Palin, Palin, Palin

The New Neo Posted on by

With her new book and her new book tour (including a cozy-but-wary chat with Oprah), Sarah Palin has certainly managed to be in the spotlight lately.

The fierce rage Palin inspired (and still inspires) was first and foremost a class war (see also this), and secondarily about academic credentials and mannerisms, all of it helped along by a media all too willing to spread lies about her actual record and positions, and to grant her the most hostile of interviews edited in the most damaging possible ways.

Now, although the sides have become entrenched—Palin-haters vs. Palin-lovers—Palin occupies a strange hybrid position in the public eye. At the moment anyway, she’s no longer running for public office. In fact, she no longer has a public office. Palin is now officially a celebrity, getting the celebrity treatment. Thus, the Oprah interview, which could never have happened during the campaign, because Oprah was an Obama partisan. If Oprah is interviewing Palin, it means that (for Oprah, at least) Palin represents no threat and no danger.

So, has Palin been permanently marginalized in terms of her political future? I certainly can’t answer that question. But my gut feeling is that, as they say in the campaign biz, her negatives are too high, and I think they will probably remain so.

The problem for the Republican Party is that, so far, it has a dearth of charismatic and exciting candidates. There is a tendency towards boring grayness, which might work very well for governing but doesn’t usually win elections on the national level. America goes for surface charm, and if we didn’t know that already, Obama’s 2008 victory should have sealed that knowledge for us.

Palin is charming—and I believe her to intelligent as well, although her brand of intelligence is less academic than most running for national office these days, and more on the order of common sense. But Palin’s charm is of a type that infuriates many people, and the press has uniformly been about as vicious to her as to any politician I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. Therefore, I don’t think the Republican Party would do itself a favor if she were to be nominated for either President or Vice-President in 2012.

She’s not my candidate of choice, but I don’t share the disdain for her. Every time I see Palin, however, I’m struck by how extraordinarily different she is from every other politician of the day. She seems to me to be a throwback to a time before candidates had been trained to smooth out and homogenize all their quirks and idiosyncrasies, a time when they didn’t speak in bland platitudes but used language that expressed their special sensibilities and history.

Harry Truman comes to mind (as it often does for me with Palin). But could the unsophisticated, decidedly un-academic, and definitely idiosyncratic Truman could have been elected in this day and age, even with the head start of having inherited his first term on the death of his predecessor? I’m not at all sure.

Two days after then-Governor Palin had been chosen by John McCain as his running mate, and the general patten of harsh criticism of her had already been set (it was only to get worse), I wrote a piece with some words I would like to quote now, because I see no reason to change them:

The biggest difference [between Obama and Palin] is that Obama is of the Left and Palin of the Right. That he speaks as though he’s a reformer but was deeply in league with and assisted by the corrupt Chicago political machine of his own party, while she fought against the corrupt politics of fellow Republicans in her own state and won. That her admittedly meager high-level political experience is of the executive sort, while his similarly sparse resume contains only the legislative type. That she is a woman of action and he a man of words. That she chose to have her Downs baby and care for it and he fought to allow babies born alive after attempted abortions die. That he is inordinately fond of weasle words, contradicting himself, and the repetitive hum of “ummm;” and she (in the little we’ve seen of her) seems direct and straightforward.

Obama trumps Palin in the category of academic credentials, if you like that sort of thing. I’ve never noticed it has much to do with whether a President is effective or not, or even especially smart in terms of what one might call horse sense.

Palin has similarities not only with Obama. Her personal vibe is a bit like that of Harry Truman. Although he had a much longer pre-VP tenure in national political life than either candidate (twelve years as Senator from Missouri) he, like Palin, was a folksy down-to-earth plainspeaking rural sort. He even wore the wire-rimmed eyeglasses, although they didn’t look as good on him as they do on her (and Truman bears the distinction of having been the last President who didn’t even go to college).

Now that we’ve seen more of both Palin and especially of President Obama, the comparisons only seem to go more in her favor—for example, just for starters, she’s not pretending to be a moderate while actually having a far Left agenda, nor is she planning to make the United States weaker and more vulnerable on the world stage.

[NOTE: Plain Speaking was the name of a so-called “oral biography” of Truman, written many decades ago. Even though Palin herself is far from plain in the physical sense, it strikes me that her own “plain speaking” is one of the things that so riles her opponents. Palin’s speech is plain in the sense of unsophisticated, and plain in the sense of clear and blunt and direct, very much unlike Obama. And I find it amusing (although perhaps irrelevant) that if you scramble the letters of “Palin,” you get “plain.”]

Is anyone…

The New Neo Posted on by

…the least bit surprised by this?

We’ll never know what really happened to much of that stimulus money. And tune in for more of the same when the government starts taking over more and more of our economy.

America held hostage: the Obama administration so far

The New Neo Posted on by

For a while, I thought each day that I’d finally seen the worst Obama had to offer. Then I realized that was naive of me, and that Obama’s actions would probably continue to become ever more outrageous as he perceived he had less and less to lose.

What do I mean by that? Isn’t he losing more—for example, in the polls—as time goes on? While that’s true, I believe that at some point in the last few months Obama realized he had gravely damaged his own chances of re-election, perhaps beyond repair, and that the Democrats in Congress were bent on doing something similar for themselves. So his calculation was that there was no longer any need to dissemble by posing as a moderate in any way. Rather, it was desirable to take the mask off and push ever more quickly to get as much of his agenda as possible accomplished before 2010, and certainly before 2012.

And what might his agenda be? Statism. Socialism. Destruction of private wealth. Taxation. Rewards for friends (unions, minorities, lawyers, ACORN, SEIU) and punishment for enemies (Republicans, rich people, capitalists and capitalism). Reduction of American power on the international scene, as well as humiliation. Gutting of defense. Chaos and/or abandonment in Afghanistan. Projection of weakness. Appeasement of terrorists. Sowing fear in the ranks of the intelligence corps. Demoralization of the military. If possible, institutionalization of voter fraud that favors Democrats (this last might manage to counter the falling poll numbers, as well).

Have I forgotten anything? Probably. But Obama hasn’t; he’s a thorough man, and he’s got a job to do.

None of this is stupidity on his part; I’ve never thought him anything but intelligent and highly competent. He only seems incompetent to those who think his aims have much similarity with those of past presidents, or to those who think he expects to be re-elected. He’s given this up, and it has made him more reckless.

Obama doesn’t care what most of us think of him; he’s beyond our reach. He knows that he probably can’t be impeached (unless Breitbart comes up with a video of him selling state secrets to Osama Bin Laden, and perhaps not even then). Even if every single Democratic Senator up for re-election in 2010 lost to a Republican—a highly unlikely event—a great many of the remaining Senate Democrats would still have to vote for conviction in order to reach the required 2/3 majority.

So Obama feels safe. And although after 2010 it may become more difficult for him to pass legislation if Congress goes strongly to the Republicans, much of what he wishes to accomplish might already be completed by then, or could still be achieved without the assistance of the legislature.

For example, look at his foreign policy; he can do a lot of damage there without the approval of any other branch of government. And look also at the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed case, and the actions of Attorney General Holder. No input was required from Congress in order to make this particular choice and undermine our security. As the audacity (one of Obama’s favorite words) of the decision sinks in, it becomes even more apparent that this was a nakedly political calculation destructive to the interests of America but favoring certain pet projects of Obama.

Those of you old enough to remember the Iran hostage crisis at the end of the Carter adiministration probably also remember that it gave the TV show “Nightline” its start—only back then the show was called “The Iran Crisis— America Held Hostage: Day [fill in the blank].” Now we need a new show, as well as a new count. We could call that program “The Obama Administration—America Held Hostage: Day [fill in the blank].”

The trial promises to be many things: an opportunity to embarrass the Bush administration and put it on trial ex-post-facto, as well as a way to appease the Left, give terrorists a bully pulpit, set some dangerous legal precedents, endanger the people of New York and cause the city to edge ever closer to bankruptcy, further neuter the CIA, and ensure that any judge and jury involved will be risking their lives for the rest of their lives. But it is also the clearest signal so far that President Obama is in fact what the craziest of right-wing nutjobs said he was long ago: a man who lied his way to the office while bent on harnessing the power of that office to undermine the country he swore an oath to protect.

[NOTE: Is there a way to stop this terrible move by Obama and Holder? Bill Kristol thinks there might be, although it’s a longshot:

Congress could insist on military tribunals, and indeed in the past it has provided for such tribunals. I imagine Republicans on the Hill will try to move to overrule Holder, with legislation in the Senate, and with legislation and perhaps a discharge petition in the House. Holder can take his lumps for his reckless ideological decision if he wishes. Will congressional Democrats follow him off the cliff?

It remains to be seen whether even the Republicans will even try to stop this, and whether they could possibly get enough sane Democrats to follow them. Somehow, I doubt it.]

Even liberals may be getting a bit nervous…

The New Neo Posted on by

…about Obama’s Afghanistan indecision. If the AP’s Jennifer Loven and Doyle MacManus of the La Times are starting to ask the tough questions (almost sounding like Dick Cheney in his “dithering Obama” speech), then you know Obama has passed the point where even some of his supporters may be wondering why he’s taking so long to decide something they think he should have decided quite some time ago.

Obama’s testiness when challenged—something he’s clearly unused to and for which he has no tolerance—can’t possibly help matters for him, either.

And is Obama a fiscal conservative—on defense, that is? Or is the Afghanistan hesitation actually about much more than money—perhaps the fact that although Obama talked a tough Afghanistan line during his campaign, following through there was never his intent?

After all, on many other issues (such as, for example, health care reform), he certainly doesn’t think we need to take a moment to deliberate. “The fierce urgency of now” and all that.

Victor Davis Hanson…

The New Neo Posted on by

…manages to summarize the last few years of insanity in one incisive essay.

Here’s a sample, but please read the whole thing:

These are the most interesting of times: we are witnessing nothing less than an attempt in just 10 months to reinvent the United States at home and abroad into something it never was, led by someone who, the more soothing, comforting, and melodic his speech-making, the more bruising, cut-throat, and ruthless the act that follows.

Behind Obama’s bow: making up to Hirohito for past humiliations

The New Neo Posted on by

I was just reminded of something I’d forgotten, something I should have recalled because, after all, I wrote an article for American Thinker about it.

Back in July, Obama was quoted as having said:

I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.

I noted in my article that the scene that so haunted Obama never occurred. But why did it bother Obama so much anyway? Here was my speculation:

If I had to guess, knowing what I now know about our President, I’d say that it’s related to what he sees as the humiliation (“coming down”) of a non-white (in this case, an Asian) at the hands of a white American military man who was nothing if not overbearing (in this case, MacArthur), in order to not only surrender but to unconditionally surrender, and then to have his country occupied by the morally despicable US.

So my guess now is that one of the many things that motivated Obama to bow to the present emperor of Japan was to make up just a tiny bit for the terrible humiliation the previous emperor received at the hands of the United States, which had the effrontery to win a war that the Japanese began by their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

Akihito, the emperor to whom Obama bowed, is Hirohito’s son.

Post-WWII Germans: if only Hitler knew

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m reading the fascinating book They thought they were free: the Germans 1933-1945 by Milton Mayer (it’s also one of my book recommendations on the right sidebar).

The author was an American journalist and educator who lived for a time in Germany during the immediate post-WWII period, and interviewed ten “typical” Germans about their attitudes towards the Nazi era. These talks formed the bulk of the material Mayer used for his book, which was published in 1955.

Mayer was at least nominally Jewish, although he hid that fact from his interviewees in order to encourage them to talk more freely. He was also an unrepentant and committed Leftist (as well as a pacifist who opposed World War II), and this agenda is readily apparent in his book.

Why, then, am I recommending it? Because, despite its flaws and those of its author, it remains a work of close observation of a time and a generation that is now either gone or nearly gone, and is a still-relevant study of how ordinary people accommodate themselves to the encroachment of tyranny, both as victims and perpetrators.

A post on a blog cannot possibly do justice to the richness of the information contained therein. Although Germany in the 30s had characteristics that were particular and unique to its own history, culture, time, and place, there remain commonalities that leap out at the present-day reader (at least this present-day reader) in a cautionary and even chilling manner.

My first exposure to Mayer’s work was in this comment by “Artfldgr,” and the excerpts he provided there were so compelling that I got the book from the library and began to read. I haven’t plowed through more than a quarter of it yet (too busy), but the following excerpt grabbed my attention today [emphasis mine]:

None of my ten friends [the interviewees], even today [1955], ascribes moral evil to Hitler, although most of them think (after the fact) that he made fatal strategical mistakes which even they themselves might have made at the time. His worst mistake was his selection of advisers—a backhanded tribute to the Leader’s virtues of trustfulness and loyalty, to his very innocence of the knowledge of evil…

Having fixed our faith in a father-figure…we must keep it fixed until inexcusable fault…crushes it at once and completely. This figure represents our own best selves; it is what we ourselves want to be and, through identification, are. To abandon it for anything less than crushing evidence of inexcusable fault is self-incrimination, and of one’s best, unrealized self. Thus Hitler was betrayed by his subordinates, and the little Nazis with him….

“You see,” said Tailor Schwenke,…”there was always a secret war against Hitler in the regime. They fought him with unfair means. Himmler I detested, and Goebbels, too. If Hitler had been told the truth, things would have been different.” For “Hitler,” read “I.”

The book then veers off (as it often does) into Mayer’s own agenda, and I disagree with much of what he says. But the bulk of Mayer’s work—the interviews with the ten small-town Germans—holds up as a glimpse into a time and a mindset now gone, and yet universal as well.

People remain eternally vulnerable to the forces of tyranny disguised as demagoguery and charisma. In the service of hope and/or self-interest, they make excuses for its excesses and even its crimes. People also tend to cling to their previous beliefs even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because to challenge them would be to challenge the self—its judgments and its actions on behalf of those judgments—and to find oneself guilty of complicity in evil.

That is why a mind is a difficult thing to change.

[NOTE: Please read this related post entitled “Advising Obama: if only Stalin knew.”]

Oba Mao: China has Obama’s number

The New Neo Posted on by

Some entrepreneur in China has designed a hot little item just in time for Obama’s Asian tour. Feast your eyes:

oba-mao.jpg

In case you can’t quite tell, let me explain that the T-shirt shows President Obama in the uniform of the Red Guard. I would say that this shows remarkable insight into personality (including “the cult of…”) on the part of whatever Chinese genius thought of this marketing ploy. But the T-shirt has caused trouble because authorities are clamping down on sellers, fearing it will embarrass the visiting President.

In general, though, the Chinese seem somewhat underawed by the prospect of the visit:

A survey by China’s leading Web portal Sohu.com and the English newspaper China Daily asked, “What’s your viewpoint on Obama’s visit to China?” Almost 40 percent of respondents said “I don’t care” or “I have no expectations.”

When asked “On what issues do you think China and America will reach more agreements after Obama’s trip?” 56 percent answered, “I don’t think the two countries will reach any more agreements.”

And when our NBC News team went to Wangfujing, one of Beijing’s most popular shopping areas, to speak with people about Obama’s visit, more than half of the people we approached were unaware he was coming.

The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: a 9/10 approach to 9/11 justice

The New Neo Posted on by

The Obama justice department has made a very poor decision: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 planners are to be tried by the civilian criminal justice system in New York. They will be detained in federal prison in New York starting in a few weeks.

Speaking from Japan, Obama says Mohammed “will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice.” But that’s exactly the problem.

President Obama is referring to the criminal justice system in this country, which affords defendants all the protections that US civilian citizens enjoy. But if we’ve learned one thing from the errors of the pre-9/11 mindset, it is that the criminal justice system in the US is wholly inadequate to try conspiratorial terrorists of the Islamicist variety, and that’s exactly who the current crop being transferred to NY are.

If anyone is an illegal enemy combatant, it would be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and he should not be afforded the benefit of liberal rules of discovery designed to protect civilian defendants but which allow other al Qaeda terrorists to obtain valuable information about our methods of intelligence gathering: what we know, how we learned it, and about whom we know it. This decision also puts the entire city of New York at risk again by forcing it to house these terrorists and making their trial the proverbial three-ring circus, as well as giving them a bully pulpit for more attention.

I can hardly imagine a worse decision by the Obama Justice Department on these issues, except to let the terrorists go free and set them up in penthouses on the upper East Side.

This is not about protecting us. Nor is it about protecting the city of New York. This is about pleasing Obama’s Leftist base, and fulfilling his campaign promises to them. It is one of the worst decisions of his presidency, and that’s saying quite a bit.

[NOTE: The article also mentions that, “Five other detainees held at the prison, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, alleged to have planned the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, will be tried in revamped military commissions, the Justice Department announced.” It didn’t say why these five were considered suitable for military commissions whereas the 9/11 planners’ trials were not (nor does the NY Times article on the subject go into it). But I will speculate for now that the difference may be due to whether the attacks occurred on American soil or not, although this should be irrelevant. It also may be due to the fact that Mohammed is the main Guantanamo detainee who was subjected to waterboarding, so that trying him in civilian courts will afford Obama (and defense attorneys) the opportunity to rake the Bush administration over the coals, always a tremendous temptation and an opportunity not to be missed.]

[ADDENDUM: Andy McCarthy—prosecutor in the 1993 WTC bombing trial—agrees that this is an attempt to get Bush and put his administration on trial:

We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda’s case against America. Since that will be their “defense,” the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and ”” depending on what judge catches the case ”” they are likely to be given a lot of it. The administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets. And the circus will be played out for all to see ”” in the middle of the war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press its case that actions taken in America’s defense are violations of international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.

Obama and Holder are despicable. There is no possible rationale for this move other than these destructive impulses. And believe me, they know precisely what they’re doing—they are both lawyers.]