Politics, Religion and Broadcasting

Could it be that broadcasting rewards the worst instincts in both politics and religion?

What kind of religious leader is most successful on television, for example? The slickest, greediest, most egomaniacal and self-absorbed—Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell. The best work in that field is done at the grassroots level by the “foot soldiers” in their places of worship, or by a Billy Graham, who took his ministry to the people, not to the sound stage.

In politics, what kind of commentator is most successful on the airwaves? The confrontational, judgmental, provocative, egomaniacal and self-absorbed—Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity.

What a shame that broadcasting has eclipsed the written word in our culture. Writing fosters reflection, depth, self-criticism. Broadcasting fosters shallow spontaneity, emotionalism, self-promotion.

The best political commentary on television tends to come from writers and columnists like George Will, David Brooks, Pat Buchanan, Peggy Noonan, and Michael Kinsley. The cable news and talk radio commentators so predominant today can’t hold a candle to Walter Lippmann and Bill Buckley.

The most profound religious thought, I believe, comes from our best writers—Henry David Thoreau, or, if you read his less popular works, Mark Twain.

Quote for the day: Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. —Thoreau

Newsprism

Giving the Republican Party a Bad Name (or Two or Three)

At his speech to Republican Party state chairs today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele engaged in some fascinating name dropping.

First, he invoked three conservative legends: Edmund Burke, William Buckley, and Ronald Reagan. Burke is the intellectual founding father of conservatism; Buckley was its greatest American proponent; and Reagan its most compelling American icon. The renewal of the GOP couldn’t be based on a more stable foundation, and by invoking these three, Steele demonstrated a depth sorely lacking in other contemporary conservative figures.

Steele went on to suggest that Republicans should stop attacking Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Tim Geithner, and Barney Frank and concentrate their fire on President Obama and his policies. Again, Steele demonstrated depth and directness where too many on the right have become loose cannons engaged in a circular firing squad.

Finally, Steele alluded to the two most toxic voices on the right, a “conservative talk radio host” and a “former vice president,” without actually naming them. While his criticism was implicit rather than explicit—testament to the ruthlessness and viciousness of both Limbaugh and Cheney—Steele clearly sees them as liabilities, and rightly so.

The fact that Cheney actually prefers Limbaugh over Colin Powell as the face of the party shows how out of touch the former veep has become. Limbaugh’s character alone should disqualify him from that role, while Powell’s is beyond reproach. Limbaugh is an entertainer with zero governing experience of any kind, while Powell has served as Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during nearly half a century of exemplary public service; how can any serious person even compare the two, much less dismiss Powell and lionize Limbaugh?

The most serious problem conservatism and the Republicans face is the success of shallow, mean-spirited, hyper partisan, McCarthyesque ideologues like Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage. These entertainers aren’t fit to shine the shoes of thoughtful figures like George Will, David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, Newt Gingrich, and Pat Buchanan—the heirs of intellectual conservative giants like Buckley and Walter Lippmann.

If conservatism is to make a comeback, its leaders must go back to its roots in Burke’s foundational philosophy and Buckley’s brilliant rhetoric. Re-establishing conservatism’s intellectual integrity may be the first step towards finding its next Ronald Reagan.

With the exceptions of fundamentalists and senior citizens, the Republican Party is losing adherents across the board, but especially among the college-educated.

With a childish clown (and college dropout) like Rush Limbaugh as its most prominent voice, is it any wonder?

Newsprism

R.I.P. G.O.P.? Not Just Yet, BUT…

Barely one in five Americans now identify themselves as Republicans. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, only 21% of respondents identified themselves as Republicans, compared to 35% who identified themselves as Democrats and 38% as Independents.

Now that Arlen Specter has defected to the Democrats, and with Al Franken closing in on the Minnesota Senate seat, the Democrats may soon hold 60 seats, giving them a filibuster-proof majority.

How did a party that three years ago controlled the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate—and arguably, the Supreme Court as well—fall so far, so fast? And what are the consequences for the GOP?

Moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe says it is the right-wing extremism of the GOP that has “disaffected and alienated so many Americans…” That may be the understatement of the year. Between the antics of Rush “I hope Obama fails” Limbaugh and Dick “Tortures R Us” Cheney, moderates and independents can’t run away from the party fast enough.

The Bush years were disasterous enough for the party without Cheney and Limbaugh acting as constant reminders of the incompetence and, frankly, depravity that characterized the last eight years.

Many others who make up the public face of the GOP aren’t helpful, either. Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, for example, taint the party with their arrogance, mean-spiritedness, and absolutism. Their schtick may work on FoxNews and talk radio, but to the mainstream American, they look every bit as rabid and irrational as the leftust fringe they routinely demonize.

Worse yet, as moderates and independents leave the party, it becomes even more extremist, creating a vicious cycle that may well relegate it to regional status.

If the GOP continues down the Limbaugh-led path of exclusion, if it continues to rationalize the rigidity and depravity of the Bush years, it will ensure its irrelevance for a generation.

Peggy Noonan, with her usual grace, puts it this way:

A great party allows everyone in, and allows prospective members to self-define. If they say they’re Republicans, they should be welcomed and helped to find a place where they fit. A great party has a lot of such places. A great party is expansive. A great party has give.

Rumors of the death of the Republican Party are greatly exaggerated, but it’s becoming more and more apparent that it sorely needs to treat the tumor of exclusive and reactionary extremism.

Newsprism

Constructive and Obstructive Conservatives Evaluate Obama

Rush Limbaugh wants to see President Obama fail. Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter are obsessed with magnifying anything negative about the new pres. Matt Drudge runs transparently inaccurate stories trashing Obama. Why?

Because they all follow the money. The more rabid elements of the right clamor for the emotionally laden rhetoric these partisans peddle, and that’s a market easily exploited.

Now the Republican Party seems to be splitting along lines drawn less by ideology than by simple class and decency, and the stakes may be very high for both the party and the nation.

Two of the most respected conservative pundits, both of unquestioned integrity, refuse to fall into line with the pop culture conservatives who take home big bucks at the expense of our democratic discourse. Their initial assessments of Obama’s presidency, based largely on his inaugural address, parallel the president’s desire for conciliation and compromise.

Pat Buchanan, in “A Neo-Reaganite Inaugural,” calls Obama a ” a mature and serious man who knows his county is in deep water, who seems to understand what got us there and who appreciates that, on some things, the right has indeed been right from the beginning.” Compare that to the shallow accusations that pervade far right rhetoric: Obama is a socialist, a Muslim, a pal of terrorists, and worse.

Peggy Noonan, in “Meet President Obama: He begins with a serious, solid Inaugural Address,” echoes Buchanan: ”This was not the sound of candidate Barack Obama but President Obama, not the sound of the man who appealed to the left wing of his party but one attempting to appeal to the center of the nation. It was not a joyous, audacious document, not a call to arms, but a reasoned statement by a Young Sobersides.”

Buchanan and Noonan are serious thinkers and genuine patriots. They deserve a fair hearing from the right, just as the new president does.

Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter and Drudge shouldn’t be taken too seriously. They exploit the most shallow and bigoted kind of partisanship which, though it may sell, damages the nation. Considering the challenges we face, it is incumbent on conservatives to offer constructive criticism, not mere obstructionism.

Those who voted for John McCain could learn a lesson from him about losing with grace and governing with honor; they should remember his admonition of “country first.”

If Obama succeeds in establishing a centrist administration that encompasses the more sober elements of the left and the right, the Republican Party—if it chooses to follow the blowhards—could be left in the dust.

Newsprism

The Uphill Landslide

What began as a long shot candidacy in February 2006, announced in Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield, Illinois, ended last night with an unlikely victory.

Barack Obama’s 365-173 Electoral College victory was impressive enough. But winning three Southern states–Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida–was an accomplishment foreseen by few.

Obama’s other accomplishments are no less impressive: defeating the Clinton political machine; putting together the largest on-the-ground organization in American electoral history; raising three-quarters of a billion dollars, most of it in small individual contributions; running a nearly flawless campaign; and bringing together a coalition that transcends, at least on the surface, race, class, and ideology.

Last night in Chicago’s Grant Park, Obama bookended his campaign with an acceptance speech that was conciliatory and, while taking a realistic tone in challenging times, oozed with optimism.

Obama’s margin of victory was nowhere near those that brought Reagan to power in two of the nation’s most lopsided landslides (489-49 in 1980, 525-13 in 1984.)

Was Obama’s win a landslide?

Considering that his was a steep uphill struggle, yes.

Newsprism

In Defeat, John McCain Embodies Political Grace

John McCain’s concession speech tonight showed the kind of class and grace that all conservatives should emulate without reservation. He pledged his all to Barack Obama and urged his supporters to do the same.

In defeat, Mr. McCain put country first.

In her prescient book, Political Grace:What It Is and Why We Need It Now, Peggy Noonan calls on the nation to transcend the crass partisanship that has tarnished our politics in recent years. She rejects the divisiveness of both parties and condemns the way our last two presidents have demeaned the office by aggrandizing themselves.

At the beginning of McCain’s concession speech, many of his supporters booed any mention of the new president.

“Please, please,” McCain pleaded, holding out his hands, palms down, to silence the boos. This happened several times, and each time the boos grew quieter.

May McCain’s graceful reconciliation of his own disappointed supporters be a metaphor for a greater reconciliation to come.

Newsprism

Hey Joe, Pass the Cheetos

I’d like to call out Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s enlightening and entertaining Morning Joe. (Where else can you find Pat Buchanan and Peggy Noonan conversing with Zbigniew Brzezinski over a hot cup of coffee?)

While I love the show, Joe does take great pleasure in ridiculing us bloggers, whom he caricatures as sitting in our underwear in our parents’ basements, eating Cheetos and wiping Cheeto dust on our bare chests as we spew inanities. (See an example of Joe’s blogger-bashing here.)

Well, Joe, please find me one mainstream pundit who called this race as early or as accurately as Newsprism (apparently) did. And how is it that this Cheeto-dusted blogger got it right when you thought Obama didn’t have a chance? You said the idea that Obama could win was nothing but ”a leftist pundit’s dream.”

Nearly nine months ago, on February 13, Newsprism looked into our crystal ball and published “Prediction—Obama Landslide in November”. Our reasoning:

Barack Obama is inspirational and transformational without being confrontational…. he’ll defeat Hillary Clinton handily before the Democratic Convention, and then defeat John McCain handily in an historic election.

One reason is his natural charisma, that charming halo that’s been missing in American politics since Kennedy and Reagan were swept into the White House. Another is his skill at public speaking, which probably surpasses that of either JFK or Ronaldus Magnus. A third is his command of the issues, which belies his lack of experience.

These three reasons coalesce around an overriding consideration: history. Obama has the potential to restore our reputation around the world, to effectively erase the stain left by George Bush’s heavy-handed imperiousness. Obama could also unite the country by rejecting the politics of division, including the identity politics he pointedly rejects, in favor of inclusiveness and collegiality. And then there’s the potential election of our first non-white president. The nation’s demographic makeup, the implosion of the Republican Party, and the sentiments of most independent voters all favor Obama; the times they are a-changin’. To many, he’s the right man at the right moment.

We added to our rationale on March 3 in “The Reagan Factor—Why Obama Will Win”. Some excerpts:

The right risks losing the White House in a landslide if it keeps “misunderestimating” Senator Obama. He is, like Reagan, a master of the rhetoric of hope and optimism. After seven years of the worst leadership in a century, the time is ripe for such a leader, just as it was after four years of Jimmy Carter’s weakness and malaise, or before that, five years of Nixon’s paranoia and criminality. When times are darkest, we are most drawn to the light.

In addition to that optimism, both Reagan and Obama match(ed) rhetoric with demeanor. The resemblance is hard to miss: a ready smile, a confident carriage, a sense of humor, a calm generosity towards the opposition, a face that beams with vitality and benevolence, an undeniable charisma….

…(A) candidate who convincingly promises better times and the renewal of hope and pride is hard to beat. Add a dash of charisma, and you have the potential for a landslide, just like we saw in 1980.

Reagan rose to power at just the right historical moment. Obama has a similar opportunity to make history. He offers, quite literally, a new face to show a world weary of George Bush’s reckless and unilateral foreign policy. He offers a new face to show that America has overcome racial prejudice and elected a nonwhite president.

Republicans have been looking for another Reagan, and they’ve found one—on the other side of the aisle.

Were Newsprism’s predictions right? We’ll all know tomorrow evening.

Newsprism

Update: Obama wins in a landslide, taking the Electoral College by nearly 200 votes, 364-174.

Hey Joe–pass the Cheetos.

Cartoon Conservatism—Why a Libertarian Conservative Voted for Barack Obama

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I voted for a Democrat for president. As a libertarian conservative, I’ve been troubled by the turn the Republican Party has taken during the Bush years.

Under Bush, we’ve seen the largest budget deficits in the nation’s history, a near doubling of the national debt to a staggering $10 trillion, the erosion of civil liberties, an assault on Constitutional principles, the abandonment of the working and middle classes, a reckless and arrogant foreign policy, torture and sexual abuse of detainees, and the concentration of wealth in corporations and the upper class.

We’ve also seen the Republican Party devolve into a caricature of its former self, into what I call “Cartoon Conservatism.” Led not by conservative intellectuals grounded in philosphy, but by political hacks and cynical infotainers blinded by a shallow and self-serving partisanship, the GOP has betrayed what is best about America, what is most worthy of conserving.

A mean-spirited and ham-handed Tom Delay drained the House of Representatives of any sense of decorum or compromise. Karl Rove imbued the Bush presidency with an unscrupulous, winner-take-all obsession with political calculation at the expense of rational, far-sighted governance. Congressional Republicans and the White House colluded in an unprecedented spending spree that has imperiled our economic future, with almost nothing of lasting value to show for it. Billions of dollars have been siphoned upwards, filling the coffers of corporations to record levels and padding the fortunes of the wealthy. Scandal after scandal has revealed naked self-interest posing as devotion to country; Jack Abramoff and Ted Stevens bookend an era of disgrace. A level of hypocrisy that defies belief seeped into the right, from homophobic homosexuals like Larry Craig to anti-drug drug addicts like Rush Limbaugh. The rabid voices of the far right have demonized and divided, their only concern seeming to be to destroy the opposition and get rich and/or powerful doing it.

What the hell does this kind of behavior have to do with conservatism? Superficiality and selfishness have overtaken social order and enlightened self-interest as the foundation of the conservative movement. Rush Limbaugh is not so much the leader of this kind of philosophically rootless individualism, as its emblem. His glib dismissal of the scientific evidence of global climate change shows how profoundly self-centered and short-sighted Cartoon Conservatism has become.

Is that what our founding fathers risked their lives and fortunes for? Is that what our brave fighting men and women died for?

What a cartoonish vision of conservatism. a philosophy designed to promote and preserve social order, not each man’s individual wealth.

Ironically, I don’t think John McCain in any way represents what conservatism has become. He’s a national treasure, a man of integrity willing to sacrifice everything for America, a free-thinker whose refusal to submit to the Cartoon Conservatives nearly destroyed his candidacy. His greatest misstep may have been to compromise with the base (in both senses of the word—the conservative base, and the baseness of its corrupted leadership). His embrace of George Bush and his choice of Sarah Palin demonstrate that the maverick, that which is best in John McCain, was broken just when a little wildness was most needed.

David Brooks, who I think is next in line to take the mantle of intellectual conservatism from George Will, believes the right has ceded the center to the left. In a brilliant analysis of the impending defeat of a moderately conservative presidential candidate by a staunchly liberal one in a clearly center-right nation, Brooks puts the ideological landscape in stark relief:

There are two major political parties in America, but there are at least three major political tendencies. The first is orthodox liberalism, a belief in using government to maximize equality. The second is free-market conservatism, the belief in limiting government to maximize freedom….

But there is a third tendency, which floats between. It is for using limited but energetic government to enhance social mobility…. Members of this tradition have one foot in the conservatism of Edmund Burke. They understand how little we know or can know and how much we should rely on tradition, prudence and habit. They have an awareness of sin, of the importance of traditional virtues and stable institutions. They understand that we are not free-floating individuals but are embedded in thick social organisms.

But members of this tradition also have a foot in the landscape of America, and share its optimism and its Lincolnian faith in personal transformation. Hamilton didn’t seek wealth for its own sake, but as a way to enhance the country’s greatness and serve the unique cause America represents in the world.

Members of this tradition are Americanized Burkeans, or to put it another way, progressive conservatives.

The first President Bush, a liberal Republican, is of this ilk, as are conservative Democrats like Sam Nunn. Both of these statesmen follow in the even footsteps of some of the greatest Americans—from Alexander Hamilton to Abraham Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt.

Brooks hits the nail on the head when he writes that, unlike McCain, Sarah Palin, whom 60% of the electorate judges unready for the vice-presidency, ”represents the old resentments and the narrow appeal of conventional Republicanism.”

Moreover, writes Brooks, praising the man’s progressive conservatism, ”McCain would be an outstanding president. In government, he has almost always had an instinct for the right cause. He has become an experienced legislative craftsman. He is stalwart against the country’s foes and cooperative with its friends. But he never escaped the straitjacket of a party that is ailing and a conservatism that is behind the times.”

What has happened during the last eight years richly deserves repudiation. As an Obama victory becomes more and more likely, more and more conservatives are making their true feelings known. Some, like Lawrence Eagleburger, are admitting that Sarah Palin simply isn’t qualified to be president. Others, like Peggy Noonan, are giving Bush the condemnation he deserves. Still others, like Colin Powell, have made the leap and are endorsing Barack Obama.

My mind wasn’t made up until five or six weeks after McCain chose Sarah Palin as his runningmate. While I respect her and see a bright future for her, after giving her a fair hearing, I can’t in good conscience cast a vote that could put her in line for the presidency.

I agree with little of Barack Obama’s philosophy. But I see in him a keen and subtle intellect and a steely temperament. His performance since announcing his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois, in February of 2006, demonstrates the quality of that intellect and character. He promises change at a time when nine out of ten Americans believe we’re on the wrong track, and healing at a time when we are divided within and at odds with our allies.

My vote is, in part, a protest vote; Republicans need to be sent a message that incompetence, unilateralism, and sanctimony won’t be rewarded. But I’m also very impressed with Obama, a man who has the potential to be one of our great presidents just when one of our worse has left us in the lurch. After eight years of Bush, maybe we need to turn left to get right.

Obama, like Bush, promises to unite the country. I hope he doesn’t betray us the way his predecessor has.

Half a century ago, Barry Goldwater, in The Conscience of a Conservative, sketched out the intellectual and moral underpinnings of conservatism. When John Dean wrote Conservatives Without Conscience in the middle of the Bush debacle, he wanted to begin a conversation about the ongoing erosion of those underpinnings.

That conversation’s time has come.

Newsprism

Peggy Noonan Shouts What Others Are Whispering—Palin’s Failin’

She’d never say so, and that’s part of why she’d have made a great vice presidential choice, but Peggy Noonan would have made a great vice presidential choice. Or at least, she’d have been at least as credible as Sarah Palin, whom she skewers (along with President Bush) in her column, “Pailin’s Failin’”, today:

…we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office.

Noonan is no less gentle on President Bush, whom she compares to Palin and, implicitly, to Dick Cheney:

No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can’t be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush’s style the past few years, and see where it got us.

And then there’s this classic line describing the president’s role in the economic meltdown:

George W. Bush … darts out like the bird in a cuckoo clock to tell us we are in crisis.

Noonan winds down her column with a jab at certain elements in the conservative movement, and ends with a taunt. Noting that, with founder Bill Buckley fresh in the grave, National Review pushed son Christopher Buckley out for merely criticizing Palin, she scolds,

the conservative “intelligentsia” (my quotation marks) are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.

Anticipating being “bitterly attacked” herself, Noonan, with characteristic grace and humor, gently taunts the vulgar right:

At any rate, come and get me, copper(s).

The center, and therefore the country, has rejected the emptyheaded Rush/Rove reacionism of the far right—including the second-rate “intelligentsia” running most conservative magazines these days as well as Limbaugh’s more vicious and vengeful, more confrontational and controversial, colleagues, like Coulter, Hannity, Savage, and Horowitz—and in so doing has cemented Sarah Palin’s legacy as John McCain’s Harriett Miers.

Noonan understands the depth and the ramifications of Palin’s, and of negative rhetoric’s, failures. Like Harriett Miers on the Supreme Court, the idea of Sarah Palin in the Oval Office is laughable.

Newsprism

Conservative Commentators (Belatedly) Write Bush’s Political Obituary

The top tier of conservative pundits have begun writing George Bush’s political obituary. While Mark Twain’s famous obituary was greatly exaggerated, Bush’s is greatly belated.

Peggy Noonan, in addition to noting “the aggression, and phony populism, of the Bush White House,” has this to say:

We’ve never seen a presidential meltdown like this. George W. Bush’s weakness is not all lame-duckship… We witness here a great political lesson. When you are president, it matters—it really matters—that a majority of the people support and respect you. When you squander that affection, you lose more than mere popularity. You lose the ability to lead when your country is in crisis….

David Brooks writes of The Decider,

…if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice. And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence…. (And) Bush…seems to compensate for (his) lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

Prescient as usual, Pat Buchanan has been documenting the death throes of the Bush presidency for years now.

As early as November 2005, Buchanan labeled the invasion of Iraq “perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in US history” and concluded,

What killed the first Bush presidency and is ruining the second is the abandonment of Reaganism and his embrace of the twin heresies of neoconservatism and Big Government Conservatism…True to the neoconservative creed, Bush launched a global crusade for democracy that is now bringing ever closer to power Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, and Shia fundamentalists in Baghdad and Basra.

Democratic imperialism is still imperialism. To Arab and Islamic peoples, whether the Crusaders come in the name of God or in the name of democracy, they are still Crusaders.

When Ronald Reagan went home to California, his heirs said, “Goodbye to all that,” and embraced Big Government conservatism, then neoconservatism. If they do not find their way home soon, to the principles of Taft, Goldwater and Reagan, they will perish in the wilderness into which they have led us all.

In February 2006, Buchanan wrote, “Americans…wonder if the man they entrusted with the nation’s security has not lost his marbles,” adding, “(Bush’s) foreign policy takes on an aspect of incoherence. Ideology is the antithesis of conservatism, Russell Kirk wrote. The tragedy of George W. Bush may be that he was converted by courtiers to the ideologies that are failing as visibly now as the discredited ideologies of yesterday: Wilsonianism and Marxism.” 

In April 2006, Buchanan called Bush an “imperial president” and noted that “There is a reason the Founding Fathers separated the power to conduct war from the power to declare it. The reason is just such a ruler as George W. Bush, a man possessed of an ideology and sense of mission that are not necessarily coterminous with what is best for his country.”

In July 2006, Buchanan declared the “End of the Cowboy Era” with this judgment:

As one reviews the ledgers of his foreign policy, Bush seems to have alienated or antagonized just about everyone on earth, with precious little to compensate us for our war losses. And if we are about to jettison his cowboy diplomacy, perhaps it is time to look again at the successful policies Bush and the neocons dismissed and deplore. For, unlike theirs, these policies never failed America.

What are they? The anti-interventionism of the Founding Fathers from Washington to Wilson, and the conservative policy of containment and deterrence pursued by Eisenhower and Reagan.

Both deserve a hearing in the politics of 2008…

In October 2006, Buchanan asked rhetorically, “Is the Bush Doctrine Dead?”, called the Axis of Evil speech “a blunder of the first magnitude,” and counselled the president, “put the bellicose bluster on the shelf. It has done less than nothing to advance America’s security.”

In March of 2007, Buchanan elaborated:

In the catechism of the Bush Revolution, liberty is indivisible. If the whole world is not free, America’s freedom is not secure, and we must thus use American power in perpetuity to liberate mankind and, as Bush declared in his Second Inaugural, “end tyranny on earth.”

No more utopian ambition has ever been declared by an American president.

In 2006, however, reality intruded.

The elections Bush championed as way stations on the road to global democracy produced, from the Mideast to Latin America, defeat after defeat. In Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, the real winners were the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas and Moqtada al-Sadr. In Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, free elections gave Hugo Chavez three new allies, and radicals almost captured Peru and Mexico. Populism, socialism and anti-Americanism are surging in Latin America.

In August of 2007, Buchanan opined that “(Bush) embraced the interventionism of Wilson, the free-trade globalism of FDR, the open-borders immigration ideas of LBJ and the budget priorities of the Great Society. It was a bridge too far for the party base. The Republican Party needs a new architect. The firm of Bush & Rove was not up to the job.”

In October 2007, Buchanan wrote that “one may conclude then that America is not only rejecting Bush the man and his record, but the philosophy behind both” and offered a litany of Bush’s failures:

Interventionism gave us Iraq, the worst strategic blunder in U.S. history. Big Government conservatism wiped out the surplus, fattened the federal bureaucracy and enlarged its share of GDP, and destroyed the Republican reputation as America’s bastion of fiscal prudence.

The Bush immigration philosophy was repudiated by Middle America, which rose in righteous wrath against his amnesty plan and demanded he enforce the law and secure the border. Americans are unreconciled to the idea that the America they grew up in will be morphed into some mammoth multicultural Mall of Mankind.

Now, the returns have come in from the Bush policy of free-trade globalism…. Since 2002, America has run five consecutive world record trade deficits. Three million manufacturing jobs have disappeared. The euro has almost doubled in value against the dollar. The Canadian dollar has reached parity. Plants have been shutting down across this country for years. The wages of Middle Americans have stagnated. The trade deficit with China last year reached $233 billion, a world record between any two nations.

In November 2008, Buchanan wrote “Ideology Was Bush’s Undoing”:

If there is a one root cause to the Bush failures, it has been his fatal embrace of ideology.

Ideology is substitute religion, a belief system based on ideas that are often contradicted by history and common sense. Yet men will adhere to ideologies with a zealotry that borders on fanaticism.

Marxism, fascism and socialism were are ideologies, gods that failed. So, too, is democratism, the Gospel of George W. Bush.

In March of this year, Buchanan offered this stinging rebuke: “On reading George Bush’s discourse to the New York Economic Club last week, Cicero’s insight came to mind: “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.” And he elaborated with this:

In smearing as nativists, protectionists and isolationists those who wish to stop the invasion (of illegal immigrants), halt the export of factories and jobs to Asia, and stop the unnecessary wars, Bush is attacking the last true conservatives in his party.

Which is understandable. For after the judges and tax cuts, what is there about Bush that is conservative? His foreign policy is Wilsonian. His trade policy is pure FDR. His spending is LBJ all the way. His amnesty for illegals is Teddy Kennedy’s policy.

Two-thirds of the nation says we are on the wrong course. Two-thirds rejects NAFTA and amnesty. Two-thirds wants out of Iraq. Two-thirds rejects Bush. Bush says that people are being misled by those wicked old isolationists, protectionists and nativists.

In May of this year, Buchanan gave us this litany:

Looking back on the years since 9-11, it is hard to give the Bush foreign policy passing grades. We pushed NATO eastward and alienated Russia. We have 140,000 Army and Marine Corps troops tied down in Iraq in a war now in its sixth year, from which our NATO allies have all extricated themselves. We have another war going in Afghanistan, where the situation is as grave as it has been since we went in.

The Bush democracy crusade was put on the shelf after producing election triumphs for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And the Bush Doctrine of preventive war, after Iraq, appears to be headed there, as well.
 
America remains the first economic and military power on earth. But after seven years of Bush, we no longer inspire the awe or hopes we once did. We are no longer the world hegemonic power of the neocons’ depiction. And the reason is that Bush embraced their utopian ideology of democratic empire and listened to their siren’s call to be the Churchill of his age.
 
Of Bush, it may be said he was a far better politician and candidate than his father, but as a statesman and world leader, he could not carry the old man’s loafers.

For nearly three years, Pat Buchanan has been dead right about the Bush presidency. Like Cassandra’s, his foresight has been ignored even as its validity has unfolded so clearly.

To those who have demonized Buchanan over the years, and to those who have come somewhat late to the same conclusions as he has, three words:

Listen, and learn.

Newsprism

Palin Beats the Spread in Veep Debate, but Is She Qualified?

Sarah Palin didn’t compare herself to JFK in Thusday night’s vice presidential debate (transcript), and she didn’t speak in tongues. While it would be difficult for any objective observer to claim she won, the fact that she didn’t get blown away by Joe Biden will be interpreted as a sort of moral victory by the right.

David Brooks and Peggy Noonan both damn her with faint praise, focusing on style with only passing references to substance. Brooks notes that “On matters of substance, her main accomplishment was to completely sever ties to the Bush administration…. Palin could not match Biden when it came to policy detail, but she never obviously floundered.” And Noonan writes, “She is not a person of thought but of action…. There were moments when she seemed to be doing an infomercial pitch for charm in politics. But it was an effective infomercial.”

After being sheltered from scrutiny for weeks, and after having expectations lowered to pitiful levels, all Palin had to do was avoid the glaring gaffe to seem vice presidential.

She didn’t win, but she beat the spread.

The problem, though, is that it’s becoming more and more clear that Palin is not qualified to be president. The holes in her knowledge of both foreign and domestic policy, which were exposed in the Katie Couric interview, were on display last night every time she deflected questions.

Over and over again, she resorted to canned talk-radio quality answers (Obama and Biden would “wave the white flag of surrender in Iraq”, for example) or steered away from the issue towards her strong suit, which is energy policy.

Palin misspoke when she said that troop levels in Iraq are “back to pre-surge levels,” and her answer to when nuclear weapons might be reasonably used was a non sequitor.

She also suggested, echoing Dick Cheney, that the vice presidency straddles the Legislative and Executive Branches, and that the Constitution allows for that office to take on greater powers. Biden shot that answer down by invoking Article I, which situates the office within the Executive Branch and limits the vice president’s role in the Senate to breaking tie votes. Besides, why align yourself with Cheney, whose approval rating is approaching single digits and whose furtiveness and arrogance give him all the charm of a vampire?

The only truly embarrassing moment, and one which Biden leapt on, was when Palin claimed that there’s no reason to debate the causes of global warming—we should simply concentrate on solutions. That’s like telling your doctor not to figure out what’s causing your fever—just fix it.

Then there was the frozen Dan-Quayle-in-the-headlights grin and that stubborn, Dubya-like refusal to pronounce “nuclear” correctly. (Someone who can’t or won’t pronounce the word probably doesn’t belong with his or her finger on the nu-cle-ar button.)

Palin is an impressive woman whose fiscal conservatism and heartland principles are sorely needed in DC.

But leader of the free world?

No sale.

Newsprism

Reflective Writers Offer Sage Advice to Counter Bloviating Broadcasters

Two of the best political pundits in the country—both of whom, not coincidentally, work in the print media—are offering sage advice to the left and the right today.

From Peggy Noonan, advice to the Obama campaign in wake of the Palin fiasco, including this:

Here was the central liberal mistake: They used the atom bomb just a few days in. They used it so brutally, and yet so ineptly, in a way so oblivious to the true contours of the field, that the radiation blew back over their own lines. They used it without preliminary diplomatic talks, multilateral meetings or Security Council debate. They just went boom. And it boomeranged. The atom bomb was personal and sexual perfidy, backwoods knuckle-draggin’ ma and pa saying, Tell the neighbors the baby’s ours. Then the ritual abuse of the 17-year-old girl. Then the rest of it—bad mother, religious weirdo… All of this was unacceptable to normal Americans. They experienced it as the town gossip spreading rumor and slander before the new neighbor even got to put down her bags. It offended the American sense of fairness. And—it still lives!—gallantry. Most crucially, the snobbery of it, the meanness of it, reminded the entire country, for the first time in a decade, what it is they don’t like about the left. Really, America had forgotten. Mr. Obama’s friends reminded them. Unforgettably.

From David Brooks, advice to conservatives in general, including this:

Over the past 30 years, there has been a tide of research in many fields, all underlining one old truth — that we are intensely social creatures…What emerges is not a picture of self-creating individuals gloriously free from one another, but of autonomous creatures deeply interconnected with one another….You don’t have to go back to Edmund Burke and Adam Smith (though it helps) to find conservatives who understood that people are socially embedded creatures and that government has a role (though not a dominant one) in nurturing the institutions in which they are embedded. That language of community, institutions and social fabric has been lost, and now we hear only distant echoes — when social conservatives talk about family bonds or when John McCain talks at a forum about national service. If Republicans are going to fully modernize, they’re probably going to have to follow the route the British Conservatives have already trod and project a conservatism that emphasizes society as well as individuals, security as well as freedom, a social revival and not just an economic one and the community as opposed to the state.

Both Brooks and Noonan understand that liberalism and conservatism both suffer from the “help” of shallow, arrogant, self-serving elements.

For liberals, the problem is the liberal media, where too many journalists whose main qualifications are superficial—an attractive face, a pleasing voice, the ability to exude self-righteousness and certainty—ruthlessly attack any rising conservative figure based on the flimsiest of pretenses. To this crowd, the ends justify the means: conservatism is evil, so any way of countering conservatives is justified. Keith Olbermann is the latest and most virulent example.

For conservatives, the problem is the caricature of conservatism forwarded by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, two college dropouts whose contempt for higher education speaks volumes. They and their ilk confuse individualism with a “philosophy” of self-absorption, one so depraved that even the potential human catastrophe of global climate change is nothing but a political football to be punted around for their own profit and aggrandizement. Limbaugh goes so far as to ridicule any effort at frugality in the face of the nation’s greatest threat: dependence on foreign oil.

The left is hamstrung by sanctimonious media elites who’ve lost touch with the average American; the right, by sanctimonious media populists who profit by pandering to the ignorant and reactionary.

If only the American people paid more attention to thoughtful, reflective, informed columnists like Noonan and Brooks rather than the amoral showbiz narcissists who populate cable news and talk radio.

Newsprism

Beyond Bias—Sarah Palin Rises to the Occasion as Liberal Journalists Sink to New Lows

Thirty or forty years ago, the liberal bias so pervasive in the American press was relatively mild and counterbalanced by a strong, principled minority led by the likes of William Buckley. Liberals and conservatives fought their ideological battles with honor, and at the end of the day they laid down their arms and socialized, much like the Union and Confederate soldiers who sang, drank, and played baseball together between hostilities during the Civil War.

With the growth of cable news, talk radio, and the Internet, American journalism has become increasingly adversarial. Ethical standards have plummeted. Such are the vagaries of decentralized decision making in an era marked by proliferating media and a broader erosion of civility in our culture.

If liberal bias once predominated, we’ve moved well beyond bias, even beyond contentiousness, to a journalism more akin to professional wrestling than its older iterations.

Nowhere was that more apparent than in the treatment of Sarah Palin’s daughter this week. If Rush Limbaugh’s brand of sneering Machiavellianism took political commentary beyond mere bias, a new generation of cable news anchors, radio hosts, and bloggers have descended even further into a clownish, contemptuous, contrived confrontationalism that blurs the line between journalism and (sports) entertainment.

Worse yet, even the old guard has been increasingly sucked into a downward ethical spiral. Lately, the New York Times’ Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd have peppered their columns with the kind of churlish sniping usually reserved for us amateurs in the blogosphere.

Peggy Noonan puts it like this:

The old combatants were old school gentlemen, Eric Sevareid and Walter Cronkite; the new combatants are half-crazy cable anchors, the lower lurkers of the Internet, and the anonymous posters on the comment thread on the radical website.

Crazy cable news anchor Keith Olbermann, who derides Rush Limbaugh as a “comedian” and regularly lambasts Bill O’Reilly as his “Worst Person in the World,” leads the way into perdition at MSNBC, which has been drifting to the left ever since Tucker Carlson departed and Olbermann took over in prime time. (We’ve moved it four positions to the left at Newsprism.com.) DailyKos stooped lower than anyone, suggesting that Palin’s infant son Trig was actually born to her teenaged daughter. (The post has since been removed.)

The broadcast networks, CNN, and print outlets includingThe New York Times all used Palin’s daughter as fodder in an ugly ideological barrage that Gerard Baker describes as a ”frenzied orgy of chauvinist condescension and gutter-crawling journalistic intrusion…” The degree of defensiveness displayed by news executives in response to Republican protests at least suggests a sense of guilt, if not shame.

Conservatives shouldn’t be too quick to judge, either. Sean Hannity consistently lives up to the label once applied by Bill Moyers: “vile.” WorldNetDaily makes Hannity look classy, running unfounded accusations that Obama had gay sex and did methamphetamines. Then there’s FoxNews, which has inexplicably returned Geraldo Rivera to mainstream journalism. (Who’s next—Jerry Springer? If he can draw an audience, why not?)

Sarah Palin handled the attacks on her family brilliantly. She fired back at the liberal media with both force and good humor, and with her traditional principles and small town authenticity, she rejuvenated a conservative movement that has been floundering on K Street. As David Brooks writes, “(Palin) embodies the spirit of the moment: impatient, fed up, tough-minded, but ironical. Even in attack, she projected the cheerfulness of someone confident about the future.” Sounds like Ronald Reagan to me.

Pat Buchanan adds, “The war the right lives for, against the people the right truly loathes — the liberal media elite who savagely ‘Bork’ every true conservative who gets on the path to national power — has been reignited.” A double win: the base is energized with optimism while its most powerful enemy takes a firm public spanking.

Even the Mafia has a hands-off policy when it comes to family; many a journalist could take a lesson in ethics from La Cosa Nostra.

Newsprism

Never Mind the 50 Most Influential Pundits—Here Are 10 of the Best

After the success of its “Top 100 Liberals” and “Top 100 Conservatives,” the UK’s Telegraph has now unveiled its “Top 50 Political Pundits.” All three lists have had many in the media buzzing (like flies around a fresh, steaming cow patty.)

Before you check the lists out, a warning: they’re broken down into mini-lists of 10 or 20, so that to peruse them all, you’ll wind up clicking on 17 separate web pages—a cynical ploy aimed at maximizing the Telegraph’s web traffic to drive up advertising rates.

So never mind the Telegraph’s gimmicky lists, which confuse popularity with influence. Influence is a poor measure in the first place, especially when the news media have become more oriented towards entertainment than analysis. By what criteria are comics like Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh, or a superficial confrontationalist like Hack Hannity, or Glenn Beck, considered alongside the best journalists and political pundits of our time?

For what it’s worth, here are Newsprism’s Ten of the Best Political Pundits in America, all on the same page and commercialism free:

10. Michael Kinsley—while he occasionally veers off into liberal la-la land, Kinsley is thoughtful, lucid, and incisive. He’s the most reasonable voice from the far left, idealistic yet practical in a Pat Moynihan sort of way.

9. Charles Krauthammer—a solid bedrock conservative with unmatched acumen in foreign policy, Krauthammer’s analysis of the Middle East is spot-on. He’s as hard-nosed as Bush is hard-headed, staunchly nationalistic without succombing to the naive idealism of the neocons.

8.  Christopher Hitchens—an exceptional writer, Hitchens is also stubbornly independent. He defies categorization in an era marked by polarization; he’s loyal only to his own judgment, never taking sides or pulling his punches, lefts or rights.

7. Dick Morris—he’s as sleazy as the Clintons, and as brilliant, a Karl Rove without the charm (or loyalty.) His cynicism is matched by his insightfulness. A mean streak and his hatred for his former employers make him fun to follow.

6. David Brooks—while the market rewards extremism, especially on the right, Brooks is a moderate conservative devoted to what’s best for the country rather than winning an argument. Brooks is highly intelligent and knowledgeable, and his columns range across critical social and political issues.

5. Frank Rich—a writer on par with Hitchens, Rich anchors the New York Times opinion pages and has the ear of journalists left and right. His background as a critic of culture adds depth and dimension to his political analysis.

4. Karl Rove—the man got George Bush elected. Twice. George Bush. He’s been demonized by the left and stained by his association with the policies of his most famous client, but Rove understands American politics as well as anyone. He’s been outthinking the pack for nearly thirty years.

3. Peggy Noonan—both the woman and her writing are graceful and wise. Never pretentious, she has a way of making profound points effortlessly. Her wit is elegant, simple but never simplistic. Noonan may seem as soft as a feather, but that feather cuts like a scalpel. Her criticisms of George Bush, for example, go right to the heart of a presidency with no moral or philosophical foundation.

2. Pat Buchanan—with the best grasp of history in the business, Buchanan puts contemporary issues into a sweeping historical context. His perspective spans the breadth of Western civilization in an era whose memory barely reaches beyond the 24-hour news cycle. To “get” Buchanan, you should read his books and columns; his appearances on MSNBC don’t do him justice.

1. George Will—nobody connects the dots like Will. His commentary reflects attention to the highest principles while at the same time being grounded firmly in contemporary American culture and history. Will compares favorably with William F. Buckley and Walter Lippmann. His wit isn’t dry, it’s arid, a droll sarcasm befitting his bemusement at our increasingly uncivil society. A collection of his columns like The Leveling Wind transcends punditry; he’s a philosopher who happens to write columns.

Newsprism