Roger L. Simon: Jon Soltz and the Politics of Rage
Why did Jon Soltz react so dramatically when a soft-spoken soldier tried to argue that the surge in Iraq was working? Why should someone as meek and anonymous as Sgt. David Aguina have the power to make an authority figure like Soltz lose control? PJM CEO Roger L. Simon thinks it is because the political has become personal.
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I had never heard of Captain Jon Soltz before I saw him respond so dramatically to Sgt. David Aguina in front of Andrew Marcus’ pitiless video camera. Soltz leapt to his feet in high dudgeon to threaten the earnest and somewhat na√Øve Aguina with all the might of military justice for the evidently cardinal crime of speaking (very deferentially, almost obsequiously) at a political event while in uniform.
Whatever the gravity of the crime, Soltz’s reaction was clearly out of control. He took poor, confused Aguina aside, scolding him like an errant child while glaring at the camera like a movie star whose privacy had been invaded. Anyone with the slightest media savvy (or human sophistication for that matter) would have realized a polite pat on the head to Aguina and the sergeant would have vanished into the anonymity from whence he came after a few bland words. (Instead, his visage wound up on Drudge, like Mr. Smith come to a virtual Washington.) Something had turned Soltz into an irrational bully.
It’s hard to believe it was the uniform. More likely that is what the shrink’s call the “presenting complaint”. The problem for Soltz was Aguina’s subject - the surge in Iraq and the possibility it might be succeeding. But why should someone as meek and anonymous as Aguina have the power to make a panelist/authority figure like Soltz lose control on this subject?
The answer, I think, is that politics in our society has become increasingly identified with the self. Stolz reacted like a man whose own person would be threatened if the surge were to succeed. He had to be right. The image of success in Iraq was a shock to his ego, a narcissistic wound. (That Soltz used the terminology “My military” is a give away of his narcissistic impulses, as one commenter on Pajamas noted.)
Now of course Soltz is not alone in this. We see it everywhere from the Internet to our cable news networks to the boardrooms of our most respected newspapers. And we see it on all sides of the ideological spectrum. People identify their very selves with their political views. To say this is not good is an understatement. Besides making it almost impossible for people to change their minds, it makes it exceptionally difficult for them even to talk to each other, let alone reason together. Interestingly, that was the “na√Øve” Aguina’s point - that “good people” should be able to talk together about what was going on.
But they can’t. We live in a veritable politics of rage. We no longer have a society where what would appear to be good news for our country - success for the surge - would be applauded by a decent majority of our citizens. Something has gone very wrong. And there is plenty of responsibility to go around, a whole culture of people defining each other as “moonbats” and “wingnuts,” those two execrable neologisms of our times. And our politicians and media have only encouraged it.
Right now we are in the high season of the extremes of our political parties - these “ragers” - controlling our electoral process. Historically, after the nominating process, the candidates abjure these extremes and return to the Great American Center. But I wonder if it will happen this time. Too much water is under the bridge, virtual and otherwise. Too many statements have been made, recorded forever on hard drives, and the pathology has grown deeper. There may be no rescue.
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43 Comments
Sissy Willis:Both sides? Sure, we’re all political animals and plus ca change, but it’s only the left whose psychologocal survival depends upon our nation’s defeat.
Aug 6, 2007 - 4:53 am Max:LOL - and you just noticed this?
Aug 6, 2007 - 6:07 am Oligonicella:Both sides engage in idiot neologisms. Not both sides want defeat. C’mon, you understood him.
Aug 6, 2007 - 6:16 am Pat:Sissy is right. This is not a symmetrical phenomenon. The Left uses “wingnut” as a blanket terms for any conservative. By contrast, the Right generally uses “moonbat” to refer only to people on the left whose rhetoric or behavior is clearly deranged.
For example, Jeralyn Merritt and Joshua Marshall are not moonbats. On the other hand, the diarists at Daily Kos who posted the recent “Killitary” and “The troops are morally retarded” screeds are moonbats.
Aug 6, 2007 - 6:19 am Jonathan W.:Much more interesting is the comment on the personal and psychological value of political ideas in modern discourse. I guess I have been aware of the shift and even more aware that critique on policy is more that just a socio-philosophical exercise. The modern trend of becoming personally and politically “vested” in our ideology makes dialogue nearly impossible and criticism, even in the most constuctive sense seem like an all-out assualt, and a very personal one at that.
Aug 6, 2007 - 6:37 am Pete:Soltz’s reaction was quite familiar to me. I served nearly ten years as an Army officer. I occasionally ran across fellow officers who were so wrapped up in their own self-importance and self-righteousness that they would, to use one of Soltz’s phrases, “go ballistic” at the slightest affront to their authority or the honest mistakes of subordinates.
I always thought the over-the-top tantrums were ridiculous and did more to lower my opinion of the person with the bulging forehead veins and spittle-flecked lips than anything else. Fact is, the people that routinely displayed these infantile outbursts were usually regarded with considerable amusement behind their backs. Even twenty years later, I still get a chuckle about a certain colonel whose antics resulted in his secret nickname: “The Shredder”.
Come to think of it, if people like Jon Soltz knew what the rest of us actually think of them, they’d probably be even more self-righteously indignant.
Aug 6, 2007 - 6:48 am Jeffersonian:I’m not 100% sure this narcissistic impulse is what is at the core of the left-wing urge to censor, to silence, but it is abundantly clear from my experience that even the most polite, non-vulgar introduction of heterodox views at far-left-wing sites will get one denounced and banned quite rapidly. Soltz’s sledgehammer approach to Aguina was simply a person-to-person manifestation of the phenomenon.
Aug 6, 2007 - 6:50 am Uncle Abe:We live in an age where everyone is an individual first, an American second. african- American, lesbian-American, asian-American blah blah blah. Here in lies the root of the problem. We attack that which unites us, capitolism. We are a nation of entitlements, not opportunity, we are a nation of rights that carry no responsablity. The greatest enemy this nation has ever faced is in the mirror. One thing is for certain, we will never be able to defeat an enemy elsewhere when we can’t stop killing our own ideals that founded the promise of America. Truths are simple, that’s why there is a list of only 10 of them….
Aug 6, 2007 - 6:57 am ALEXISTAN:As usual, correct. Mr Simon. It is personal.
It is my contention that what we are experiencing is a Civil War involving the entire planet and played directly through the lens and into our laptops, TVs, TiVo’s and whatever else can transmit this acidic spew. And now that these media devices are increasingly transceivers, many of our elite are feeling the direct effect of their ill-thought-through positions in terms of pushback from the formerly compliant viewer. And thank God for it! Unlike our earlier civil war, fought conventionally along battlefronts, we are now forced to fight on our own (intellectually, one hopes) and this can be an arduous task — particularly when the “positions” one takes are easily overrun by logic. We are alone as thinkers, as actors and citizens, ignored by the mainstream and our elected congressmen. We are forced to decide on our own or at the municipal level how to deal with the immigration overrun, for example. Certainly, our “betters” would prefer us to shut up about and even go so far as to proscribe certain types of speech and thought. Thus, when we raise a valid issue about, say, the legitimacy of any laws when only a few are enforced, we have reached an intellectual “No Go” zone in our discourse with our “liberal” neighbors. America rich, bad, guilty, owes, evil, imperialistic. It’s self-hate. What Paul Johnson called “America’s Suicide Attempt.” Hence the hateful, dehumanizing dismissal by our supposed “Other” in the “dialogue.” It is from the most “liberal” that I constantly hear paraphrases of General LeMay in re Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Left evinces a frightening willingness to emply violence (particularly mechanisms of state) to achieve what rational argument cannot: getting their way.
Aug 6, 2007 - 7:05 am Texpatriate:With respect to Pat and Sissy, I find this to be a problem on both sides. The left seems to be in higher dudgeon because it’s so badly out-of-power. But drop a mildly dissenting opinion into Lucianne.com or FreeRepublic.com and see what happens.
The tone on both ends of the spectrum is scorn when not threatened, rage when confronted.
I think it speaks to the nightmare — entirely a product of the industrial age, I’m told — in which a person has something important to say, and no one will listen. For true believers like Solz, a man in uniform with 600 pages of stats is enough to trigger a waking nightmare.
Aug 6, 2007 - 7:25 am gavin930:Did we watch the same video? The only overreaction I see is yours. What a horribly labored point–you’re not paid to write this drivel, are you?
Aug 6, 2007 - 7:28 am Fen:Peggy Noonan touched on this back in 2002:
“A lot of you–you need to stop, sit down, think, question yourself, look at your actions and ponder what you’ve become. And how somehow love for your side in the fight became hatred for the other.
Let me be very candidly specific. Some of you need to get a good psychologist and a good holy man or woman, a priest or rabbi or minister–or how about all three–and figure out why you’re turning everything in your life into politics. Because I have to tell you what I know: Politics is the biggest, easiest way in all of America to avoid looking at yourself, and who you are, and what fence needs fixing on your own homestead.
A lot of you are in politics not beacuse you want to lead, but because you want to run. From yourselves.
When you’re in politics not to live life but avoid it, you become especially susceptible to a kind of polar thinking. You become convinced you’re with the good team and the good people over here. You become convinced anyone who doesn’t want the same policies you want must be bad. After all, you’re good, so if they disagree they must be bad. When you’re polar like that you dehumanize the people on the other side. And when you dehumanize them–well, then you wind up booing them at a funeral. And worse.”
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110002554
Aug 6, 2007 - 7:30 am Rob Sterling:It’s all about the bumper stickers. When you see someone with several “moral purity” bumper stickers - whether they’re about global warming or Jesus - that person is generally trying to demonstrate his worth through association with causes. The devotion to the cause is religious and his entire persona is wrapped up in it.
Also, the left has invented a new morality and those of us who don’t subscribe to it are “bad”. It could be argued that many leftists are “bad” in the Christian viewpoint, but Christianity has a mechanism for reconciling or redeeming “badness”, while leftist progressives do not.
Aug 6, 2007 - 7:40 am Webutante:It’s all about a huge emotional societal regression. Taking everything personally is one of the chief symptoms. It’s going to get a lot, lot worse before it gets better, in my opinion.
Aug 6, 2007 - 7:57 am BeyondPopper:Many of the comments on the specifics of the incident are reasonable.
What is not are the comments that generalize into the world of the commentator, in which everyone he or she agrees with is rational, and everyone not in agreement is some strange creature not of this world.
Stolz did not handle the incident well. However, it was clear that we can take him at his word that what set him off was not what the sargeant had to say — which was nothing, so far as I could tell — but the simple fact of his misuse of the uniform. This is clear since Stolz was already angry before the sargeant spoke.
To generalize this as some kind of universal characteristic of liberals censor all dissent is just bizarre. It is turning the world upside down as is usual with RNC talking points. Dissent is the life blood of liberalism.
Aug 6, 2007 - 8:19 am Stonewall PDS:Agreed.
Aug 6, 2007 - 8:21 am Brown Line:Being a conservative, I’m inclined to believe that the left is worse in this regard than we are. But that may simply be a matter of perspective: aren’t we all inclined to point out the speck in our neighbor’s eye, while ignoring the beam in our own?
Part of this problem is the Internet, I’m afraid. We can all get immediate feedback to our moods; in effect, we surround ourselves with our own personal Oswalds - people who “Bring oil to fire, snow to [our] colder moods”. This immediate emotional feedback can be terribly destructive.
I think we can all agree that it’s important that this cycle of recrimination be broken. And if it’s going to happen, it’s going to start with us - not because we are especially virtuous, but because we are the only people whose behavior we control. It starts with giving up the scorekeeping. Give up the recriminations, the name-calling, the fury. Address the content of an issue - even if your opponent has abused you, even if you feel he doesn’t deserve it. And continue to do this even if - or especially if - our opponents do not reciprocate.
In the immortal words of Larry Niven: “I’m going to get over this some time. Might as well be now.”
Aug 6, 2007 - 8:37 am Marko:I think Pete got it right, Soltz was reacting as an army officer taking aside a subordinate for a dressing down.
I think it says less about Soltz’s politics and more about how much he relies on his military ‘persona’ for his authority with the Kos crowd.
If he would have reacted like a civilian moderator it would have damaged his carefully self-created image. He had to react like an indignant army officer because that is who he IS to the Kos folks.
No doubt Soltz is also incredibly pissed that the rules say HE can’t wear HIS uniform - it would make things so much easier for him. To see someone else do it despite the rules was just too galling.
Aug 6, 2007 - 8:44 am BeyondKuhn:This is a problem generic to the left. It is called censorship of facts in favor of propaganda.
Leftists must do whatever is necessary to defeat the United States and any other reactionary world power. But especially the USA, since it is the only superpower.
Thus the global warming blarney, peak oil garbage, political correctness thought police oppressiveness etc.
Aug 6, 2007 - 8:47 am Tom Grey:“To generalize this as some kind of universal characteristic of liberals censor all dissent is just bizarre.”
I don’t think so — and if you read Neo-neocon’s posts about “A mind is a difficult thing to change”, you’ll see she’s been ostracized from her liberal / leftist friends. For supporting military force to bring democracy in Iraq — Operation Iraqi Freedom.
It is a pretty well established fact that, on average, blacks have lower IQ scores. This is “an inconvenient truth” that the Left has been pretty successful in censoring, both with respect to any policy implications as well as general academic discourse.
More under 12 kids drowned in pools last year than were killed by guns — why isn’t this better known?
Reason is only reasonable when one starts with facts, and adds beliefs or assumptions which are labeled as such, to then reach conclusions. If facts are being censored, you can’t be fully using reason. The Left has certain conclusions which they’ve decided upon as “good” — and they don’t want to be confused with facts.
Many pro-life believers have similar certainty in their own beliefs, but have long ago lost the ability to stop F-word screamers, or pro-promiscuity or pro-choice arguments in public or academic settings. The Left has been far more successful lately at censoring public discussion on campuses, for instance.
Aug 6, 2007 - 9:08 am ras:Narcissus did not fall in love w/himself, he fell in love w/his reflection. Likewise, modern political narcissists are largely those in love with (and hiding behind) a manufactured image of themselves that they wish others would believe.
Politics “aint about what it’s about” for them; it’s about assuaging their insecurities as they live a lie. That’s why they cannot handle dissent or contradiction, however measured or accurate: it’s a direct threat to their thin veneer and they know it. You argue; they insist.
In the West, I blame the unearned self-esteem movement for this; the kids are taught to primp their egos but are never given a foundation of genuine accomplishment to support that. Their politics of insistence over argument reflects the resulting insecurity, cuz they’re smart enough to see thru the facade but they don’t know how to get out, and even if they tried it ain’t easy on a fragile ego to be on the receiving end of the vitriol that apostates clearly receive.
I think it’s why, when I look at the Left’s policies, a pattern emerges in their cries: one must never judge (because that’s the hardest thing of all on those who don’t believe in themselves), and status should be based on immutable characteristics such as race and gender, so that it can never be lost by those who can only pretend to trust in their own abilities. They hate capitalism because it’s a meritocracy and they might be passed by others, so they invent reasons (e.g. global warming) to suppress it.
Terrorist Islam has a similar dynamic, btw - they are told by their religion that they’re superior, just cuz, but their lives say they’re not; thus the frustration and rage, even against plain facts. Their de facto alliance with the Left is, at least at the street level, based on this common fear.
Aug 6, 2007 - 9:40 am paul:I heard that Soltz has never served in Iraq.
Now that is too good…all those lefties who have made it a point of suggesting that anyone who supports OIF, should enlist-take note.
Your paper mache’ model, who speaks out for those in Iraq, is offended by a soldier who actually served there.
Aug 6, 2007 - 9:46 am ras:One other pt: single interest groups and their proliferation. Isn’t a SIG just the perfect place for a narcissist? It sure is.
There, they can totally ignore the the other side of any cost/benefit equation and pose incessantly in a “more is better” mode. In fact, once you make up your mind to be single-interest, then more, by definition, must be better.
Is it a Green group? Then demand that all industry be banned forever. Animal Rights? Let the animals vote! Anti-War? March to support Saddam! And if you can bare your breasts while you’re at it, well, when did a narcissist turn down attention?
Most SIGs meet one of two fates, eventually: either they can solve their problem (inasmuch as it can be solved) or they can’t.
If they can, then the results-oriented folk are done and will move on with their lives, but they leave behind an org whose name connotes status and the posers (i.e. narcissists) move in.
If they can’t, same thing, only quicker.
Aug 6, 2007 - 9:58 am Christopher Taylor:There’s an aspect of this that you missed: if the military is seen clearly standing up for its self while being opposed by the radical left that makes the radical left’s lie about supporting them plain and painfully obvious. Any dissent or opposition to this image and the Big Lie presented by Kos and others on the left must be instantly and painfully crushed by the iron boot.
Think I’m exaggerating? That reaction was one born of fear and desperation, not personal feelings. He knew that his appearance on the side of Kos gave a facade of respectability to the proceedings, but any dissent would show it to be the empty stunt it was.
Aug 6, 2007 - 10:14 am DRJ:Roger Simon’s point is absolutely right but what did we expect? The 60’s & 70’s Me Generation is finally in charge and everything is about Me.
Aug 6, 2007 - 10:22 am paul:Soltz rxn was one driven by feelings of inadequacy.
How can one present themself as an expert on the Iraq War, and yet never served in the country?
When faced by someone claiming they had served in Iraq, he had to establish some sort of legitimacy, at first questioning if the person was actually there, then questioning the person’s right to speak out.
When cornered, one looks for ANY means of striking back. Soltz was cornered and the only means he had for striking back was to silence the voice of the very type of people who would hope to represent. If someone showed up in uniform to support Soltz, plan ‘b’ would never have been opted for.
I would conclude that while he has a veterans organization that would advocate for soldiers, it would appear that he only advocates for those of his mindset.
Pathetic.
Aug 6, 2007 - 10:34 am BMOON:Fen (with reference to Peggy Noonan) and Rob Sterling hit closer to the mark, in my view. In absence of any real religious belief (despite courageous attempts to portray the opposite to the public during thi campaign,) the left adopts their political stance as a substitute for God, instead of as a pragmatic approach to complicated, and gravely serious world problems. In essence, this has always been the pathology of the left. Hence, you get the messianic complexes, the inflamatory rhetoric, the utter absence of objectivity, the silencing of the opposition, the passionate infantilism that is embarrassing to everyone but themselves.
Aug 6, 2007 - 10:38 am bnelson44:DRJ,
I blaim Mr. Rogers
Aug 6, 2007 - 10:40 am Patrick S Lasswell:Pete has is right, this is an officer “spinning up” to a control that is out of effective control. Instead of responding to a rational question of his position, he responded irrationally to a question of his authority. Since CAPT Soltz was not in uniform, he would have been more effective using a different method. Regrettably, he displayed a kind of leadership that did not suit the situation.
To be fair, SGT Aguina was being deliberately insubordinate. If only CAPT Soltz was showing a shred of support for our mission, I would be concerned about his getting sandbagged by facts and the direction of senior officers. If there is any justice, SGT Aguina will be appropriately punished. I suggest he be slapped firmly on each wrist with full military honors.
Aug 6, 2007 - 11:01 am B Dubya:I should be pleased if the only concrete result of this little dustup is that Captain Stolz should resign his commision in the Army Reserve. I am sure that his fellow serving officers would welcome the resignation, because the man cannot be a Kos Kid and not be a traitor to his oath of office. Rear eschelon traitor, but traitor nonetheless.
Aug 6, 2007 - 11:18 am fred lapides:Idea. Since each side accuses the other of name calling, why not try for ONE solid week to post comments by addressing specific issues and avoid name calling of any kind! Cn you do it? Would you do it?And yes: no snide innudendo etc Just issues and specifics.
Aug 6, 2007 - 11:44 am azlibertarian:I can’t help but wonder why Wes Clark (whom I believe was the guy sitting to Stolz’s right) just sat there throughout the whole thing.
Aug 6, 2007 - 11:55 am Mike_K:Soltz’s photo on the VoteVets web site is in uniform. Just as severe, and actually a more severe, violation of regs. The sergeant was reporting facts on a military operation. Soltz was the one practicing politics.
Aug 6, 2007 - 12:02 pm Full Metal Cynic:Obviously Soltz was trying to impress the big mamas and papas at the event. It was all about brownie points, though of course the whole thing backfired.
Aug 6, 2007 - 12:29 pm Yehudit:Stolz was already angry before the sargeant spoke.
According to a Kos diary, Aguina showed up the evening before and buttonholed Clark and was told not to come in uniform and did the next day anyway.
Aug 6, 2007 - 12:39 pm paul:If Yehudit is correct,
then these nutballs had a over tweleve hours to plan their response. Given the pr disaster they created, I’m just further convinced of how tone deaf the left has become.
“Veteran Silenced by the Left”
or
“Non-combatant Officer Goes to War Against Iraq Vet”
Give Clark credit. I’ll bet a million that it was he(or his staff), who had that regulation ready to go-but he wisely let the ‘token’ military guy take the point.
Aug 6, 2007 - 1:25 pm kris:As conservative talk show host Dennis Prager so often says, as a general rule the Left (joined by many of today’s liberals) thinks conservatives are EVIL, while (most) conservatives believe liberals and Leftists are WRONG–but we don’t accuse them of being evil. These are very different approaches to identifying and addressing our differences.
Aug 6, 2007 - 2:14 pm baldilocks:Hi Roger:
You said: That Soltz used the terminology “My military” is a give away of his narcissistic impulses, as one commenter on Pajamas noted.
Not necessarily; if someone else hasn’t pointed this out, the phrase “my military” is one that’s commonly used in basic training/boot camp by DIs/TIs when they’re chewing out a new recruit.
Aug 6, 2007 - 2:33 pm Billy Beck:“PJM CEO Roger L. Simon thinks it is because the political has become personal.”
{laff, laff, laff}
Roger, my dear boy, the feminist left announced that “the personal is political” about forty years ago. You sound like you’re surprised that ideas actually make their way from the Ivory Tower to the street, and that the culture has finally taken them at their words.
Good morning, Sunshine. Can I get you a cup of coffee?
{sheesh}
Aug 6, 2007 - 5:32 pm Sean:If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama were president and went to war, I and most conservatives would back them.
We would debate the issue beforehand, question motivations, etc.
But when the gloves came off, we’d back our soldiers so that they’d win. We’d leave the monday-morning quarterbacking till monday. Not run out on the field in the fourth quarter.
No Democrat can say the same.
We’re separate nations now, these red and blue states. The nation as a whole will come to realize it sooner or later. It’s time to go our separate ways.
Aug 6, 2007 - 8:13 pm Capt. Kangaroo:bnelson44, maybe you should read up on Mr.Rogers , before the sweaters and TV show…..
Aug 6, 2007 - 10:34 pm dontblameme:He was in the military but he is meek? He called talking about the war a “battle.” So don’t make it seem like this was a little pussy. Also, if a anti-war reserve showed up in uniform at a pro-war blog convention, you would all be calling him a disgrace to the military. And you would be yelling about how he was in uniform when he was not supposed to. So spare us “leftys” with the crap.
Aug 7, 2007 - 3:15 pm P Ashley:I think you are focusing on the messenge, and you should focus on the media. Usually life is full of filters as to what we hear, and for good reason. Before, there was no way to find out about all the crazy ranting crap out there. I mean you could, if you looked, hang out at CPUSA or Lyndon LaRouche meetings, but, unless you were a college student with too much time on their hands, you wouldn’t bother, would stop when you found out there was nothing pretty under the rock.
Now, especially in our time of political-parties-without-a-clue, any blogging website can create a better headline, and will get it. So, day after day, your nose is rubbed into the radical fringe. Those without a good compass will adopt the more extreme positions and political discourse as acceptable.
We started out as a Republic, filtering political respresentation to the middle. We are becoming a media-driven democratic mob of fringe parties.
I also think, as we get used to the new media, we’ll get used to it, and start dropping the filters, again.
Aug 8, 2007 - 9:00 am