Obama the foreigner

The New Neo Posted on by

The Obama-the-dogeater flap has highlighted the perception that Obama is, in some very basic way, foreign.

That meme reached its highest level among birthers, who believe he is not even a natural born citizen. But the general idea that Obama’s policies somehow reflect a foreignness—if not a literal physical one, then one of perspective and orientation—has been a fringe thought and a risky one (racist!!!) to express until recently.

Obama not only grew up in a foreign environment—Indonesia—he also had one parent who was foreign. Granted, his father didn’t have much direct influence on him, but if Dreams From My Father is any indication, the idea of his exotic father did. Offhand, I can’t think of any previous president with that sort of story. Obama also has never released his academic records, so we have no idea how much American history he ever studied, although we can certainly imagine the subject was on the agenda at Punahoe. But that was a long, long time ago.

It’s interesting to take a look back to the 2008 campaign in light of all this. Apparently, Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn sensed this issue early on, and advised Hillary to paint Obama as “foreign.” She declined, and focused on his inexperience instead. I don’t think the “foreign” strategy would have worked well during that campaign, but Penn’s sense of it was correct, and subsequent events have borne that out:

In a March 2007 memo to the candidate, Mark Penn, a longtime pollster and strategist for the Clintons, urged the New York senator’s campaign to paint Barack Obama as “fundamentally” foreign…

The March 19, 2007, memo included a section titled “Lack of American Roots,” in which Penn recommended making an issue of Obama’s “diverse, multicultural” upbringing. Obama was born in Hawaii and spent part of his childhood in Indonesia before returning to Hawaii to live with his grandparents.

Obama’s “roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited,” Penn wrote. “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and his values.”

To avoid an overt attack, Penn recommended emphasizing the word “American” in Clinton’s various campaign messages — drawing a contrast to Obama but in subtler form…

Penn’s strategy was considered but dismissed, said a former campaign aide who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to be more forthcoming.

“Even if you concluded it would be a useful line of attack, some of us were queasy about it,” he said. “It’s fair to say that most people thought it would really rebound on her.”

Now we’re all feeling queasy. The “dog-eating Obama” story is a way to laugh at the whole phenomenon while at the same time acknowledging its power.

In 2008, Obama knew the foreigner meme might be tried, and he cleverly finessed it, just in case anyone had the temerity to attempt it. Remember when he said “They’ll say I have a funny name. They’ll say I don’t look those other guys on the dollar bills”? We all thought he was talking about race, but dummy us. I now think he was talking about this sense of foreignness as well as race, and making sure that no one would dare to raise the issue. And they didn’t.

The PC “Fantasticks”

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night I went to a performance of the musical “The Fantasticks.” It’s one of my favorites—charming and light, with extraordinarily beautiful music, and it conjures up magical childhood memories of the time my whole family went to the original production not long after it opened.

You may believe you’re completely unfamiliar with the musical, but you almost certainly already know one of its songs anyway: “Try To Remember.” Since I can’t resist, here’s the original of that song, sung by the first man to play the role, the late great Jerry Ohrbach:

If you haven’t ever seen “The Fantasticks” and there’s ever a production near you, just go. It’s hard to ruin, even at the amateur level.

Although I can’t say the PC crowd doesn’t try. There’s a song in the show called “It Depends on What You Pay” that, in its original manifestation, featured the word “rape” over and over, which was explained (in a complex plot device that makes sense when you see it) as referring to a staged fake stylized abduction in order to make the young male romantic lead of the play appear to be a hero when he rescues the damsel in distress. The song is light and funny, and it was perfectly clear to audiences in 1960 and ever-after, young and old, that it didn’t mean actual rape or anything like it.

But of course it may no longer be possible to treat even the word with any lightness. And so the librettist has written substitute lyrics for productions too sensitive to deal with the original, which happened to have been the case last night.

The new one seems jarring and awkward to me, and somehow heavier, although the librettist did as well as possible when faced with the thankless task. Perhaps those who never saw the first version wouldn’t even notice what’s missing, but I certainly did. Unfortunately I can’t find a YouTube video of the original, but you can compare these two if you want the details. The first is a regional Pennsylvania production that’s okay, with the original lyrics pretty much intact, and the second is a 2006 off-Broadway revival that was expurgated for New Yorkers’ newly-tender sensibilities:

Here are the lyrics to the original, and here (if you scroll down) is the PC-version. Try to remember.

Welcome, girlfriend!: Janine Turner at PJ, on how to convert a Democrat

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve long been a Janine Turner fan because I’ve long been a big, big “Northern Exposure” fan. And I’ve been aware that lately she’s became a conservative political commentator, because I’ve seen her now and then on TV in that capacity. Now I’m happy to report that she’s joined the PJ network as a writer, so I guess I could say that in a very general sense we’re colleagues.

You may notice that her very first PJ article is on a topic very much after my own heart: “Girlfriends: let’s talk about how to convert a Democrat.” Aha! I’ve written on that idea before, in particular here, as well as here and here.

Turner is a fan of reason and rationality. She lists a bunch of points Republicans can make when talking to Democrats, and ends with this statement:

We can convert Democrats to Reason ”” the Republican Party. But we have to enter the fray to do it.

We are smarter than the propaganda we are being sold. Times are serious. To win in 2012, we must be vocal.

I admire Turner’s courage and feistiness. I’m in agreement with her on so many things, including the fact that women in particular can be very reticent about speaking up and yet need to (a topic I’ve written about in some of my linked posts above). But I’m afraid I’m far less optimistic about the chances of results, especially when approached in this “giving them the facts” manner.

Politics is a hugely emotional issue, as I’ve written many times before. People are born into it for the most part, and become members of a group with which they tend to hugely identify. This can include demonizing the Other, so that even merely revealing oneself to be a member of the opposition party can be an occasion for ostracism rather than openness and curiosity.

I don’t want to reiterate the content of about 100 posts and thousands of comments here, so I’ll just quote myself on the topic of political conversion and say:

The first rule [from this Owen Harries article] is one with which I’m personally quite familiar, but it bears repeating:

Forget about trying to convert your adversary. In any serious ideological confrontation the chances of success on this score are so remote as to exclude it as a rational objective.

In my observation, this is true not only of the committed ideologue but even of the less politically invested and less well-informed person. That’s why my series is called “A mind is a difficult thing to change.” Politics has some things in common with religion, in that it is partly an article of faith. In addition, it is also an edifice constructed of many building blocks of information”” some of them dependent on one another but some independent””plus years of habit and/or commitment and/or investment and/or social networks. It is often a profound component of one’s identity.

Putting even a small dent in this structure can take some doing. Harries goes on to write:

On the very rare occasions when [political conversion] does happen, it will be because the person converted has already and independently come to harbour serious doubts and is teetering on the edge of ideological defection. This is due, more often than not, to some outrageous action by his own side or some shocking revelation”¦

True; it most definitely can happen in just that way. Harries cites the example of those pro-Communists who were disillusioned by Khrushchev’s revelations of Stalin’s crimes.

It strikes me, however, that it’s possible to nudge that process along a bit by providing information about the existence of such events that might constitute the grounds for disillusionment. Many people are quite simply unaware of the facts that could spark a change of mind and heart. After all, those “outrageous actions” or “shocking revelations” on their side have no possibility of being seen for what they are unless they are brought to awareness. That can be part of the function of the blogosphere.

The MSM is rather good at informing us of those revelations that would challenge our view of the actions of the Right. They are generally less likely to broadcast revelations that would discredit liberals or the Left, although it does happen.

Which brings us to Harries’s rule number nine:

When bolstering the authority of what you are saying by the use of quotation, give preference wherever possible to sources which are not identified with your case. If you can, quote someone who is considered unimpeachable, if not omniscient, by your opponents. This will not convince them, but it will embarrass them and impress the uncommitted.

In talking to receptive friends or occasionally sending them emails with links, I’ve always tried to follow rule nine even before I knew it existed. I had noticed that it was very easy for people to discount as unreliable any information that came from a source perceived as being on the “other” side, even a reputable publication. Although it takes a lot more work to find something from the often-liberal MSM that bolsters an argument on the Right, it can be found and is well worth the effort because of the extra clout such an article has.

You’ll note that in the above quote, Harries differentiates between the reactions of opponents vs. the uncommitted. It’s a useful distinction. The former are ideologues who are very deeply committed to their point of view and are loaded with facts and authorities. Sometimes the facts are true and the authorities have some validity, but sometimes they are spurious and dubious. In the first case, a productive and mutually respectful argument can often be had, although it’s mostly an exercise in debating technique because minds are still resistant to change. In the second case, however, it will probably devolve into a shouting match and be of no usefulness whatsoever, unless the goal is to exercise the lungs.

The people Harries calls the “uncommitted” bring us to rule four:

Never forget the uncommitted: almost invariably, they constitute the vast majority. This may seem obvious, but intense polemical activity is often a coterie activity, and in the excitement of combat and lust for the polemical kill the uncommitted are often overlooked. The encounter becomes an end in itself rather than a means of influencing wider opinion. Yet what works best in throwing the enemy off balance””cleverness, originality, pugnacity””is often counterproductive with those who are neutral or undecided, who are more likely to be impressed and convinced by good sense, decency, and fairness.

The blogosphere tends to be populated by bloggers who are fond of the sort of coterie activity Harries describes so well. That’s not really my style, however, either in this blog or in person.

Although most of my friends have a political affiliation, some hold it far more tightly than others. Those others would fall into the general ranks of Harries’s uncommitted: they hold viewpoints, but they are flexible and open to new information. It is among these people that fact-based, logical political argument has the most chance of finding a receptive ear. That’s what I try my best to offer.

[NOTE: If you’ve looked at the photo of Turner at PJ, or seen her on TV lately, you may be surprised—as I was—to see she’s left the brunette fold and become a blond. Now, there’s another change for you!]

Rita Hayworth: dancer

The New Neo Posted on by

A fun juxtaposition, sent to me by a reader:

Madonna’s got absolutely nothing on Rita Hayworth. Watch Hayworth make an incredibly sensuous strip tease out of taking off a single glove:

Hayworth couldn’t sing; all her movie songs were dubbed, which was kept a secret at the time and was a source of shame for her. But she sure could dance. The child of two dancers, she had a love/hate relationship with the genre:

Margarita’s father wanted her to become a professional dancer, while her mother hoped she would become an actress. Her paternal grandfather Antonio Cansino was renowned as a Spanish classical dancer; he popularized the bolero and his dancing school in Madrid was world famous. Rita later recalled,

“From the time I was three and a half … as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons. I didn’t like it very much … but I didn’t have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood.”

In 1941 Hayworth said she was the antithesis of the characters she played. “I naturally am very shy … and I suffer from an inferiority complex.” She once complained that “[M]en fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me.” In 1970 she remarked that the only films she could watch without laughing were the dance musicals she made with Fred Astaire. “I guess the only jewels of my life,” Hayworth said, “were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire.”

Don’t blame Verrilli

The New Neo Posted on by

Remember the SCOTUS hearings on Obamacare? The Obama administration’s Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli, was widely seen as incompetent in his defense of the statute’s constitutionality.

Now he’s arguing for the administration in the Arizona immigration law case, and it’s not going well again—if fact, even liberal (and self-described “wise latina”) justice Sonia Sotomayer had this to say to him at one important point, “I’m terribly confused by your answer.” And Drudge’s headline says, “Obama’s lawyer chokes again.”

I beg to differ. I think Verrilli’s problem is a different one: how can you argue a really, really, really bad case? There’s a limit to what sophistry and rhetoric can do, and I think he knows it.

The fact that he knows it gives Verrilli’s arguments even less coherence and punch, but the problem is not really with him, it’s with the arguments themselves. For example, in the present case, the government’s position is this convoluted mess:

The Arizona law requires all police to check with federal officials if they suspect someone is in the country illegally. The government argues that is OK when it’s on a limited basis, but said having a state mandate for all of its law enforcement is essentially a method of trying to force the federal government to change its priorities.

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. said the federal government has limited resources and should have the right to determine the extent of calls it gets about possible illegal immigrants.

“These decisions have to be made at the national level,” he said.

But even Democratic-appointed justices were uncertain of that.

How can one not reasonably come to the conclusion that, “the state appears to want to push federal officials [to enforce its own policies], not conflict with them”? Don’t blame Verrilli if he’s unable to convince the Court otherwise.

And oh, his opponent is, once again, Paul Clement. Clement is a stellar advocate—but it helps to have something sensible to advocate.

Let the games begin

The New Neo Posted on by

With the withdrawal of Newt Gingrich, what we’ve known for weeks—that Mitt Romney will be the nominee—becomes undeniable. If Mitt’s victory speech last night is any indication, he’s on his game and will bring the fight to Obama.

That means that the left and its MSM allies can focus on attacking Romney rather than spreading out their critiques among the other Republican candidates. And so accordingly, looking around at today’s articles, we see the usual assortment from the usual suspects.

For example, there’s this one by Jonathan Chait about how Romney is now starting his Etch-A-Sketch campaign, containing the truly risible comment, “It is certainly remarkable how little ridicule or scrutiny Romney has attracted in his rather brazen reversals.”

I was going to spend a lot of time doing research, documenting a bunch of the other things that are being said and how openly the media is carrying Obama’s water. But then I thought, why? It’s obvious at this point, and the exercise has become truly tiring.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve blogged so long. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve read so much and noticed essentially the same things over and over. I really wouldn’t mind if periodicals and writers openly defined themselves as biased to one side or the other. And some do, but many still profess an objectivity that they don’t demonstrate.

So I’d rather just say that I didn’t watch Romney’s speech (I’m not a speech person), but on reading it I was very impressed. The tone was confident but not cocky, eloquent but not flowery, aggressive but not nasty, and about as Reaganesque as possible without being an impersonation.

The conservative alternatives

The New Neo Posted on by

Delaware notwithstanding, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that Newt Gingrich’s days as a candidate are numbered. The only question now is when he’ll drop out.

For some, that’s a relief. For others, it’s the death knell of the chances for a conservative candidate to be nominated for the presidency in 2012. One of the post-mortems on the 2012 campaign will probably be that Gingrich and Santorum hurt the conservative cause by splitting the conservative vote, but I actually don’t think that was the problem. The problem was there was no “truly conservative” candidate who was also a good candidate.

It’s not that those two things are oxymorons. I’m convinced that there are quite a few politicians with more conservative records than Romney who could have beaten Obama, but they didn’t run (and, by the way, IMHO, Sarah Palin was not one of those people). Either Gingrich or Santorum—or any of the other conservative candidates in 2012, such as Bachmann—could have united the conservative vote and been the nominee, except that none of them were strong candidates and conservatives were torn among them and then between them.

The same thing happened in 2008, only back then one of those conservative candidates who wasn’t strong enough was Mitt Romney. So those of you who despise him now can do so for at least two reasons: he paved the way for McCain’s nomination in 2008 because he was one of the not-strong conservative candidates back then, and now that he’s almost undoubtedly the 2012 nominee you can hate him because he’s a RINO and only a faux conservative.

You could ask me why, if Romney was a weak candidate in 2008, do I think he’s stronger now? It’s a good question, and I have an answer, one you may either accept or reject as you see fit. It may be hard to look back and remember it, but one of the major issues in the 2008 campaign was not the economy (that is, not till the last few weeks, and by then McCain was already the candidate), an area of weakness for McCain and strength for Romney, but the war on terror and the war in Iraq, That’s where McCain was stronger, and that was a good part of the reason that people voted for him in the primaries—which, after all, occur earlier in the year. By the time of the election, that had already faded quite a bit from view in people’s minds and been replaced by “it’s the economy, stupid,” which remains true today.

Another thing to remember is that the Barack Obama of 2008 was not the Barack Obama of 2012. In 2008 the nation was ready to turn to someone new and untried, a young man who promised all sorts of things, including an end to the divisiveness and rancor of the Bush era. We’ve seen how that worked out, and now the nation might just be longing for a stable, somewhat dull guy—older but not old, and seasoned as an executive—who can fix things.

Singing the blogroll blues

The New Neo Posted on by

You may or may not have noticed that a couple of years ago my blogroll disappeared.

To the reader, blogrolls are a convenience, a shorthand way to find blogs the writer considers worth looking at for one reason or other. For bloggers, they’re a way to tip the hat to other bloggers and send a few readers their way. When I first began to blog seven (7!!) years ago, I drew up a blogroll and added to it every now and then, but I’d never really gone back to clean it up and delete the blogs that had closed down in the intervening time.

Then it disappeared rather suddenly, because blogrolling.com, a tool I’d used to set up my blogroll, disappeared as well. Fortunately, I had previously made a copy of my blogroll. I always meant to reinstall it, but it wasn’t exactly a top priority, and knowing how way leads on to way, I didn’t actually take a look at it till yesterday.

I hadn’t expected that updating my blogroll would be an emotional experience, but it was. I was surprised to find that at least half the blogs were gone. Many of the disappeared ones were written by people I’d actually met in person, back in the heady formative days of the blogosphere, when there was a lot more networking, and wonderful mass meetups like this one hosted by PJ. It was, in short, an exciting and fun time.

Now the political blogosphere is far more entrenched, and that wonderful early energy has settled down. Group blogs like Huffington Post are traffic leaders, the big blogs like Instapundit still endure, but a lot of the smaller and middling-traffic ones have dropped out, and there’s not much up and down movement in the remnants (well, maybe down, but not so much up). As I deleted blogs on the list, I wondered where bloggers were whom I’d not thought of in many years (like the wonderful Vietpundit, whose blog itself has also disappeared from the web and even the wayback machine, so there’s no point in giving you the URL).

So many are gone, and although I know what some of them are doing, I don’t know about most. The ones I do know about are mostly happily ensconced with jobs, family, hobbies; what is otherwise known as “real life.”

But some—the ones that made me saddest of all—have been lost to death. Dean Barnett is the most glaring example, a wonderful blogger and a personal friend whom I met through blogging. And naturally that got me to thinking about FredHJr, beloved commenter here, who died suddenly in June, 2009.

Three years ago. Can it be? Of course; time accelerates lately, doesn’t it? I often wish we had the irreplaceable FredHJr’s opinion on so many things that are happening today.

[NOTE: One of these days the blogroll will actually reappear on this blog, instead of my just talking about it.]

Obama and executive power: it goes without saying…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that this is the plan [emphasis mine]:

…[I]ncreasingly in recent months, the administration has been seeking ways to act without Congress. Branding its unilateral efforts “We Can’t Wait,” a slogan that aides said Mr. Obama coined at that strategy meeting, the White House has rolled out dozens of new policies ”” on creating jobs for veterans, preventing drug shortages, raising fuel economy standards, curbing domestic violence and more.

Each time, Mr. Obama has emphasized the fact that he is bypassing lawmakers. When he announced a cut in refinancing fees for federally insured mortgages last month, for example, he said: “If Congress refuses to act, I’ve said that I’ll continue to do everything in my power to act without them.”

Aides say many more such moves are coming. Not just a short-term shift in governing style and a re-election strategy, Mr. Obama’s increasingly assertive use of executive action could foreshadow pitched battles over the separation of powers in his second term, should he win and Republicans consolidate their power in Congress.

How could anyone have expected otherwise? Obama has never made a secret of the fact that he’s not exactly a small-federal-government kind of guy. And without a Democratic Congress, it’s “the federal government, c’est moi.”