I was quite amused by Ann Althouse’s post about Chuck Schumer’s appearance on “Meet the Press,” which I missed. But reading the text, I was reminded of something that has repeatedly been in my face ever since I started blogging about politicians, lo these many moons ago: It’s about projection. Every time a politician accuses somebody else of something, that is more than likely precisely what he or she is doing.
Schumer has always been a prime example of this. To call him a”liberal” or a “progressive” is silly, because those are meaningless terms nowadays, just rhetoric. What Schumer is is a party boss, just like Boss Tweed was in his time. Boss Schumer. The only difference is that Schumer makes trendy references to “epistemology.” I wonder if he could define it. How about a quick test on “Moore’s Paradox” for Chuck? Okay, unfair. But let’s be honest, Schumer is no more of an intellectual heavyweight than Tom DeLay – and the same kind of party hack, the same guy in blue ribbons instead of red. One thing I found particularly amusing in Schumer’s obviously prepared screed was the predetermined lumping of John McCain with Bush, when McCain is precisely the kind of politician that Schumer is not. Once in a while McCain will cross party lines because he actually believes in something. I can’t imagine Chuck Schumer crossing the street for that reason. For Boss Schumer it’s all about power.
The only reason Schumer would cross a line is if there were a camera on the other side.
I remember when the whole Dubai thing started, there were Hillary Clinton and Chucky Schumer in front of the cameras yammering away about our ports being sold to terrorists. I was absolutely disgusted when people like Michelle Malkin took them seriously. I mean, come on, when Chucky gets up there in front of the cameras with that shark grin of his…surely people must know that this is a set up. Has to be, but no….Malkin went off the deep end.
Chucky is a party boss and all he cares about is power. Plain and simple…how he gets it is a detail. And yet he persists.
“The only difference is that Schumer makes trendy references to “epistemology”"…reminds me of something…a philosophy professor reported that a well-known literary theorist came to visit and asked to have “an epistemology” created for him. See Hot Epistemologies! Get ‘em Here!
“Progressive” thought is really just a subset of the fashion industry, and probably not the most creative or useful subset.
Chuckie Schmucky Schumer is the Panderer-in-Chief. NY is cursed with two considerably less than satisfactory Senators. I blame “Pot Hole” D’Amato.
Well, its not like they ever stopped, but the Clintons are at it again. Their minions have started to hit the circuit to soften the ground for an effort to get Michigan and Florida delegates admitted to the Convention. And inside their statements are the old familiar twangs of Clinton double-speak:
Chuck Schumer (Meet the Press): “[It's important] that at the end of the day, we don’t have such an internecine battle that we lose the general election.”
Translation: “In order to avoid an internecine battle, Hilary should just get those nasty ol’ delegates. Its for the good of the party…”
Now who wouldn’t want that for another 8 years??
I imagine Chuck Schumer thinks epistemology is synonymous with urology, the study of the piss-stem.
Once in a while McCain will cross party lines because he actually believes in something.
You know, I hope you’re wrong. I hope it’s just because he sucks up to the press in order to get their “love”, and knows that to do that he has to mouth Democrat platitudes.
Because bad as that is, your being right would be worse. Because your being right would mean the Republican Party has nominated a man who actually believes that the biggest problem with political campaigns is that they give us peons a chance to effectively pressure our politicians (and thus he pushed McCain-Feingold, the “don’t let the peons run ads 60 days before a general election” law).
Schumer’s Paradox goes something like this..
The Moore Schumer appears on television the less people believe him
Chuck Schumer (Meet the Press): “[It's important] that at the end of the day, we don’t have such an internecine battle that we lose the general election.”
Translation: I support Hillary but I can’t come out and say it, should this guy Obama win and sack my chance of a chairmanship.
After ‘extending and revising’ my remarks I saw that Schumer has in fact (theoretically) endorsed Clinton.
So another translation of his remarks go something like this …
After prematurely giving my support to shoe-in Hillary, I have to find a way to abandon ship w/o getting caught on camera running over the bodies.
Schumer: Epistemology? That has to do with the theory of polling, right?
I must agree with Ann – Mr. Righteously Indignant certainly has “Wessonality” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesson_cooking_oil ). Looking at his smarmier-than-thou countenance on television you can only imagine him as one of a few things: music industry exec, mafia lawyer, dungeon-master, used-car salesman, black market organ thief, or politician. Isn’t it inspiring when people find their true calling? Slither on, Darth Schumer, slither on.
Greg:
Crossing the party line is not a bad thing, if it done to support something useful to the general public. Believe it or not most Americans are not hyper partisan and they actually believe that the job of government is to represent the people, and meet the needs of the public…not carry out some partisan warfare that only benefits said partisans.
TerryeL: I remember when the whole Dubai thing started, there were Hillary Clinton and Chucky Schumer in front of the cameras yammering away about our ports being sold to terrorists.
I was disgusted as well. Dubai is not a terrorist state, for f*ck’s sake.
“To call him a “liberal” or a “progressive” is silly, because those are meaningless terms nowadays, just rhetoric. ”
I quarrel with this. People who call themselves ”
liberal” or “progressive” unfailingly consider collectivism as the solution to whatever problem you care to name. There is indeed a meaning of the term.
Like you, Roger, — and I’ve been a fan of yours for many years — I am a former Democrat. Democrats and leftists do follow a philosophy, whether they realize it or not — and it is collectivism.
There is NO midpoint between collectivism and individualism. Folks like Michael J. Totten — of whom I am another fan — do not understand this.
*****
Collectivism is both old and new. It was new in the US circa 1900 or so. It is noteworthy that the campaign slogan of the Republicans after Coolidge (Democrat) was “Return to Normalcy.”
“Collectivism is both old and new.”
Collectivism is a little used term now, yet it is the salt that flavors the major political parties. What collectivism really is, in its roots, (and in my opinion), is a bastardization of Plato’s Forms. Imagine a Form (idea) that represents The State, The Country, The People, etc., and then imagine individuals (but not all individuals) deciding what rules must be obeyed to perpetuate the thing, which itself is immaterial and non-existent. I.E. what must “the people” (another unreal abstraction) do in order to keep The State, The Country, etc. healthy? In other words, real individuals governed according to the tenents of an unreal abstraction, defined by a few (of the most sordid, despicable class of people legally in existence – the politician).
Plato’s Republic in a nutshell. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” becomes, under certain regimes, “You will do what is best for your country” which is really “You will do what WE decide is before for your country.”
I think that there are many collectivists who have a good nature. In other words they are not consciously evil and out to enslave humanity. They just don’t realize that that is the ultimate result that can happen when individuals are discounted, to the favor of amorphous, shifting, and ill-defined universals.
The problem is a conceptual one, and stems from a general failure of philosophy. Philosophers should hang their heads in shame. They were the ones who took it upon themselves to decide what was right, what was real, what was good. As a whole they have failed so miserably that one can’t help but suspect their real intentions.