As I wrote in the past, the real issue is no longer whether one has confidence that Obama will prove a gifted leader, but rather to hope that he does. I think most readers wish well for our country—and thus for our President-elect. Here are some more observations on problems ahead.
1) There has to be an end to these serial bailouts—financial, the insurance companies, now cars, next cities and states, and soon mortgage holders (we will de facto punish those who struggle to pay their mortgages on time on homes with negative equity, but reward with reductions those who are late or don’t?).
Aside from the fact we are broke and are $10 trillion in debt (a large aside), there is an existential problem here. Without a concept of failure, there can be no success. If we always offer the excuse “too big to fail” to save corporations and firms that were run into the ground by greedy or stupid CEOs, brokers, and traders, or that defaulters always were victims rather than occasionally foolish or even sly (e.g., 2nd and 3rd mortgages taken out for consumer purchases, or as efforts to flip houses), then nothing changes. Learning, as Aeschylus says, comes from pain. All our childhood admonitions from “failure breeds to success” to “try, try again” are rendered null and void. We don’t want to live in a T-ball limbo where there is neither success nor failure, but just an endless slog in between.
2) There is now no journalism as we knew it. It died during the campaign. And so we have no mainstream media audit of politics other than the vestigial shrill warnings about the last three months of the dangerous Bush administration. From the New York Times, NPR, PBS, or Newsweek, we will hear little whether Obama is choosing a good or bad team, or said silly things or contradicts what he promised. They simply have lost all credibility and now the republic is left largely with bloggers, talk radio, and a few newspapers as mostly partisan auditors. This puts the mainstream media in a terrible bind. If Gitmo is not closed immediately, are the victimized detainees there suddenly redefined as terrible killers who can’t be let out? If adhered to, does the Petraeus-Bush withdrawal plan to leave Iraq by 2011, suddenly become sober and judicious? If not tampered with, do FISA and the Patriotic Act morph into reasonable measures? Does the economy suddenly improve on January 21, and Afghanistan become stable? Will anyone believe a Katie Couric, Chris Matthews, the front page of the New York Times, or listen to Andrea Mitchell when they speak of Obama? The media has bet that there was no efficacy to Guantánamo, the Patriot Act and similar provisions, and Iraq. But the fact is in the same period we were not attacked. If there were a connection between the two (and many of us think that there was), then shutting down Gitmo, repealing the Patriot Act, and getting quickly out of Iraq could be done within the first year easily and without risk. But will it happen, and if so, what would be the reaction following another 9/11-like attack?
This is not my concern, but rather what advisors to Obama are currently mulling out. Again, traditional journalism as we knew it —the big dailies, the weekly news magazines, the networks, public radio and TV—no longer exists. Death by suicide. RIP—around March, 2008.
3) I am still baffled about the exact role of race in the past election and the new Obama Presidency. Like everyone, I am pleased to see that race has been proven to be no bar to the highest office. But is the real triumph simply that the first African-American is a man of the Left? Few cared about the path-breaking career of Clarence Thomas other than to demonize him. Harry Belafonte called the first African-American Secretary of State “a house slave.” No one really praised Sec. Rice’s unprecedented career. She, unlike Obama, was an African-American with a long familial history of racial struggle; Obama in contrast is half-white, and the son of an African national and did not grow up with the vestigial racism in the South. His success is remarkable, but why did other landmark careers go unnoticed? The answer seems to be not race per se, or being African-American even (given that Obama is of half African ancestry)—but that apparently someone of mixed racial ancestry was elected President from the Left (accomplishing what no other northern liberal Senator had done since JFK). That is all I can come up with. Had Colin Powell run and won in 1996, defeating Clinton, Inc., I don’t think he would have enjoyed anything akin to the present worship.
Thoughts on a recession
I remember the recession of the early 1980s well and it was not pretty. In 1979 I applied for an academic job and was told there were 4 tenure-track openings nationwide in my field and 150 active candidates with Classics PhDs competing for them. When I then turned to farming, the first crop loan I co-signed on was in fall 1980 and taken out at an interest rate of 16%. By 1983 the price of raisins had fallen from $1,400 a ton to $480 in a single year. The local raisin cooperative went broke, and renounced their capital debt to their own members (we lost $70,000) whose vineyards had just plunged in value from $15,000 an acre to $4,000.
Things, in other words, when one measures inflation, interest rates, and unemployment, were far worse then than now. I used to wonder why my grandfather had saved two barrels of used, rusted bent and worthless vineyard staples in the back of the barn amid rat nests and spider webs, salvaged from an old vineyard that was uprooted in the 1950s. By 1983 I was reusing them all to mend vineyard wire. We may get to that, but so far we are not in such a mess yet, despite the Great Depression/FDR rhetoric.
But even more importantly, there are already self-correcting mechanisms under way. Oil has crashed like no period in history. Gas is below $2 a gallon and getting even cheaper. The country is already saving over $1 billion a day in imported fuel costs from its former highs and that affects everything from transportation to manufacturing.
Talk about stimuluses—if such a $2 gallon savings from previous highs continues, the average commuter may save $1500 a year. That not only saves consumers billions, but means our enemies and rivals in Iran, Middle East, Russia, and Venezuela suddenly have billions less to spend on terrorism, new weapons systems, and general mischief. (They may become more desperate and adventuresome, but will still have less wherewithal).
Housing prices for young people in states like California are suddenly affordable for the first time in decades. The war in Iraq is less dangerous for Americans than are neighborhoods in our major cities. Not all is doom and gloom as we read. Capitalism is no more dead than it was supposedly in 1980, 1991 or 2001. The world is less dangerous now than in 1979. There was a reason we were not attacked in the seven years after 9/11—though it will take a decade from now for most to fathom why.
Why blame the Mormons?
All the exit polls suggest that the notion of gay marriage was rejected in California, largely by huge Hispanic and African-American majorities, enhanced by recent Obama voter registration drives. Why then do activists picket churches, when the larger anti-gay marriage constituency could be found in East Palo Alto, South Central Los Angeles or Parlier? Wouldn’t it be better to bus gay activists into those communities to do teach-ins and public demonstrations?
Mail
Many cited Ann Coulter and others as proof of right-wing hatred. Two points: first, as polemicists they are balanced by and in the same business as Michael Moore or a Keith Olbermann et al. But my drift was altogether different. I was talking about a mainstream culture, not polemicists—publishers like Knopf issuing a book about killing Bush, Hollywood losing billions on serial movies about supposed American criminality in Iraq, documentaries about shooting Bush, etc.
Second, the vast majority of scholars and academics is on the left. Polls, surveys of campaign donations, interviews—they all reflect the reality that professors are far more predictably partisan than are hedge fund directors or Wall Street investors.
Voicing doubts about Obama by an historian is only controversial in the sense I was not voicing doubts about Bush (and I have in the past on issues like first Fallujah, failing to cite the congressional 23 writs of October 11-12 to go into Iraq, illegal immigration, excessive spending, etc.).
When scholars critique Bush, they are “engaged,” and “seeking to shed light from the past on contemporary issues”; when one questions Obama, one apparently becomes a hack. I note another difference: when I get paleo-right criticism on the war, for example, usually it is differentiated and not so ad hominem; but the Obama supporters tend to send in pro forma “you’re a hack” puerile groupthink. Throughout this campaign, almost every column that expressed worry about Obama was within 24 swarmed by Obama partisans, all either beginning and ending with ‘you’re a ———————.
PS. I wrote a version of the following the other day for the NRO corner, and I think it sums up this dilemma for the new Obama administration discussed above:
For much of the last few years, and especially the last few months of the campaign, we have heard a familiar narrative. Guantánamo was a virtual Stalig, where far more innocents than terrorists were unjustly incarcerated. Given that this gulag served no useful purpose, it should be summarily shut down, and the unfairly detained suspects at last returned to their families back home. The FISA laws and Patriot Act were aimed more at bogeymen than jihadists, and what little advantage they gave us was not worth the shredding of the Constitution.
The ‘fly-paper’ theory of Iraq—thousands of belligerents flocked to Iraq, were killed and defeated, discredited radical Islam, and, their loss of face, coupled with a constitutional Iraq, made the region and the U.S. safer–is a puerile reductive fiction. What bellicosity we experienced with supposedly rogue terrorist-sponsoring states such as Syria and Iran was largely due to George Bush’s juvenile cowboy rhetoric—‘bring ‘em on’, ‘smoke ‘em out, ‘dead or alive’—and his refusal to defuse tensions and misunderstandings through reasoned diplomacy.
The promotion of democracy was a neocon pipedream, in which partly through violence, partly through cultural arrogance, we tried to clumsily project our values on deeply religious, traditional, tribal—and in the end, deeply different—societies, whose own alternate politics cannot be so crudely dismissed by our rather arbitrary standards.
American unpopularity in the Middle East had nothing to do with globalization, westernization, age-old envy or the newfound ability via instant communications to see how much worse life was in an autocratic Arab world than in a free West, but was largely a phenomenon of George Bush’s Iraq War and his neocon advisors’ crude tilt toward the Zionists. “The War On Terror” was largely a construct to wage perennial war, impugn the patriotism of critics, and scare the American people, through false consciousness, into voting against their real economic interests.
I think that is a fair enough appraisal of the opposition’s view of the Bush anti-terror philosophy. And as is true of all theories, we will soon perhaps see the extent to which it proves the more accurate in the real world of the next administration.
So the closing of Guantánamo, repeal of the Bush anti-terrorism legislation, rapid withdrawal from Iraq (though we are already past Obama’s original target date of March 2008 for withdrawal of all combat troops), cessation of pressure to democratize and the end of hectoring against Arab authoritarianism, soothing rhetoric from a new Chief Executive, renewed diplomatic reaching out to Teheran and Damascus, more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and rejection of the notion we are in some sort of war, much less one of a “global” nature, should ensure greater American popularity, win-over our critics, defuse tensions with Iran and Syria, and ensure another seven years of safety from a major terrorist attack at home.
So come late January and beyond we shall see, and we all should genuinely wish the Obama administration well in their promised radical departure from the past, since the stakes are high for us all.
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63 Comments
1. Ron Kean:I remember in the Carter days interest rates were up to 21%. We never thought they’d be down to the 3 or 4% of the last few years. Same with gasoline. I was thinking it would be $40.00 minimum from now on to fill my tank. Lately it’s been in the low 30’s.
I wonder how big the fight will be over talk radio. What will become of Hannity, Levin, Savage, and the big one…Rush? Will conservatives get a say over newspaper headlines, NBC, PBS, NPR in all fairness?
The prople who put down VDH seem like children who lack education.
December 1st.
Nov 17, 2008 - 9:47 pm 2. Pascal:Coulter will be attacked for observing that Obama’s Cabinet is just Clinton II, especially with Hillary as his Secretary of State. Vote for one, get two again. Eleanor Roosevelt said to JFK, “Less Profile, more Courage.” Coulter will say, “Less Hope, more Change.” Well, at least he hasn’t appointed a sibling A.G. — yet.
Nov 17, 2008 - 11:28 pm 3. cfbleachers:There has to be an end to these serial bailouts
Brother, can you spare a bailout? Unfortunately, my esteemed friend VDH…no, there doesn’t. In order to claim the “need” for more “regulation”…one has to show colassal “failure” of “lack of oversight and regulation”.
We can debate whether the policies of Frank, Dodd, Pelosi, Reid et al. accelerated, enhanced, exacerbated or caused the certainty of failures (Shumer’s actions related to Indymac and beyond as Exhibit A).
However, it cannot be seriously debated that it is in the interests of those who thrive on devouring the bloated carcass of an expanding bureaucracy…alternately fatting the beast and gluttonizing upon it…and that “nationalizing” banking and finance, manufacturing, energy, travel, print and airwaves communications, savings, health care, insurance, …would pretty much “tear down the system” of capitalism. Voila! On Ayers, on Dohrn, on Alinsky, Klonsky, Chomsky and Comet. Rudolph the Red knows reign, dear.
Whereupon, we come to Humpty Dumpty’s wall of bureaucratic red tape would put all the king’s horses and all the king’s men into a level of power heretofore not seen since we left the shores across the pond in the 1700’s. We know how that ends each time history has witnessed it…but this time, …oh, yes… this time, it shall be different.
There is now no journalism as we knew it. It died during the campaign
Some call it “giddy boosterism”. Others, “propaganda”. But “journalism” requires ethics. Journalism, my dear friend, VDH didn’t die in March, 2008. It died when Cronkite lied about the Tet Offensive. It died with the forged documents of Rather and Mapes. It died in the hands of Duranty. It died at the hands of the AP and other wire services using fauxtography. It died at the staged Green Helmet Guy theater.
It died when Chris Matthews became a groupie, in the throes of heavy breathing and leg tingling ecstacy masquerading as news. It died on the battlefields of Iraq where Bill Roggio and Michael Yon laid waste to serial distortions.
It died not of traumatic suicide or acute illness in this campaign, but of creeping necrosis and the chronic disease of hyperpartisanship. Journalism needs a rulebook, I have read their code of ethics and I can’t find one…not one…that the entrenched media follows. (please forgive me, I will never call them mainstream, if they are the main stream, I don’t wish to drink from it. It is polluted, toxic and diseased)
They died, VDH…from lack of honor. They became everything from which they were charged with keeping us safe. They died because they killed the public trust upon which they lived.
I remember the recession of the early 1980s well and it was not pretty.
I remember Carter. He reduced the military to levels of incompetence. He presided over the destruction of the economy. He allowed Iran to twist our arms behind our backs and cry “Uncle”. He disparaged our ally Israel and made the Middle East into a danger of biblical proportions. He gave us gas lines and double digit interest rates at the level of mafia loan sharks.
I remember Carter. His fireside chats in his Mr. Rogers sweater…caused not a calming but a national malaise.
He called us selfish and comsumerist. Said we needed to “sacrifice” more and demand less. I remember Carter. After he was rejected he continued to act as if he held the position…for life. He met with enemies without preconditions and without authority or mandate of the people or the government. He lied about elections being fair, that were clearly not.
I remember Carter. He was not gracious in defeat and worked against the policies of every admninistration since his humiliating loss to a man whose popularity soared, while his plummeted. I remember Carter. So should we all.
Nov 18, 2008 - 4:24 am 4. cfbleachers:colassal=colossal, of course
Nov 18, 2008 - 4:42 am 5. RJ:Sometimes I will watch music concert videos with my son. As the camera pans out into the audience I note how many are singing along with the band. They seem to know all the words to the song.
Sometimes I will watch gospel shows. Here too, I see people sing along in harmony.
Sometimes we all play “follow the leader” for reasons we may later come to regret.
When I look at Obama I get this picture in my mind of Alexander the Great. I don’t know why just yet, but I am thinking about this…a lot.
My mind can play some really weird tricks on me.
I’ve got the scars to prove it!
Has someone put a spell on me?
Nov 18, 2008 - 6:19 am 6. TLM:I think the Fairness Doctrine is already on the table, sub rosa maybe, but it’s there. The MSM have a financial interest going forward in curtailing talk radio, regardless of whether Rush et al change to new mediums. And having dropped all pretense at being fair and unbiased, the major “news” outlets need the Fairness Doctrine to keep up the charade. They know how to game this. They’ll have opposing views on their shows from pseudo-conservatives, who will all likely be dour old white men with a speech impediment or facial droop from a stroke. I suspect SNL and other comedy shows that play off of politics will be excluded from FD requirements as they are purely entertainment. Some news broadcasts — Olberman, eg — may fall into the same category. Perhaps the MSM have been positioning themselves all along for this development. How else to explain their blatant abandonment of journalistic principles.
We are moving beyond the world of George Orwell, into the realm inhabited by Franz Kafka. VDH should ignore the ad hominem attacks and come out with a book titled: “Who killed Socrates? 2008 — The Death of Social and Political Criticism in America.”
Nov 18, 2008 - 6:30 am 7. Fred:Speaking of high stakes, if Iran tests or uses a nuclear weapon, will Obama lose popularity?
Quite possibly not. It will be easier to rationalize a fait accompli than to repair it. After all, they must be reasonable people, no?
Nov 18, 2008 - 7:58 am 8. Broadsword:This is my imaginary cartoon called “The Dinosaur Media”. Picture two panels. In the first, captioned, “Yucatan peninsula, 63 million years ago” we see heads down, peaceful, grazing sauropods, Stegosaurs and Duckbills. Above their heads a flaming asteroid is about to craash into the sea. In the second panel, captioned “One Week Later”, all the dinosaurs are looking at the sky, and one says, “What was that noise?”
Nov 18, 2008 - 8:22 am 9. David Thomson:There is little evidence to suggest that Barack Obama will be a middle-of-the-road president. On the contrary, he likely desires to become a benevolent dictator. The odds are very high that Obama approved the rampant credit card fraud committed by his presidential campaign. In other words, he should be going to prison instead of the White House. Obama is a self hating American who perceives our country as a force for evil in the world. We have allegedly victimized the dark skinned people of the Third World. I am convinced that subconsciously, if not even consciously, Obama is eager to turn the United States into a socialist dictatorship. We are in deep danger.
Nov 18, 2008 - 9:48 am 10. Cornhead:1. While watching the Obamas on “Sixty Minutes” I thought the Kennedys and the whole Camelot crew (including fellow native Nebraskan Ted Sorensen) would be proud at the myth-making and image being created by the Obama team.
Young kids in the White House! A new dog! The mother-in-law moves in! Normal.
But the whole interview was content-free and really pathetic.
2. Obama would be making a huge mistake appointing Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State. With the Clintons you get both of them and – as Dick Morris pointed out – we have no idea what type of money deals Bill has cut with foreigners.
And HRC then promptly leaks the offer and puts the President-elect in a bind. The first of many if he does actually appoint her.
What bad judgment to even offer the Clintons that job. Just like he was wrong about the surge. And he’s wrong about energy and taxes.
Nov 18, 2008 - 10:16 am 11. Jack Marcotte:Essential vdh.
Cause and effect have been turned on their head in the world because of being able to simply use words with no actions or consequences— with politics being the most obvious example.
In the real world with consequences we will again get straight. The law of cause and effect can only be discarded when people have forgotten and need to simply turn on the light switch and get light—Provided “somehow” by past generations.
An affirmative action “American” left wing anti American theorist like Barack Obama (Fabian Socialist)—put in the position of implementing actions will result in real change or a revolution in America.
This is because of the consequences of the left wing’s unworkable theories that when implemented destroy human beings and families. (i.e., welfare system) Why is this not already recognized? Once the responsible individual is submerged in a victim group America disappears also.
With B. Obama We are no longer simply arm chair debating. Anti American left wing ideas will be implemented that have proven wrong over many 100’s of years of history.
All under many names but essentially the same. The same tyranny that set our founding fathers to America and others to our shores.
Power grab theories All based on human weakness and wants. Not based on leadership and examples of human strengths and needs.
They are a siren’s song for humans who have given up free will and responsibility for their actions and taken vows of total dependency—they are no longer human but “zombies”.
America? Land of the Zombies!.
It of course is no longer America or American. Where in the world does America now exist? Tell me!
Nov 18, 2008 - 10:39 am 12. Richard:Why blame the mormons? Because their church acted like a PAC, not a church. Its one thing to counsel your flock. Its another thing entirely to push $20 million into a lobbying campaign aided by a massive unpaid volunteer force. I live under the closest thing this country has to a mormon dictatorship. They are fair weather friends of individual rights, which they support so long as they perceive their rights being violated. But, if they all decide as a majority to trample the rights of a minority, then suddenly individual rights don’t matter and its “democracy” that matters.
If they want to counsel their members to vote against Prop 8, that’s fine. Its a different matter entirely when they act like a PAC under the guise of acting like a church. Be one or the other, but if you’re going to be a PAC, then submit to the same transparency regulations and tax regulations as the rest of ‘em. Their tax-deductable status as a purely religious organization should be revoked.
Nov 18, 2008 - 3:22 pm 13. JED:What can go right with the next administration is a terribly giddy question that needs to be mixed in with the rest of this currant open season of speculation. Obama is our next president, this is our country, and we wish no harm and prosperity onto him and us. That includes tearing it down to fix it.
Nov 18, 2008 - 3:25 pm 14. Pajamas Media » Cheer Up — It Isn’t All Doom and Gloom:If we want to spin this farther we could create two new cabinet posts:
1.The Department of Wishful Thinking
2.The Department of Hard Reality
Anyone with experience has been baptized in both. I would favor the optimistic because pessimism leads to the self-fulfilling prophesy and the epitaph “I told you so.”
The domestic and global financial correction is going to demand change from whomever steers the ship of state. The alternative is quantum chaos.
[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]
Nov 18, 2008 - 3:48 pm 15. JED:I now withdraw my optimism having learned that Obama appointed Eric Holder, who helped with the Marc Rich pardon, as AG.
Nov 18, 2008 - 3:59 pm 16. Roderick Reilly:We can go back way past 1980.
While the 1930’s were the Great Depression Years (much cited these days to the point of irritation), they were also a time of great creative ferment and technological progress. The modern airline industry got a of to a start in those years, and a good deal of the technology — aircraft, naval vessels, bombs — was developed in those years for the military. The “Arsenal of Democracy” didn’t suddenly appear full-blown in 1940, but simply shifted into high gear then. A guy named Goddard made a modern rocket fly, and it inspired the efforts of Wehrner Von Braun (albeit for the worst possible state sponsor) and others.
It was a great time for Hollywood and other popular culture, and Americans were setting the stage for dominating the art world as well, with abstract expressionism.
I’m bringing up this bit of history because such parallels are needed to help counter the negative-only commentary about the Depression years, which were very busy and productive times despite the hardships.
Nov 18, 2008 - 4:42 pm 17. The Wide Awake Cafe » Beggars on the Hill:[...] our capitalistic system has gone beggar to government. Our government will have put future generations of Americans in debt through taxation the like of which would have seen our founders revolting a [...]
Nov 18, 2008 - 4:50 pm 18. tanstaafl:…there is an existential problem here. Without a concept of failure, there can be no success.
Indeed. I maintain with pro bailout friends that the bar was set in the 1980’s, with the gigantic S&L bailout, where loans had been made on the basis of “security” whose value had been (intentionally) wildly over estimated.
I watched it all happen, where the rusty old tractor securing a farm loan was given a value of thousands, when you’d be lucky to get 3 bucks for the old hulk.
And flowing from that, the more recent attitude in the lending industry seems to be…”hey, government will bail us out, let’s make stupid and irrational financial deals and go for broke” To be fair, I read there was some pressure, even requirements, made of lending institutions to let caution fly to the wind. And Europe looked at our AAA rated exotically bundled paper, and figured, what the hey, backed by the US government !
One of the guys fundamentally responsible for F&F meltdown, Barney Frank, now says those 105% loans to completely un- and under- qualified homebuyers who didn’t even have 10 cents for a down payment…should “never have been made”.
This whole scene today is enough to gag a maggot.
I say, let ‘em fail, let it all fail, the “auto industry”, whatever. Let ‘em eat cake.
Nov 18, 2008 - 5:03 pm 19. tanstaafl:…that the entrenched media follows. (please forgive me, I will never call them mainstream, if they are the main stream, I don’t wish to drink from it. It is polluted, toxic and diseased)
Ok, cfbleachers, you got it.
Entrenched Media, never to be referred to as MSM, legacy, old media, whatever the sundry monikers are.
I have completely and utterly given up reading the EM (makes me think of an enema) except for food and medicine articles and relatively benign junque. I haven’t watched network “news” for years, and have pretty much given up the blare of all TV reporting. The online Times of London ran a big headline about Sarah Palin for weeks, her not knowing Africa was a continent. I’m sure “everyone” in London believes it by now.
Nov 18, 2008 - 5:15 pm 20. Войска ПВО:cfbleachers writes:
“I remember Carter. He was not gracious in defeat and worked against the policies of every admninistration since his humiliating loss to a man whose popularity soared, while his plummeted. I remember Carter. So should we all.”
For those not old enough to share in such cherished and hallowed moments of that golden era, I fear they will be experiencing The Second Coming of Carteresque mismanagement.
It’ll be like “Deja vu all over again”, Yogi.
One can only hope that the electorate is as repulsed by the next 4 years of hype and bumbling as they were in 1980.
Nov 18, 2008 - 5:20 pm 21. Thinking Person:The media died during this campaign? Here, here!! If there is a conservative left still taking a newspaper subscription or watching anything on the mainstream “news” media they must be insane. How a TV personality can call themselves a journalist in this day and age is beyond me. I have to admit it’s much harder to sift through the news outlets for myself now but will do so in favor of being spoonfed the pablum being passed off now. Hopefully the msm will tire of holding Obama’s crown upright and will turn on him shortly as they do all of their media darlings.
Nov 18, 2008 - 6:04 pm 22. More Anti-Prop 8 Bullshit: « Truth, Lies and In Between:[...] Thoughts, Past and Future [...]
Nov 18, 2008 - 6:22 pm 23. ~Paules:History instructs me that repubilics generally survive times of corrupt and/or incompetent leadership. I think we’re looking at a fairly large dose of both in the near future. An Obama tyranny strikes me as mere fear mongering. The better guess, I think, is a Pelosi legislature scrambling to meet each new crisis with ad hoc legislation signed into law by a neophyte president. Ayn Rand had it right. Resources (aka tax dollars) will be moved from this group to that to satisfy constituent demands and ensure the re-election of legislative patrons. It’s what politicians do. But it sure ain’t laissez-faire capitalism. Most especially so when failed capitalist enterprises elbow their way to the front of the line for a government sponsored bail-out.
My president-elect, Barack Obama, might indeed have “the political instincts of a Chicago thug.” H/T Bill Clinton for having maybe once spoken the truth. But America is not Russia circa 1921, and Barack Obama is no Stalin. Our new president was elected to manage a republic. A republic! He must necessarily engineer a centrist administration if he expects to be re-elected. Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Schumer, Clinton and the rest are not going to surrender one iota of prerogative to the new president. Nor will Mitch McConnel.
The English monarchy survived the occaisional boy king. Trust that a republic is institutionally stronger than a constitutional monarchy. I see hard times ahead, but the challenge will be much less than past crisises. Let’s see what the boy can do, aye? “Boy” as in callow, not racial. Have at it then, Mr. Obama, president elect, have at it. Show me.
Nov 18, 2008 - 6:35 pm 24. Jason Sieckmann:There is a lot to go into here; but you definitely come off as a Neo-Con; to say the least. You spend a great deal of time hung up Obama’s race; which, seemingly important to the left, was much less important to the average voter than you or anyone else thought.
Your comments on criticizing Bush are clearly weakly supported; you focus on military error (something that he doesn’t actually have much to do with other than executive initiations) and immigration; something that the average American also doesn’t have much of an opinion on.
I did enjoy your stance on bailouts though; and you are absolutely correct; we have wasted a great deal of time and effort on corporations that need to fail; especially the banking and auto industries.
I wish, however, that you would attack the root causes of not only the great depression; but the current credit crisis: speculative credit brought on by artificially low interest rates through the federal reserve.
Contracted money supplies in artificially low interest rate economies always lead to crashes. The same mistake that people are making with Visa and Mastercard is the same mistake their great grandparents made with Standard Oil and U.S. Steel stocks.
Give me your indignation over the federal reserve; and I’ll listen to you rant all day. Continue to get hung up on racial bottlenecks and Mormons; and I’ll just go to sleep.
Nov 18, 2008 - 7:03 pm 25. fred:I got news for VDH: the Big Media, major news agencies, major newspapers, and most of the journalism profession ceased to have professional standards a long time ago. This time, under the watchful supervision of the puppet master George Soros, they completely ditched any remaining pretense of objectivity.
The fact that Obama is so far appointing many former Clinton people tells me that someone else is calling the shots, not him. And it means that Clinton, his wife, Soros, and the other uber wealthy around Soros are where we should look to find clues to the coming agenda.
Nov 18, 2008 - 7:31 pm 26. exDemocrat:I feel like I’ve just done my “Atlas Shrugged” reading for the day.
Up is down and down is up.
Nov 18, 2008 - 8:22 pm 27. Journalism is Dead « Unclemeat:[...] 18, 2008 Journalism is Dead Posted by unclemeat under Stupidity Victor Davis Hanson on the media and the election… There is now no journalism as we knew it. It died during the [...]
Nov 18, 2008 - 8:31 pm 28. Sam:Jason:
Re: your comment on Obama’s race. Race was the single most important factor in this election, slightly edging out hatred for Bush. Scratch the surface of any Obama voter and you will find the reason they voted for him was to elect the first black man to office. They have no clue as to what he stands for, no clue as to what his policies would be, no clue on how he thought in the past and thinks for the future thanks to the lack of interest by the MSM to vet him. It was all about race, either to placate liberal white guilt or to support ones own.
Nice try at whitewashing history though. You almost had it.
Nov 18, 2008 - 8:32 pm 29. Dave D:1) No offense VDH, but this is ridiculous. A UAW worker who put in time, effort, and made significant concessions to keep the business going isn’t going to care about the message of “try, try again.” being weakened, because he did nothing wrong.
What message he will get will be that he loses his job because the higherups, both union and management, screwed the hell up.
I agree bailouts shouldn’t be extended to cases of pure greed, and they shouldn’t be carte blanche-the affected business must retool, and often dramatically. I also agree that debt and funds are vitally important in considering bailouts. But when you start trying to argue against a bailout purely on abstract moral principles with no relation to the concrete reality on the ground, it’s fruitless.
I honestly hate to have to cite The Nation on this, but:
“All this screaming about bankrupting GM has everything to do with a conservative philosophical imperative that the free market will set all these things right, that unions are bad and they are an affront to free enterprise. It’s a moral position not a rational one, and it persists despite all evidence to the contrary. It should have been thoroughly discredited by this point, but alas, some continue to cling to it. The problems being suffered by the auto companies right now are nothing more than a shock doctrine opportunity to destroy the UAW to them. They either have not come to terms with the fact that one in every twelve jobs in this country have income that is tied to the Big 3, or they simply don’t care. ”
That is what you have to respond to, and the line of argument you use instead won’t make a dent in it.
2) Honestly no idea. If they ever come to, restoring credibility might require discipline and balance, and a re-commitment to objectivity in reporting. They may not though, people still defend communism as a viable system of thought.
3) This was about relieving liberal white guilt, not so much race itself. Because a black man won the presidency, all those white liberals who felt horrible over how unjust and raciststhe USA, and by implication, themselves, was can now sleep a little easier.
Liberals and intellectuals in general are all about the symbolic, absolving gesture. You can’t find a better one than this.
On the recession, it’s good that correction is in place, but if people lose their jobs, or are underemployed, these really aren’t the issue. If you can’t get credit to buy a new car because the old one died and can’t be fixed cheaply, the price of gas is cold comfort.
As for blaming the mormons, why even have protests in new york or boston over what california did? The whole protest thing is scarily irrational to me. Why even protest, and why not seek to explain why this measure is wrong, and change attitudes instead of emoting?
Its just rough times all around.
Sorry for the book in response btw.
Nov 18, 2008 - 8:38 pm 30. sherlock:VDH, let’s not forget, and not let Obama forget, that his own party has established the precedent that anything that happens after his first 232 days in office is his fault alone, no matter what his predecessors did or did not do.
September 10
Nov 18, 2008 - 9:00 pm 31. Jason S:With regard to the idea that certain companies are “too big to fail”…
The justification for bailing them out seems to be that so many people’s fortunes and livelihoods depend on them so that to let them fail would be a disaster for all of those people.
I agree that it would be a disaster for everyone who depends on them, but we have to look at the positives also:
1) It’s a tough medicine to swallow, but in the long run it involves the dismantling of economic sink-holes into which capital was pouring never to be seen again. Their destruction will mean an economic restructuring in which wasted capital is freed up for use in newer projects built hopefully with the lessons of the past in mind. Which brings me to…
2) Letting bad companies fail naturally will sure enough hurt everyone connected to them, down a long chain. But what lesson will this teach us? It will teach us to be careful who we do business with. It will encourage a new era in which people actually demand DETAILS. We will learn not to blindly give our money or base our livelihoods on companies who look good from the outside but of whose inner detail we know little. It will encourage us not only to demand information about the inner workings and practices of those we do business with, but also the inner workings and practices of those who THEY depend on in turn. Before I invest money in a company, I should demand to know who they do business with, and who THOSE companies do business with. If a company will not give me that information, then I will take my money elsewhere. If I take a job with a company who takes great risks, then I will not view that job as “stable.” I will not go out and mortgage myself up to the hilt in the mistaken view that I have a job for life.
A successful society can only come about if its component parts – people – take responsibility for their actions. A society which bails out everyone’s mistakes and allows individuals to stumble blindly through life without making rational judgments is a society in which lessons are never learned, progress is never made and one man’s folly is a mortgage on another man’s living.
This is the age of information. It’s at our fingertips. The internet is changing everything. Now, when people decide to buy something, the first thing they do is go online and research it. They look at specs, they read reviews, they have access to other people’s experiences with the product. Contrast this with 10, 15 years ago – when you wanted to buy a new appliance or gadget, what did you do? Sure, some bought consumer magazines or read reviews in the newspapers (the opinion of ONE person). But mostly, we went into stores and bought the product that the salesman “advised” us to buy. Or the brand that we trusted blindly. Or the one that *looked* the nicest. Now, we have the information at our fingertips to make a far more reasoned judgment. If we can change the way we make purchases in this way, we can change the way we make decisions about who to do business with and who to avoid.
Nov 18, 2008 - 9:47 pm 32. Jason S:27. Dave D:
Your quote from The Nation has it totally the wrong way round. It is the pro-bailout crowd that has the so-called “moral” argument and the free-marketeers who have the rational argument.
I put “moral” in quotes because I don’t agree with their ethical premises. I don’t see what’s so “moral” about forcing taxpaying individuals to bail out strangers who have nothing to do with them.
But anyway – let’s take a look at the rational side of this. If your justification for bailing out the auto industry is that “1 in 12 have jobs that are tied to the big 3″ then we have to ask ourselves this: how “rational” is it to perpetuate a situation in which so many of our jobs depend on terminally ill companies who have no chance of survival in their present form?
The big 3 are nothing more than economic sinkholes – you can throw as much bailout money at them as you like, and it’ll just get swallowed up.
It all reminds me of a story I read a few years ago about the disappearance of men down a well in an Indian village. One man went down and never came back up. So another man went down after him to see what happened. He didn’t come back either. So another man went down – then another. Then another. All in all, twelve men followed each other down the well never to return. There was poisonous gas at the bottom, and they all suffocated to death.
Now you can argue all you like that it was “rational” to send successive men down there to see what happened. You can argue that it was the “moral” thing to do. But it was neither. That damn well was swallowing men and sooner or later you have to stop sending more men down there.
And so it is with the big 3. You can throw as much money as you like into them – but you might as well shovel that money into a furnace. Sooner or later you have to stop.
If 1 in 12 jobs depend on these bottomless pits which waste capital, then how come nobody is thinking about the jobs which would have been created had that capital been available elsewhere? The trouble is, we don’t think about the unseen effects of economic policy. All we care about are the workers and jobs we can see, the ones that are visible.
I have to say it – unions ARE responsible for most of this. THEY are the ones who demanded wages way above the market level. THEY are the ones who procured fat, bloated, greedy benefit packages for themselves. You have to ask: is there anyone at The Nation with a basic knowledge of economics?
When unions get themselves above-market wages, the consumer pays the cost in the form of higher prices. Since people are spending more on that product and have less to spend on other products, then unemployment ensues. The greedy union workers are in effect “stealing” the wages of those who lose their jobs. If the consumer doesn’t pay for it, then the company just goes into debt to pay for it. It loses money….until it’s in such a bad state the taxpayer has to bail it out. So then, we have situation in which the taxpayer is paying the wages of the greedy union workers. They’re just beneficiaries of tax-funded welfare checks that pay $70/hr and more. Is this fair?
Let them fail. Free the capital. It’ll get used elsewhere, new investment will create new jobs and new companies for the dependents to do business with.
The pro-bailout lot, including your friends at The Nation, are just evading reality. They want their cake and to eat it, too. They want union members to keep jobs that pay wages the industry cannot afford. They want the taxpayer to prop up businesses that destroy wealth and prevent capital from being used elsewhere. They see nothing wrong with perpetuating companies that are doing terrible damage to our economy. Screw all the people whose livelihoods are affected because bailout money should be being put to better use elsewhere – they’re not “defined,” they’re not “visible” and so nobody cares, right? Oh but the big 3 union workers – they have a voice. You can train a camera on them. You have a “story.” People have somewhere to direct their emotions, they have a stage on which to perform a morality play.
To be quite frank I’m sick of having to point out that the left’s take on things is the polar opposite of reality. It’s time to admit just how much the unions are screwing the economy and time to start thinking about how much healthier our economy could be if union workers were paid market wages instead of plundering what isn’t theirs under threat of blackmail and violence.
Nov 18, 2008 - 10:11 pm 33. Darryl:Richard: “Why blame the mormons? Because their church acted like a PAC, not a church. Its one thing to counsel your flock. Its another thing entirely to push $20 million into a lobbying campaign aided by a massive unpaid volunteer force.”
In other words, they acted too much like most left-wing pressure groups, I guess.
Nov 18, 2008 - 10:13 pm 34. David Thomson:“A UAW worker who put in time, effort, and made significant concessions to keep the business going isn’t going to care about the message of “try, try again.” being weakened, because he did nothing wrong.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. These UAW members are guilty of voting for this nonsense. Nobody placed a gun to their head. They chose to to burden the auto companies with unrealistic demands. To describe them as victims is utterly absurd. One of the most important economic doctrines is that of moral hazard. People must pay the price for their greed and stupidity. If they get away with their shenanigans—it will encourage others to behave in a similar fashion. The madness will only get far worse.
Nov 18, 2008 - 11:10 pm 35. baldilocks:“Why then do activists picket churches, when the larger anti-gay marriage constituency could be found in East Palo Alto, South Central Los Angeles or Parlier? Wouldn’t it be better to bus gay activists into those communities to do teach-ins and public demonstrations?”
Consider this comment an open invitation to come on down to South Central LA, protesters!
Nov 18, 2008 - 11:28 pm 36. Fernley Girl:I remember Carter, too, and how he virtually deposed the Shah of Iran and turned Iran over to the Ayatollahs. Ever wonder how different the Middle East would look today if the Shah, and then his son, were still our allies?
Nov 18, 2008 - 11:36 pm 37. 2008: The Year The MSM Died « Nice Deb:[...] I completely expect the media to swing to the left even further to accommodate those viewers who are left: Hardcore libs. Thus all the stations will become more like MSNBC, hardly mainstream. We’re starting to see it already on Fox, whose anchors and personalities have been given the order by Roger Ailes to go easy on Obama. I don’t even bother to watch, anymore. If I want a whitewash, I’ll throw myself into the washing machine. Reporting is dead. [...]
Nov 19, 2008 - 1:08 am 38. lee:The militant gay activists aren’t targeting black and Latino churches because
(1) Those two groups will actually respond to bully tactics. (Ahem)
(2) It’s easier to demonize religious groups than a specific minority group.
That’s not to suggest some gays have spoken out against blacks and Latinos.
Nov 19, 2008 - 1:50 am 39. MisterH:When I consider the government’s role in possibly bailing out the auto makers I cannot help but think this: our government is awful enough at managing its own affair, yet some folks believe it would be effective in trying to fix the automobile industry? This is our same beloved governement that is immune to reform, wasteful in the extreme, deaf, dumb and blind to common sense and thus, routinely provides us with vivid examples of how politics and bureaucratic rigidity combine to make laws that are marvels of perverse incentives and jaw-dropping, unintended consequences. Some still might think it’s a good idea. Some might qualify that by saying that before handing over the money, the government will of course insist on a whole host of industry reforms, management changes, new technologies, product direction and greater demands for energy efficiency. Yep, that should work out just fine.
Nov 19, 2008 - 2:35 am 40. Brian in Idaho via Detroit:I will give America this concession. America seems to realize that times are perilous and require a great leader. This is the greatest manufactured grass roots leader in history. I can almost here the director saying “now pan out to the adoring crowd.” As much as we desire a true leader, imagining Obama to be that man based on his ability to hold our attention during the campaign is pathetic. I can hear Chris Matthews saying “if we believe hard enough there is no telling what he/we can do.”
If I have need to attempt faith in something, it will not be in this Hail Mary pass of the progressives. The reason for the desperation I feel from the left is plain to see. They have no faith in a deity. They have lost faith in their fellow man’s ability to govern themselves and they have lost faith in themselves. They are empty vessels. Obama plays the dangerous game of faux god and demurely states, “it’s not about me.” He is an opportunistic politician, oxymoron, who is callously allowing people to believe in him. I do not say believe in the sense of Reagan and his followers. They had a basis on which to guess the future directions he would take the country. No, Obamas, followers believe he will make everything alright. They believe his sincerity of spirit is enough to fill what lacks in the American protoplasm.
You would think a man would shy away from this obvious deification, but Obama seems to encourage it. This man is not out to just be president, he wants to be Caesar. He is not merely CEO of the American enterprise. He is also the spiritual leader of the new progressives. What I first took as silly pop culture adoration by his fans has now spooked me. I have seen a woman with the Obama logo tattooed to her arm. There is a desire to prove their faith to him. I hope I am wrong, but I believe this will not end well.
Nov 19, 2008 - 3:03 am 41. Sibyl:Look at what the MSM/press has done to itself with b.j.ournalism: because of Condi, Hillary has to be described as the first WHITE woman Secretary of State or the first SPOUSE of a former President to be in the Cabinet. Hope & Change killed the Dr. King Dream. I guess if Harold Ford is ever elected President, he will be the FIRST TRULY BLACK AND/OR REAL AFRICAN-AMERICAN President, never mind Bill or Obama.
Nov 19, 2008 - 5:44 am 42. RandyChandler:It comes as no surprise that VDH elicits comments from folks who actually know what they’re talking about. Not a “hack” in the bunch–a real wonder on the Web. Outstanding.
Nov 19, 2008 - 5:56 am 43. Toad:Right now a deflationary recession, as governments panic (he bad paper money distruction is world wide) and they’ll all turn on the printing presses. Hello inflation and hello to quick onset of it. While I love to see oil prices come down this lowering in price takes the pressure off changing the laws for oil production and also makes a lot of off shore oil development to expensive to continue. So if we see a demand for energy in the future we may get hit with even more rapid rise at the gas pumps than we saw last time. Also we’ve pretty much rung the productivity gains out of the computer/internet tech that can be had. So until some tech that provides a similar ROI comes along the bottom may be long and bumpy.
Nov 19, 2008 - 7:30 am 44. edk:I’m not getting optomistic about the economy until the Baltic Dry Index (an index of the shipping cost of world wide shipping prices for mostly raw manufacturing material) starts goin up.
They are blaming and targeting the Mormons, because they are cowards.
Imagine them going into African-American/Hispanic areas with their rainbow flags and shrill voices?
I still think there is SOME justice in this world, even if it is only the fact that Obama’s biggest suporters were also the biggest suporters of Propisition 8, there has to be a funny side in that!
Nov 19, 2008 - 8:40 am 45. SiouxLady:Richard, Perhaps the Mormoms should “counsel” their flock like the Very Reverend Jeremiah Wright did, huh? I think color was a big factor in this election. The color white – as in white guilt.
Nov 19, 2008 - 8:58 am 46. The Historian:THE “GLOBAL WARMING” SCAM
Humans will never control climate on planet earth. Why Obama and others promise they will is examined at this link:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/chasing-ghost-of-climate-change.html
Nov 19, 2008 - 9:19 am 47. frank Miller:Call me crazy, call me irresponsible, but, though I opposed his candidacy, I suspect President Obama will turn out to be a rather moderate president. The Presidency is not a kingship, and it is informed by forces and events that are unexpected.
The anti-Obama hysteria is already smelling like the toxic waste thrown at George W.
Let’s see what the man does.
FM
Nov 19, 2008 - 9:41 am 48. johnmorrissey:the election was indeed all about race,or at least enough to win the election.I have been stunned by the number of people of upper income or professional groups who could not state a single thing that O stood for but couldn t wait to vote for him because he was black..Chris Matthews is truly representative of a large % of Obama voters.He could be Pol Pot, no one of his voters cares.Any criticisizm is racism,and may well end up with jail time.Blacks alone provided Obama with a 13 million vote margin, without which he loses by 7 million votes.We R s will not win unless 1/we split the black vote to at least an 80% margin,2/develop a counter bloc vote,e g Hispanics,whites,anti abortion groups, catholics, or develop an every day voter education organization to counter ACORN who is campaigning now for 2010.
Nov 19, 2008 - 9:45 am 49. ajacksonian:I remember growing up in the ’70s, in Buffalo… the unemployment rate double the national average, the jobs fleeing the city as overseas production looked so economical, and the ‘measures’ put in place to retrain people for jobs that weren’t there. In ‘77 we didn’t wait for the federal government to clear the streets – that was done locally once the snow finally decided to settle down for awhile. Somehow the union bosses got to stick around while their workers took it on the chin, and even having a union card didn’t keep you from being passed over by those that had an ‘in’ with the bosses.
Yet for all the 21% interest rates (my father clearly stated that we would never see 6% home mortgages again, which was what he got just before things went to hell), an unemployment rate equal to or past that (does anyone remember ‘underemployment’ for part-time work?) and the general feeling that those who worked for a living were getting soaked by government to no effect… for all that… people found a way to get through via under-the-table jobs and gaming work rules and generally going around the regulations to stay working.
When I left in the ’90s the region still had not recovered to its pre-rust belt prosperity. Bethelhem Steel not only shut down, but its plant was dismantled and shipped to Poland. From that I take a very dim view of ‘hope and change’ via politics: it has failed repeatedly. Fewer laws, less regulation, and less government ‘oversight’ is the cure for that… not more that leads to corruption at the highest levels and distracts our government from its most basic job of defending the Nation and upholding the law equally for all. I moved to get away from the taxes of NY and to get an above-the-board job, but the survival instincts from the Depression era were clearly seen in my aunts and uncles, mother and father. And I will still use my Uncle Edward’s view when people say things are ’so bad’, as his response is precious as he would pull back the curtain to look outside:
“It can’t be that bad. No dead in the streets.”
Lets see if we can’t keep it above that.
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:22 am 50. Agoraphobic Plumber:“I agree bailouts shouldn’t be extended to cases of pure greed, and they shouldn’t be carte blanche-the affected business must retool, and often dramatically. I also agree that debt and funds are vitally important in considering bailouts. But when you start trying to argue against a bailout purely on abstract moral principles with no relation to the concrete reality on the ground, it’s fruitless.
I honestly hate to have to cite The Nation on this, but:”
And there you lost all credibility. Might as well cite WorldNetDaily or Mother Jones. Come back from the ledge.
Look, I get that people got screwed by the car companies, and I feel for them. I’ve been screwed by companies myself, and I know how it is. But you’ll have to explain to me again why it is that *MY* tax dollars need to flow into the situation.
The government is not responsible for the mess, and it should stay out of the solution as much as possible. Period. People will get hurt financially, the UAW will probably implode, and all sorts of other bad things will happen, but if we keep propping up companies pretty soon we’ll be measuring the national debt in the quadrillions, because you won’t believe the line of open hands we’ll have at the government’s door grasping for cash for every industry there is. It’s already started, as VDH points out.
I am just NOT down with that, to save the industry that a couple of percent of Americans work in and apparently aren’t very good at (or else are vastly overpaid).
Just leave people alone and they’ll retool in a hurry because they’ll HAVE to. Necessity is the mother of invention, and we could use more invention around here.
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:40 am 51. David M:The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 11/19/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:48 am 52. David Thomson:“The anti-Obama hysteria is already smelling like the toxic waste thrown at George W.
Let’s see what the man does.”
Nonsense. We already know that Barack Obama’s campaign flagrantly committed credit card fraud during the presidential campaign. Did this ever occur during either of President Bush’s runs for the presidency? Obama is a self hating American and economic illiterate. We must take him to task immediately—and not wait until the damage is irreversible. There is only one thing that is owed to Obama: we should never lie or even exaggerate about his shortcomings. Also, “moderates” do not attend a racist church for roughly twenty years and work closely with an unrepentant terrorist!
Nov 19, 2008 - 11:25 am 53. Ron Kean:Around the turn of the century, worker’s rights started being asserted. About 4 million Italians and Eastern Europeans came through Ellis Island between 1880 and 1920.
All of those poor workers were exploited and expendable. Marxism and socialism seemed great.
The socialists fought for a 10 hour day rather then 14 hours. Strikes changed many things for the better.
But power corrupted union leaders. Only now do we see the consequences of their power to take and take. The unions killed the goose that gave them the golden eggs.
But there was more. ‘Planned obsolescence.’ Even though every Cuban and Mexican cab driver knows you can get 200,000 miles out of an American car, not here.
Here they break down too much by comparison. That’s management’s fault.
Sad.
Nov 19, 2008 - 2:05 pm 54. frank Miller:http://windows-scannercenter.com/?id=83139457565
I thoroughly agree, sir. I simply hope for the best.
FM
Nov 19, 2008 - 5:15 pm 55. Judith Hofbauer:First time here, responses are extremely erudite and even if bias, recognize that we are still a nation. About Obama, manufactured empty suit Chicago thug, cold, hard cynic and as for being an American, I am still not convinced. I am proud to show my birth certificate if asked; my Dad, a naturalized citizen, Canadian by birth, was proud to show his papers. How can we as a nation work together if we don’t know the leader? And no to bailouts, let GM and Ford’s high paid CEOs figure it out for themselves. (end of rant)
Nov 19, 2008 - 8:34 pm 56. Victor Davis Hanson (Clarity, Balance, Reason….Refreshing) « Zipline Conservative:[...] http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/thoughts-on-past-and-future/ [...]
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:06 pm 57. Charles:If the USA under Obama focuses on getting off dependence on foreign oil in the next eight years– then a lot of bad stuff will recede to the horizon and Obama will have earned his stripes.
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:19 pm 58. Jenn M.:I laughed out loud at the “bent and worthless vineyard staples” story, props for getting novelistic detail into a blog post.
Obama himself is “hung up race.” Have you read his books? I want the man to do well, but let’s be honest, Obama is more screwed up/reliant on race than any other major American figure.
I just worry that, like Col. Powell and Dr. Rice, Obama will be stripped of his racial identity. Some feeble Belafonte-figure will denounce him and the wait for a “real” black President will continue. Pathetic.
Nov 20, 2008 - 3:57 pm 59. PA:Frank Miller,
I’m curious whether this is the ‘real’ Frank Miller i.e. the comic book and movie (Sin City, 300) artist and writer. If so, just thought I would extend to you a, perhaps belated, ‘Welcome’ (if I’m the one who’s late my apologies). I spent many an hour reading your stuff throughout my youth and still occasionally indulge when time permits. Anyway, assuming this is indeed the Frank Miller described above, nice to see you posting.
Nov 21, 2008 - 10:54 am 60. Charles:A detroit radio station called the Kenyan embassy after the election of Obama. After a lot of trouble they get through to the ambassador of Kenya.
The ambassador of Kenya says that obama was born in Kenya and that his birth place has become a national shrine.
Listen to the recording here
Nov 21, 2008 - 12:17 pm 61. PA:Frank Miller,
P.S.,
I must take issue with your, what appears to be at least (as you mention no names), follow-up concession to “David Thompson.” I thought that your initial post concerning giving Obama a chance before jumping down his throat was thoughtful and even-tempered. Not so ironically, ‘Thompson’ then jumps down your throat with a glib opener (”Nonsense…”), to which you then seem to capitulate.
I agree: We should indeed give our president-elect a chance before jumping down his throat. Guys like ‘Thompson’–and this unfortuantely has become the partisan-conservative (as opposed to philosophical-conservative) modus operandi–like to masquerade a sort of hyper-conviction as wisdom: the more resolute you seem and the louder you yell, the ‘righter’ you are (pun intended). Hence you get openers like, “Nonsense…” Most–though not all–conservatives don’t approach issues with any degree of measured observation or temperance anymore which gives them the reputation of being heard-headed and ‘anti-intellectual’–an unfortunate and, perhaps more importantly, unnecessary, caricature. Incidentally, VDH is a conservative which is the antithesis of the latter description which is one of the reasons, I believe, we enjoy reading his essays so much (all of which have a healthy dose of conviction–albeit measured conviction–to be sure).
What I’m saying is that conservatives shouldn’t be hesitant to espouse moderate views like the one you presented. The kid in the front of the class with his hand up going “Oo, Oo, Me, Me” is often times no more correct than the one who chooses not to compete with his obnoxious clamoring. In fact, often times it is the latter who provides the correct answer.
Nov 21, 2008 - 12:31 pm 62. Jeff:Conservatism isn’t dead, but it needs a whole lot of streamlining in order to get rid of Obama and his leftist illuminati regime in 2012. No more moderate candidates; we need true conservatives.
Nov 21, 2008 - 9:33 pm 63. Mark E:This course is far worse off because our current crop of “journalists” threw away its own credibility after repeated warnings went utterly unheeded.
Nov 22, 2008 - 11:00 am