Cynicism: it depends

The New Neo Posted on by

Ann Althouse wonders whether the result of the recent tsunami of scandals will be that “Everyone becomes cynical and dismissive and won’t even listen to the explanations or pay attention to any specific facts and answers that might emerge.”

But when did people used to pay attention? It seems to me that, at least in the last few years, whenever there have been allegations of a sequence of behavior that would tend to discredit the Obama administration (Benghazi back in the fall comes immediately to mind, but the pattern actually goes back to the 2008 campaign), I’ve seen the shrugs and heard the waves of dismissal and rationalizations, and sometimes the cynical: “they all do it.”

Part of this reaction is the human tendency to want to shut out bad news, and to a liberal anything that reflects poorly on Obama and the left is bad news. In addition there seems to be a fairly rampant inability (or unwillingness?) to make distinctions of degree or type between the “its” that “they” (politicians) do. Not all offenses are of the same magnitude or kind, but to see the differences takes attention and the motivation to be willing to sort it all out beyond a kneejerk defense of one’s own party.

The political effect of all of this depends on what people end up getting cynical about. If their reaction amounts to “all politicians are crooks, so a plague on both their houses,” the probable result would be apathy and a lot of people giving up and staying home on election day. Fanatics of either party would still be likely to come to the polls, of course. Still another group of voters likely to continue to show up would be people on the dole who want to keep the gravy train running, and who are far more likely to be Democratic voters.

But—and it’s a big “but”—if people become cynical about big and centralized government in general, that would be likely to benefit conservatives because it is one of the basic principles of conservatism itself. It’s not just that the perpetrators of these particular scandals are liberals. It’s that the subject matter of these particular scandals should have a natural tendency to reinforce the idea of the benefit of smaller and less intrusive government.

But the dots need to be connected more and more explicitly so that word reaches the largest number of people possible. To the extent that the focus remains on personalities it would tend to obscure that. To be sure, “Impeach Holder!” and “Fire Lerner!” have a certain ring to them, and both would be great ideas, IMHO. But they risk making Holder and Lerner the issues rather than the abuse of power inherent and inevitable with big government. Impeaching Holder and firing Lerner don’t even begin to address the problem, which is deep and systemic. There are plenty more where Holder and Lerner come from willing to do the same as their predecessors.

The IRS—not the usual “scandal”

The New Neo Posted on by

Peggy Noonan is coming along:

Because people think the IRS has always, in various past cases, been used as a political tool, they think we’ll glide through this scandal too. We’ll muddle through, we’ll investigate, the IRS will right itself, no biggie.

But when a scandal is systemic, ideological and focused on political ends, it will not just magically end. Agencies such as the IRS are part of what Jonathan Turley this week called a “massive administrative state,” one built with many protections and much autonomy.

If it is not forced to change, it will not…

What does it mean when half the country””literally half the country””understands that the revenue-gathering arm of its federal government is politically corrupt, sees them as targets, and will shoot at them if they try to raise their heads? That is the kind of thing that can kill a country, letting half its citizens believe that they no longer have full political rights.

Those who think this is just business as usual are ahistorical, and those who think nothing can be done, or nothing serious should be done, are suffering from Cynicism Poisoning.

Unfortunately, there are plenty such people, but I don’t think Peggy is diagnosing most of them accurately. It not cynicism that’s poisoning them, it’s the vision of the anointed and the seduction of power. They’re the anointed, the good guys, and therefore the ends justify the means.

So I’m afraid that many liberals would say who cares? We’ve got the power, we’re on the side of right, let’s stick it to that other half.

[ADDENDUM: Don’t miss Mark Steyn, either.]

Those rogue IRS agents…

The New Neo Posted on by

…are beginning to testify, and it doesn’t seem like they’re willing to be the fall guys. This is getting interesting—although actually it was already plenty interesting:

The agent in the Cincinnati office, in which the targeting took place, told congressional investigators that he or she was told by a supervisor in March 2010 to search for Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status and that “Washington, D.C., wanted some cases.”

The agent said that by April the office had held up roughly 40 cases and at least seven were sent to Washington. The agent also said a second IRS employee asked for information on two other specific applicants in which Washington was interested in.

When asked by congressional investigators about allegations and press reports about two agents in Cincinnati essentially being responsible for the targeting, the agent responded:

“It’s impossible. As an agent we are controlled by many, many people. We have to submit many, many reports. So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen. ”¦ They were basically throwing us underneath the bus.”

Here’s an article on how the bureaucratic structure of the IRS works, and why it would be nearly impossible for rogue agents to be acting on their own to accomplish the Tea Party targeting.

I have little doubt, though, that the higher-ups will continue to deny everything, and that unless there’s a smoking gun (memo, email) leading to them, it will be difficult to prove who was responsible. By “higher-ups” I also include President Obama, of course, who is already implicated by rhetorical suggestion, although that’s not the sort of proof needed.

So I doubt that the people involved left their fingerprints on any directive; it was almost undoubtedly by word of mouth. How then to prove anything? It’s a game of he-said, she-said.

It also is more and more clear that the IRS has no effective checks on it, and operates as a swollen and very powerful entity. Whether the IRS operated in the Tea Party matter more or less on their own or at the direct request of the Obama administration is both extremely important and in a much larger sense almost irrelevant: either way, it’s an extremely dangerous and ominous thing. And one that seems in retrospect almost to have been inevitable.

What a shame…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that Darrell Issa doesn’t have any scandalous divorce records that can be unsealed.

But maybe this will do, eh?

Probably not. But nice try, Plouffe.

And I wouldn’t advise Plouffe—or any other Democrat—to pick Jay Carney’s reputation for veracity as the hill to die on.

Well, this actually is the Onion

The New Neo Posted on by

Indeed:

WASHINGTON””More than a week after President Barack Obama’s cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime.

“I know there’s a story in there somewhere,” said Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, referring to Obama’s home invasion and execution-style slaying of Jeff and Sue Finowicz on Apr. 8. “Right now though, it’s probably best to just sit back and wait for more information to come in. After all, the only thing we know for sure is that our president senselessly murdered two unsuspecting Americans without emotion or hesitation.”

Added Meacham, “It’s not so cut and dried.”

Since the killings took place, reporters across the country have struggled to come up with an appropriate take on the ruthless crime, with some wondering whether it warrants front-page coverage, and others questioning its relevance in a fast-changing media landscape.

“What exactly is the news hook here?” asked Rick Kaplan, executive producer of the CBS Evening News. “Is this an upbeat human-interest story about a ‘day in the life’ of a bloodthirsty president who likes to kill people? Or is it more of an examination of how Obama’s unusual upbringing in Hawaii helped to shape the way he would one day viciously butcher two helpless citizens in their own home?”

“Or maybe the story is just that murder is cool now,” Kaplan continued. “I don’t know. There are a million different angles on this one.”…

Read the whole thing.

And this isn’t the Onion, but it’s pretty clever:

RIP Jean Stapleton

The New Neo Posted on by

Jean Stapleton, best known for playing the role of the lovable Edith Bunker on “All in the Family,” has died at 90.

She and Carroll O’Connor as Archie made the show. Stapleton managed to walk a fine line that conveyed the humanity and depth of her character despite the ditsyness. I could probably spend hours looking at old videos of her (and O’Connor) at YouTube, but just a quick look uncovered these two clips that show their range:

Need a gift for a very young child?

The New Neo Posted on by

Recently I needed to get an adorable gift for an adorable child who’s turning one year old.

If you have a similarly pleasant dilemma, you could do worse than buy this item:

gmoonBunny

You may recognize the bunny as the protagonist in the wonderful fabulous utterly stupendous child’s classic by Margaret Wise Brown Goodnight Moon (the link provides a way to obtain it in several forms; my preference is hardcover). If your child, grandchild, niece, nephew, kid-down-the-block doesn’t have a copy, it’s another great gift idea. And the combination of the bunny and the book is the best of all.

Every now and then I remember to promote buying from Amazon through my blog. So this is one of those times. Buy! Consume! Spend money!

Using the IRS against political enemies: Nixon vs. Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

Since the IRS scandal broke, you see it almost everywhere: statements that Nixon used the IRS to target enemies, often coupled with a claim that what he did was worse than what the IRS has been up to lately.

In fact, Article 2 of the impeachment charges drawn up against Nixon involved the IRS, although he resigned before he was ever impeached and thus the merits of the accusations were never heard. Scott Johnson at Powerline points out the curious language used:

Article 2 of the Articles of Impeachment was carefully framed to charge that Nixon “endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigation to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.”

Nixon’s alleged abuse of the IRS seems to have gone largely unrequited. Note the careful use of the word “endeavored.” It appears to be the operative term.

Turning to Stanley Kutler’s history of Watergate, I find that Kutler devotes remarkably few pages to the issue. Nixon’s efforts with the IRS seem pathetically futile. Robert Haldeman is said to have selected a number of people on various enemies’ lists “for audits and other forms of harassment.”

But who was audited? Kutler mention only Washington Post attorney Edward Bennett Williams, who was audited for three years running. An IRS office (the Special Services Staff), created in 1969 at the urging of Tom Huston, is said to have “compiled information on more than 1,000 institutions and 4,000 individuals.” Kutler makes no mention of anything having been done with the information.

Kutler observes that the White House worked hard on IRS Commissioner Johnnie Walters to make him subservient to political needs. Nixon henchman Jack Caulfield astutely complained, however, that the IRS was a “monstrous bureaucracy”¦dominated and controlled by Democrats.” Kutler doesn’t say it, but the Nixon administration’s efforts with Walters appear to have gone approximately nowhere…

The index for “IRS” in Kutler’s book reveals concisely how it turned out in Nixon’s second term. “Search for politically pliable Commissioner,” reads the subhead. “Not successful,” reads the sub-subhead.

The difference between the present excesses and Nixon’s may make Nixon look like a piker. But although Nixon seems to have been less successful in actually using the IRS to hurt his enemies, his guilt was established by his clearly expressed (on the tapes) interest in and intent to do so, whether he managed to accomplish that aim or not. In this matter, as in so many others, it was the tapes that did Nixon in. If the tapes had not existed we wouldn’t know about it.

Contrast with Obama, who almost certainly has left no trail of tapes, or even emails, to connect him to such intent. And yet there is little doubt that he probably wished it to happen, gave signals (Tea Party evil, Republicans evil, conservatives evil, they are our enemies rather than our oppponents) that either motivated the overwhelmingly liberal IRS staff and managers to do what they did, or actually directed his underlings to do so without leaving paper or audio evidence to tie the orders to him.

Ironic, isn’t it? But Obama may have learned from Nixon’s mistakes.

In addition, the built-in liberal bias in the bureaucracy of the IRS makes it inherently more difficult for a conservative to accomplish what liberals did. The personnel of the IRS (and most other government bureaucracies as well) does not include many people of the conservative persuasion (for example, during the last two presidential elections, 85% of donations from IRS employees went to Obama). That built-in bias would make it far easier for a Democrat to bend the IRS to his/her political ends than a Republican, if he/she so desired.

Sowell vs. Piven

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a little gem I came across the other day.

First, though, if you’re not familiar with Thomas Sowell, please hie yourself to YouTube, do a search for his name, and start watching. You’ll find scads of clips of Sowell discoursing on any number of things, demonstrating his trademark intelligence and clarity.

This particular incident occurred in 1980, and features an argument between Sowell and Francis Fox Piven, she of the notorious Cloward-Piven strategy (Cloward, by the way, was her husband). Uncharacteristically, in this clip Sowell shows about as much emotion as I’ve seen ever seen him demonstrate in a public forum. Piven really seems to get his goat, and he hers. Milton Friedman then steps in to offer his two cents.

Before you watch, though, take a look at this article discussing the type of polls to which Sowell is apparently referring during his exchange with Piven. Note the distinction between polls about “affirmation action” (a term which people often apparently interpret to mean making sure there’s no discrimination) and unequal preferences or quotas favoring minorities. Sowell is correct that black people do not generally favor the latter. In fact, quite a few polls show strong disapproval among blacks (at least up to 2002, when the article was written).

Here’s the clip (the discussion between the Sowell and Piven begins around 1:38):

[ADDENDUM: By the way, Sowell was not exactly a child of privilege himself:

Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina. His father died shortly before he was born, and his mother, a housemaid, already had four children. A great-aunt and her two grown daughters adopted Sowell and raised him. In his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, he said his childhood encounters with white people were so limited that he did not believe blond was really a hair color. When Sowell was nine, his family moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Harlem, New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School, the first in his family to study beyond the sixth grade. However, he was forced to drop out at age 17 because of financial difficulties and problems in his home. He worked at a number of jobs, including at a machine shop and as a delivery man for Western Union, and tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948. Sowell was drafted in 1951, during the Korean War, and was assigned to the United States Marine Corps. Because of his experience in photography, he became a Marine Corps photographer; he also trained Marines in .45-caliber pistol proficiency.

He later attended night school at Howard (admitted on a GED), and then to Harvard because his genius was recognized. His academic career went from strength to strength after that.

I haven’t read his autobiography—or even heard of it until now—but I bet it’s a good read.]

Not really Gore Vidal

The New Neo Posted on by

So, was it Gore Vidal who coined the bon mot: “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail”? Yesterday there was a discussion of that burning question on this thread, and I became curious.

It just didn’t quite sound like Vidal, although it sort of did. He was known for aphorisms (and a great deal more, much of it attention-getting and offensive)—but that one? Perhaps, but I wondered.

One of the great things about the internet is that you can find just about anything there. One of the lousy things about the internet is that a lot of that information is wrong, and you can spin around in circles trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. But I think I struck paydirt with this article, and the answer to the question is (drum roll, please) “no, probably not.”

It turns out there are many different variations on the theme, sometimes credited to La Rochefoucauld, Somerset Maugham, Genghis Khan—and yes, Gore Vidal. The correct answer is that the 17th wit La Rochefoucauld came up with something in the ballpark but not really quite the same, and Maugham is most likely the originator of the actual phrase. As for Vidal, here’s how that rumor started:

In 1973 the novelist and essayist Wilfrid Sheed used the saying in the New York Times while speaking about Gore Vidal, but he did not attribute the quote to Vidal; instead, he assigned it to La Rochefoucauld:

Envy? Oh yes. Wanton. “Every time a friend succeeds I die a little.” Only a writer could have said that. In fact, I thought I’d said it myself, only to learn that Gore Vidal had beaten me to it by years-the upstart. And in a sense La Rochefoucauld beat us both, when he said “it is not enough to succeed; a friend must also fail.”

As for La Rochefoucauld, here are the translations of his original aphorisms, which I think surpass their descendents in both wit and style:

In the misfortune of our best friends, we always find something which is not displeasing to us.

We are all strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others.

More subtle and more elegant.

Some women just seem to be into this

The New Neo Posted on by

Actually, I wouldn’t recommend marrying a twice-murdering psychopath, but my advice has not been solicited.

Note that the prospective bride, Leydi Figueroa Uceda, seems to have a pattern of prison romance. The couple is planning a June wedding, if authorities consent.

In doing some research for this post, I encountered a number of rumors about the couple, such as for example that Uceda has already had Van der Sloot’s child, and that they were allowed conjugal visits, which I find shocking if true. One fact that does seem to be true is that he was only given a 28-year sentence. I don’t know much about the Peruvian justice system, but that’s terribly light.

This is especially relevant to the story at hand:

Since his incarceration, [Van der Sloot] has only consented to interviews to De Telegraaf, in which he admitted to extorting the Holloway family and said that he received a number of marriage proposals in his cell, including one from a woman who wanted to have his child. Van der Sloot reportedly receives fan mail from around the world, though mostly from women residing in the United States and the Netherlands. According to sources within the prison, Van der Sloot sought US$1 million in exchange for an on-camera interview.

Shedding some light on the phenomenon:

In her book, Women Who Love Men Who Kill, Sheila Isenberg examines the phenomenon of prison lovers and finds genuine and universal bewilderment among the women at their situation. Even if they have had a series of romances with prisoners or, like one British woman, been engaged to several death-row inmates – all of whom were executed – they still claim not to have chosen that course for themselves. Karen Richey’s partner, for instance, is on death row in Ohio. Karen says that she wasn’t looking for a love affair when she made contact with Kenny, a 38-year-old Scot: “My war cry is that I only wanted to be a pen pal. Kenny insists this is going to be on my grave stone.”

It takes considerable effort to meet men in secure containment facilities. Many women will write to a number of prisoners before they finally make a sustainable connection. They may even take on voluntary jobs in prison, or go on blind-date visits with men they know only by reputation.

Various theories are offered: attraction to the famous, violent tendencies in the woman herself, fantasies (sometimes religiously oriented) of the redemptive power of love, and the fact that often the couple never has to face living together day in and day out and so can remain in the courting stage. But I think the words of a lawyer quoted in the article offer what is probably a better explanation:

There are lots of sad relationships in prison. A lot of opportunistic, shallow, revolting relationships and a lot of sad, hopeless people clinging to each other.

Although in the case of Van der Sloot himself I think its mostly the “opportunistic, shallow,” manipulative, and psychopathic elements that are in the ascendance.

Don’t forget that Obama’s from Chicago

The New Neo Posted on by

John Fund reminds us that nothing about the current scandals roiling DC should be a surprise: it’s just the Chicago Way at the national level.

There are people who’ve been saying that for many years. After all, Obama is a guy who didn’t have to go to Chicago; he chose to go there and thrived there, cutting his political teeth and impressing even hardened old Chicago hands with his ability to be ruthless. Fund writes:

“The 2008 Obama campaign perpetrated a fraud that he was a reformer,” says Chris Robling, a former journalist who has served as a Republican election commissioner. “All of the complaints ”” from the lack of transparency to HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s shaking down corporations to promote Obamacare ”” stem from the culture of the Daley Machine.” For decades, Robling says, Mayor Daley “encouraged” contributions to his favorite charities, with the implicit understanding that the “encourager” controlled the city’s inspectors and regulators. “That sounds an awful lot like what Sebelius was doing to prop up Obamacare,” Robling notes. “Obama’s ideology may come from Saul Alinsky’s acolytes, but his political tactics come straight from the Daley playbook.” Indeed, friends of Bill Daley, Mayor Daley’s brother, say that one reason Bill left his post as Obama’s White House chief of staff after only one year was that even he thought Team Obama was too much “all politics, all of the time” and not enough about governance.

That’s not all that’s wrong with Obama, of course, but it’s part of what’s going on now, in particular the scandals involving the IRS and to a lesser extent the AP/Rosen problem. Both are about the abuse of power, and that’s classic Chicago stuff. It’s not always well-appreciated that not only Obama, but most of Obama’s closest advisors past and present—wife Michelle, the incredibly influential Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, and Rahm Emanuel (not so involved now, but used to be) are all Chicagoans from way back.