Leave Clint Alone

There were about 110,000 American soldiers involved in storming Iwo Jima. 700-900 were African-Americans, less than 1% of the aggregate force. The Clint Eastwood films of the battle focused on the flag raising on Mt. Suribachi, where African-Americans were not present, and the caves on the Japanese side, where they likewise were not in evidence.

Eastwood is now damned by the racialist Spike Lee and others for not including African-American faces among generic shots of U.S. forces. Examine the logic of this creepy criticism: from now on, apparently, we are to guess at racial and gender percentages present at historical events. Thus the number of WAVEs, Hispanics, whites, Blacks, Asians, etc. must be guestimated on World War II battlefields, and then actors and cast members in those proposed percentages must be represented on the screen, regardless of the general theme or focus of the film.

Apparently Spike Lee does not believe that it is possible that those on Suribachi who looked down at the invasion force, or those on landing craft who scanned the beaches might well have seen 99% of the force and not any of the 1% minority. One could get carried away with this: weren’t there more percentages of whites present around the Mandela movement in South Africa that appear on films; did civil rights films accurately portray the racial breakdowns present in the movement? And the LA gang genre—weren’t there whites and Hispanics involved in anti-gang activity whose presence was Trotskyized?

This monitoring is rather scary, since it recalls Soviet films, in which, regardless of the topic discussed, class struggle and solidarity had to resonate through the choice of the sets, dialogue, and camera shots.

A modest suggestion? We apparently need a new “Office of Racial Representation” in which a government commissar will monitor all films, and either censor or airbrush each take to achieve the correct racial formula deemed necessary to promote perceived contemporary “fairness”. God help us all if we devolve into a European-Canadian big brother atmosphere of political groupthink.

The Obama Warp

I remember how George Allen was pilloried as a neo-racist for his macaca remark and his fascination with Confederate memorabilia. Why then is James Webb being talked up in liberal circles for a Vice President nomination, given his far more evident Confederate sympathies?

I also thought identifying with a candidate on the basis of race was illiberal. Why then is a 90% or more African-American majority voting for Obama deemed a mere matter of “pride”? And what is so admirable that millions in Africa and the Middle East suddenly inform our journalists abroad that they would change their opinion of American should we elected a person of color, or the son of an African, or somebody who was once a Muslim, or someone with a middle name like Hussein? In other words, why would liberals think it is liberal to favor someone solely on the basis of shared race or religion—a bias that was the traditional enemy of the Enlightenment? These examples could be multiplied, but we are starting to see that when Obama is in question, all previous liberal ideologies are suddenly up for discussion, adjudicated only by the degree they help or hurt Obama.

Rethinking Rev. Wright

The conventional wisdom is that Rev. Wright was a bullet dodged, given the serial losses from Ohio and Texas onward. Perhaps. But note that after the Wright mess, Obama’s resonance in the African-American community radically increased, as his racial fides was strengthened; and former 60% margins consistently peaked at 90% and above. So too abroad: the more Rev. Wright was heard to damn the US, evoke Hiroshima, and dub America a terrorist nation, the more Obama was embraced by millions abroad in Africa and the Middle East as a kindred soul. In other words, denouncing Wright was accepted as genuine by most Americans, but to others as a sort of wink and a nod, pro forma distancing (as Wright himself noted) from a racist critic of the United States who otherwise strengthened Obama’s maverick credentials.

Some simple Sound bites

Energy: Anwr, off-shore drilling, shale, tar sands, liquid coal—none of these will make us energy independent. But they will give us the necessary bridge to new generation fuels, ensuring in the interim that we don’t go broke, enrich our enemies, or hurt the poor until we reach the nirvana of wind, solar, electric cars, biofuels, and nuclear power. What is so moral about refusing to pump oil carefully on our soil, but demanding that the reckless Russians or Saudis drill ever more? And can we rightly suspect that the Left, by its inaction in Congress on energy production and radical environmentalism, welcomes the gas shortage? Note their glee at less burning of fossil fuels, more state centralized control with unionized mass transit, and, as Obama noted, an end to our crass SUV culture. Now if only Nascar would shut down and Winnebago plants close…

Iraq: Al-Qaeda, not us, chose Iraq as the main theater of battle in the war between radical Islam and the West. They went there, lost, disgraced their cause, turned off Muslims and in the process strengthened our hand in Afghanistan and weakened their ability to carry out operations at home against us. We learned how to fight on their home turf and win hearts and minds, they learned how to lose their fight at home—and the population in the bargain. By going into Iraq, Al Qaeda, not us, took its eye off the ball in Europe, the US, and Afghanistan.

Immigration: Close the border. All the other acrimonies can be then worked out, once hundreds of thousands cease coming illegally across the border.

The War on Terror: it’s hard to cite freedoms lost by everyday Americans due to government action; it’s easy to cite liberties lost by our collective fear and political correctness—whether it is a matter in the West of producing a novel, cartoon, opera, film, or papal commentary.

The Mortgage Crisis: 96% of monthly mortgages are met. Speculators and investors got hurt when home prices fell to their 2002-3 levels; first-time, entry-level buyers are being given a windfall.

Taxes and Spending: Tax cuts raised more revenue; but excess federal spending squandered the additional income. The solution, then, is to keep tax cuts, cut federal spending, and use the ensuing surplus to pay down the debt.

A Lost Opportunity

Gas in central California is right at $4.50 a gallon. Those who are hurt most are the poorer who don’t drive Priuses and Civics, but who pull into the rural service station not far away from my home with second- and third-hand SUVs, Crown Victorias, and F-150s. Most are either Hispanic or poor whites. None can afford solar panels, hybrids, or on-demand water heaters.

Somewhere, somehow the Republicans, inept as usual, have not been able to make the argument that they as a whole voted for ANWR, off-shore drilling, tar sands and shale, refineries, clean coal and coal to liquid—not to enrich oil companies or destroy the environment, but to provide accessible energy supplies to the citizenry, while Democrats stopped them all.

It really is a class issue. Democratic elite environmentalists road-blocked all these avenues, each of which might have added a million barrels here, a million there. We’re not talking going back to $2 a gallon, but that additional production might have allowed gas to stay at $2.50 a gallon for example. Few Americans realize that the current Democratic leadership (cf. the SF regional proximity of a Boxer, Feinstein, and Pelosi) pretty much reflects the ideology of an upper-class Bay area elite, with ample capital and income, access to mass transit, who really has very little concern in the world for a guy who lives in Parlier and hangs doors up and down the Valley in his 10-year-old Ford 250-truck and trailer.

And then there are the other issues: as oil climbs, we note that an extra 3-4 million barrels a day would translate into over a third of a billion dollars daily in national revenue, monies not given as well to our enemies, whether in Russia, Iran, the Gulf, or South America. Environmentalists should accept that a derrick off Santa Barbara means clean world extraction; one off Nigeria or in the Persian Gulf means a spill waiting to happen. So much for our shared “Planet Earth.”

Meanwhile we wait for solar and wind and Obama’s rhetoric about “alternative energy” and “thousands of new green jobs” to fill the tank.

A Modest Proposal

Will all the Greens, new-age environmentalists, Gorites, and Hunffinton Post Hollywood crowd, just make three simple pledges to match their deeds with their rhetoric? (1) I swear I will not fly on any gas-guzzling, carbon-footprinting private jet; (2) I swear I will not live in an energy-wasting house larger than 8,000 square feet; and (3) I swear that I will not drive a car that gets less than 25 mpg. That would be for most of us pretty easy to do; so will the prophets of the environment take the pledge and help the nation and planet?

Saddam’s Trillions

As the extreme left talks about Iraqi war-crimes, as violence subsides, as American troops start drawing down and as constitutional government increases its authority, we should stop and ponder a Saddamist 2008 Iraq. Given that oil prices are spiking on the soaring demand of the Chinese and Indians post 2003, we can imagine what Saddam’s Iraq would now look like today: billions in oil revenue available for more weapons; more French and Russian sweetheart deals; a $50 billion oil for food scandal now reaching into the hundred of billions; thousands of sorties in the no-fly zones, with international pressures for Americans to cease their provocative policing; even more bounties for suicide bombers as Iraqi oil coffers increased; the defenseless Gulf sheikdoms even more inviting targets, and so on.

The Bush Rules

1. Good economic news (2002-7) is due to natural cycles beyond Presidential control; bad news (2001, 2008) results from Bush ineptness.
2. Natural disasters like Katrina cause hundred of deaths due to Bush incompetence and are unprecedented. When tens of thousands die in Indonesia, Burma, or China, we are reminded of nature’s capricious fury.
3. Bush is unilateral and partisan, so legislation like No Child Left Behind or Prescription Drugs either is not bipartisan, or the sort of thing Sen. Obama would do even better.
4. All bad news in Iraq is Bush’s fault; the radical turn-around this year is either nonexistent or due to those who acted without Bush’s authority. When violence subsides in Iraq it is an accident; when it does the same in Afghanistan it is due to multilateral cooperation.
5. Bush is selfish and parochial, liberal Democrats magnanimous and international. Therefore protectionist trade policies, trashing Columbia and NAFTA, opposing the Dubai ports deal, voting for record farm subsidies and give-always, and blaming Turkey for its nineteenth-century predecessors are progressive.
6. Energy: see above. If I were a conspiracist, I would suggest that the Democrats wanted high gas and energy prices to favor radical environmental, no-growth causes, garner power into the hands of centrally-planned, union-run transit authorities, teach the US to be a better, more contrite citizen of the world (cf. Obama’s admonishment to put away our (not the Senators’) SUVs, and persuade the American people that the desired national profile and habitat are to be more Oregonian or Seattlean than Wyominian or Kentuckian.

McClatchy Rules

Recently McClatchy’s Michael Doyle contacted me about an article he was writing about a local Fresno-area person’s receipt of an award. Here are the first few paragraphs on the story with some comments in brackets.

Valley native gets $250k honor
Conservative foundation bestows award on Hanson.
By Michael Doyle / Bee Washington Bureau
06/04/08

WASHINGTON — A prominent conservative foundation is lavishing a $250,000 award on Victor Davis Hanson, the Fresno-area farmer and classics professor turned public intellectual.

[In the case of foundations, anything not the Ford, Guggenheim, or Rockefeller is “conservative.” One never reads “prominent liberal Gates Foundation” or “Left-leaning” Rockefeller Foundation]

The Bradley Prize becomes the latest and far-and-away most lucrative in a line of honors bestowed on Hanson, who holds emeritus status at California State University, Fresno. While the prize is novel, the dollars send a deliberate message.

[Note the ambiguous “deliberate message”—never specified, only ominously implied?]

“Quite a shock,” Hanson said by e-mail Tuesday, shortly after arriving in Washington from Europe. “I’m very appreciative, and did not think someone from rural Selma would have his voice heard with other more distinguished authors and thinkers.”

Hanson considers home to be his 40-acre family farm in Fresno County, where he was raised by his mother, Pauline, and father, William.

[I don’t have a home, only a considered one]

Often, though, he’s in the San Francisco Bay Area or traveling. Most recently, he has globe-trotted as a presidential appointee to the American Battle Monuments Commission, which oversees 27 overseas military cemeteries.

[This is false. I was leading a private tour at my own expense. That becomes “globe-trotting” as a government functionary. The ABM commission oversees many of our nation’s war cemeteries abroad. It pays no salary; before my first meeting I tried to visit as many cemeteries as I could on my own time and expense. Doyle’s “Globe-trotting” means lecturing to a group in France and Belgium]

He is traveling in headier company than when he published his first book in 1983, titled “Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece.” He has since authored or edited another dozen books that address modern controversies, consulted with the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney and energetically championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

[I wrote 17 books; the Bee mentions by name only my PhD thesis of some 35 years ago. I don’t know what “headier company” quite means; though I suggest that a Michael Doyle, like all of us, now associates with “headier company” than when he published his first newspaper article years ago. “Consulted” with the “likes” of Dick Cheney means being invited to a dinner with various scholars 6 years ago at the Vice President’s residence.

The rest of the article is a harangue about my support for the Iraq war before ending with:

The award was established in 2004 by the Wisconsin-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which bills itself as “strengthening American democratic capitalism.” The foundation generally funds free market and right-of-center entities.

The foundation, for instance, funded Connerly’s American Civil Rights Institute, and it supports Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, where Hanson is a senior fellow in residence.

[There is no conflict of interest between Hoover and Bradley. The Bradley Prize selection committee is independent of its other grant-giving committees and commissions and has nothing to do with the Hoover Institution]

All this is a world away from something simple like “Local resident Hanson received one of our four Bradley Foundation Prizes.”

t.

Both Obama and McCain have pulled off the once unthinkable. The former dethroned some 16 year of Clintonian political hegemony by the sheer force of personality and charisma, when initially all the hierarchy and political machinery were against him. The latter by sheer force of will, stubbornness, and a certain courage, never gave up when most had written him off, and simply out toughed his opponents.

There is a certain irony here. In a year that for historical and contemporary reasons should be a Democratic shoo-in, the Democrats have nominated about the only candidate who can lose in November, the Republicans the only one of their own who can still win it.

Obama

The Chicago Past

Obama either out of misplaced loyalty or because of 20 years of Chicago racial politics, simply cannot deal with the continuing embarrassments of Wright, Pfleiger, Trinity, et al. He either gets defensive and blames the messenger of the latest embarrassment, or makes silly announcements of support. They are followed by qualifiers, followed by eventual “disowning”—but always with a twist of pique. Wright’s madness was mischaracterized by unfair video “loops” and “snippets”—before he refuted Obama’s apologia by sickening America with the entire racist rant at the National Press Club.

But by now all of America fathoms the truth: Obama made a devil’s bargain with a number of racists to establish his own street credentials in the rough and tumble world of Chicago politics. He now finds that what started his career could well end it. Bottom line: the voters will have to decide whether these skeletons are the usual embarrassments that all candidates deal with as they evolve beyond their diehard bases, or instead disturbing proof that Obama himself got a certain psychological high from hearing ministers and congregation members routinely trash whites and the so-called establishment, as attested by his attendance at and subsidies to the Wright ministry.

Rule One for Obama’s campaign: Don’t let Obama rush to the defense of any dubious character in his past, since he inevitably will have to disown him sooner or later. The impression that Obama inevitably changes his storyline (while a Wright or Pfleger remains absolutely predictable and consistent) is beginning to tire the American people.

Gaffes Galore

Anyone who lived his first 18 years out of the continental United States, and then attended politically-correct Ivy League schools before jumping into Chicago politics might not have a broad view of American demography and indeed, U.S. history—much less the sociology of the United States.

But the number of Obama’s slips are staggering. They range from geographical ignorance (Kentucky is not contiguous with Arkansas, but it is with Illinois), to US history (there are 50 states in the Union; the US army did not liberate Auschwitz) to foreign affairs (the election of Hugo Chavez predated George Bush) to simple political ignorance (you don’t trash the lower white middle class to San Francisco elites) and common decency (you don’t put your own grandmother on the same moral plane as the racist Wright, or a U.S senator in the same category as the terrorist Ayers.)

Rule Two: Get Obama back on a script. He may sound catchy and smug in repartee and ex tempore give and take; but he has already made candidate George Bush’s much caricatured inability to identify a Pakistani president seem like a very tiny Dan Quayle proverbial potato.

Michelle

Michelle, as America learned, cannot give a speech without either (1) claiming that her husband is a saint and a genius, and we are all lucky to have him; (2) whining about the unexpected “raise the bar” pressures on the young urban yuppie careerist couple; (3) trashing the United States; or (4) defining world or national problems in terms of herself or her kids.

Rule Three: Do not confuse her ability to wade boldly out into audience in the manner of Phil Donahue with either savvy, wit, humor, or enlightenment. One or two more performances of the tired Princeton-Harvard-Reverend-Wright take on contemporary America—and the campaign is over. All the talk about whether she is a “legitimate” target will be about as relevant as whether a woman who joins the military will sometimes be in harm’s way in wartime.

The Agenda

Obama’s team must not confuse Republican problems of the economy, war, fuel, and 8 years of an unpopular candidate with voter lust for a liberal agenda. Who wants vast increases in payroll, income, and inheritance taxes—not to pay down the debt but to fund billions in new entitlements that will only create greater dependency and stifle initiative? Or who wishes to throw away all that was won in Iraq by quitting now, when a slow withdrawal won by victory is within our grasp? And who wishes hyper-liberal judges and appointees, more “oppression studies” in our schools, or the same old, same old on’t drill, mine, or use nuclear power, while enriching our enemies and singing sonnets to wind and solar?

Rule Four: Keep talking about Lord Hope and Saint Change and Holy Possibility—and don’t get into specifics. Jimmy Carter didn’t and it worked in 1976 for him. The problem is not that Obama simply talks in platitudes, but rather that he must—given the most leftwing agenda in modern memory.

McCain.

The Base and the Extra twist

John McCain can hold his base—if he resists the extra twist of the dagger. The rumors of his flirtation in 2000 with independents were probably based in fact. His Ace in the Hole is the Democratic attack machine that calls him hypocritical in moving right, and serially trashes his moderate views as reactionary.

Rule One. Resist the temptation to show outrage at some right-winger he finds too gung-ho. Silence is golden. Go on Limbaugh sometime in October. Find a way to appeal to the middle by not gratuitously slandering the base as protectionists, nativists, or religious zealots.

Energy

I don’t see how opposing ANWR helps anyone other than empowering those in the Middle East who intend us no good. If McCain won’t drill here at home, then he should push nuclear power and coal as transitions to the next generation of clean, renewable fuels. So far, the energy issue is wide-open since the voter doesn’t have a candidate who is clearly pro-production.

Rule Two. Find a way to branch off from Obama on the energy. Americans will support drilling off our coasts, in Alaska, burning clean coal, using nuclear, and developing hydro—if all that is balanced by calls for more conservation, and support for alternative fuels.

Age

How a 71-year old cancer survivor makes it through 20 hr. campaign days 24/7, I don’t know. I am returning from two weeks in Europe, co-leading a tour of 65. And the 18-hour days, jet lag, occasional kidney stones (McCain has them, no doubt to a worse degree) at 54 is a real task. I don’t plan to be doing this if I make it to 71. No wonder McCain shows the wear and tear—and he will have five more months of this.

Rule Three: Each time Obama hits him with the age issue, McCain must remind us that he at least knows how many states there are in the Union or the difference between Memorial and Veterans Day. And McCain should learn from Reagan—smile, relax and take two days a week off.

The War

So far the reminders of his support for the surge are salutary, especially as things continue to improve and may soon devolve into a Kosovo sort of policing. At this point there is no loner a need to demonize Rumsfeld for the 2003-6 troubles, or all the old generals like Franks, Sanchez, and Casey who played McClellan and Hooker to Petraeus’ Grant and Sherman. Talk of the future, not the past.

Rule Four. Keep reminding Americans that this is 2008, not 2003, and Obama’s claim the surge won’t work or Iraq is lost or we must get out now is simply not based on fact—and by October will blow up in his face.

Bush

It is hard for any incumbent party to continue a regnum for three terms. George Bush, Sr. did it, but even he sort of distanced himself from Reagan (“kinder, gentler nation”), or at least for a while. McCain has an advantage should he seek such distance, since Bush has for now far fewer defenders than did Reagan, despite coming off Iran-Contra. But McCain must be careful: should the economy continue to avoid recession, should gas prices fall, and the war seem won, then we may see Bush’s numbers go up a bit. For now he has about the right distance, any more and he will seem small and petty, especially if he must backtrack a bit by October. On the key issue of our times—Iraq—McCain has fashioned an interesting position: for the war, and so much so that his theories about the surge won over George Bush himself.
Bottom line?

If things continue as they are Obama will come close perhaps in the popular vote, but lose the electoral vote by a wide margin. Why? I just don’t see how such an inexperienced candidate can rein in his wife, curb his own slips, monitor all of his past dubious role models, and avoid the growing divide between utopian rhetoric and pretty down-to-earth tactics and embarrassing past associations. And I don’t think he has yet to figure out that unhappiness with Bush’s spending, appointments, and inability to articulate a message, and defend himself does not really equate to a desire for billions in new taxes and unworkable new programs.

Note:

I thank readers for offering the corrections; I have been traveling the last two-and-a- half weeks overseas, and posted this too soon from the Paris airport. I just landed in the US (and won’t try to post again while leading a tour of 65 around Europe). These posts go right on the site without editing, and I will have to do a much better job in eliminating typos and other sorts of error. And one reader is correct: in the past I haven’t been as generous as I should have been to all the readers who have spotted them. But I deeply appreciate that scrutiny, and am always impressed by the erudition of the readers, and their uncanny good sense. Another note: some have complained that I have written too many critical things about Obama. In fact, I don’t think any of us know much of anything about OBama the candidate–and the more we can discuss this possible next President, the better off we will all be. The Carter experience should guide us here.

Scott McClellan

We have had a number of Bushites, who in disillusion about their own careers, or angry that they were becoming scapegoats, wrote memoirs at odds with their former pronouncements. But never have we witnessed someone who made the about-switch so abruptly in a matter of months, going from official megaphone to court Procopius— and so blatantly forcing the reader to choose between “he’s lying now” or “he was lying then”, since his own admissions are antithetical to one another. And when McClellan talks about “my truth,” as opposed to a universal truth, we understand how the Foucouldian/Lacanian postmodernist hocus-pocus filters down to the half-educated and gullible like McClellan.

Ultimately, the President would have been far better off not to have selected so many on the basis on “loyalty” rather than competence, since he got neither loyalty nor merit, and missed the eternal truth that the incompetent (McClellan was the worst press secretary of either party since Ron Ziegler) are ultimately the most disloyal.

All we need now is the ex-felon John Dean and mastermind of the Watergate cover-up, as the voice of conscious, to comment on the McClellan case.

Europe

I’m currently in Carbourg lecturing and visiting the Normandy battlefields and monuments. The weather is stormy and rainy as it was in 1944, and very little seems to have changed in the surrounding communities.

Driving through the dense hedgerows gives instant understanding to how the Americans could have lost 80,000 casualties while going almost nowhere in the two months after the brilliantly successful landings—but still leave one perplexed about how such thorough planners at SHAEF could have neglected the effect of the well-known bocage on mobile operations.

This tragedy evokes ‘my brilliant three-week victory over Saddam, your foolish flawed occupation”, albeit the deaths were in the former case in the tens of thousands. Perhaps had only 1/100 the time spent on designing the ingenious Mulberry artificial harbors at Omaha and Gold beaches been invested in equipping Shermans with rhino spikes from the beginning, or training troops in the brush of England rather than the plains, or practicing B-17 bombing runs on enemy formations, then we might have had the breakout in mid-June rather than late July—and therefore reached the Siegfried line a month earlier when the weather was good and the days longer.But then here we go again with baby-boomber third guessing about a prior generation’s heroic decisions.

Obama—at Last!

After reading a number of essays and talking to a number of liberals, I would sum up the Obama madness this way:

At last the hopes and dreams of the 1960s are in our grasp. McGovern imploded. Carter was hopeless and suspect. Mondale was inept; Dukakis a punching bag. Clinton carried the torch, but only by triangulating and betraying the dream. Gore was cheated out of his victory; Kerry Swift-Boated.

But at last (if that damn Hillary would just get out of the way!) we have the perfect candidate—charismatic, young, fresh, multiracial, and we know that he is the furthest on the left of the entire bunch and the most likely both to win and actually make the long-overdue changes in America—tax the rich (get those income rates back up to 40%, subject all income to payroll taxes, restore all death taxes, up capital gains), subsidize the needy (more welfare, food and housing subsidies, universal state health care, more federal loans, more farm aid, more government programs to aid the middle class), change the government (more ideological appointments who will enforce an equality of result, more liberal judges and bureaucrats), follow international leads (more “soft” power, less military bellicosity, more deference to the UN, a true partnership with the UN, a backing off from hot spots that put us on the wrong side of history, get out of Iraq, more “balance” with the Palestinians, talk with Iran, Venezuela, etc who are misunderstood progressives anyway, follow the intellectual and cultural lead of the foundations and the universities (more candid support for gay marriage, abortion on demand, gun control, affirmative action, revisionist views of U.S. history, more emphasis on “oppression studies.”)

The left likewise is, to its credit, willing to take a big gamble. This year, for a variety of well-discussed reasons, almost any experienced mainstream Democrat should win. But why go with the sure thing Hillary who will only bring you another Clintonian compromise, when you can roll the dice with the unknown candidate, squeak by and might get 100% of the agenda?

That means, of course, that after nominating Obama, progressives understand that they are on thin ice—3-4 or more Obama gaffes, another Wright or Ayers disclosure, a Michelle outburst, or an off-the-record “clingers” or “typical white person” quip from a mid-October meltdown.

So Democrats are gambling on a virtual unknown. Both Carter and McGovern were transparent quantities. We are in the middle of something entirely new now. Never in recent American history has someone with so little state and federal experience come so close to being President of the United States—with the likelihood of so radically changing America at home and abroad.

Fascinating times.

Footnote on Europe

I went to a beautiful Catholic blessing of the harvest service at the historic cathedral at Rouen. Some observations: the service was quite moving—the Latin mass, the singing, and the tolling of the bells at the end. But there was a touch of sadness as well. There were not more than 5-6 under 60 in the crowd of well over a thousand (maybe a noontime Weekday explains the absence of the young?). In Rouen itself and its environs one sees not very many, if any, new homes; few are pregnant; couples with children are rare, and usually with only one child. Middle-Eastern families are pretty common, always with several offspring. One does not have to be a demographer or an alarmist to see that in 40 years such historic services might well be rare—and a great deal of what had always been the West, in the cultural sense, could be lost.

A Memorial Day Speech?

I was listening today from Brussels to Barack Obama’s Memorial Day commencement address. It was, as usual, well-delivered, and broadcast worldwide, but instead of any–even slight–reference to what we owe hundreds of thousands of Americans this day who paid the ultimate sacrifice to ensure our present freedoms, we hear remonstrations about the “money culture” and how young students are to not to pursue the big money and house (as he has lately), but instead pursue a path of public service that, as usual, is analogous to that once followed by the noble Mr. Obama himself.

Then I heard a bit of news from another speech of his on Latin America:

“Since the Bush Administration launched a misguided war in Iraq, its policy in the Americas has been negligent toward our friends, ineffective with our adversaries, disinterested in the challenges that matter in peoples’ lives, and incapable of advancing our interests in the region.
No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chavez have stepped into this vacuum.”

But all that hardly seems either accurate or fair: (1) The “misguided” war was “launched” only after a majority ratification vote of the US Senate, including a majority of the Democratic Senators. (2) The current administration is currently desperately trying to craft a free-trade agreement with Columbia, and ensure that Nafta continues with Mexico-over protectionist sentiment of the sort voiced by Obama. (3) Hugo Chavez came on the scene well before the Bush administration, taking office in 1999 and then being reelected in 2000. His shredding of Venezuela’s constitution and interference in Latin American politics were well under way during the last years of the Clinton administration.

Is it going to be this way each day of the campaign: We get some pious sermon relating the selflessness of his own past to shame us into being similarly idealistic, followed by a complete Orwellian rewrite of history? If so, its’ going to be a long five months.

Memorial Day in Europe

I spent the last two days visiting the American military cemetery at the Meuse-Argonne that commemorates the horrific battle of that name in 1918 (my grandfather Frank Hanson was gassed and severely wounded in the battle), and the next day at Hamm, in Luxembourg, where George S. Patton is buried. Both are beautiful, solemn places, and the care and attention given to their upkeep should make all Americans proud. The evidence of Memorial Day French and English flowers and wreaths was remarkable.

Friendly Europeans

At Bastogne today, I heard a fiery pro-American rant from a Dutchman, contrasting not just the WWII treatment of his country by the United States versus that from Germany, but the present-day treatment as well from haughty powerful EU members like Germany.

Two notes on Anti-Americanism this trip: one, it seems on the wane; two, it is almost an exclusively urban and elite phenomenon. Everyday Europeans in the countryside are especially warm, and seem tired of knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Most seem more worried about Arab immigrants and German bullying in the EU.

The Dollar

Another note. Although the season is early, there are almost no Americans to be seen. Gas is 1.60 Euros a liter or about (over) $9 a gallon for gas here. I haven’t seen much of Exxon here, so at least we can be assured that the evil American oil companies are not at the heart of the “price-gouging”. The price fixing here seems instead a combination of Gulf monarchies and EU tax collectors.Most hoteliers are happy, but whine nevertheless that fewer Americans are coming, and more Euros are going stateside for the summer.

More European myths

I try to come over here 2-3 times a year and am always struck by the Al-Gore-type lectures bac home to Americans about how far we are behind on the Internet, public wifi, etc. Two observations. Buying Internet here is about 3 times the cost as in the US. And in every hotel I’ve been at yet, there has been some sort of disruption of service or complete failure. At almost any hotel in the US, it takes about 3 minutes to log-in for 24-hour service at about $10; here the same time runs about $25 and is far less reliable.

The high tax, big government, secular, pacifist, and enforced egalitarianism of Europe–which seems the Obaman model– is something we should be very wary of emulating

It’s a Euro Thing

If one were to collate European criticisms of Americana and then compare them to reality in Europe, well, sure confusion results. Some random thoughts about another visit these next two weeks in Europe.

1. We Americans, we are told, are violators of freedom and have shredded our Western heritage through Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, and detentions.

But if one were to assess rationally the degree of privacy and freedom in Europe, by any fair margin it proves far more the police state. There are far more municipal surveillance video cameras. On the highway flashes go off, as computerized cameras snap pictures of speeding motorists who set off their sensors. Bus drivers must find ingenious ways to hide their hours logged driving, as they insert their computerized cards into their ignition to start their motors. All that seems unimaginable in the US.

2. Grasping Americans? The last few weeks I have stayed at some top hotels in the US while speaking. Internet service was usually around $10 to log in on Wifi. The pool and gym were of course gratis.

Here? Hotel internet service can run about 20-30 euros for a mere day. There are additional fees to use the gym or pool at most hotels. Read your bill carefully at restaurants; most require some “correction” as the waiters inadvertently add things not ordered. In short, money and its acquisition seem on the brains of almost everyone you meet.

3. Health conscious Europeans? In France and Luxembourg this week, I tried to count the obese among an average of every 10 or so on the street. The result? Americans seem no fatter than Europeans.

Smoking? I don’t know the statistics, but each time I come over here I notice immediately that it is far more common and socially acceptable. As far as the incidence of meat consumption, and the size of servings, I sense no difference, only that food is about double what it is in the states.

4. Repugnant American culture? The television has nothing much but dubbed American old movies and current television series. Fashion, music, and popular culture are usually American derived. America may run a massive trade deficit with Europe, but American trade names are everywhere.

5. American decline? The French and German newspapers are full of scare stories about their own fuel costs, price-fixing and the loss of national treasure. Scandals involving mortgages and bank collapse are common. In other words, Europeans share the same anxieties about finance and energy as we do—despite having much of the oil and banking industries nationalized or at least carefully state monitored.

The Cauldron of Europe

The region along the French-German border is beautiful, rich and understandably disputed for over 2,000 years. We Americans have a long history with it as well. My mother’s cousin Holt Cather is buried at the American cemetery at Hamm. Not far away at the Meuse-Argonne battlefield, my paternal grandfather was gassed in the first World War. My late cousin Dick Davis came through Luxembourg with the 3rd Army. And so it goes for most Americans, whose ancestors came here under much different circumstances that we do today.

We rightfully give the European Union credit for stopping the historic bloodletting for two generations. But two qualifiers. First, it was birthed because of the American-led destruction of fascism; and preserved only by the American-led resistance to the Red Army.

Second, the price for peace has been a sort of Lotus-eater society of long lunches, obsession with fashion and “nice things”, and secular worship of the God Leisure. In their abhorrence at the old catalysts of strife—nationalism, patriotism, religion—the Europeans have failed to see that national defense, religious belief, and pride in culture need not lead to endless war, but in fact to a healthy society that is content not to expect heaven on earth.

If the EU Needs the US, and We Become Another EU, then where’s our U.S.?

Today the French here are striking over threats to raise the retirement age back up to 62, and to reconsider the 35-hour work week. Lost in the discussion is any notion that there is not a “they” out there to shake more money from—only themselves. Europe, for all its socialism and egalitarianism, seems a sort of lottery society, in which each union, each age cohort, each EU collective recipient, in a game of musical chairs, tries to outwit the other—the pie finite, its pieces endlessly resliced.

I have admiration for the European Union’s unmistakable achievement in avoiding war for half a century, and its widespread prosperity—but it has come at a price. Given what Barack Obama has said about raising taxes, funding new entitlements, yielding to international consensus abroad, and seeing Americans in terms of various racial, class, and tribal constituencies, all with justified grievances, I think his notion of our future is what we see in European today—even as the Europeans grow increasingly restless about unions, high taxes, and their impotence in the world abroad. Apparently even two-hour lunches, no children, no church, no military, good food and the disco can get boring.

A note on Obama: in minute one, Euros gush; in minute two, the questions come; in minute three, they express concern (if they think you too might as well and so can be candid); in minute four, you sense they understand there is only one EU. So should the US become one too, they worry about who might play the US to the US?

In a sick way this speaks well of Obama: by his intent to turn the US into something like the EU, he is scaring some elites in the EU as never before. There can only be one socialist union: it requires a capitalist wide-open trading partner and a Nato-like ally to offer it free defense as well as an easy target for cheap invective. So the Europeans hint: “Please, don’t become quite like us—we need you as you are.”

So ME, ME, ME…

So we won’t drill off our coasts or in Alaska, we won’t build nuclear power plants, or develop shale and tar sands, or go into massive conservation modes or burn clean coal–but the House will sue Saudi Arabia? Our generation is back at it, in a 60s time warp, screaming at our parents that we can’t have it all…In this case we want to burn lots of fossil fuels but won’t develop any new sources, but are MAD at those who do…

McCain and The Vast Leftwing Hit Machine

We have already seen, to paraphrase the Democrats, the elements of the vast leftwing hit-machine to come in the fall. So we will get even more amplification of what we have seen thus far:
a) McCain is “unstable” and not in control of his temper (more liberal Senators will reluctantly offer testimonials.)

b) McCain is warlike, being from a “militarist” family of admirals. He also missed out on the critical anti-war years at home that evolved more sensitive veterans like John Kerry into thoughtfully questioning the military-industrial complex. He in contrast was stuck in a time warp in Hanoi and never emerged from his Manichean “war mode.” (cf. The New York Times on this narrative).

c) McCain is demented and “old” (cf. more subtle suggestions from Obama like the “losing his bearings” quip).

d) McCain is a sell-out and hypocrite, who has disappointed liberals who once enjoyed his attacks on Bush in the 2000 primaries (cf. the Huffington Post stories on these crocodile tears).

Expect, as the campaign goes on, that McCain begins to drop his reluctance to reply in kind. I think he is beginning to fathom how he can surely lose: accept the “Obama rules” that apply one set of taboos for McCain, and open-season for Obama, on everything from amnesty for his wife as she rants and raves; broadcasting his middle name for foreign consumption, alleging racism at home for any who follow suit; getting personal as he decries just such “divisiveness;” and counting on racial block voting and passes for occasional racial stereotyping as he laments the racialization of the white working class that distrusts his elitism.

Does McCain Have a Chance?

For McCain to win, two things have to happen. He needs to become angrier at the attacks, and, in general, Obama’s worldview of more spending, more taxes, a timetable withdrawal from Iraq, more UNism, and a Harvard Law School view of the courts in order to energize his base. Limbaugh and others distrust McCain, but they will slowly grow incensed at what they hear from Obama and Co. as this campaign unfolds.

Second, very few Senators with three-years experience can conduct a national campaign without daily gaffes. Every time Obama speaks extemporaneously, he astounds, whether talking about how Americans eat too much of the world’s food or calling those “low class” who reply in kind to Michelle’s slurs. He has over 160 more days of this and insidiously these remarks will add up.

A Real Scrap

I apologize for sounding cynical. But the Democrats smell blood, and will be willing to do almost anything to win—note the media posse that turned on the Clinton roadblock to Obamatopia.

I am afraid I never bought into the sincerity of the messianic “hope and change” gospel, but instead went back and looked exactly at the Obama past in Chicago, his voting record in the U.S. Senate, and his pronouncements on the campaign. If one were to forget the undeniable eloquence and verve, what one finds in all three cases is something indistinguishable, first, from Jesse Jackson’s Chicago politicking; second, hyper-partisanship and doctrinaire no-prisoners liberalism; and, third, the same old rough-and-tumble campaigning we have seen for over 200 years, albeit dressed up with a sort of elite, above-the-fray aristocratic disdain.

In my own experience, messiahs usually become the nastiest when crossed. Look at the Carter pieties that quickly devolved into “kick his ass” slurs about Ted Kennedy, suggestions that Bush Sr. was effeminate, and blanket condemnation of the United States while lobbying for the Nobel Prize.

McCain has a touch of this self-righteousness—so the Obama-McCain collision will not be a McCain-Feingold post-politics lovefest, but one of the hardest hitting campaigns in recent history.

Just watch…

A Simple Conservative Message

There is a lot of anguish among Republicans as they look at the dismal polls and the even more depressing performance of their candidates in various preliminary House races. New books and prophets forecast an end to conservatism, and a need to formulate a new sort of muscular liberalism to meet new challenges. Expect more such nostrums if Barack Obama wins in the fall.

What mystifies is the paralysis of Republicans and their impotent protestations that “Bush did it”. The truth is that Congressional Republicans, responsible for turning principles into governance, deserve to lose—unless they craft clear positions that won’t be compromised and then offer them as alternative choices to the voters this fall. Here are some examples:

Spending: a balanced budget, no exceptions. Voters are tired of hearing that this or that projection assures a balanced budget in 2, 3, or 5 years. Revenues continue to soar after the tax cuts, so the problem is too much going out, not too little coming in. Surpluses are preferable to deficits, since we want to retire, not add to out foreign debt. Just say no—or better yet “Please pay for it” — the next time a new entitlement is introduced.

The War: Afghanistan and Iraq have radically improved. Anti-war hype and slurs are a year out of date. We are finally on the edge of having done the impossible: removed the most odious regimes in the Middle East and fostered constitutional governments in their places. Spending on general defense and the war still run at only 4% of GDP, not high by historical levels. The reforming Petraeus army is stronger and wiser, despite the toll of war, for our ordeals in the Middle East. As troops slowly begin to come home next year, let everyone take credit for it.

Energy: Drill, explore, conserve. The answer does not lie in any one area, but in the willingness to produce more energy in all of them. We must ensure more oil, coal, and nuclear power, conserve more energy as we produce more—to prevent going broke while we transition to next-generation fuels.

Why should others abroad, who are far less careful, extract oil for us in areas of the world more fragile than our own? We must end the notion that ANWR only yields a million barrels a day, or the coasts only 2 million, or tar sands or shale only a million, or nuclear power and coal only so many megawatts of power. To paraphrase, Sen. Dirksen—‘a million barrels a day here, a million there, pretty soon it adds up to real production.’

Economy: We are in a natural down cycle, not the Great Depression—interest rates, unemployment, economic growth, and stock prices do not reflect a recession. Use this downturn as a warning not to spend what we don’t have when things rebound.

Immigration: Close the border, and then, and only then, argue over what’s next. Stop illegal entries, while we promote assimilation, the English language, integration, and education in American civics. Do that and most of our seemingly insurmountable problems will shrink as we endlessly bicker over amnesty, guest workers, and legal quotas.

Trade: free and supervised trade creates more jobs, makes us more competitive, and fosters alliances. Protectionism does the opposite. Americans like to compete and usually win—when they know the rules of the contest are fair and clearly explained to them.

Foreign Policy: Neither provoke nor talk to our enemies in the Middle East, Asia, or South America. Instead, cultivate our allies, build our defenses—and be ready for anything.

Homeland Security: the framework is in place. Let the Democrats try to repeal it. Let them make the argument that the Patriot Act and Guantanamo haven’t made us safer.

Ethics: Warn Republicans that in matters of sex, influence peddling, and graft, the Party of family values suffers the additional wage of hypocrisy. So the tolerance level for these sins is zero.

If Republicans could adopt such a simple message, stick to it, and find the most articulate spokespeople, they could still win.

The Alternative

Why? Because for all the charisma, Barack Obama advocates antitheses that most in most years would not otherwise choose—higher taxes, more government spending; pie-in-the-sky promises of wind and solar while gas hits $5 a gallon; more government intrusion into the economy that leaves us with more obstacles after the economy improves on its own; more illegal aliens as we talk in lofty terms of “comprehensive immigration reform,” a de facto euphemism for open borders; a protectionism that only antagonizes friends, drives prices higher, and insulates us from reality; and a multilateralist foreign policy, patterned after UN leadership, in which we deny rather than confront challenges.

In short, the Republicans’ problem? They forgot who they were and can’t explain what they might be. They need to go back to basics, adopt conservative principles to confront new challenges, and then find the most effective spokesmen they can to explain their positions—hourly.

Democratic what?

The Republicans, no doubt, get what they deserve, given the out-of-control federal spending the last few years, the corruption and sex scandals in the Congress, and the inability to articulate a conservative message.

That said, the current Democratic Party is nothing like what I remember my parents and grandparents belonged to. The latest Farm Bill is welfare for the wealthy. The restrictions on energy exploration and production are boutique—and hurt the working classes, who can’t wait for hydrogen cars and solar houses while they drive the 10-year-old Chevy truck to work at $4 a gallon.

Democratic populism is an oxymoron these days, something like multimillionaire John Edwards in blue jeans on his way to his mansion, or John Kerry in duck-hunting garb, or Michelle Obama and those oppressive Ivy League loans that have to be paid back and no doubt cut into the meager $20,000 annual donations to the pulpit of Rev. Wright.

What I miss most about the old Democratic Party was its “can-do” energy. Here one thinks of Pat Brown building California highways and universities, or a Harry Truman setting up the ambitious policy of containment, or the soaring rhetoric and tax cuts of JFK. After that it was mostly ‘how do we divide up the pie’ rather than ‘how we create a bigger pie.’ And for ‘damn it, we are all going to get along, and stand together or hang together’ we got ‘you and you and you can all have your hyphenated-names, set-asides, and tribal spaces.”

Populism

The last two weeks in speaking in various places I have had dinner with a few of what I would call “elite” Democrats. I was struck how in conversation one hears about Johnny going to Stanford, Jane to the Peace Corps after Princeton, the private clubs, the parties where the local grandee and the regional magnifico were present—all chit-chat sandwiched in between a sort of radical socialist hymn to Barack Obama. The point? That the people in question lived lives that were not merely not harmonious with their abstract world views of a radical egalitarianism by result, but downright antithetical to them—without a hint of the contradictions.

When a privileged wealthy liberal elite goes on about unfairness in between name-dropping and snobbery it achieves the same effect as the evangelical moralist talking about loose women or going to the bar for his fifth cocktail.

Quiet in Iraq

There are two keys to stabilizing Iraq—getting a Shiite-dominated government to turn on Shiite militias backed by Iran, and doing so in such a fashion to lure the Sunnis back into the government that will ensure regional support and a continuance of the Anbar Awakening and coalition against al-Qaeda.

Both seem to be happening in major campaigns in Basra, Mosul and Sadr City. And yet in the midst of these operations, American fatalities at the half-way point in May (it could change next hour) are, by the standard of past months, low. Something is going on in Iraq, and the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies are on the verge of achieving a radical reconfiguration of the theater—to the silence of the media.

I talked for about an hour with Dave Petraeus last October in Baghdad. One thing struck me: at the time in Washington it was fashionable for almost everyone (especially Senate Democrats) to damn the Maliki government for its incompetence and biases. But while acknowledging problems (that caused him problems), Petraeus was almost alone optimistic in his support for the elected government, the take-over process of the Iraqi Security Forces, and the eventual ability of the government to deal with the Shiite militias. “They’ll make it” is what I remember him saying.

Given the campaign hype, we haven’t heard much about Petraeus lately, but already he has achieved an amazing turn-about, not just in the military sense, but in the cultural and political sphere of giving confidence to the Iraqis, prompting them to take over their own security, and in a manner that assures them of our support even as we plan to slowly disengage.

If he pulls this off, I think his place is assured among the very great generals in our history. In his appreciation of the role of public opinion, politics and perceptions of war, he resembles Sherman; Marshall in his efforts to reform the military and promote a new sort of officer; and Ridgway in his ability by personal leadership to turn around an entire front. I think he is a rare talent, and as often happens in American history, we were given a great gift by his command—and none too soon.

Such things can happen very quickly in American history. In late 1861 Sherman was in self-imposed exile, melancholy and without a command, by December 1864 he was a legend. Grant by late April 1862 was all but finished, by July 1863 a genius. And so on…

Ten new regulations for the 2008 election

Barack Obama is a gifted politician who has led an exemplary life. His run for Presidency for many offers redemption that America has finally moved beyond race. But that laudable proposition is beginning to foster surreal rules of campaigning from both the media and Obama himself that do no one any good.

1. The 2008 campaign must stick to concrete issues and detailed policies. That said, Barack Obama can continue to speak only in vague terms of “hope and change.”

2. Rev. Wright’s racist tirades must be contextualized and only understood in their proper historic milieu of white racism—that is, unless he suddenly turns on Barack Obama, in which case one is now free to deride him as “mean-spirited,” “malicious” and on a “vendetta.”

3. Rev. Wright is like “an old uncle” and his church “not particularly controversial.” Those who insist otherwise are using “snippets” and “loops” out of context for cheap political advantage. But should the Rev. repeat his serial lunacies at the National Press Club on national television, and insult the sympathetic liberal DC press corps, then he is suddenly expendable and inexplicably not the same pastor that Barack Obama knew for 20 years—and so now to be freely derided as a “spoiler”.

4. It is assumed that Barack Obama’s exotic middle name Hussein can provide authentic multicultural fides and hope of projecting a new, more globally sympathetic American image abroad, but to voice ‘Hussein’ aloud is assumed to be nefarious.

5. It is legitimate to appeal to, and thus win en masse 90% of African-Americans of all classes over a rival liberal candidate, but it is absolutely illegitimate and a sign of a racialist strategy should someone else win two-thirds of that total of the white working-class vote—and, worse, acknowledge it as such.

6. John McCain can be written off as “losing his bearings” and wanting U.S. troops in Iraq for “100 years.” But to repeat the fact that a Hamas advisor has praised Obama, or that one of his own foreign policy advisors has met with officials of that terrorist organization, is “divisive,” “a distraction,” and the “old politics as usual.” McCain’s fuzzy references to Shiite/Sunni terrorist cooperation are signs of his senility. Obama’s repeated confusion over how many states there are in the Union (48? or is it 58?) is proof of exhaustion and lack of sleep.

7. Racial generalizations of any type in connection with the candidacy of Barack Obama are out of order. Barack Obama is free to characterize his grandmother as a “typical white person” and to lump the middle-class voters of Pennsylvania together as nativists, racists, and superstitious in their reliance on religion and guns. Only endemic white racism—never anger over Obama’s overt racialist stereotyping of the white middle class and his Reverend’s slurs—can explain that group’s rejection of him at the primary polls.

8. Substantial campaign contributions and the money nexus in politics are pernicious, proof of the “old politics” with a long history of distorting campaigns. The record fund-raising and enormous war-chest of Barack Obama are instead proof of a healthy American democracy and preclude any need for public campaign financing.

9. If a zealous pastor endorses John McCain, then his past illiberal talk about Catholicism demands a formal rebuke. If Barack Obama’s spiritual advisor of some twenty years addresses a meeting of a branch of the NAACP and announces that blacks and whites have genetically different brain chemistries and learning abilities, then one simply keeps quiet about it.

10. For conservatives to have suggested that the media was biased in favor of the Clintons in the 1990s was McCarthyesque. For Clintonites to suggest that it is now even more biased toward Obama is even more McCarthyesque.

This is the new political landscape that we are in, and those who object to it should expect to face hysterical outrage—in the manner of anyone who suggests that a messiah should at least try to practice what he preaches. And the problem is that those he will face as President—whether an Iranian religious nut, a Hamas terrorist, a Chinese communist, a Castro, Chavez, or North Korean extortionist—will follow no such Obama rules.