If I don't see it, it isn't there

A commentary on William Murchison's commentary in the Dallas Morning News, April 8th 2009,

The Gay Marriage Fantasy

By William Murchison

You really can't have "gay marriage," you know, irrespective of what a court or a legislature may say.

Ok, so here it begins, a bad position is founded on a bad argument and defended in a bad way. Murchison's first argument is: I don't care about the constitution, it's wrong and I am right.

You can have something some people call gay marriage because to them the idea sounds worthy and necessary, but to say a thing is other than it is, is to stand reality on its head, hoping to shake out its pockets.

Nice, his 2nd argument says that the fight for (and against!) gay marriage is meaningless because "gay marriage" is just a word that has no meaning in Murchison's realm. So basically, this whole cultural battle is superfluous, and the same would be true for this op-ed. Interesting way to defend your argument....

Such is the supposed effect of the Iowa Supreme Court's declaration last week that gays and heterosexuals enjoy equal rights to marital bliss. Nope. They don't and won't, even if liberal Vermont follows Iowa's lead.

See... "If I don't see it, it isn't there..... the "Nope" proves it...." Oh, and Vermont is a liberal swamphole, anyway (too bad Iowa isn't....).

The human race -- sorry ladies, sorry gents -- understands marriage as a compact reinforcing social survival and projection. It has always been so. It will always be so, even if every state Supreme Court pretended to declare that what isn't suddenly is. Life does not work in this manner.

Ahem.... well, obviously the human race is developing a different understanding of the term "marriage" even if you declare that it will never happen. Besides, how does gay marriage go against "reinforcing social survival and projection"?

The supposed redefinition of the Great Institution is an outgrowth of modern hubris and disjointed individualism. "What I say goes!" has become our national philosophy since the 1960s. One appreciates the First Amendment right to make such a claim. Nonetheless, no such boast actually binds unless it corresponds with the way things are at the deepest level, human as well as divine. Surface things can change. Not the deep things, among them human existence.

Another argument along the line of "this fight is useless because it doesn't change things" - so why fight at all? Let's allow gay marriage if it doesn't really change things anyway....

A marriage -- a real one -- brings together man and woman for mutual society and comfort, but also, more deeply, for the long generational journey to the future. Marriage, as historically defined, across all religious and non-religious demarcations, is about children -- which is why a marriage in which the couple deliberately repudiates childbearing is so odd a thing, to put the matter as generously as possible.

Well, procreation and marriage are not necessarily intertwined. There are so-called illegitimate children, and there are marriages without children. But you are going to refute your own argument anyway....

A gay "marriage" (never mind whether or not the couple tries to adopt) is definitionally sterile -- barren for the purpose of extending the generations for purposes vaster than any two people, (including people of opposite sexes), can envision.

So a gay marriage will have to be content with the promise to stay together "in good times as in bad".... but that's the real purpose of marriage anyway, I'd say. It's a promise of two people made to each other to spend the rest of their lives together, it's not a prerequisite to have children.

Current legal prohibitions pertaining to something called "gay marriage" don't address the condition called homosexuality or lesbianism. A lesbian or homosexual couple is free to do pretty much as they like, so long as it doesn't "like" too much the notion of remaking other, older ideas about institutions made, conspicuously, for others. Marriage, for instance.

Once again: "Don't bother me with the law, I've got my own set of rules"

True, marriage isn't the only way to get at childbirth and propagation. There's also the ancient practice called illegitimacy -- in which trap, by recent count, 40 percent of American babies are caught. It's a lousy, defective means of propagation, with its widely recognized potential for enhancing child abuse and psychological disorientation.

Ah yes, thanks for refuting your previous argument.... Besides, I believe that child abuse and psychological disorientation aren't exclusive to illegitimate children... sad, but true.... and your arguments about what's better, or what's worse, what's more likely and what not, is just out of place when you're talking about the law.

Far, far better is marriage, with all those imperfections that flow from the participation of imperfect humans. Hence the necessity of shooing away traditional marriage's derogators and outright enemies -- who include, accidentally or otherwise, the seven justices of Iowa's Supreme Court. These learned folk tell us earnestly that the right to "equal protection of the law" necessitates a makeover of marriage. And so, by golly, get with it, you cretins! Be it ordered that.

Imperfect humans.... like gays and lesbians? And a little fake outrage at the end of the section.

One can say without too much fear of contradiction that people who set themselves up as the sovereign arbiters of reality are -- would "nutty" be the word?

Now that I have seen you arguing within your own reality and your own rules, could you please tell me, are you nutty?

The Iowa court's decision in the gay marriage case is pure nonsense. Which isn't to say that nonsense fails to command plaudits and excite warnings to others to "keep your distance." We're reminded again -- as with Roe v. Wade, the worst decision in the history of human jurisprudence -- of the reasons judges should generally step back from making social policy. For one thing, a judicial opinion can mislead viewers into supposing that, well, sophisticated judges wouldn't say things that weren't so. Would they?

"Legislating from the bench, blah blah blah...."..... I am tired of conservatives supposedly supporting the constitution but then rebelling against every verdict against their ideology.

Of course they would. They just got through doing it in Iowa, and now the basketball they tossed in the air has to be wrestled for, fought over, contested: not merely in Iowa, but everywhere Americans esteem reality over ideological fantasy and bloviation. A great age, ours. Say this for it anyway: We never nod off.

Soon these outcries will be lonely voices in the desert, thanks to the demographic development. Confusing and confused op-ed's as this one here don't help either.

Let's conclude: This commentary basically says that this whole argument about gay marriage is not important because gay marriage isn't a marriage, that the law and the Constitution don't matter because ...well.... the author doesn't like them, that marriage is about children, even though in reality it isn't, and that marriage itself might be better than no marriage, but maybe not, and judges suck so let's get out the pitchforks.

The historian who sold his soul I

A commentary on Michael Barone's op-ed in the Washington Times, Feb. 17th:


Michael Barone once was a respected historian, one of the 2 main authors of the The Almanac of American Policies. But during the last election he joined the neo-conservative punditocracy and published articles that distort facts in an almost criminal way. As a fellow historian, I feel somewhat insulted. Anyway, the following article deals with the New Deal and combines all the conservative talking-points against it.

BARONE: Real lesson of the great depression

Michael Barone
Tuesday, February 17, 2009

""Not since the Great Depression." "Not since the 1930s." You hear those phrases a lot these days, and with some reason. Now that Congress has passed the Democratic stimulus package, it may be worthwhile to look back at Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and consider how well it worked as policy - and politically.

There's a fairly broad consensus on policy that some of Roosevelt's actions made a positive difference but that they didn't get us out of the Depression. Amity Shlaes in her path-breaking "The Forgotten Man" makes a strong case that some of Roosevelt's moves blocked recovery, "

Alright, first a minor point. It's probably too early to call Amity Shlaes' new book "path-breaking". It's up to the future to determine whether it broke a new path, but that's a historic point of view. Amity Shlaes also defended Phil Gramm's "nation of whiners" commentary, so you know where she's coming from.


"and even his admirers admit that his policies led to a sharp recession in 1937-38".

That's very clever because Barone vastly overgeneralizes here. Yes, admirers like Paul Krugman admit that Roosevelt's policies led to a recession, but they also explain that this recession was a consequence of Roosevelt's abandonment of the New Deal in favor of fiscal conservatism. It's one thing to say that the New Deal prolonged the Depression (even though I think that's not true), it's another thing to cite people out of context.


"After eight years of the New Deal, unemployment remained at 15 percent in 1940 - double the figure for today. What really got us out of the Depression was World War II. The total number of employed persons and military personnel increased from 44 million in 1938 to 65 million in 1944. "

Of course, Barone doesn't tell that unemploment decreased by 10% in the years 1932-1940. And I'd also like to make a point that today's unemploment rate excludes a lot of people, criminals, immigrants, "hopeless" cases and other groups. The U-6 unemployment rate including all these groups was at 15,4% (!) in January. Check the Bureau of Labor statistics and see for yourself. (Check the U-6 unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted.) These exclusions didn't occur back in the 30's, at least not at this scope.
The final point is true though, World War II ended the Depression. It was a huge government spending program. Patriotism defeated any fiscal restraint. The US debt climbed up to 120% of the GDP but the US was rewarded with the role of a commercial, industrial, military super power. The 50's rewarded America with peace, prosperity and American suburbia.


"So it would be unwise to copy the New Deal as a recipe for economic recovery. And the policies that produced the wartime boom are not replicable today. We are not going to have rationing, wage and price controls, government spending nearly half the gross domestic product, 91 percent tax rates and a 12-million-man military (the equivalent today would be 27 million)."

Well, the first sentence just isn't true. GDP grew from 1933-1937. It also grew again from 1938 on. And to say that the policies are not replicable today just isn't an argument if you try to refute the success of the New Deal. I am not promoting rationing or wage control, I am just saying that just because it wouldn't get through Congress today, it isn't necessarily a bad idea. It's true that we will never have a 12-million-man military, and it's also true (but that's not something Barone says) that America will never ever be in the dominant position of 1945 again. The American economy will never ever be able to control the flow of money as it did in those post-war years, and so we better get something else to show for the deficit. Tax cuts, by the way, don't create anything. They ALSO cause a deficit, but we get nothing in return. Tax cuts are a dead end street.


"There has been general agreement, however, that Roosevelt's policies were politically successful. Most of us in the political commentary business make frequent use of the phrase "New Deal Democratic majority" and tend to believe that Roosevelt's policies worked for his party for a long generation extending into the 1960s"

Ah yes, the crux of modern conservative thinking. The Democratic party supposedly made the American people addicted to government and so Republicans have to be against the government, against the New Deal, against anything that the New Deal did. To make this argument, you have to believe that the New Deal was a complete failure.


"I think the picture is more complicated than that. Democrats did win big in the 1934 and 1936 elections. They made big gains in large cities and factory towns, many of which were staunchly Republican in the 1920s. But these gains were not sustained, as the effects of some New Deal policies - high taxes on high earners, the unionization-promoting Wagner Act and jobs programs like the Work Projects Administration - became apparent.

In early 1937, unions engaged in sit-in strikes in auto and steel factories; they were plainly illegal, but Democratic governors in Michigan and Ohio refused to enforce court orders against them. Later that year, the "capital strike" Miss Shlaes describes led to a sharp recession.

The jobs programs were widely criticized as "boondoggles" and "leaf-raking." Allegations of political favoritism and corruption were widespread. In the 1938 off-year elections, Democrats lost 81 House seats, 51 of them in the industrial belt from Pennsylvania and Upstate New York west to the Upper Midwest. The Democratic governors of Michigan and Ohio were defeated for re-election. The congressional district that included Flint, Mich., site of the first sit-in strike, went from Democratic to Republican; so did most congressional districts in Ohio."

Barone makes the mistake of placing today's conservative ideology into the 30's. He basically says that already back then, people were against "high taxes on high earners", against "unionization-promoting" and against "jobs programs". So why exactly then did unions rebel against the government in 1937? Why exactly did the Democrats lose 81 house seats in 1938? Of course, because of Roosevelt's abandonment of the New Deal in favor of fiscal conservatism and the recession that followed! Why else should a union protest against the New Deal???

"As pro-New Deal historians have conceded, New Deal policies no longer had congressional majorities, given the opposition of many Southern Democrats. Nor was the outlook for Democrats rosy as the 1940 elections approached. Polling, then in its rudimentary stages, suggested that Republicans would win if the election were decided on domestic issues."

Roosevelt had to follow fiscal conservatism because the Southern Democrats pressured him to. But well, the South has always been against the federal government - a true constant of American history.


"But in September 1939, World War II broke out in Europe. In June 1940, France fell; Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, then allies, seemed to have most of Europe under their sway. Just days later, the Republicans nominated Wendell Willkie, an attractive candidate with no experience in foreign policy. The Democrats met in July, and Roosevelt sent a letter saying that he did not want to be a candidate. But, with help from the Chicago commissioner of sewers piping over a loudspeaker, "We want Roosevelt!" the president was renominated. He won his third term in November not, as he put it later, as "Dr. New Deal," but as an experienced leader when the nation was facing grave peril.

"The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory," Roosevelt declared in his Pearl Harbor speech, and so they did by September 1945. In my view, it was the war effort, the mobilization of big government, big business and big labor, that much more than the New Deal enhanced the prestige of the state. It got Americans proud of thinking of themselves as small cogs in very large machines. It made them amenable to statist policies that they would never have accepted in the 1920s and at which many of them were bridling in the late 1930s."

This might be true, or might not be true... we don't know what would have happened without World War II. It's interesting to note that Barone has gone completely astray of what he wanted to say. He's not interested anymore in the economic consequences of the New Deal, he has turned towards the political implications. That's actually a Barone speciality. He cites a few numbers, throws ina few conservative talking points and comes to a conclusion that almost ignores the numbers and serves no purpose. His argumentation is just barely covering the conservative axiom that government always is the enemy. A successful government makes people like it and so it needs to be rendered ineffective. Barone argues that World War II made people "amenable to statist policies". That basically says that as a consequence of World War II people wanted big government. That might be true, but here Barone is moving into the eras of Truman and Eisenhower - basically the pinnacle of American economic power. He assumes that the policy post-World War II was statist and that people liked it (what exactly does statist mean in this context? American wealth grew, the deficit shrunk, and the world was secure, after the Korean War) He completely leaves behind the problematic year of 1938 that constitutes his only argument.

"No two political times are ever the same. But as we watched the stimulus package moving to passage, we got the whiff of bailout favoritism and crony capitalism that was also present in the New Deal. The forced unionization envisaged by the card-check bill may prove to be no more popular than the unionization forced by the sit-ins was in Michigan and Ohio in 1938. Today's Democratic programs may get as mixed a political reaction as the New Deal did in the years before World War II."

And here we are at Barone's "conclusion". We don't get the "Real lesson of the great depression" promised to us by the headline. Instead, we get shrill conservative talk, or does the Employee free choice act (what conservatives call "card-check") really force unionization? Of course, it doesn't... Please also remind me how the sit-ins in Michigan and Ohio forced unionization. Please also show me the mixed political reaction to the New Deal, or do you forget that the Republicans were down to 16 senators in 1936? And don't come to me with 1938, that was already wrong when George Will said it, and it will be repeated by every conservative commentator, hoping that repetition makes it true (Actually, I believe that conservatives know it's wrong, but their existence depends on exploiting these views.).

When black is white II

A commentary on Perry Bacon Jr.'s article in the Washington Post, January 28th 2009:


This piece of journalism, not an opinion piece, deals with the RNC chairman race and offers amazing insights into the Republican psyche. Since this is not an opinion piece, I will change my method. I will just quote the highlights of that article, most of them being quotes from RNC members and affiliates.

"As they begin meeting in Washington today, many members of the Republican National Committee are focusing their ire against what they considered George W. Bush's anti-conservative policies and trying to dump the man he tapped to run the GOP."


Ok, so this is the crux of Republicans and the task they have to face. How do they seperate themselves from George W. Bush? And more importantly, isn't it a sad symbol that Mike Duncan currently leads the endorsement race? Are Republicans even able to change?


"Duncan "has never criticized Bush when the president was wrong," said Shawn Steel, an RNC member from California. "He's the agent of the establishment, and we need a change in personnel."

The ....establishment. So I guess there is a revolution going on in the RNC right now? We simply change the personnel, but keep the policies? Is that all that's needed to leave the establishment?


"In a further sign that the group wants to signal its displeasure with Bush policies, members are expected to adopt an unprecedented resolution attacking "the bloated bank bailout bill" that Bush championed and demanding that the committee "take all steps necessary to oppose bailouts of industries, individuals or governments.""

Or in other words, "Kill the economy! Crash the whole system! Ruin the middle-class! Get back to pre-New Deal times!"


"Curly Haugland, a party member from North Dakota, said his opposition to Duncan is tied to his selection by Bush rather than by the committee members. "Most of us strongly supported the Bush administration through the entire two terms, but in the last few months, this bailout and the abandonment of capitalism really kind of sealed it," he said."

So, let me get this right.... you supported Bush throughout the Iraq War, torture, Katrina, the economic collapse and all that...but you abandoned him because he tried to fix it? Are you schizophrenic??? Or did you want the economy to fail? It's really hard to get a different impression...


"Unlike Democrats, who last week appointed Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to the party chairmanship, Republicans usually select someone who is already a committee member, and some party members say they would choose only from among Anuzis, Dawson and Duncan.

For this reason, Blackwell and Steele, the two African American candidates, are considered unlikely to win, even as Republicans say they want to take steps to woo more black and Hispanic voters."

If I was really mean I would congratulate them on finding a reason not vote for a black RNC chair, but I actually agree here. A black RNC chair would be just tokenism. And a black president trumps it.

"People in this country are more conservative than what has been shown," said Cathie Adams, an RNC member from Texas. "Republicans have lost because we were playing the me-too game of growing government."

Riiiiight. Republicans lost the election because they weren't conservative enough... and Obama won because.... he was the real conservative.....


"RNC members, who include three representatives from each state, frequently criticize Bush's "compassionate conservatism," particularly his efforts to make it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens."

Heh, and you want to woo minority voters? Well... go on, drop the word "compassionate", too...


"And while usually not naming Bush, all six RNC candidates have also emphasized the need for Republicans to push for lower federal spending. Blackwell has been the most explicit, likening Bush to former president Herbert Hoover for advocating policies that increased the size of government."

Boooooo!!! Herbert Hoover, Mr. Big government! Herbert Hoover and his New Deal programs, burn him!!! Stop it, yes, Herbert Hoover did enact a few acts that increased the size of government, but his focus was on voluntary actions. He hoped that the involvement of the government wouldn't be necessary. FDR increased the size of the government in his first 100 days more than Hoover did in the years 1929-1933.


""I think we're becoming a regional party," said John Feehery, who was a top adviser to then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). "It seems like we only want to appeal to Southerners. We seem too far to the right, and I think we need to have a better understanding of principles that appeal to people in all 50 states.""

I am against doomsday theories. Very rarely the worst that could happen actually happens. But yes, the danger is there... This schizophrenic kind of policy, being against Hoover and Bush - yet following their ideology, being against Mike Duncan - yet not finding an alternative, this delusional twist of truth, this believing in the own lies only works in the South where white people have developed a system of covert rebellion against the emancipation and Civil Rights Act. Social conservatism is keeping the midwest somewhat connected to the GOP, some libertarian streams of Republicanism are still attractive in the West, but seriously, there is just one candidate, Saul Anuzis, who represents a true willingness to expand the republican outreach. Michael Steele might count, too, but he is too moderate for some; The next chairman is probably going to be Duncan or Dawson. Duncan would be a sign of desperation and cluelessness. Dawson would be an emrabce of racist southern conservatism, mixed with evangelicalism and populism of the worst kind... good luck!

When black is white I

A commentary on William Kristol's final op-ed for the New York Times, January 25th, 2009:


"All good things must come to an end. Jan. 20, 2009, marked the end of a conservative era."

Astounding openness, and the intention to turn this final column into a testament, William Kristol = Conservative era. My previous commentary already alluded to Kristol's confusion. This is just the next step.


"Since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too! Conservatives have been right more often than not — and more often than liberals — about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family. Conservative policies have on the whole worked — insofar as any set of policies can be said to “work” in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of."

Ok, so obviously Conservatives were right and liberals were wrong, because liberals were pro-communism, pro-jihadism, pro-crime, pro-welfare, pro-education (?) and anti-family. - This is another one of Kristol's well-known generalisations. However, I don't see a liberal "disadvantage" there if I compare the "liberal" World War II, the "liberal" Korean War, the "liberal" Vietnam War vs. the "conservative" wars in.. uuh.. Grenada? Or how about Iran-Contra? I'd also say that the conservative governments did a wonderful job at inciting terrorism by funding it and provoking it with unjustified wars.
Did you know that U.S. crime rates were highest at the end of Bush Sr.'s presidency? In every crime category the numbers were worst in the years 1991-93. Clinton managed to achieve a turn-around and Bush Jr. held on to these numbers. Quite an irony if you consider Bush Sr's Willie Horton-ad. America has also fallen behind in education and the conservative policy of abstincence-only has been proven to be ineffectual. I consider this to be a sign of total failure. Thankfully, Kristol also replaces the Clinton years by the Gingrich years and he probably isn't too far off there, but I also have a few things I don't like about Clinton's legacy-less hodgepodge policy style.

"They also have some regrets. They’ll have time to ponder those as liberals now take their chance to govern.

Lest conservatives be too proud, it’s worth recalling that conservatism’s rise was decisively enabled by liberalism’s weakness. That weakness was manifested by liberalism’s limp reaction to the challenge from the New Left in the 1960s, became more broadly evident during the 1970s, and culminated in the fecklessness of the Carter administration at the end of that decade. "

The "New Left"? I don't think that this term has found general acceptance but it's nice to get an insight into conservative thinking. So I don't actually know what he is speaking about. Was Carter a product of the New Left? Does he mean pacifism and the civil rights movement? Could be, I have never seen a bigger warmonger than Kristol.


"In 1978, the Harvard political philosopher Harvey Mansfield diagnosed the malady: “From having been the aggressive doctrine of vigorous, spirited men, liberalism has become hardly more than a trembling in the presence of illiberalism. ... Who today is called a liberal for strength and confidence in defense of liberty?”"

Harvey Mansfield is one of the founders of Neoconservatism, so Kristol quotes one of his mentors here.

"Over the next three decades, it was modern conservatism, led at the crucial moment by Ronald Reagan, that assumed the task of defending liberty with strength and confidence. Can a revived liberalism, faced with a new set of challenges, now pick up that mantle?

The answer lies in the hands of one man: the 44th president. If Reagan’s policies had failed, or if he hadn’t been politically successful, the conservative ascendancy would have been nipped in the bud. So with President Obama today. Liberalism’s fate rests to an astonishing degree on his shoulders. If he governs successfully, we’re in a new political era. If not, the country will be open to new conservative alternatives."

Or in other words, let's hope that Obama fails.


"We don’t really know how Barack Obama will govern. What we have so far, mainly, is an Inaugural Address, and it suggests that he may have learned more from Reagan than he has sometimes let on. Obama’s speech was unabashedly pro-American and implicitly conservative."

Ah! pro-American = conservative, anti-conservative = liberal; pro-American = good, Reagan = good, Oh! Reagan = Obama!

"Obama appealed to the authority of “our forebears,” “our founding documents,” even — political correctness alert! — “our founding fathers.” He emphasized that “we will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.” He spoke almost not at all about rights (he had one mention of “the rights of man,” paired with “the rule of law” in the context of a discussion of the Constitution). He called for “a new era of responsibility.”

And he appealed to “the father of our nation,” who, before leading his army across the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776, allegedly “ordered these words be read to the people: ‘Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.’”

For some reason, Obama didn’t identify the author of “these timeless words” — the only words quoted in the entire speech. He’s Thomas Paine, and the passage comes from the first in his series of Revolutionary War tracts, “The Crisis.” Obama chose to cloak his quotation from the sometimes intemperate Paine in the authority of the respectable George Washington."

Yadda-yadda, blabla..... political correctness alert! The founding fathers certainly were not conservative, even though Obama = Reagan, Reagan = conservative, Obama = Founding Fathers. If they had been consevative they would not have rebelled. Well, of course, Obama was only trying to appeal to the spirit of a new beginning. Kristol however tries to read Obama's ideological concept out of it (In Kristol's eyes, Obama must have one, because Kristol = ideologue, Kristol = center-right, center-right = America).

"Sixty-seven years ago, a couple of months after Pearl Harbor, at the close of a long radio address on the difficult course of the struggle we had just entered upon, another liberal president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also told the story of Washington ordering that “The Crisis” be read aloud, and also quoted Paine. But he turned to the more famous — and more stirring — passage with which Paine begins his essay:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”"

Quite pointless Paine recitation... poetry as Kristol's farewell maybe?


"That exhortation was appropriate for World War II. Today, the dangers are less stark, and the conflicts less hard. Still, there will be trying times during Obama’s presidency, and liberty will need staunch defenders. Can Obama reshape liberalism to be, as it was under F.D.R., a fighting faith, unapologetically patriotic and strong in the defense of liberty? That would be a service to our country."

Just a conclusion, once again mentioning that liberalism after F.D.R. was unpatriotic and weak. Interesting though that he doesn't mention F.D.R.'s New Deal. Does Kristol accept a bigger role of the government? Did George W. Bush kill conservatism?

Obama is scary I

A commentary on Fred Barnes' article in the Weekly Standard of 01/26/2009:


"The Only Thing We Have to Fear . . .
is Obama.
by Fred Barnes
01/26/2009, Volume 014, Issue 18


Barack Obama is the apostle of hope. But he also arouses the flipside of hope--fear. And while the fear he stirs may turn out to be unfounded, it's not irrational. People don't know who Obama really is or where his ideological center of gravity rests, to the extent it rests anywhere. He was a liberal in the Senate and the campaign, a centrist in the transition, and who knows what he'll be as president. He's elusive."


The Weekly Standard is the intellectual centerpiece of neoconservatism. It has a heavy emphasis on foreign policy where it exhibits a realistic point of view, in the sense of the realistic school of political theory. As such, it regards foreign policy as a question of power, the struggle of powers and the aspiration of every country to get more power as a mean to increase their security. Power and security are the main concepts of the realistic school. The "neo" of neoconservatism is the attempt to reverse the expansion of government after the New Deal. That concept was unknown to moderate conservatives like Eisenhower and Nixon. It started to take form at the time of Barry Goldwater and became one of the 3 streams that formed the Reagan Coalition.
The resistance against the New Deal is important to remember here, because the headline of the article is the well-known quote from FDR's inaugural address. The twist here, and that's my main thesis regarding this article, is that the main representatives of neoconservatism are REALLY scared of Obama. They fear his organisation, they fear his efficiency, they fear the return of the New Deal policies. It's a threat to the survival of their ideology. Just check, Fred Barnes is afraid of Obama, because he is afraid of his ideological stance, because he seems to be a liberal, scary!

"I count four separate fears. Whether he's a crypto-Marxist is not one of them. Neither is the absurd fear that he's secretly a Muslim, even a closet jihadist. Nor is the groundless claim Obama was actually born outside the United States and isn't really an American citizen. Forget all those. They're nonstarters.

He doesn't know what he's talking about. This is a legitimate fear. Obama throws around numbers like confetti. In the campaign, he said he would create 1 million jobs. After the election, he put out a plan he said would produce up to 3 million jobs. Then in a radio address on January 10, he said the number could reach 4.1 million and said 500,000 would be jobs in the alternative energy field, 200,000 in health care. Does he really believe he can achieve this? The fear is that he might."

The fear is that he might? Obviously, Fred Barnes is scared of Obama's efficiency, as evidenced in his unlikely presidential run, and he mistrusts Obama's use of numbers. The accusation of not knowing what he's talking about doesn't really hold up if you look at Obama's economic team. Or maybe Barnes is so fixated onto Obama that he ignores the people around him. And Barnes is scared of the huge numbers, foreshadowing huge government.

"Social Security, we can solve," he told the Washington Post last week. Really? President Bush, freshly reelected, promoted Social Security reform in 2005 and got nowhere. Certainly Obama was no help. Obama "said his administration will begin confronting the issues of entitlement reform and long-term budget deficits soon after it jump-starts job growth and the stock market," the Post reported. When will this happen? Not next year or next summer but next month when he convenes a "fiscal responsibility summit."

Not a good comparison to make, every step of Bush to move to the political center was punished by his own party, like education reform, immigration reform and even the financial bailout.

"Obama is smart, Ivy League-educated, and able to discuss issues knowledgeably and intelligently. He's put together a strong staff. The same was often said of Bill Clinton. Brains and advanced degrees, though they thrill Washington's journalistic elite, aren't enough. Clinton didn't have a magic wand and neither does Obama. True, reality often creeps in. Obama initially aimed to shut down Guantánamo instantly. Later his aides said it might take a year. Last week, Obama told the Post he'd consider it a failure if the prison hadn't been closed by the end of his first term."

Barnes is scared of intelligence? Or else, I don't know why he mentions it.

"He's a pushover. Who's tougher, Senate majority leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi or Obama? The fear is that Reid and Pelosi are. Indeed they act like they are. Reid told ex-senator Joe Biden, Obama's vice president, he's not welcome at meetings of the Senate Democratic caucus. Neither Reid nor Pelosi is cautious about ramming the liberal agenda through Congress. Pelosi wants to raise taxes now, in the teeth of the recession."

From the Democratic side, it's funny to read the words "tougher" and "Harry Reid" close to each other. But well, it seems that Barnes is indeed full of fear if he fears Obama, and also fears those that might change Obama's course.

"As a senator, Obama never bucked his party, its leaders, or a single liberal interest group. In the 2007 debate over immigration reform, Obama voted for every amendment pushed by liberal lobbyists, though if they'd passed, the amendments would have jeopardized the emergence of a bipartisan majority. The legislation died for other reasons.

Obama's allegiance to organized labor has been unflagging. He co-sponsored "card check" legislation allowing labor to set up unions without winning elections by secret ballot. He's still for it, despite its unpopularity and diminished prospects of passage. When he met last week with Mexican president Felipe Calderón, Obama said he wants to "upgrade" the North American Free Trade Agreement. Renegotiating NAFTA is a top priority of labor leaders, but Mexico, Canada, and most economists fear it would reduce trade and stir alarm about a wave of protectionism."


It's a little irrational to detect a rift between Obama and the congressional leaders and then claim that he never bucked the party line. It's also a weak argument that Obama supposedly never bucked the party line and then give only one, very minor, inconsequential example. There are of course Obama's very special policies, but I give it to Barnes, from his political standpoint, the Democrats probably all look alike.

"He's another Jimmy Carter on foreign and national security policy. Carter had misplaced confidence in his ability to bend anyone, including dictators, to his view through persuasion. He was a talker, not a doer. A year after he met with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Carter was shocked when Brezhnev ordered an invasion of Afghanistan. His talks with North Korea led to a treaty on nuclear weapons that the North Koreans soon violated. Carter was surprised again.

Obama's willingness to meet with dictators or other anti-American leaders has raised the Carter fear. He sometimes talks about diplomacy as if it's a panacea, a surefire way to solve the world's problems. On the other hand, Obama is committed to sending more American troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. And he's backed away from a rapid withdrawal from Iraq now that a status of forces agreement has been reached. Perhaps the fear of Carter redux is exaggerated."

Actually, foreign policy was Jimmy Carter's strong suit. The last major achievement in the middle-east is still the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Clinton's Oslo accords? Died with Yitzhak Rabin. The Bush roadmap? Died with the hardline government of Ariel Sharon. The comment about being a talker, not a doer... ridiculous. What makes the "doer" so special? Did Ronald Reagan tear down the wall by himself? Of course, not... this is just machismo talking, basically meaning that Carter and Obama are wussies, Reagan and Bush are heroes. I also wouldn't mention North Korea... they acquired nuclear weapons at Bush's watch... Oh and Afghanistan was a glorious waste of Sovjet ressources, the beginning of the end... but if you think in dimensions of pure power, the short-lived gain of russian influence looks like an American loss. But on the long-run it was a disaster for the Sovjet Union. Well, and obviously Barnes doesn't quite know how to criticise Obama, because Obama wants Diplomacy AND more troops in Afghanistan... is Barnes able to understand a nuanced policy?

"Obama has nerves of jello. This fear may be unfair, since there's no evidence one way or other as to how he might react in a crisis. David Shribman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that Obama "possesses an enviable inner calm." Maybe, maybe not. What Obama does have is an enviable outer calm. Inside, he may be wracked with doubts and anxiety as he takes over the presidency. We don't know. The problem is he's never had to make a truly tough decision.

Presidents with strong nerves are decisive. They don't balk at unpopular decisions. They are willing to make people angry. President Bush had strong nerves. President Clinton, who passed up a chance to eliminate Osama bin Laden, did not. Obama is a people pleaser, a trait not normally associated with nerves of steel."

More machismo talk. It's like real leaders don't think! Real leaders make people angry, hehe! Oh, and I just like to mention that Bush also had a chance to eliminate Osama bin Laden, but he went to Iraq instead... By the way, I think I have never associated anything with the word "people pleaser" before.. but well, Barnes doesn't make any argument here, he is just wallowing in innuendo.

"We'll soon discover if any of these fears has merit. Obama made a series of clever moves during the transition, reaching out to conservatives and picking evangelical pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration. But these were cost-free, ephemeral, and didn't reveal much. What Obama does as president will tell us all we need to know."

I haven't got anything against the Weekly Standard and their columnists. They are probably the most reasonable people on the whole right. But they have also lost their basis. William Kristol has been an intellectual wisp in the past weeks, completely focused on foreign policy, not even touching the subject of the economy. And even at foreign policy it all comes down to "Bush has kept us safe", though even this statement is meeting criticism. Perhaps it's only natural to feel scared, but as it looks like, Obama possesses the arguments and the means to annihilate neoconservatism.

Obama is a continuation of Bush I

A commentary on Charles Krauthammer's editorial in the Washington Post, 16th January 2009:

"Except for Richard Nixon, no president since Harry Truman has left office more unloved than George W. Bush. Truman's rehabilitation took decades. Bush's will come sooner. Indeed, it has already begun. The chief revisionist? Barack Obama."

It's true that Nixon's approval rating at the time of his exit was worse than Bush's. Bush's approval rating is worse than Truman's though - that's why Krauthammer has to take Truman out of the list ("since"). This is problematic because Truman is the conservatives' favorite example of a president who was redeemed by history. So, Bush's way to rehabilition is probably longer - even though Krauthammer says that it will come sooner.


"Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds -- the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition."

Yes, especially since, at the time Krauthammer wrote his article, Obama STILL wasn't president. So every indication of continuity is just a word, not a deed.


"It's not just the retention of such key figures as Defense Secretary Bob Gates or Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, who, as president of the New York Fed, has been instrumental in guiding the Bush financial rescue over the past year. It's the continuity of policy."

Yes, Bush did his best to fix his own errors. Now, why did he listen to Rumsfeld in the first place? And why didn't he dismiss him after his confrontations with Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell? Or after Abu Ghraib? And the Bush financial rescue... I am sure that Bush loved to do it, that he wanted to increase the role of the government all the time... suuure........ I guess the financial breakdown was just a small, temporary setback for Bush's strategic policies that Obama is going to continue...

"It is the repeated pledge to conduct a withdrawal from Iraq that does not destabilize its new democracy and that, as Vice President-elect Joe Biden said just this week in Baghdad, adheres to the Bush-negotiated status-of-forces agreement that envisions a U.S. withdrawal over three years, not the 16-month timetable on which Obama campaigned."

Yeah, I am sure historians will acknowledge Bush's almost visionary plan not to destabilize Iraq after he ordered to conquer it... if only we had had enough troops in there at the first place....


"Which is why Obama is consciously creating a gulf between what he now dismissively calls "campaign rhetoric" and the policy choices he must make as president. Accordingly, Newsweek -- Obama acolyte and scourge of everything Bush/Cheney -- has on the eve of the Democratic restoration miraculously discovered the arguments for warrantless wiretaps, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Indeed, Newsweek's neck-snapping cover declares, "Why Obama May Soon Find Virtue in Cheney's Vision of Power.""

Show me that gulf! Show me where Obama himself has used that rhetoric without intending to exercise it. Just because you might be surprised now that Obama is not turning out to be the secret muslim who was radicalized in Reverend Wright's church, then married an angry resentful black woman and is soo soft on foreign policy that he gets called "Obambi", just because Obama turns out to be someone you cannot condemn to hell he is not approaching Cheney's "Vision of Power". You probably perceived Obama to be moving away from the left fringe when in fact, he had never been there...


"Obama will be loath to throw away the tools that have kept the homeland safe. Just as he will be loath to jeopardize the remarkable turnaround in American fortunes in Iraq. "

Remarkable turnaround? Yeah, who might have thought that we thought about actually leaving the country in a peaceful state after the disastrous years 2003-2006.


"Obama opposed the war. But the war is all but over. What remains is an Iraq turned from aggressive, hostile power in the heart of the Middle East to an emerging democracy openly allied with the United States. No president would want to be responsible for undoing that success."

Ok, you can see it that way. However, some would also argue that Iraq turned from a powerless, surrounded puppet dictatorship to a bulwark of Iranian influence and 2nd front for the Mujaheddin.


"In Iraq, Bush rightly took criticism for all that went wrong -- the WMD fiasco, Abu Ghraib, the descent into bloody chaos in 2005-06. Then Bush goes to Baghdad to ratify the ultimate post-surge success of that troubled campaign -- the signing of a strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq -- and ends up dodging two size 10 shoes for his pains."

I am not sure if Bush ever took that criticism. It might have been offered to him, but he turned away, disappointed that things weren't the way he thought they were. By the way, maybe the shoe story tells you something about the relevance of that strategic partnership. True, treaties really meant something, back in Bismarck's times. But that paleoconservative view of foreign relations doesn't get you very far today. Countries are not governed by a monarch anymore. Iraq is far away from showing the stability of the colonial empires of Europe. I am sounding a bit bitter, but well, in this regard, I really wish Krauthammer was right...


"Absorbing that insult was Bush's final service on Iraq. Whatever venom the war generated is concentrated on Bush himself. By having personalized the responsibility for the awfulness of the war, Bush has done his successor a favor. Obama enters office with a strategic success on his hands -- while Bush leaves the scene taking a shoe for his country.

Which I suspect is why Bush showed such equanimity during a private farewell interview at the White House a few weeks ago. He leaves behind the sinews of war, for the creation of which he has been so vilified but which will serve his successor -- and his country -- well over the coming years. The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgment of how much he got right."

LOL! Let's be glad that Bush just absorbed that insult, he might as well have retaliated it and declared war or something. Oh and I believe, the Iraqi people are thankful for Bush having avoided these shoes. And Bush did NOT personalize the responsibility! He blamed the CIA, Iran, Al-Qaida, wrong stagecraft ("mission accomplished" banner), but he never, never, NEVER, personalized the responsibility. He never accepted it. If the blame focused on Bush, it's because the people focused it on him, not because he did it by himself.

Well, no comment on the final paragraph... it's quite obvious that I cannot share Krauthammer's conclusion, because I didn't follow his argumentation.

P.S. Krauthammer calls Obama "The chief revisionist". How ironic... considering we will have to endure decades of revisionism from the former Bush circles that continue to linger around in the press, on Fox, and right-wing political organizations.