masters work on Spinoza. I remember one long conversation we had on the Jewish/Muslim expulsions of 16th century Spain. His kind of caring but tough-minded democrat is long gone…
Paglia is one of those people on the Left who are unable to disengage their brains. For Paglia, facts still matter… Paglia still believes Obama was about “progress”; she misunderstands: it was all about power.
Not to quibble, but for my money that doesn’t describe someone to whom “facts still matter.” Or if facts really do matter it’s hard to imagine Paglia’s brain was ever engaged. “Letist intellectual” has become something of an oxymoron, and she is is the perfect poster child. Way overrated.
Scoop Jackson was a Spinoza scholar? Who knew? I imagine he actaully knoew something about him too, given that his generation actaully had to know something to get graduate degree.
No wonder I liked him.
I don’t see any reason why we can’t have some folks mounting a frontal assault while hdgreene sneaks around the flank and picks off a few stragglers… unless we’re so short of resources we can’t possibly spare him for that duty.
Das,
Broad smile
Nw that is interesting. Please write up those memories at length. If the Democrats can only be lead back to the legacy of Scoop Jackson and Daniel Moynihan then the Republicans will have a partner that they can argue with and win or lose feel respect for.
All Hail Scoop Jackson. Now *there* was a Democrat, even more so than Moynihan, for whom politics stopped at the water’s edge. (How appropriate we have a boomer named after him.)
And now, instead of Jackson and Magnuson, we’re sending Murray and Cantwell to the Senate??? Gack; sorry, people, really I am…
Paglia fits the definition of Useful Idiot more completely than her idiot cohorts: David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, Chris Buckley, and that goofy Cramer guy.
All these fools voted and vouched for Obama because he was the “coolest kid in school,” and proved once again that intellectual pretensions not anchored to either integrity or logic are bankrupt.
Paglia is brilliant – and bent.
She can see things so clearly, and say them so sharply – and then trip over her own feet.
How, how, how can she be surprised or disappointed at all the events she deplores?
Camille Paglia is just an Oriana Fallaci waiting to happen.
I have a different take on “THE ONE.” I don’t think this guy is really in charge of anything. He is clearly being managed by handlers, primarily Rahm Emanuel and John Podesta. Of the two, I feel Podesta is by far the most dangerous. His organization, Center for American Progress, is a shill for almost every far-left initiative there is. Emanuel is just a power-hungry punk. Podesta has a vision.
#61 Das
Actually, it is not “tough minded” Democrats that are gone. Emmanuel and Axelrod are tough minded in the mold of Beria, so long as they do not have to shed the blood themselves. I contend that what has passed from the scene is Democrats who love this country and its people. Their contempt is manifest in everything that they do, in every word, in every double standard that they live by.
#64 Kirk parker
Not to place any real hope in the birth certificate, I have seen enough to know from my days when I was a Peace Officer, that he is hiding something that is real damaging. That said, our legal system is so politicized, and the rule of law so damaged; that whatever it is will not come out until Obama no longer has the power to threaten effective retaliation to suppress it. That does not mean that we cannot have that now as one front of the battle. Until the people themselves stood up, no one [especially the Republican party] was willing to oppose the will of Obama. Now there are multiple fronts, and we are inside their OODA loop. They are stumbling over themselves and giving us opportunities. So long as the “birthers” do not become our main line of opposition, it is all good and there is a chance something might come of it to the benefit of the nation. The phrase “Confusion to the Enemy” comes to mind.
Subotai Bahadur
Roderick Reilly @59. Lifeofthemind @65
Never, never, never, revere any politician too much, because they all have feet of clay.
Moynihan said many nice sounding things which sounded anchored in principle, such as his famous “Defining Deviancy Down.”
The Tax Reform Act of 1986, pushed by Reagan, was very popular, and pretty much remains so today except by the Left. As head of the Senate finance committee, Moynihan shepherded the bill through very well. Sounds like he was uniquely bipartisan and had the well-being of the country in mind right?
Well, he inserted into the tax code, at the last minute of conference committee sessions where committee chairs are rarely challenged, words written by lawyers at one company that hugely benefited that company.
That section of tax code solely targeted every engineer and programmer in the country, while costing the taxpayers more as well. That company was run by his wife’s family. Anyone who thinks he didn’t benefit directly from that is beyond hope.
And then there are those who will know or accept what I just said is true, but will be members of the apologist brigade. Their line is “So what? They all do it.”
There is the problem in a nutshell. It’s similar to those who defend RINOs when they help the GOP attain a majority (no matter how Pyrrhic a “victory” it be).
When personal gain and betrayal of principles become acceptable in any republic, even long after the fact and after so many others have followed the same path to personal gain (via passing law that restrict liberties and eradicate constitutional restrictions), how do you ever hope to regain order? You should remember your acceptance of betrayals when you later bemoan threats to your personal liberties.
Betrayal, too often dismissed, will be costly. It should have been costly to the betrayers, but instead it costs the acceptors of the betrayals and their posterity.
How especially true it is (because others watch and see no downside to perfidy) when we remember too kindly such men.
Life, Kirk, et al I wish I had more and deeper memories about Scoop. My dad was quite close to him and I’ve been encouraging him to write up some memoirs. My overall impression about him is how approachable he was; pretty much zero BS; he didn’t have any weird ideological showbiz about him; very down-to-earth. This would have been the late 1970s; he’s in our dining room talking to my mom about making homemade yogurt; I remember thinking a the time, ‘wow, here’s the guy who can rattle Breshnev’s cages talking to my mom about yogurt.’ I also remember thinking that his knowledge of history was very deep and solid; again, it wasn’t show-offy but very solid. I was able to keep up with him because at the time I was taking graduate seminars on Golden Age Spain. Less so about the Soviet Union – I would have been out of my depth – and many of his deeper thoughts he would have had to keep private anyway. I tried to get some info out of my dad but he was pretty loyally tight-lipped. I think after Scoop died it became known that underneath his tough stance towards the USSR he felt a lot of compassion for the Russian people, for how horribly their leaders were treating them and that in spite of all their bluster they really hadn’t progressed much beyond the time of Tolstoy…
p.s. about Paglia guys – don’t be too hard on her – she’s an Aquarian Child of the 60s – I love that line ‘she’s an Oriana Fallaci waiting to happen.’ Also don’t be too hard on the softies who voted for Obama. The country was not about to vote in another barely articulate clodhopping republican; Obama is as much a republican creation as a democrat. What happened to McCain anyway? He stood up to the Viet Cong – men who fired bullets into temples of village leaders who didn’t go along with them. He couldn’t, didn’t however, stand up to the women of “The View.”
Moynihan also disappointed during the last years of the Clinton administration.
I think that he was bearable for he was well spoken, knowledgeable and had some rationality and concern for the nation. He was a the last of the 2nd generation New dealers that could still be considered a “good liberals”. This does not mean that he did not support some very bad things or that he was not used by the Hard left toward their ends. He did not attempt to stop or expose the Communist infiltration of this party.
His legacy is at the very least troubled, if not dubious.
37. Pascal Fervor:
Easy. Ugly but easy. They find a doofus cracker who can be set up as a fall guy and then arrange for someone else to “score a hole in Won”. Then Biden and Rahmbo round up everyone who still admits to being a conservatiive or to keeping a gun. Then Obambi will be “always with us” for as long as the Kennedys. this is why I am so adamantly opposed to assassinations. But that won’t stop a false flag hit job.
41. Mongoose
If I can mix mythological images, you just showed Medusa the mirror. Well done!
The country was not about to vote in another barely articulate clodhopping republican
Nonsense. Really, Das, this is rather offensive, your description of GWB, and quite untrue. Given the good that the GOP has done in the last 40 years, and the insights that have informed them, and the harm the Democrats have done, despite all their “education”, it is hardly an accurate description across the board either. It certainly does not apply to GWB.
I suggest that you actual read or listen to some of his speeches, it sounds like you were not paying attention. They are certainly much better than anything that Carter, Clinton or Obama have ever produced. As an mind and as speaker, Bush far outclasses anything that these toads ever did, no matter how his public speaking may lack in celebrity polish. The lack of insincerity, and the refusal to spout of fatuous and glib bromides are hardly the mark of the inarticulate. Perhaps you need to examine how your own perceptions are manipulated by the MSM such that you are led to spit out their electioneering memes so reflexively.
As far as I am concerned you engage in slander here, unwittingly or not.
Reagan and the two Bushes “clodhoppers”? This would seem to apply altogether more aptly to Clinton and Carter, and to a certain extent, Obama. GWB, in the end, is an altogether more sophisticated and subtle politician than any of them could ever hoped to be. He managed to get what he wanted out of an often hostile Congress. So did Reagan. Clinton destroyed his parties majority, one they had held almost with out interruption for generations. Obama is having trouble with his own party in power, and with a composition of Congress which is the most left wing in our history at that. Once you strip away the BS, Obama is perhaps the worst Democrat public speaker the Democrats have had in office since Truman. His “style” is straight out of the Democrat state-wide office Barnstorming tradition and wholly inappropriate to his office.
Obama, the creation of the GOP? No, he is the creation of the media, academia and Democrat political machine, and his success during the election period is almost solely the work of the MSM. That a portion Americans that happened to be duped by them hardly places Obama’s election on the shoulders of the GOP; it places it on the shoulders of those so duped. Seems like the MSM’s agitprop have had its effects on you too. Perhaps you should examine this within you.
Clodhoppers indeed.
(Oh, and but for the manufactured October Surprise of the financial “crisis”, the odds are that McCain would hve won.)
Sounds to me as if you have allowed your intellectual pretensions to lead you to believe some rather silly propaganda about the intelligence of Republican in general, and GWB in particular. Shame on you.
For sure; I can remember thinking, “How can he know what he knows, say what he says, and yet still vote with the D’s on (x,y,z).”
“”"”"” 72. Pascal Fervor:
Roderick Reilly @59. Lifeofthemind @65
Never, never, never, revere any politician too much, because they all have feet of clay. “”"”"
Well, yeah. I view Moynihan within the context of his being a top Democrat, a major liability in retrospect. Revering politicians, or catching a fever about one (that includes Palin worship) is a bad idea in what is supposed to be a free society. This is one reason, in my view, why term limits accross the board are long past due.
12 years each for both Houses of Congress. And I do mean that someone who was in the House can only run for the Senate if they had served no more than three terms in the House. If that is not realistic, than a total combined service maximum of 18 years between both Houses. We should even consider going back to having state legislatures electing Senators.
Roderick Reilly,
I am not in favor of term limits. It smacks to much of an admission of incapacity that is incompatible with being a citizen of a sovereign republic. You do not cure an alcohol dependency by asking the bartender to cut you off after 3 drinks but then start serving from another bottle. Otherwise I agree with you and Pascal that we should remember that they are just politicians. Even General Washington had to go to the privy and put his pants on and had a fierce temper but I sure wish he had a man of his caliber again. You are 100% correct about the 17th Amendment needing repeal. That should not simply be something to “even consider” but a priority.
Pascal Fervor,
Perhaps Paddy Moynihan was like another sainted Liberal, Fiorello Laguardia who said “I don’t make many mistakes but when I do it’s a beut.” The Little Flower was a Republican and a Protestant Italian with a jewish wife. He couldn’t miss.
Paglia is a Fallaci waiting to happen! I like that!
Mongoose & Co. – or it could be that Paglia’s aesthetics is her politics. Having read and admired her “Sexual Personae” when it came out in the early 1990s, it was clear then that she was not interested in stale pieties and cliches; the woman understands distinctions. Unfortunately she’s a debauched libertine little femme satyr as well, which saps her morale, but I yet hope that Paglia will follow these sparks of common sense and leave the fold. She’ll probably never be happy outside the role of provocateur in one way or another (being a mere aesthetic person), but she could make the switch if anyone could, in my opinion. She’s been very good at devestating various idiocies of academic Leninism for over a decade now.
I’m in favor of term limits.
“Never reformed because never deformed.”
Though it probably wouldn’t make much difference in the long run. The same basic interests in society would just put another new clone of the old clone in.
What works in a monastery might not work so good in America.
DWS, I agree with you. Obambi has showed time and again that he really is a deer in the highlights when the unexpected happens. He stumbles and stutters the moment he is caught off-guard. He makes rookie mistakes time after time. He has showed that he is utterly tone-deaf when it comes to politics and doesn’t have a clue what to do when he meets real opposition. He truly is a front man, a cardboard cut-out of a President that looks great from the front, but is wafer-thin when viewed from the side. Question is when will the curtain be pulled back so that even the duped can no longer ignore the reality?
Re: Term limits and Senator’s elections. I think there should be a limit to the number of consecutive terms that a Senator and Representative could serve. Twelve years seems about right, after which they then would be prohibited from holding the same elective office for four years. That way the truly gifted politicians could come back for a second, third, maybe even fourth round of public service, hopefully a little wiser for having to live in the real world under the laws that they enacted. As far as the 17th amendment goes there was a reason it was enacted: corruption of the state legislatures by power brokers willing to do whatever it took to put one their people into a Senate seat. Perhaps a blending of the old system with the new might be the way to go: Two candidates for the Senate seat would be nominated by the Governor and then confirmed by majority vote of both houses of the State Legislature and then placed before the voters to decide.
“It’s hard after all, because collectivity is a hideous strength.”
Hideous strength? A reference to C. S. Lewis?
Paglia might have an easier time climbing down than some.
Many of zero’s supporters spoke vilely and frequently, falsely and contemptuously, of those who were not.
To climb down, they’d have to admit that not only were they wrong about the political issues, so were they about the insults. The latter is difficult. The former, not so much. Relatively, anyway.
“”"”" 79. Lifeofthemind:
Roderick Reilly,
I am not in favor of term limits. It smacks to much of an admission of incapacity that is incompatible with being a citizen of a sovereign republic. “”"”"
Those used to be my sentiments exactly, and I view imposing term limits as a sign of failure. That means that, by my suggesting we consider term limits, I am saying that American governance has failed at some fundamental level. What has failed, actually, is not the basic system, but the people who man it. They are no longer the “Cincinnatians” of our founding, and lack the virtue that John Adams considered essential to a proper republic. I have argued in the past that we didn’t need to have Presidential term limits either, just because of FDR. After all, I argued, every President before him never tried (as best as I can remember) for more than two terms, and almost every President since would have stopped at two even without the law in place. But nowadays I think I would be wrong. I think that we’ve had — in Clinton and now Obama — men who would want to govern/rule for decades, and Congress is full of people who have ruined the institution in part by being there interminably and have become corrupted by their longevity as much as anything else.
We are not the “republic” we once were, and I think we have to find new ways (like term limits) to put the brakes on the powerful while trying to make our way back to the way we should govern ourselves. We need that breathing room and those new barriers.
Also, keep in mind that I suggested a rather generous 12-18 year limit (depending on the combination of House/Senate tenure). I want to be realistic and not impose draconian limits fraught with unintended consequences. Even with term limits there would be unintended consequences, but almost certainly fewer of them than what we have now with multi-decade, generation-long tenures.
Mongoose,
En guard;
I liked a few of Bush’s speeches around ’03 & ’04 but, as a communicator, as chief communicator of his party’s policies, well, sorry, nope.
Bush let the high office of the president be trashed and smeared by the dictator, Chavez at the UN; no response. He let his office be slandered by the NAACP and La Raza – did he answer those slanders? No, he caved in and spoke fawningly before those worthless groups. After 9/11 and 2004 the republican party had it all. What did it do besides watch republican congressman after republican congressman tootle off to jail? Did it engage in any kind of outreach? Did it scoop up the many thousands (if not millions) of former leftys who had come to ebrace more conservative thinking? No & no. As a more-or-less conservative sitting up here in Seattle, in Lefty La La Land, RNC outreach is a joke. I might as well be a Christian living in a hut outside the gates of Byzantium circa 1450 AD. The Pope – or the Republican Party – has written me off. (Don’t believe me? Talk to my pal and neighbor Vanderleun at American Digest. He’s got a bumper sticker: The Republican Party – It Wants to Die).
So where were we? McCain. Ah yes, his forthright and super-articulate, powerful campaign for president. In reality the young man who stood up to the Viet Cong murderers had melted away into a spinless blob, yukking it up, nervous, unfocused, mealy nonsense, incapable of committing to declaraitive sentences. And picking up Sara Palin only to drop her was the worst.
So, yes, Obama is a joint creation of democrats and republicans. We horribly deserve him.
Coda:
By the way, did your wonderful Bush try to curb spending? No, he was right in there with Rove pushing the cheap mortgage biz with the rest of them – as far back as 2002 and spending spending spending…
Das:
Your complaint was originally that Bush was a “inarticulate clodhopper”, and that somehow GOP “created Obama” by some combination of Bush being an “inarticulate clodhopper” and continuing to offer more “inarticulate clodhoppers”. Additionally, there seemed to be the implication that in fact the GOP itself was somehow composed of “inarticulate clodhoppers” and as such lost the election and, again, “created Obama”. You complaint was not that you happened to personally disagree with Bush or his policies. This is a completely other matter.
I solidly debunked these “arguments” and you have yet to address that. If you are saying that any of your original compliant obtains because Bush and/or the GOP do not happen to agree with your “wisdom” or your “positions”, I can here as well assure you that this was not nor is the case. Little hinged here on your opinion so far as national politics go.
Now I see that the slander was intentional. You insult him because you do not agree with him. How immoral of you. How intellectually dishonest. Again, shame on you.
Engard? you did not even get your sword out of its scabbard–you completely evade the point.
(Oh and that is something else altogether that you have in your hand. Careful,I hear you can go blind from that).
You have completely changed the subject, there wizkid. I was addressing your slander of a fine man and a patriot who did what he had to to against odds and opposition that no POTUS has faced since Lincoln. He deserves your respect, not your scorn, and that you can not give it freely and gratefully does not speak well of you.
As to your “political beliefs” and how they contrast with Bush’s policies, that is really nether here nor there as far as I am concerned. Moreover, they seem pretty much received and from the nancy boys at NRO and those “deep thinkers” at Free Republic so far as I can see. These are pretty much cliches, and need no debunking from me. I am little interested in your political hobby horses–believe what you will; Just do not go around slandering people you do not happen to agree with, particularly when they were out there working day and night protecting your rear end.
I will say though that when things were bad for Bush–and the country–it was the gang of selfish and self-centered conservative “purists” (and those who ape them) who did not “stand up for his office” but rather went off on whatever little “conservative issue” got their little panties bunched up. This constant bickering and ankle-biting out of elements the right, who imagine that they lived in a country other than the one that they actually live in, did more damage to the GOP than anything Bush might have done. The democrats rubbed their hand with no small glee, took notes and, particularly in 06, used it against the GOP with much success. Spinoza, ironically, once talked about philosophers polishing lens to view a worlds that will never be. Brother, does that description suit conservative purist during the Bush years. Hint: it was not about you; it was about keeping the country safe. Are you happy about all your tantrums now?
Bush had the tiniest of margins to deal with, a controversial election in the first term, loss of the senate for 4 years of his terms, and loss of the House for two. Even when he had a majority, he had the various “gangs” of Snowe, Spector, etc. sandbagging him day and night. Most importantly, he was subjected to an non-stop media war at all levels unlike anything we have ever seen in the history of our nation. It is amazing that he accomplished what he did. I am glad he was there. So too should you be.
Btw, Bush never ran as a conservative, he ran as a economic and policy moderate who was friendly to the interests of business and social conservatives. He ran openly and did not lie about it. All of these issues that so bedeviled the purists, drugs for seniors, more money as a trade oof for education reform, Immigration, etc., he clearly ran on. He never misrepresented himself.
To add to DAS’s pig-pile:
-W calling Islam the ROP, refusing to use the bully pulpit and the moral imperative of the moment to do to the name of radical Islam what Truman did to name of fascism
-W being on the wrong side of illegal immigration (sorry, ‘temporary guest workers’)
-W failing to address the alarming rise of virulent anti-Christian bigotry in government-funded educational institutions
-W failing to articulate conservative core principals such as fiscal conservatism, small government, American exceptionalism, and the like, both for general consumption and in assistance of people running for congress/governor/etc.
Look, I voted twice for the guy, he was certainly better than the options, and I do think he is a decent fellow. He certainly was surrounded by people who understood the existential threat of an emboldened ummah, and for that I am grateful.
A lion of conservatism he was not.
Mongoose 88-
Your post largely sums up the things I liked about W. But you have to concede that a more articulate man with a little more fire in his belly could have done so much more. Despite his policy areas with which I disagreed, I do think he was basically a decent guy and I was with him on any number of issues. But as the saying goes, politics ain’t bean bag.
More belly fire, please.
For all of you who want to bag on W for one reason or another the question I pose to you is: If not George W. Bush, who? Reagan, TR, Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and all the rest are moulding in the grave. If not George W. Bush, who? McCain? Would he have met your bill of goods if he had won the 2000 primaries and beat Gore? I think not. Newt? Never in a million years could he win the Presidency. Nor any of the other “pure” politicians who might want to trot out. As Rumsfeld once famously said, “You fight wars with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.” The same goes for politicians. G.W. Bush, like it or not, was the essential man at this precise moment of history. Probably the only Republican to be able to beat Al Gore in 2000. Why? Because of his father. I, and probably many like me, voted for W because of his father. Confident that Dad would be there to advise the new President and guide him away from feckless policies. Plus the Bush name stood for decency, and respect for flag and country after the torrid years of the Clinton Presidency. Bush 41 might have not been the best of Presidents, but he, like his son later on, had approval ratings of 90%+ at the moment of crisis. A man trusted by nearly every American, as was his son, to handle the crisis. Years later many of us forget this. Not me. Upon hearing the news that Saddam had invaded Kuwait I said a prayer thanking God for the fact the G.W.H. Bush was our President, and not Dukkais. I did the same thing on 9/11, that G.W. Bush was our President and not Al Gore. Once again a President Bush stood upon the ramparts staring down the enemy, and behind him a grateful nation, confident in his leadership, cheered. That is what I choose to remember about W, along with the purple fingers of Iraq.
“Stand back! Be silent! Be still!…..That’s it! And look upon this moment…savor it! Rejoice with great gladness. Great gladness! Remember it always. For you are joined by it. You are one under the stars. Remember it well then, this night, this great victory. So that in the years ahead, you can say, “I was there that night with Arthur, the King!’ For it is the doom of men that they forget.” ~ Merlin’s speech in Exalibur
For an excellent article on why many were charmed by Moynihan, but ultimately disappointed, see Jay Nordlinger’s Neo Con – Pat Moynihan, tease and heartbreaker here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_2_51/ai_53662232/?tag=content;col1, or google “disappointment in moynihan”.
Moynihan talked a good game as a thoughtful principled intellectual, but was a loyal Democrat always. NTTAWWT.
Tarnsman-
Excellent quote from an excellent movie.
Too bad W couldn’t give a similar spirited and clear speech when the time was right, near the end of the conflict when things are tough and not the beginning, when emotions are high and it is easy to do so.
Similarly, there was a missed opportunity to make this Merlinesque sort of speech by Bush 41, who had the opportunity to use his position to verbally take out and defund the domestic left, and didn’t put the final knife into government funded PC leftist academia when the Berlin Wall came down and he could have done so with relative impunity. Where was the excellence of “1000 Points of Light” speech when it was really needed to get something concrete and epochal accomplished?
I think both were good men and authentic Americans. And I shared your relief at W being president in 9/01. I’ll always be grateful he was there. That doesn’t and shouldn’t stop me or anyone else from being honest about what great things might have been with very little more effort or skill on his part.
Andrew X 25
“What happens when some of the darker and unseen powers in the Democratic Party / Left start to believe that Obama might be more of a liability than a benefit?”
If the birther thing is real (I’m not saying it is) then the Dems will use it to remove him.
If it isn’t, they’ll use parliamentary tricks to marginalize him.
“Positively pickled.” Thanks, Ms Paglia. Plus the best and the brightest did such a swell job of democraticizing Russia that we can all look forward to their ministrations on our country.
Positively pickled in poisonous propaganda is a better description of the modern academically lobotomized university graduate. But Camille got most of it right.
For all of you who want to bag on W for one reason or another the question I pose to you is: If not George W. Bush, who?
I too voted twice for W, and I too believe he was by far the best choice in both campaigns. But I also believe he fell short of what he could have been, and it’s not bagging on him to say that. He was a good man and not a great one, something I’d be damn glad to be able to say about myself.
The point isn’t to bag on George W. Bush, or even McCain for that matter. The point is to learn from their failings and use those lessons in the future.
For instance, I don’t think W was inarticulate. He got his messages across just fine. The garbled syntax and mangled lexicon actually helped, they made things memorable, helped the message stick. Strategery indeed. But I also think he failed to articulate important things. Not because he was inarticulate, but because he either didn’t want to make certain points or didn’t think he needed to. He needed to counter the lies and slanders of the Left and didn’t. We may say he shouldn’t have to respond to the sort of crap that comes out of Michael Moore, but the fact is he didn’t and it cost the country. The unanswered deluge of propaganda from the Left undermined Bush and the GOP. The GOP brand was badly trashed, mostly for lack of responding to outrageous lies. All the outright crap spouted by the Democrats should have given Bush all the ammunition he needed to bury that party, but he didn’t use it.
He should have. The next guy needs to learn from that lesson.
McCain – he was perfectly willing to go hammer and tongs in the Primaries, but as soon as it was a Democrat he was up against, he started pulling his punches. He was more willing to beat up other Republicans than he was Democrats. That too was a mistake, one common among long-time GOP politicians. It cost him the election. With everything else going on, if McCain had been willing to pound Obama with the ammo he had, I don’t think Obama would have won.
Who can do better? Well, I wish I knew. I wish I could say for sure that Bobby Jindal or Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney, but the truth is, we’re going to have to see who can do what. We need people who will forcefully articulate conservative principles and forcefully attack Leftists who threaten them. No more Mr Nice Guys. We need someone willing to pick up a club and start swinging.
97 JMH
“He was a good man and not a great one, something I’d be damn glad to be able to say about myself….The point isn’t to bag on George W. Bush, or even McCain for that matter. The point is to learn from their failings and use those lessons in the future.”
Yep.
I voted for him twice as well, but he made many serious mistakes. IMO the worst was the WMD issue – when the DEMS started “calling him out” on this (as BHO says) he should have turned the tables on them very publicly. Acknowledge that the intelligence was imperfect, and open to different interpretations. Emphasize that the top DEMS had access to the same intelligence that he did, and supported his policies by and large.
And then asked the DEMS a simple question – “How much proof is enough for you – do we have to have a city go up in a mushroom cloud or gas attack before you’ll respond?” And then make the point very forcefully that he would not wait for that to happen. I’m not sure how his critics could have responded to that, but if done in a very focused manner it may have put them off stride at least. As it is he left them an open field, and they quickly charged in and undermined his (and our) policies without fear.
I assume he didn’t do that because he’s not confrontational at heart, and moreover had no idea how far the DEMS would take things in a time when we had troops on the ground in a foreign land. The politics stops at the waters edge thing. Everyone should know better now, making nice with these people is a losing proposition.
We need to “learn from their failings and use those lessons in the future.”
Health Care will be passed one way, or the other. If necessary, they will pass by way of the Reconcialiation process, on Oct 15th:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/58233-obama-sets-stage-for-using-budget-maneuver-to-pass-health-reform
And all they need to do it that way, is a simple majority.
So this is what the Won meant when he said it was coming, one way or the other.
And I’ll just bet it will include a public option.