Triple Standards
The Thompson Craze
What explains the sudden Fred Thompson Craze that propels a virtual non-candidate to among the top Republican presidential candidates? Is it like the transitory Democratic infatuation with empty suit Wesley Clark that fizzled almost the moment the general bought into the adulation? Or is like madman Ross Perot’s “I’m not going to take it anymore” rightwing populism of the 1990s? Hardly.
Thompson is a seasoned, sober two-term Senator and has been a Washington lobbyist and insider of sorts for more than thirty years, ever since Americans got to know him as the Republican minority counsel during the Senate Watergate Hearings 1973-4. So why are some Republicans pinning their hopes on a bald retired politician in his mid-sixties and cancer survivor?
A variety of reasons both practical and personal. There are currently no conservative Southerners in either party seriously running for President. Giuliani, McCain, and Romney are all centrists who may due well in the general election, but for now leave vast space in the primaries for diehard conservatives.
Then there is the Reagan angle—or the ability of older white conservative males to appeal to young voters. Reagan did it with his “By golly” smoothness. But unlike Reagan, Thompson has an ongoing movie and television career that makes him an even better known candidate to young people in either party. And he is a character actor that has been typecast as grandfatherly, a worldly pro who joshes around and works with his more ardent and younger firebrands. His celebrity is not like Arnold’s or Jesse Ventura’s.
His folksy Tennessee drawl also serves to mask his conservatism in the manner of Reagan’s jocularism. Don’t underestimate the importance of that calculus in our modern therapeutic society. The “aw shucks” approach allows a conservative to keeper a lot quieter and carry a bigger stick.
I met Thompson this morning for breakfast in Palo Alto and was impressed mainly by his knowledge of the issues, and his calming attitude that what will come, will come. He came across as every bit up to the job, but without the overdrive and sometimes bothersome mania of traditional candidates. That may explain a lot of his appeal as well.
He is the fourth candidate to visit Hoover. All were good. I think any two of them would wage a far superior campaign to what the Democrats offer.
But…
Will Hillary Win?
The advantage though right now is with Clinton. Why? Not the issues or even Iraq. But because no candidate has a more ruthless, cutthroat, and no-holds-barred phalanx than what she inherited from her loutish, but cold-hearted husband.
In this regard, I remember the serial appearances of James Carville on the Sunday new shows during the Monica affair. Ad nauseam he went off on federal prosecutor Ken Starr as a “cigarette lawyer”, which by any standard of public defamation should have constituted a sort of obstruction of justice, a calculated effort to destroy a federal official to ensure he could not carry out his assigned tasks. Imagine again, had Tony Snow daily attacked Prosecutor Fitzgerald and impugned his integrity, the response from the media. No, the Clintoni will do any and all to win. They have had eight years of experience in the White House, and have proven already that they can take a philandering dissolute, who used his “power” to impress a paid subordinate for sexual favors, and turn him into a raging feminist and victim of dark forces of illiberality. That took skill and audacity, and so did dropping Hillary’s billing records on the floor (“oops” there they are!), etc. Shamelessness, as Aristophanes saw with Kleon, is not to be underestimated.
Sad times, these.
Misobushism
Why the liberal hatred of Bush?
Consider: No Child Left Behind; soaring federal entitlement spending between 2001-6; prescription drugs; billions for African AIDs; liberal immigration reform (once again with Ted Kennedy on board); moral clarity on Darfur; promotion of liberal government in the Middle East; internationalism and advocacy for free trade; friendship with India; tolerance for Chinese and Russian roguery; and efforts to offer trade concessions to Latin America. I could go on, but you get the picture of a centrist who often promoted a classically liberal agenda.
The answer for this leftwing hatred is threefold. The Democrats had been out of power for years, and won the popular vote of 2000—only acerbating their furor of coming so close, but so far. Demonizing, destroying Bush was one way of reclaiming the Congress and eventually the Presidency. The downturn in 2004 in Iraq gave them their opening as their rhetoric (“my brilliant three-week war was ruined by your awful occupation”) sharpened with each point drop in the polls.
Second, for the elite of the Eastern Seaboard, nursed on subtlety, quick with ironic repartee, and imbued with cynicism and skepticism, this swaggering Texan, child of privilege, spouting Gospelese and smoke ‘em out lingo was simply too much. A simpleton Manichean, an antithesis to the age of irony!—best epitomized by the Kerryism “I can’t believe I’m losing to this idiot!”
Third, he sort of appropriated liberal foreign policy and mouthed the rhetoric of freedom and democracy—the old liberal mantra of the 1960s. How ironic—and irritating— that this ‘dead or alive’ canon was unloosed on women-hating, homosexual killers, polygamists, reactionary fundamentalists, and anti-democratic Islamic fascists. It wasn’t like he was propping up the usual strongmen in the fashion of a Jim Baker or Brent Scowcroft—now nostalgically praised by the Left that has forgotten the cynicism of the Iran-Iraq war, stopping before Baghdad, and the “F— the Jews” (and the Kurds) coarseness.
The only way of finessing all that would have been for Bush to wage hard war (harder than we did when pulling out of Fallujah or sending a reprieve to Sadr), while in Clintonesque fashion biting his lip, or like RFK suddenly having complete recall of the impenetrable text of Aeschylus, or inviting in novelists, movie directors, and violinists to the White House to prove his erudition and sensitivity.
In other words, in this empty age, style not substance counts—especially when we accept that for millions of leftwing movers and shakers in Hollywood, publishing, the media, the universities, and foundations lip service to high culture gives a pass on quite a lot.
Dear VDH
I think you are underestimating the American desire to win this war. Jacksonians make up a significant portion of the citizenry, and the Jeffersonians, Hamiltonians, and Wilsonians all have reasons to want success in Iraq and the war on Islamo Fascism. If a solid communicator like a Ronald Reagan can arise to explain things in a clear and simple way, the American people will support him. I think Fred Thompson is that communicator, a review of his radio broadcasts and posted articles might bring you around as well.
Sincerely,
Karl R. Maier
Thompson and Romney v. Hillary and Obama.
Fred and Mitt win. Mitt solves the alleged health issue and brings in lots of money. Fred carries the top of the ticket because – like Reagan – he strikes people as the straight-talking friendly guy you’d like to sit down and have a beer with.
Thompson’s interview with Sean Hannity proved the above for me.
He’s also very smart and principled, viz, his understanding of the disgraceful Scooter Libby case.
And he passed the bar exam! Hillary didn’t.
Rove said it best about Hillary, “She’s too brittle.”
Her personality is horrible.
The American people have Clinton fatigue. At least I hope.
You’re whining, Vic.
Fred Thompson is a mediocre one-term Senator who has spent his entire adult life in either Washington or Hollywood, and married to a trophy wife younger than his daughter. Real “conservative family values” at work.
He is *not* well known to young people- what young person is home to watch “Law and Order” on Friday night? A Quinnipiac poll taken this week showed that 57% of Americans have no opinion of the man- about even with Romney and far behind the Big Five candidates in both parties. The Thompson boomlet is utter desperation on the part of GOoPers, who know that none of their current candidates are credible exponents of conservatism, and who fear that their party will collapse if it loses power.
As for the rest of your article, you’ve just shown that you don’t understand the shrub (whose version of “democracy” boils down to “do what I tell you to do”) or liberalism (which favors increased spending for social services, not to further enrich the wealthy and connected).
Just what I’d expect from an out-of-touch, overeducated, ivory tower elitist college professor.
This post claims that a cartoonishly characterized group of subtle, ironic, elitist leftists hate the President because he won the election, because he’s a hypocritical simpleton, and because he ‘sort of’ used ‘leftist’ rhetoric; and that this all somehow constitutes evidence for the triumph of style over substance. In fact, these insightful observations all point to a concern with substance: sensible people don’t take kindly to having their elections stolen by elitist Supreme Court right-wingers who have to twist their stated philosophies out of all recognition to place their favored candidate in office; they are infuriated at having their fiscal credibility, military institutions, justice system, and international standing run into the ground by a simpleton who obviously has no idea what he’s doing, and they don’t confuse the misappropriation of rhetoric with the presentation of coherent substantive policy. What do they put in the water at the Hoover Institute? One of the greatest universities in history, and you guys up in that tower fire away with all the intellectual rigor of a bunch of Saudi imams. You can do better than that.
I have to say that I was worried that Fred Thompson was just a so so ex-Senator with some star power from TV, but given that you feel he is up to the task of President (and I value your opinion),I feel much better.
There’s one big difference between Bill and Hilory. Bill seemed like a nice guy. Hillory doesn’t. Not even Bill can sell an angry, arrogant, bitter woman to the majority of US voters.
Interesting analysis of Thompson. He may be a figure that resists the current polarization. He doesn’t seem to get too hysterical one way or the other, people may be longing for that next year… Even Crazy Chris Matthews on “Hardball” seems fond of the big guy… Will Thompson look even more presidential with Hillary’s frantic fangs buried in his shoulder? Maybe…
You need to check out the accuracy of the May 15th Prophecy in regards to what is happing in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria and the return of the Hidden Imam
lastdaywatchers.blogspot.com
My concern about Thompson is the lack of executive experience. Reagan had it as did Eisenhower, to whom Thompson, perhaps, has a superficial physical resemblance.
Does Thompson have the drive to keep going when the going is hard? In 1976 Reagan’s persistence after losing a string of primaries seemed obdurately quixotic–and then he won North Carolina and almost the nomination.
Nevertheless, VDH, I’ll take Thompson more seriously in view of your assessment. (It would be helpful to have an archive of your impressions of the candidates you interface with.)
The Republican party hasn’t seemed interested in holding power, and the implacable Nixonian evil of Hillary Clinton draws ever closer to the Oval Office. IMO Giuliani is the best bet to block that: in 2000 he was strongly favored to defeat Clinton before he got sick and withdrew.
On the other hand, maybe the Republicans should be bold instead of playing an unfavorable hand as accurately as possible. Thompson might trigger the kind of energy that Howard Dean brought to the 2004 Democrats, but without the bizarrerie that sank Dean. Maybe he could be as creative in the election campaign as he has been in pursuing the nomination.
But I still wish he had executive experience.
Well, if Hillary wins it is because the Republican Party destroyed itself during Pres. Bush’s seventh year in office:
1. Iraq. The President has failed in his politically correct execution of the counter-insurgency.
2. Failing to secure the border. What more can I say? The electorate is beyond angry at both congress and the President at their total failure to control the illegal flow of labor across our border.
3. Amenesty. Geez, I haven’t seen this President fight for something so hard in the past seven years. Yet, the base of the Republican Party is adamently opposed to any form of amnesty. And many of the leaders of the GOP in the Senate seem perfectly willing to fall on their sword for this President over the amnesty issue.
4. Gaza = Hamas. No event in the last six months has demonstrated the failure of the Bush doctrine as Hamas’ take-over of the Gaza Strip. Why Condoleezza Rice hasn’t resigned over this failed policy is beyond me. She was National Security Advisor when the US was devestatingly attacked on 9/11 and didn’t resign then so I guess the tolerance of her incompetence only shows that this administration is at least consistent in its incompetancy.
In summary, President Bush is doing his best to emulate the failed Carter Administration.