RIP Irving Kristol: founder of neoconservatism

The New Neo Posted on by

Once again, we have the news that a well-known person has died. But this time it’s neither a movie star nor a singer, but the man who was widely known as the father of neoconservatism (and the actual father of Bill Kristol): Irving Kristol.

Here’s an idea of the huge influence Kristol the elder had on conservative thought in America:

A Trotskyist in the 1930s, Kristol would soon sour on socialism, break from liberalism after the rise of the New Left in the 1960s and in the 1970s commit the unthinkable ”” support the Republican Party, once as “foreign to me as attending a Catholic mass.”

He was a New York intellectual who left home, first politically, then physically, moving to Washington in 1988. He was a liberal “mugged by reality,” his turn to the right joined by countless others, including such future GOP Cabinet officials as Jeane Kirkpatrick and William Bennett and another neo-conservative founder, Norman Podhoretz.

He was a flagship in the network of think tanks, media outlets and corporations that helped make conservatism a reigning ideology for at least two decades, the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that Hillary Rodham Clinton would claim was out to get her husband.

“More than anyone alive, perhaps, Irving Kristol can take the credit for reversing the direction of American political culture,” liberal commentator Eric Alterman wrote in 1999.

Kristol’s history encompasses many of the characteristics of neoconservatism, a persuasion that’s gotten a lot of bad press in recent years. But bad press and controversy has been part of neoconservatism from the beginning; the Left doesn’t take kindly to apostates, especially ones as intelligent and vocal as Kristol was. As I wrote in my own early post on why I decided to call myself neo-neocon:

“Neocon” is used by critics as a code word for a lot of things, among them: imperialist, unrealistic dreamer, and scheming puppeteer (along with its subset, scheming evil Jewish puppeteer).

This tendency has only gotten more pronounced in the years since I wrote those words. But here, in some of his own words, is what Kristol (and most neocons), actually stood (and stand) for:

[from 1972] It seems to me that the politics of liberal reform, in recent years, shows many of the same characteristics as amateur poetry. It has been more concerned with the kind of symbolic action that gratifies the passions of the reformer rather than with the efficacy of the reforms themselves. Indeed, the outstanding characteristic of what we call “the New Politics” is precisely its insistence on the overwhelming importance of revealing, in the public realm, one’s intense feelings””we must “care,” we must “be concerned,” we must be “committed.” Unsurprisingly, this goes along with an immense indifference to consequences, to positive results or the lack thereof.

[from 1975] If the United States is to gain the respect of world opinion, it first has to demonstrate that it respects itself””its own institutions, its own way of life, the political and social philosophy that is the basis of its institutions and its way of life. Such a sense of self-respect and self-affirmation seems to be a missing element in our foreign policy.

[from 1980] The foreign policy of the United States ought to have as its central purpose a world order that has been shaped, to the largest degree possible, in accord with our national interests as a great power that is free, democratic and capitalist.

[from 1980] Our economic problems are not intractable…On the other hand, once the idea gets around that we are in a profound crisis and that only “drastic action” by Washington can save us””then it will be time to head for the storm cellars.

[from 1997] The world has yet to see a successful version of “trickle-up economics,” an egalitarian society in which the state ensures that the fruits of economic growth are universally and equally shared. The trouble with this idea””it is, of course, the socialist ideal””is that it does not produce those fruits in the first place. Economic growth is promoted by entrepreneurs and innovators, whose ambitions, when realized, create inequality. No one with any knowledge of human nature can expect such people not to want to be relatively rich, and if they are too long frustrated they will cease to be productive. Nor can the state substitute for them, because the state simply cannot engage in the “creative destruction” that is an essential aspect of innovation. The state cannot and should not be a risk-taking institution, since it is politically impossible for any state to cope with the inevitable bankruptcies associated with economic risk taking.

RIP, Irving Kristol, and condolences to his family.

I wonder if it’s okay…

The New Neo Posted on by

…to call Ahmadinejad a liar?

Emboldened by recent events (you can take your pick as to what they might be, there are so many to choose from), Iran’s President makes his most unequivocal statement of Holocaust denial so far:

Mr. Ahmadinejad said confrontation with Israel was a “national and religious duty” and that the Holocaust was “a lie” used as a pretext for the country’s creation in 1948. Although he has called the Holocaust a “myth” in the past, provoking angry reactions in the West, he does not appear to have used the word “lie” in connection with it before.

Note the first part of the statement, too: it’s a national and religious duty to “confront” (wonder what the actual untranslated word is?) Israel.

The White House response so far:

The president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that by denying that the Holocaust took place was “ignorant, hateful and would isolate Iran further from the world.”

“Obviously, we condemn what he said,” Mr. Gibbs told reporters.

Obviously. It would be even more obvious if Obama could manage to join Gibbs in saying so, too.

And that might actually happen. But it would hardly matter if it did, because Obama gave Ahmadinejad a huge gift yesterday, as Ahmadinejad is well aware.

Just call me Cassandra: Obama plans to bring illegal aliens out from under the bus

The New Neo Posted on by

Believe me, the only pleasure I take in relating this news is the mild frisson of being able to say, “I told you so.”

Here’s Obama, addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Wednesday evening:

Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don’t simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken…That’s why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, “If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all.”

Got that? First, Obama would extend coverage to legal immigrants, who presently cannot receive public assistance until they become citizens (they are currently free to buy health insurance or medical care just like the rest of us, however, or to get emergency treatment at hospitals). Next, immigration reform to make the illegals legal.

Not only does Obama seem bound and determined to prove Joe Wilson wasn’t a liar when he said Obama lied, he also seems to want to prove me prescient. I’m referring to a note I wrote at the end of this post of September 10th, in which I was discussing the Joe Wilson accusation and health care reform for illegal immigrants. Back then I wrote:

What’s more, my guess is that one of the next items on Obama’s agenda will be some sort of amnesty bill to make these illegals legal and thus render the whole argument moot.

It wasn’t just a joke, either. I was serious.

Of course, in Obama’s quest to have it all ways and to claim plausible deniability for anything he says (which accounts at least in part for his Arafat-like tendency to mouth one thing when talking to the in crowd and another when talking to the general public), he may issue some sort of disclaimer. But if Americans are paying attention (and I believe a significant portion of them are at least beginning to), his deniability doesn’t seem quite as plausible as it used to.

Now it’s true that, in Obama’s speech to the Hispanic Caucus, he never really comes out and says he’ll give illegals citizenship and access to all the considerable goodies his welfare state can offer. He speaks generally of “passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all.” So maybe Obama means he’ll resolve the issue by cracking down and deporting those 12 million, but if you believe that I’ve got this bridge in Brooklyn you might want to…

I can’t find the complete text of Obama’s Caucus speech, but here’s a fuller description of it. Read it for yourself and you’ll get the drift. Democratic Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey certainly thinks he does; even before Obama spoke, Menendez told the crowd, “I know [Obama’s] going to help us with comprehensive immigration reform.”

And we know what Menendez’s agenda for comprehensive immigration reform is, because he’s posted it quite clearly on his website. Here’s what Menendez “knows” Obama will be helping him with:

I have been working with my colleagues to create and pass legislation that would enhance border security, while also providing a legitimate way for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers to come out of the shadows and earn United States citizenship. These undocumented workers must pass a series of strict and critical benchmarks, such as paying fines, learning English, and waiting at the back of the citizenship line, behind those who have pursued legal means of attaining citizenship.

In addition, Menendez supports the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (S.2611), which would allow an increase in the number of legal “guest” workers allowed to enter this country through something called a visa “blue card” program. Combine this with Obama’s declaration in his speech to the Caucus Wednesday that legal immigrants should be covered, and you could have a veritable health care bonanza, a huge incentive for people to enter this country under this program and tax (in more ways than one) the system (Cloward-Piven anyone?):

Here’s a description of the program from Menendez’s webpage [emphasis mine]:

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act was created to deal with the most pressing immigration problems. It reinforces and builds on already existing security measures along the southern border of the United States. Furthermore, it creates means for undocumented workers to seek legal citizenship, and provides for a greater number of guest workers through a new “blue card” visa program.

So, when Obama says “I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally,” it depends what the defintion of “illegally” is. If Obama gets behind the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, it’s highly possible that there would hardly be any illegals left in this country; they’d all be citizens or legal immigrants or legal workers. And so, just as I wrote in my September 10th post, “one of the next items on Obama’s agenda will be some sort of amnesty bill to make these illegals legal and thus render the whole argument moot.”

Yes indeed, Obama is a clever man. Let’s see whether the American public is even more clever.

We will know that she is gone: RIP Mary Travers

The New Neo Posted on by

Mary Travers, of the 60s’ Peter Paul and Mary, is dead at seventy-two.

There were three people in that group, but Mary was its beating heart. The two men seemed to be merely her backup singers (sorry Peter, sorry Paul), although they contributed the songwriting and important harmony. The blend of their voices was lovely, but hers was the one that needed to be there.

Beautiful in a 60s, Julie-Christie-esque way, with her shining fall of straight blond hair that gleamed in the spotlights, Mary was sexy as a starlet. But she sang with a remarkable lack of narcissism. It was all about the song and the sound and the intensity; self came in a very distant second, if at all. Her signature head toss wasn’t so much to show off her coif as to add punctuation to the lyrics and that throaty voice that had a special deeply ringing tone.

Although you can hardly go wrong watching any of the old Peter Paul and Mary clips on You Tube, here’s my personal favorite, with Mary as the featured singer. The lyrics seem especially poignant right now—“If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone…” [note: the video I chose disappeared from YouTube and is now unwatchable, so I’m substituting this one, which has much poorer visuals but is at least operating]:

Okay, I couldn’t resist another video. I chose this one not because it’s such a great song, but because it highlights the sexy side of Mary (and that famous hair toss) in a “groovier,” late-60s version. Love those sleeves:

Here’s the group in the flush of youth:

ppmary1.jpg

And here age and Mary’s illness had taken its toll:

ppmary2.jpg

RIP.

[NOTE: As for Mary’s far Left politics—which she came by almost inevitably, from her parents, entire upbringing, and milieu—they didn’t and don’t affect the music, at least for me. As a teenager and young adult, when I was a fan, I wasn’t even aware of them. Unlike someone like Jane Fonda, Mary’s activism was mainly confined to rallies, demonstrations, and benefits.

An interesting political footnote is that, when she had a bone marrow transplant to try to halt the progression of her leukemia (the transplant was successful initially but she died from complications of chemotherapy), this story was revealed of her meeting with her donor, a stranger named Mary DeWitt Hessen:

“This is a very special woman to whom I owe everything,” Travers said after meeting Hessen for the first time…

The women sat side by side backstage, clasping hands as Hessen’s husband, Mike, watched with daughters Laura, 14, and Diana, 13. Besides their shared first name, both have two daughters. When she discovered that, Travers said, “I thought, ‘This was meant to be.’ “…

Hessen, 46, sells insurance in Lake Orion, Mich. She joined the registry when a boy at her church was diagnosed with leukemia. She wasn’t a match for him. After she found out she was a match for someone else, she almost decided she didn’t want to meet the recipient. “You never know who you’re going to help,” Hessen says.

Travers, 69, a longtime Democratic activist, joked before knowing the identity of her donor that she hoped it wasn’t a Republican. “So I get on the phone with Mary and I say, ‘Oh, we had this joke.’ And there’s this pause, and she says, ‘But I am a Republican.’ It has added a certain kind of vigor to my bones, but it hasn’t changed my throat ”” or my politics.”

“A certain kind of vigor”—I like that.]

Obama’s second Polish joke: the Obama Doctrine

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama’s first Polish joke was snubbing the September 1st ceremonies in Gdansk marking the seventieth anniversary of the German invasion of Poland. Let’s review:

The lack of understanding of European history and sensitivities was not lost on the Polish chattering classes. They have been in a justifiable uproar over this mother of all snubs, feeling a mixture of humiliation and neglect. For an administration that pledged to prioritize public diplomacy, this treatment of an ally was appalling. Unsurprisingly, popular opinion of the United States took a serious nose dive in Poland.

Already, the Obama administration’s warm embrace of the relationship with Russia has been a cause for concern among Central and East European governments…Also, the Obama administration’s apparent attempts to use plans for “the third site” for U.S. missile defense (in Poland and the Czech Republic) as a bargaining chip to win Russian support for sanctions on Iran have gone down very poorly in Poland.

Those plans may have “gone down very poorly” in Poland, but who cares about a little Polish disappointment when Russia’s butt can be kissed? In his second Polish (and Czech Republic) joke, the scrapping of the missile shield negotiated by President Bush, Obama has offered the excuse of saying his decision was based on intelligence and strategy rather than the desire to court Russia and wink at Iran at Poland and Czech expense. And perhaps it was, but the Poles and Czechs don’t appear to think so, and I can’t really blame them.

Here’s the Obama rationale:

The Bush administration proposed the European-based system to counter the perceived threat of Iran’s developing a nuclear weapon that could be placed atop its increasingly sophisticated missiles…The Bush plan infuriated the Kremlin, which argued the system was a potential threat to its own intercontinental ballistic missiles…The Obama administration’s assessment concludes that U.S. allies in Europe, including NATO members, face a more immediate threat from Iran’s short- and medium-range missiles and is ordering a shift toward the development of regional missile defenses for the Continent, according to people familiar with the matter.

As the WSJ article goes says, “There is widespread disagreement over the progress of Iran’s nuclear program.” Ya think?

Obama is counting on Iran taking a long time to develop a nuclear capacity. Whether Obama actually believes this or not (or whether we even have the capability to correctly predict such a timetable), it suits him to underestimate Iran’s nuclear program in his continuing efforts to appease enemies (Iran) and hostile potential enemies (Russia) while simultaneously doublecrossing friends.

How did the Russians return Obama’s favor? The answer is: why should they return the favor? Maybe I don’t get the intricacies of the famous three-dimensional chess Obama is supposed to be playing these days, but it seems to me that he’s given a freebie to Iran and the Russians in exchange for nothing except the opportunity for them to view him as a weakling and a pushover. Here’s Russia’s response to Obama’s “chess” move (that statement about “dialogue” at the end seems a sly dig at Obama’s love of empty verbiage):

Russia on Thursday welcomed the news but said it saw no reason to offer concessions in return. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called the plan a “responsible move.” He threatened last year to station tactical Iskander missiles on Poland’s border if the U.S. system was deployed.

“We appreciate this responsible move by the U.S. president toward realizing our agreement,” Mr. Medvedev said Thursday. “I am prepared to continue the dialogue.”

And what is this “dialogue” that Obama so greatly desires? Apparently he believes that, if he throws this fish to them, the Russians will cooperate in imposing sanctions against Iran. That remains to be seen. But if this is Obama’s goal, then why throw the previously planned defense system out now, before talks on the subject of what to do about Iran begin in early October?

As the WSJ article says, “[T]he decision is likely to be seen in Russia as a victory for the Kremlin.” I would add that it seems to be not only an error, but an unforced error at that. Poland is apprehensive and disturbed, and the Czech Republic can’t be all that happy either:

A Czech official said his government was concerned an announcement by the White House on the missile-defense program could influence coming elections and has urged a delay. But the Obama administration has decided to keep to its original timetable.

European analysts said the administration would be forced to work hard to convince both sides the decision wasn’t made to curry favor with Moscow and, instead, relied only on the program’s technical merits and analysis of Iran’s missile capabilities.

I half expect some Polish or Czech official to stand up and yell “You lie!” to Obama (or his representatives) if that tack is tried. But this is diplomacy and not Parliament (or even a joint session of the US Congress), so any response will probably be veiled in exquisite politeness.

But the Poles and the Czechs know the score: in the future they must count on being betrayed by the Obama administration, or at the very least shut out of “dialogue” on issues that affect them mightily.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, one of the few Obama holdovers from the Bush administration, is not a diplomat; he’s a military man. But he seems to approve of the decision in strategic terms, “saying that the new configuration ‘provides a better missile defense capability’ for Europe and American forces.”

Perhaps so, perhaps not. It really depends on which of the predictions about Iran’s nuclear intentions and capabilities is correct. But aside from the military calculations, the diplomatic ones seems to be dreadful, especially for allies Poland and the Czech Republic. The NY Times lets us in on some of the details of how they were treated by the sensitive Obama adminstration:

As details began to leak, the White House arranged for a post-midnight call from Mr. Obama to the Czech prime minister and a call in the morning to Poland’s prime minister. It also dispatched top officials to Prague and Warsaw to explain the decision and calm any anxieties…But it made for unfortunate timing, as Thursday was the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, a date fraught with sensitivity for Poles who viewed the Bush missile defense system as a political security blanket against Russia. Poland and many other countries in the former Soviet sphere worry that Mr. Obama is less willing than Mr. Bush was to stand up to Russia.

While the Americans always described missile defense as a hedge against Iran, the Polish and Czech governments saw the presence of American military personnel based permanently in their countries as protection against Russia. Moscow strongly opposed the shield and claimed it was aimed against Russia and undermined its national security.

The Times article goes on to say that the Obama plan will puts defenses for Eastern Europe in place earlier than the Bush plan would have. That’s good; it’s just that those defenses are not against nuclear weapons. In addition, however, there is some talk of placing a nuclear defense system against Iran somewhere else, for example in Turkey or the Balkans.

So perhaps it all makes a certain amount of strategic sense; I suppose time will eventually tell on that. But even if it turns out to have been a good decision in the military sense, the way it was handled was not. It sends a larger signal to all the parties involved, one that is completely consistent with the one I previously stated here: offend our allies and friends, and cozy up to our enemies.

The Obama Doctrine.

[ADDENDUM: More here on the subject from Fausta. Also from Dr. Sanity.]

The racers may not win this race

The New Neo Posted on by

I just came across two excellent discussions of the racers and their tactics.

The first, entitled “An allergic reaction to the race card,” is by William A. Jacobson of Legal Insurrection. The second, by Jules Crittenden, is called simply “Race card.” Both are well worth reading in their entirety, even if you think you’ve already heard quite enough on this topic.

Crittenden calls on President Obama to disown the racers:

The moment has arrived for President Obama to start working on his legacy as the first post-racial president. Either that, or to face a legacy of having the most racially divisive presidency in modern American history…

That’s why it is time for the president to rise above his own shortcomings and political agenda, and do something for the nation. At some point in the not-too-distant future, whether his health-care plan continues to crash and burn or is resurrected in a new figleaf evolution, the president needs tell the nation that it is OK to disagree with him, that political dissent and even anger do not equal racism. Also, that if he fails, he prefers to be seen as having failed on his own merits, as an American political leader, rather than as a black man who is being handed the crutch of theoretical racism, for which there is no evidence whatsoever in this debate.

My first reaction to Crittenden’s call to Obama to denounce the racers was, “Good luck, fat chance, it’ll never happen.” And I still think that’s true. But if Obama were really clever, he’d play the good cop to the racers’ bad cop, condemning them for their charges while profiting from them at the same time, knowing they won’t stop.

Of the fact that Obama has encouraged the racers, sometimes subtly and sometimes more openly, I have little doubt. I’ve previously mentioned an Obama quote from his campaign days that first opened my eyes to that fact, but it bears repeating:

It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy. We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”

Crittenden reminds us also of one of Obama’s most famous previous pronouncements on race relations:

Obama was applauded in last year’s campaign for a big speech in which he excused the racism of his pastor, and said that white America is incapable of understanding the black experience, that racism on the part of blacks is different. A lot of people thought it was a watershed moment in American race relations. It wasn’t.

And Jacobson reminds us of a few other incidents from the Obama campaign:

During the campaign, Obama supporters successfully ended scrutiny of Obama’s overstated opposition to the Iraq war by accusing Bill Clinton of racism for calling Obama’s narrative a “fairy tale.” False accusations of racism also were used against Hillary supporter Geraldine Ferraro and against John McCain in order to frame the political debate.

These tactics were not used by Obama himself, to be sure. But, just as in the recent accusations of racism against the Tea Party protesters and Joe Wilson, he never condemned them, either (and if my memory is incorrect and you can find a time he did, please note it in the comments section).

What’s the result? As Jacobson says:

The effect of these accusations is poisonous. Race is the most sensitive and inflammatory subject in this country. By turning every issue, even a discussion of health care policy, into an argument about race, liberals have created a politically explosive mixture in which the harder they seek to suppress opposing voices, the harder those voices seek to be heard.

So far, the American people don’t seem to be buying the racers’ arguments. Both writers cite this Rasmussen poll indicating that only 12% of Americans think opponents of Obamacare are racist, 67% say they’re not, and 21% don’t know.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Good.

Birthers and truthers are not equal

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve already weighed in on the birthers, and let’s just say I’m not particularly simpatico. But the following sentence from this piece by Mark Salter caught my eye:

Today’s “birthers,” are no more offensive or weird than those who believe the Bush Administration was complicit in planning the attacks of September 11 or invaded Iraq to increase the profits of defense companies.

It’s become commonplace to roughly equate the birthers with the truthers. And although, as Salter says, birthers are no more offensive or weird than truthers, he fails to point out that birthers are actually less offensive and weird than truthers.

If you don’t believe me, let’s take a look for a moment at what each group is actually alleging, rather than the fact that each group is marginal or weird or paranoid or offensive.

Birthers believe that Obama is lying about a certain fact. Truthers believe that many people within the Bush administration were engaged in a large conspiracy. So the first difference is one involving the number of perpetrators.

Another difference between birthers and truthers is subject matter. Birthers believe that the current President has covered up facts about his birthplace and his parents’ status that would mean he is actually not eligible to be president (and basing this at least in part on his bona fide secrecy about a great many facts of his early life). Truthers believe that President Bush and Vice President Cheney, as well as unspecified other members of their administration, either conspired to murder three thousand innocent Americans or at the very least had enough advance information to stop their murders and instead chose to let the murders proceed in order to increase their own power and to advance their geopolitical interests.

Thus we see that the magnitude and degree of the offenses involved are not even remotely comparable. The birthers are alleging Obama committed an offense that is a technicality; a serious transgression to be sure, but one mainly involving the fudging (or hiding) of some papers in order to advance his political career. Such an act would be duplicitous, illegal, and profoundly wrong. But, to use a criminal analogy, it would be something in the nature of a white-collar crime.

The truthers are alleging that Bush, Cheney, and an unspecified number of people in their administration either committed or knowingly allowed the mass murder of their own country’s citizens on an enormous scale, the greatest act of terrorism in our history. Not only would that be a crime against humanity, it would be a crime perpetrated against Americans by their own leaders. Such an act would be in the nature of the darkest evil of which the human soul is capable, worthy of a Nuremberg-type trial and execution for war crimes.

The two sets of allegations are hardly equivalent, and speaking of them as though they balance each other out on some sort of scale of paranoid fringe beliefs is a nothing less than a moral outrage.

Succinct summary of the change process

The New Neo Posted on by

Now here’s a changer:

Some of the [Sept. 12] protesters had traveled farther than just the distance between their home town and Washington. Dr. David Levine, a psychiatrist from Rockford, Illinois, was Ramsey Clark’s volunteer press secretary when the ultra-liberal former U.S. attorney general ran for the Senate from New York in 1976. Now, Levine, wearing a faded NEWT GINGRICH 2008 t-shirt, was on the streets of Washington in a crowd of conservatives. What accounted for the change? “It started when liberals just stopped making sense to me,” Levine said. “I was listening to NPR, and nothing was making sense. So I started reading more and more conservative things, and here I am.”

Me too.

One of the ways in which Levine’s story is similar to mine, and to that of many other left-to-right changers, is that in his earlier days he didn’t read much in the conservative press. Once he started doing so, he realized that it made more sense than the liberal press.

That’s a pretty powerful experience; take it from me. And it’s one of the reasons liberals and the Left are so intent on reviling outlets such as Fox News, or even shutting down some of the talk shows on the Right if possible, in order to get followers to shy away from even listening to these information sources in the first place—or, if they do happen to listen, to automatically distrust and discount as partisan lies what they hear there. The Left correctly views media on the Right as dangerous to their cause, as is anything else that challenges the indoctrination and message control they otherwise are able to practice through the MSM and most of academia.

Here’s another guy who recently changed his mind about Obama. It would be rather difficult for the “racers” to call this particular man a racist, for obvious reasons—although I’m sure they could manage it somehow. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. They could probably start with his suspicious phrase “those kind of people,” which might be a code word for black—except for the inconvenient fact that the speaker himself is a black man:

“The company you keep tells a lot about who you are,” says Tres Berden, a truck driver from Newark, New Jersey. “With all of those associations of [Obama’s], from Rev. Wright to Van Jones — you don’t know those kind of people without being one.” Berden, one of the few African-Americans in the crowd, is a Democrat who now considers himself a libertarian. He voted for Obama, but quickly became disillusioned. “He isn’t the person he sold us,” Berden says.

[NOTE: If you’re interested in my take on that unrepentant Leftist Ramsey Clark, see this.

And if you’d like to see just what methods the Left uses to racially attack a black man who doesn’t support Obama, see this. And those letters he quotes from the Left aren’t pretend or projected racism; they’re the real thing.]

The racers

The New Neo Posted on by

For the sake of convenience, I’ve decided to call people like Maureen Dowd, who see hidden racism in every complaint about Obama, “racers.”

If I could sum up the underpinnings of their position, it would be a riff on Descartes’s proof of existence: “I think, therefore I am.” For racers, it goes something like this: “I think it, therefore it is.”

Such thoughts don’t require logic or evidence—just a gut feeling, a hunch, and to racers that makes them real. To understand the extent of the racers’ projections, and read how much they demonize those on the Right, you need only wade through the comments section of the Dowd piece. I’ll just offer one fairly typical example to give you the flavor of what I’m talking about:

All you have to do is look at the photographs of the people at the protest Saturday in Washington and at the ones showing up to scream at town hall meetings. They look like the wild-eyed crazies that showed up to throw tomatoes at black children trying to go to integrated schools in Little Rock in the 1950s. It’s the same bunch. They can’t stand black people and they’d rather burst their own blood vessals and scream until their veins bloat out of their necks than get used to the fact that it is the 21st century. From their attitudes to their hairdos, everything about them screams 1950s racists.

The hairdo theory of racism—heaven help us.

It’s an odd thing, isn’t it? With the election of Barack Obama, many of us (I include myself among them) thought for one brief shining moment that race relations in this country would improve. But it turns out that if racism really ceased to exist (which of course it has not), racers would have to invent it. With the precipitous decline of overt racism against black people, racers must imagine covert racism everywhere to take up the slack.

[NOTE: For those who are interested in actual history rather than projection, I offer a glimpse back in time to an era when the racism a black person experienced in the House of Representatives was all too real. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was the first black person elected to the House from New York, back in 1944. He was a controversial figure who ultimately was censured by the House for some shady financial practices, but he was also instrumental in some important fights against a racism that was blatant and open:

As one of only two black Congressmen, Powell challenged the informal ban on black representatives using Capitol facilities reserved for white members only. He took black constituents to dine with him in the “whites only” House restaurant. He clashed with the many segregationists in his own party”¦He passed legislation that made lynching a federal crime, as well as bills that desegregated public schools. He challenged the Southern practice of charging Blacks a poll tax to vote, and stopped racist congressmen from saying the word “nigger” in sessions of Congress.]

Our era of non-civil discourse

The New Neo Posted on by

Victor Davis Hanson has a good article on how uncouth public speech has gotten in recent years. And he’s not just talking about Joe Wilson.

The Hanson piece reminded me of the fact that I was a bit ahead of the curve on this one. I wrote the following in March of 2005, and I think it’s even more apropos today. So I thought I’d republish it. Note, please, the quote from the man who has since become our Vice-President, Joe Biden.

I was reading Dr. Sanity’s recent post, in which she quotes Fred Siegel from the NY Observer. He describes an encounter with some undergraduate Dean supporters prior to the 2004 primaries thusly:

I was taken aback by my conversation with the Deaniacs; their sheer coarseness stunned me. Even at the height of the “Ronald Reagan is going to blow up the world” mania of the 1980’s, I had never seen a “Fuck Reagan” button. But the coarseness was consistent with the dominant mood in academia outside of the sciences.

Well, I hate to break it to you, Fred, but it ain’t just academia. At the risk of sliding even further into old-fuddydud-ism (and perhaps even my use of the word “fuddydud” is emblematic of the fact that I’m already hopelessly mired there), I have to say that I myself have noticed recently a remarkable rise of what Siegel delicately refers to as “coarseness” in public life, not just academia.

Clinton donned shades and played the sax on TV. That wasn’t any problem; it was fun. But now we have candidates using the F-word in interviews with the media. Kerry in Rolling Stone, describing Bush’s Iraq policy–well, at least that was Rolling Stone, which appeals to a certain demography, so there was a bit of logic behind it, although I think it did absolutely nothing to enhance his candidacy or his person. And, just to show that I’m a nonpartisan equal-opportunity critic, there was Dick Cheney dissing Patrick Leahy on the floor of the Senate–although that was a personal spat, apparently, rather than a public interview.

What’s up? We’re all baby boomers here, and we tiresome boomers used to crow about how we liberated the language (and a lot else) from the confines of earlier ideas of propriety, etiquette, and politeness. Some of this liberation was good, no doubt.

But there’s something to be said for propriety, especially in public life. Now Joe Biden, in an article in the 3/21/05 New Yorker by Jeffrey Goldberg entitled “The Unbranding,” is quoted as saying, “What is so transformational in the last four years is that these assholes who wouldn’t give President Clinton the authority to use force” have now become, he said, moral interventionists. “Give me a fucking break.”

Does this make you want to vote for the man in 2008? Does it make him seem more “muscular?” Does it make him seem young and hip, or merely juvenile? To me, it’s the latter.

I’m a child of the 60s myself, and not averse to an F-word here and there in my private life. But I can’t imagine Roosevelt or Truman giving an interview and purposely using language that they no doubt were familiar with, but thought should be confined to private life, if uttered at all. They were aware that there’s public and then there’s private words, and as leaders of the Western world they had some funny notion of retaining a little dignity in public discourse.

[ADDENDUM: By the way, spellcheck agrees. It wanted me to replace “assholes” with “assails,” and “fucking” with “bucking.”]

Patrick Swayze RIP

The New Neo Posted on by

By now you’ve probably read the news that Patrick Swayze has died.

Swayze was an actor and dancer who became famous for the surprise blockbuster film “Dirty Dancing.” But I liked him best in “Ghost,” which didn’t even feature his formidable terpsichorean skills, although it made good use of his athleticism, not to mention his sexy torso. “Ghost” was always a tearjerker, although a clever, funny, and fast-paced action-packed one. Now it is even more of a weeper than before, because of the real-life fact that Swayze himself—like his character in the movie, Sam Wheat—has died too young.

Swayze’s bio lets us know where some of his supreme physicality, that mix of artsy grace and macho brawn, might have come from: his father was a champion rodeo star and his mother a prominent ballet teacher. Isn’t that the very combination of elements Patrick Swayze personified? I learned for the first time when reading his history that he’d also been a multi-sport star as a young man, participating at a high level in gymnastics, swimming, football, and ice skating as well as dance. In fact, his first professional performing role was in a “Disney on Ice” show.

Swayze’s body and the amazing things he could do with it were responsible for a good part his fame, but they were certainly not the only reasons. He had a nice-guy demeanor that could also turn sharp if needed, and he was a credible actor too, although he had his share of clunkers. Swayze also had that greatly prized but highly unusual (especially for a Hollywood hunk) asset: a long and seemingly happy marriage to his sweetheart from their teenage years.

I could post the corny but almost unbearably poignant (and now even more poignant) clip from the end of “Ghost,” where Swayze’s character says goodbye to his beloved girlfriend and is met by beings of light and then escorted to heaven (you can watch it here, if you’d like). Instead I’ll feature one of the funny parts from the film, where he tries to reach out to previously-fake “spiritual adviser” Whoopi Goldberg, much to her surprise and consternation:

Watching parts of the film now, I can’t help but be struck once again by the timelessness (and timeliness) of its deeper message: our very human desire for love to be eternal. RIP, Patrick Swayze.