The Unparalled Snark Of David Weigel

To ease myself back into blogging, let's look at a comedy piece by that sly wit David Weigel, who does a dead-pan mocking of Dinesh D'Souza's fuckumentary 2016: Obama’s America.

Twenty minutes into a new conservative documentary about Barack Obama, there’s a moment that’ll break a birther’s heart. Dinesh D’Souza, the star and narrator of 2016: Obama’s America, is telling the brief, encyclopedia-entry version of the president’s life. The camera zooms over a map like one of the travel scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark—Kenya, Indonesia, Hawaii.

“On August 4, 1961,” says D’Souza, “Barack Obama II is born in the Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu. His birth is recorded in two local newspapers.”

When I hear that line, my head instinctively swivels to my right, where WorldNetDaily Editor-in-Chief Joseph Farah is sitting. His website has run hundreds of stories about Barack Obama’s citizenship and birth documents. WND books published Where’s the Birth Certificate?, which unfortunately was published right after the president released the long-form version of the record. You can still buy “Where’s the REAL Birth Certificate?” merch at the WND store. And now here’s a movie with a $2.5 million budget that’s made more than $80,000 in a four-theater run that tosses all the birther theories aside. 

Farah abides. He doesn’t walk out.

He's quite the brave little toaster. Or he's a cynical exploiter who plays on spite and racism to con his marks out of "donations." It may seem that Weigel is giving Farah his due, even comparing him to the unflappable Dude that Abides, but sarcasm is an elusive thing.

The movie is really too good to get pedantic about.

See? That actually seems sincere, which it cannot be. Now, watch this set up:

There are no conspiracy theories about Obama’s birth, religion, Social Security number, passport, or college transcript. Instead, there is a deep dive into Barack Obama’s known Communist associates, his late father’s avowed socialism, and his mother’s radicalism.

Ha! Weigel is saying that D'Souza's rejection of a conspiracy theory is proof that D'Souza's conspiracy theory is right. He's so funny.

The first and last stories are backed up with quotes from Dreams From My Father. “That’s Dinesh,” says co-producer Doug Sain. “He walks on solid ground.”

Let’s go with “mostly solid.” D’Souza’s documentary is based largely on his book The Roots of Obama’s Rage, which itself grew out of D’Souza’s Forbes cover story, one of the most influential of the decade. Obama, according to D’Souza, was an anti-colonialist. “He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder,” wrote D’Souza. “Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America.” Newt Gingrich recommended the theory to reporters—technically speaking, to Robert Costa and me. David Koch repeated it to a sympathetic Matthew Continetti.

The theory was Swiss-cheesed with logic holes. D’Souza found great significance in how Obama “demonizes his predecessor and his opponent,” as if only anti-colonialists did this. D’Souza insisted that Obama using the Gulf oil spill crisis to call BP “British Petroleum” is Anglophobia, revealed! But Obama didn’t call BP “British Petroleum.”

Yes, Mr. Weigel,  D'Souza sure does sound illogical. D'Souza's theory is that Obama hates America, more or less. D'Souza takes every politically-motivated critical utterance as proof and, McArdle-like, ignores any evidence that directly disproves his theory. For instance, D'Souza declares in Forbes that Obama does not not believe in American exceptionalism, when Obama has said the exact opposite. Here is the question and answer from the press conference:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. In the context of all the multilateral activity that's been going on this week -- the G20, here at NATO -- and your evident enthusiasm for multilateral frameworks, to work through multilateral frameworks, could I ask you whether you subscribe, as many of your predecessors have, to the school of American exceptionalism that sees America as uniquely qualified to lead the world, or do you have a slightly different philosophy? And if so, would you be able to elaborate on it?  

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I'm enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think about the site of this summit and what it means, I don't think America should be embarrassed to see evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in crafting an Alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe. We should take great pride in that.  

And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.  

Now, the fact that I am very proud of my country and I think that we've got a whole lot to offer the world does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that we're not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise and that includes us.  

And so I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can't solve these problems alone.

Obviously D'Souza is so ridiculously (and renumeratively)  biased that he chooses to ignore the truth, twisting it into a self-serving (and profitable) lie. Weigel is not a babe in the woods; he has undoubtedly heard of that press conference, if he has not read it himself--which he probably has. He is being sarcastic by appearing to agree with D'Souza. He certainly is not so stupid and self-deluded that he believes D'Souza's easily disproved lies.

None of this makes it into 2016. We’re taught the controversy, with a montage of D’Souza defending his thesis in front of hostile interviewers.

See?

(There’s a sort of George Romero irony to these scenes, as D’Souza is filleted on shows like Countdown and Parker/Spitzer. They’re gone. He’s still here.)

Here Weigel appears to sympathize with poor, abused D'Souza, to thow those righties off the track. Hehehe, Weigel mutters under his breath. That'll fool them.

We’re shown just how deeply D’Souza researched this—shot of him thumbing through Dreams before boarding an Indonesian scooter, learning to hula in Hawaii, delivering three goats to buy an interview with Obama’s paternal grandmother Sarah. She turns him down. There is no Michael Moore-style waiting in the weeds to ambush a source.

Hahaha! Can't you just picture D'Souza putting on a fedora and assuming a Harrison Ford-ish expression as he pretends to scour Obama's bio for the accidentally revealed truth, earnestly running his finger over the text line by line, so as to not miss one misstep? And I might actually watch the movie if I get to see D'Souza hop around in an attempt to understand how the hula undermines Americanism and riding a scooter makes you a commie. I''d also like to see D'Souza tell Sarah Palin that growing up off the mainland makes you less American.

And I suspect Grandma Sarah thought D'Souza was offering marriage in exchange for goats, took one look at the gentleman in question, gently let him down by telling him to come back with more goats, and slipped out the back before he returned.




Indian Jones III

But there’s plenty of the Moore style. D’Souza is sold to us as a smart, patriotic innocent abroad, who just wants to piece a mystery together. Almost every clue fits the puzzle. An old associate of Obama Sr. says the son and the father are basically the same.

Stop it, Dave! It's too funny.

(Dad dreamed of 100 percent taxation; Junior dreams of a top marginal rate of 39.6 percent.)

Oh, no! Don't tell D'Souza about Nixon's 70% top marginal rate! He'll have a stroke!

D’Souza asks one of Ann Dunham’s professors if Obama’s mother had taught the son to idolize his father. “I hadn’t thought of that!” she says. “I think you’re right.”

I know just as much about Stanley Ann Dunham's relationship with Obama's father as the professor (nothing) yet I find her epiphany a little unconvincing. Weigel's a sly fox, isn't he?

D’Souza walks the grounds of Obama’s high school, where they teach “oppression studies, if you will.”

They also require students to attend chapel once a week, which must mean, by D'Souza logic, that they are all atheists.

You don’t travel that far without scoring some points. D’Souza gives considerable screen time to Paul Kengor, a (recent) scholar of Obama’s teenage mentor Frank Marshall Davis. Kengor’s bang-on right: Davis was an avowed Communist, and the media of 2008 didn’t care.  

Still, the Davis story is complicated. Becoming a Soviet dupe, as Davis did, meant something for midcentury African-Americans that it doesn’t mean today. Obama never pretended not to know Davis, or pretended that he was some Rockefeller Republican, or turned him into a composite character. He appears in Dreams as “Frank,” a “dashiki-wearing” friend talking “black power.” This is a movie, sure, and you can’t lard it up with every little detail, but D’Souza’s question-begging and omissions lead him to oversell what he’s got.

Weigel lists more of D'Souza's claims, stating that most of them (actually, all of them over here in Realityville) are wrong. This, Weigel says, proves D'Souza's good faith. Heh! And I thought I was good at sarcasm.

Give D’Souza some credit: He lets the audience see when he’s caught up short. There’s none of that teeth-grinding, aren’t-I-smart-didn’t-I-getcha interviewing that you catch in a doc like Inside Job.

Bravo, Dave! That is a pitch-perfect imitation of right-wing petulence when faced with liberal-biased reality.

D’Souza’s biggest journalistic coup is an interview with George Hussein Obama, one of the president’s Kenyan cousins, momentarily famous in 2008 when it was revealed that he lived in poverty. The Other Obama, it turns out, thinks that colonialists should have stayed in Kenya longer than they did.

Now, there's damning with faint praise. The "biggest coup" is a cousin who seems to favor financial redistribution, as long as he is the recipient.

“Do you really believe that?” asks D’Souza. “It’s true,” says George Obama. “They would have developed us. Instead, we were fighting over nothing!”

I think I found McArdle's bus rider.

Alas, D’Souza wants George Obama to be angry over how his famous cousin has treated him.  

He hasn’t been his brother’s keeper, has he?  

“Go ask him,” says George Obama. “He’s got other issues to deal with.”  

“He’s too busy helping the world?” asked D’Souza.  

“Yeah,” says the cousin, not really interested in badmouthing the president. “He’s taking care of me. I’m part of the world.”  

That’s it for cousin George. On to a re-enactment of the young Obama kneeling and bawling in front of his father’s grave. If you’re serious about re-arranging facts, hire a few actors.

Kudos to Mr. Weigel for appearing to support Mr. D'Souza while exposing the latter's bad faith, ineffectiveness, and just plain stupidity. I couldn't have done it any better myself. What could be more ridiculous than supporting the viewpoint of a person whom you have just proven wrong?

The Traditional Family

The Biblical definition of the family unit:

A man, his wives, his concubines, and his female slaves.

Accidental Vacation--Not Dead Yet

I did not mean to be gone so long; I had a lot of work to catch up on but, oddly, once I was caught up I became accustomed to getting work done and did not want to stop to blog. But all work and no play makes a frustrated blogger so I will try to do both.

I hear there were random shootings and Syrian violence, spending is slowing, and the boys are once again deciding if the girls belong in their club or not. So nothing has changed!

A Tiny Note On An Old Friend

It would be a crying shame to ignore Megan McArdle's reaction to the successful upholding of her bete noir, "Obamacare." Since her new little blog is up and running, let's take a peek.

McArdle states that the ruling didn't make much sense and didn't matter much anyway. Life goes on, tra la la. Her attitude is very different from her earlier views, in which Obamacare meant the death of millions and the end of the nation as we know it.

I'm not super surprised that they voted to uphold--though I suspect that Justice Roberts has ducked outrage from liberals only to now get just as much outrage from his own side. This is the political environment we now live in. The age when liberal academics could comfortably expect to see their dominance of the academy translate into a broad progressive consensus on the court are over. We'll be battling over the composition of the court for a long time—and if a liberal or conservative justice is forced to retire while the other party holds the presidency, I expect to see things get vicious indeed.

In McArdleland, the Supreme Court does not reliably side with corporations; it is progressive and, for some reason that McArdle does not share with the little people, a liberal academia directly leads to a liberal Supreme Court. McArdle is still bitter that academia cannot entirely be overtaken by conservatives and provide her friends and family with (magically lucrative) jobs. But she does find a silver lining in the Obamanation.

Some people, maybe including me, will be helped by the bill. Even if you think that this bill will, on net, make more people worse off, you should still be glad for the people who are being helped.

Odd. McArdle told us earlier that she wanted Obamacare gone even if she would suffer for it, as she has a pre-existing condition. Her job change (and therefore health insurance change) must have made her reconsider her earlier position. It's amazing how reality can turn a frown upside down. Other conservatives might disagree. They think people like McArdle should simply suffer and die if she can't buy insurance. True, Mr. Cowen was just thinking about the poor, not about a real person who actually counts like McArdle, but the general principle still holds--some die so the rich can be richer.

McArdle, however, chooses to make lemons into lemonade. McArdle now thinks the conservatives can crow about Obama's "tax increase" because evidently it never occurred to conservatives to claim that liberals want to raise taxes. My goodness, liberals sure will be sorry that they dangled that bait before conservatives. Republicans might not have thought of it otherwise.

The Lesser Of Two Evils

Authoritarians often do not realize that they make decisions based on the deeply-ingrained impulse to obey authority. These people do not say that there is an approved way and someone's else way and they choose the approved way. They say to themselves that there is only one way and it's foolish and wrong to refuse to follow it. There are always multiple options in any scenario although some of those options are desperate and final.
It is our responsibility, our duty, and in our self-interest to criticize the people to whom we have handed over our power/vote. We chose them, supported them, funded them, obeyed them. We are personally responsible for their actions.  They represent us and everything they do reflects on us. It is delusional to expect others to give us a pass for the actions of our leaders. We certainly don't do the same for them.

If our president, the leader of our nation and in this case the leader of our political party, kills foreigners with drones we will be held responsible. We will suffer the consequences of those actions, just as we hold Republicans responsible for voting for George W. Bush. They chose him because they wanted to be winners and Bush promised them that they would be able to use that power to grab more money, force the poor and minorities to show them more respect and obedience, and kill foreigners at will. Liberals chose Barack Obama and they do not just have ownership of some gay rights and health insurance reform, they have ownership of a lot more. From Jimmy Carter's op-ed, via Glenn Greenwald, we are also personally responsible for:

"top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens"

"our government’s counterterrorism policies are now clearly violating at least 10 of the [Declaration on Human Rights'] 30 articles, including the prohibition against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”

"Recent legislation has made legal the president’s right to detain a person indefinitely on suspicion of affiliation with terrorist organizations or “associated forces”

"recent laws have canceled the restraints in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to allow unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications"

"drone attacks has turned aggrieved families toward terrorist organizations, aroused civilian populations against us and permitted repressive governments to cite such actions to justify their own despotic behavior"

And, via John Cole, Matt Stoller also points out our responsibility.

This alternative narrative is a hard truth to hear, because it carries with it an implicit rejection of American exceptionalism. Yes, American institutions are no better, and in many ways are more malignant, than those of many other countries. Yes, our political leaders, our press, our military leadership, operate in service to sociopathic aims. Yes, our freedoms are often an illusion, unless you fit a very narrow criteria. Yes, our banks are run to rob us, yes, our CIA spies on us, and yes, our government is fundamentally anti-democratic. Yes, our President is a con artist, and yes, nearly every reporter who writes about him participates in this set of lies, because of careerism, social financial reasons, or a simple lack of competence or imagination.

But, the idea that the king is always good, which is where the hope and change narrative draws its deep strength, is something we do not have to accept. We as people can break this spell, and speak to our own dignity, as citizens. We can learn our own power, if in no other manner than in saying at the voting booth and in public, “I do not accept your lies, and though you might take it by force, I will not grant you my consent willingly.” We can choose not to address our political officials by their titles. We can work to organize ourselves, and our lives, with those of us who understand that power is something that must be taken, with money, organization, but most of all, with moral courage. It is not something that politicians have except through our consent, consent we have been giving for decades, to a rotten political class. This is what they truly fear. This is why they spend tens of billions on propaganda, on advertising, on symbols and personalities and celebrity. This is why they hide the workings of our government and banks and institutions of power in the language of boring bureaucrat-ese. This is ultimately why they are weak. Because in order for them to do their work quietly, we must go about our day, and believe either the hope and change narrative, or the Kenyan socialist narrative, scoffing at the opposing “team” who thinks what we do not. Instead, we can choose an alternative narrative, that power and consent come from us, come from the choices that we make, as people, and as citizens. And we will no longer believe that Barack Obama, that cool, brilliant, self-aware con artist is anything but what he has revealed himself to be. (my bold)

Power is terrifying because it comes with responsibility. All we have to do to avoid this responsibility is refuse to use our power. The concept of power and responsibility seem very vague and far away. Most people are only concerned with their immediate world, the actions that directly affect them. But when you give away your power you can't keep the part you need and give away the part you don't need. You have given all of it away and it's no longer there when you need it. So you simply say that you don't need it. Obama's cool. He's got it. Let him handle it. Trust him to do his job. And then you go back to your daily life, and people die from bombs and joblessness is ignored and banks grow richer while we grow poorer. I am reading the same economic warnings that I read in 2008. It is terrifying. Which is worse--lose an election or lose a nation?

Mr. Cole and many of his commenters were very displeased by Stoller's words. Stoller was immensely insulting and disrespectful of their authority. They believe that Obama is better than Romney, which is undeniably true but short-sighted. They only look at what they might gain and ignore what they might lose. They do not weigh the long-term consequences against the short-term consequences or exercise their power for their own personal gain. They work only for the personal gain of their authority, a defining characteristic of authoritarianism.

If we will not be more moral or wise, let us be more greedy. We trade economic gains for social gains but money is power, and if we don't trade votes for jobs we will continue to be utterly powerless and dependent on the charity of our elected officials, who will only reverse their assault on our civil rights when they need our votes.

And yet, how do you tell people that their authority thinks they are chumps when they were raised to respect and obey authority? Tell them their parents were selfish, foolish and cruel to teach them to obey? For most people the idea is an absurd and evil accusation. They do not believe it; they cannot admit that people we love can harm us, even if that harm was done unwittingly and with the best intentions. We love our parents so much that we can't bear to admit that they forced us to mistrust our own judgement, underminded our self-confidence and self-esteem, and left us looking for someone to obey for the rest of our lives. We might be willing to die rather than admit it.

We certainly would rather let strangers die than admit it.

Evolution In Twitter

I miss Megan McArdle. Nobody can backpedal from embarrassing herself in public due to ignorance as fast as she can. From Twitter:

Megan McArdle‏@asymmetricinfo I sometimes get a feeling that solid majority of Americans who aren't creationists believe in Lamarckian evolution or ID by some other name  

Dom Narducci‏@dnathe4th @asymmetricinfo I'll take Lamarckian over ID any day. At least soft-inheritance can be debated against Darwinism, without a "just because".  

Megan McArdle‏@asymmetricinfo @dnathe4th I'm talking about what you might call "Gaian ID"--concept that animals/ecosystems evolve in some direction for benevolent purpose  

Dom Narducci‏ @asymmetricinfo Oh ... I thought Lamarckian was the concept that organisms can pick up traits to pass on during their lifetime?  

Megan McArdle‏@asymmetricinfo @dnathe4th Yes, it is. I hear both--a lot of people read evolution in strange ways, including those who think creationists are crazy.

When is Lamarkianism not Lamarkianism? When Megan McArdle says so.

But at least McArdle isn't one of those silly liberals! They think creationists are crazy to believe in ID but they believe crazy things too! Sadly, McArdle does not let us know who actually believes in "Gaia ID" but they must be out there somewhere because McArdle says she heard them say it. And we all know that people frequently tell McArdle things that supports her negative image of liberals. And "urban" people. And teachers.

McArdle didn't learn much science at school but she did learn how to cover her ass. And it wouldn't be a McArdle whoopsie without some friend trying to help with the ass-covering.

Timothy P Carney‏@TPCarney @asymmetricinfo you are correct. First time I was called a creationist was b/c I denied creatures could "evolve" on demand.

Link Bait

Does The Atlantic think all women are scum? Instead of hiring a female economist it hired Megan McArdle, as if to prove the cliche that women can't do math. It paid that harpy Sandra Lo, who wrote about her messy and selfish personal life and now it has Elizabeth Wertzel, who seems to think that feminists must be narcissists to earn the title. (No links for them.)

Using unpleasant women who humiliate themselves in print as link bait might please the accountants and The Atlantic's  conservative readers but it doesn't improve the already damaged reputation of the magazine.

Dead Horse, Dead Rider

Son, get off your knees. --Steve Gilliard

David Brooks' column, in which he scold the peasants for lack of reverence for the divine right of kings, has been beaten to a pulp but try as I might, I can't ignore a plea for greater authoritarianism.

Brooks began by lamenting that the nation no longer builds monuments to the glory of America's greatness.

Why can’t today’s memorial designers think straight about just authority?

Authoritarianism is the straight, the right  way, and Brooks does not understand why everyone else isn't falling into line, as God and nature intended. Dividing authority between just and injust is merely a transparent attempt at deflection; for authoritarians, all authority is just and, as we will see, Brooks thinks people who protest injustice are just whiners.

Obedient, subservient people are frightened by the thought of disobedience. It threatens the basis for their entire worldview. There is a hierarchy and everyone has his place on that hierarchy. The hierarchy was given to us by God and instilled in us by our parents, to whom we owe absolute obedience as well. If we do not obey our parents/gods will be angry with us. Anti-authoritarianism offers uncertainty, poverty and isolation. Authoritarianism offers security, the promise of money at some time in the future, and the consolation and pleasure of belonging to the (weak, obedient) tribe. And, much more practically, if offers money. Otherwise Brooks would not be crouching under the rich man's table, mouth wide open and watery eyes expectant, to catch any crumbs that happen to fall. Obedient--nay, Godly--people are rewarded for their loyalty.

It is perfectly obvious who has money and therefore the authority and who does not. The left has no money at all compared to the corporate right. Exxon funded Reason, not Greenpeace. The Koches fund libertarians, not liberals. America is not just conservative because it is authoritarian, it is conservative because conservatives promise to "leave more money in your pocket." Conservatives must have a carrot as well as a stick, after all.

Some of the reasons are well-known. We live in a culture that finds it easier to assign moral status to victims of power than to those who wield power. Most of the stories we tell ourselves are about victims who have endured oppression, racism and cruelty.

We live in a culture that worships power and thinks it natural to kill anyone who displeases us. Brookes's tribe, who also live on their knees, tell themselves that they are victims of the powerless because they are afraid to admit they are the victims of their authority and because they want to continue exerting authority over anyone with less power than them. After using others to feel powerful, keeping slaves "for their own good," controlling women "to keep them safe," abusing children to force them to learn fear and automatic obedience, authoritarians claim they are the victims in an attempt to deflect attention and alleviate guilt and responsibility.

Then there is our fervent devotion to equality, to the notion that all people are equal and deserve equal recognition and respect. It’s hard in this frame of mind to define and celebrate greatness, to hold up others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves.

This is the money quote, the reason David Brooks lives in a multi-million dollar house and you don't. He can state with a straight face that not everyone deserves respect, not everyone is equal. Some are "immeasurably superior to ourselves." The lickspittle must lick spit.

But the main problem is our inability to think properly about how power should be used to bind and build. Legitimate power is built on a series of paradoxes: that leaders have to wield power while knowing they are corrupted by it; that great leaders are superior to their followers while also being of them; that the higher they rise, the more they feel like instruments in larger designs. The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials are about how to navigate those paradoxes.

We have a choice, to either give away all our power to one man or small group of men, or to share power amongst our fellow man. Shared power is less corruptible. It forces us to acknowledge that we are only as good as our actions. To wield power is to wield force, and force always crushes those under its power. Why not? The little people owe their betters obedience, right? Who are they to question the powerful?

These days many Americans seem incapable of thinking about these paradoxes. Those “Question Authority” bumper stickers no longer symbolize an attempt to distinguish just and unjust authority. They symbolize an attitude of opposing authority.

God forbid. Literally.

There is no just and unjust authority. There is power, and either we let the rich have it all or we demand our equal share.

The old adversary culture of the intellectuals has turned into a mass adversarial cynicism. The common assumption is that elites are always hiding something. Public servants are in it for themselves.

Who has the money now and who doesn't? We don't have to theorize, we just have to look at the massive transfer of wealth that just happened.

Those people at the top are nowhere near as smart or as wonderful as pure and all-knowing Me.

How dare you, in your arrogance, think you are as good as your authority? Authoritarians love this approach because they think liberals are afraid to seem arrogant.

Has there ever been such a naked appeal to authority? (K-Lo excepted, of course.) David Brooks is now "Knees" Brooks, because he is always on them, the better to abase himself before his betters. Grovel, little man!

You end up with movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Parties that try to dispense with authority altogether. They reject hierarchies and leaders because they don’t believe in the concepts. The whole world should be like the Internet — a disbursed semianarchy in which authority is suspect and each individual is king.

Grind those $500 trousers into the dirt as you wiggle your tail!

Maybe before we can build great monuments to leaders we have to relearn the art of following. Democratic followership is also built on a series of paradoxes: that we are all created equal but that we also elevate those who are extraordinary; that we choose our leaders but also have to defer to them and trust their discretion; that we’re proud individuals but only really thrive as a group, organized and led by just authority.

Sadly this is more true than not; many liberals think that we do owe our leaders our trust. We do not owe our president anything. He is our public servant, we are not his.

I don’t know if America has a leadership problem; it certainly has a followership problem. Vast majorities of Americans don’t trust their institutions. That’s not mostly because our institutions perform much worse than they did in 1925 and 1955, when they were widely trusted. It’s mostly because more people are cynical and like to pretend that they are better than everything else around them. Vanity has more to do with rising distrust than anything else.

What could be more cynical than accusing someone of vanity when he is only trying to protect his own rights? Might we have had a reason for becoming more cynical? I watched Watergate updates in between episodes of Josie and the Pussycats and Scooby Doo as a kid. It takes willful blindness to retain worship of authority under those conditions.

I also learned to mistrust anyone named Old Man Withers, but that is another story.

In his memoir, “At Ease,” Eisenhower delivered the following advice: “Always try to associate yourself with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you do, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you.” Ike slowly mastered the art of leadership by becoming a superb apprentice.

How much is David Brooks learning from his position on the ground? What should we be studying--how to run unsuccessful wars? Destroy the economy and the middle class? Shove more people into poverty and dependence? And then demand admiration, respect and obedience?

To have good leaders you have to have good followers — able to recognize just authority, admire it, be grateful for it and emulate it. Those skills are required for good monument building, too.

To bad they are not the skills needed to have a good country.

David Brooks' sycophancy is sickening and he deserve every bit of the scorn that has been heaped on him for this column. If he wants to make a living by bowing and scraping before his betters that's his right but all he is doing is humiliating himself.

Goodbye To You

Press play to hear this article's soundtrack.

It is with deep, deep, ever-so-deep sadness that we at the Snark note the passing of Megan McArdle from the pages of The Atlantic (online!) It seems that she and her beloved magazine have parted ways and now McArdle must bid adieu to her cushy, prestigious little Watergate office. But as McArdle told us when she bought her darling Victorian row house, she has confidence that she can always find a new job in DC, and lo and behold, McArdle was snapped up at once by Tina Brown.

This is a bittersweet post for me to write. I've missed you all terribly while on leave, and in the interim, Newsweek has come to me and made me an offer I couldn't refuse to move there.

Ah, proof positive that McArdle was not fired, as some ungenerous people might think. True, McArdle went on book leave right after lying about her Koch conflict of interest but since The Atlantic never cared about that before it could not have fired her for such unprofessional conduct. Now we know that McArdle quit to write for The Daily Beast and Newsweek instead. They must have offered her a great deal of money; while Newsweek has a bigger audience, The Atlantic featured McArdle prominently as its only female Voice. Anyone trying to find McArdle amidst the clamoring clutter of The Daily Beast will need a search engine and a microscope.

Some might quibble at the disloyalty McArdle has displayed after all The Atlantic has done for her by taking a chance on a little-known blogger and financing her book leave. Thanks to The Atlantic McArdle was also a shining star at the Aspen Ideas for Big Brained Thinkers festivals and followed those triumphs with speaking engagements and fellowships provided by allies of David G. Bradley. But, thanks to McArdle, we all know that the most important thing in the world is money and we also know that where money goes, Megan McArdle follows.

I'll still be on leave for a few more months while I finish up the project I've been working on, and then at the end of the summer, I'll start blogging and writing for Newsweek/Daily Beast.

Yes, Megan McArdle, once the Senior Editor for economics at The Atlantic, will now be one of the fine stable of bloggers at The Daily Beast and a "correspondent" for Newsweek. Evidently her first assignment has something to do with McArdle's specialty, failure. Wikipedia tells us:

The back page is reserved for a "My Favorite Mistake" column written by celebrity guest columnists about a mistake they made that defines who they are.[25]

Since McArdle recently tweeted requests for her devoted followers to fill out a survey on their favorite mistake, McArdle must be working on that or a similar column; we look forwards to many posts and articles explaining how wonderfully failure has worked out for, well, certain people.

[yap yap yap]  

I'm very excited about the opportunity to work in a newsroom led by Tina Brown, whose turnarounds of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker are legendary. But it is not without regret--the inevitable regret that tradeoffs are necessary and I cannot take the job at Newsweek/Daily Beast without leaving so much behind at The Atlantic. In my five years here, we've gone from a magazine that was fantastic, but losing money by the bucketful to one that was still fantastic, but also profitable. That happened in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, an achievement which still boggles the mind. We've built a web presence, and a web brand, that few organizations can match. And it's been immense fun. Working for The Atlantic has been more than I ever dreamed it would be. I'll forever be immensely grateful to everyone who was here during my time--including my readers and my commenters, who are the ultimate reason that I get to spend my days reading and writing about stuff that interests me.

Those readers and commenters variously informed McArdle that they wished her the best and that most of them would continue reading her column at The Daily Beast, if they could find it. A few noted sadly that they understood her decision to sell out and didn't blame her at all for going for the money, and a few took a final shot at our favorite libertarian princess, now swiftly replaced by Garance Franke-Ruta. (Thanks, Downpuppy.)

Come tomorrow, I should have a URL to give you for the new blog, where I'll be posting a little bit over the summer (expect a post when the Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare drops). For now, I'll just say thanks for reading. I miss you guys more every day.

The link did not arrive but she need not bother; a less-important Megan is not the threat that an Atlantic Megan represented, and therefore is not worth wasting one's time over. Since McArdle was recently whining about her nasty troll critics no doubt she will be immensely relieved that she has traded prominence and respect for money and can now sink into anonymity. The Snark will continue to check out McArdle from time to time but as she is no longer important she will no longer be a central focus on this blog.

So.

Who's next?

Breaking! Must Credit Ross Douthat! Conservative Slaughter of Innocents!

Would you kill this adorable child? A conservative would!

Via celebrated conservative intellectual Ross Douthat (by way of Tbogg, Defender of Evil and Scourge of the Britbartians), we are shocked--nay, shocked and appalled!--to hear that CONSERVATIVES ARE ABORTING HANDICAPPED CHILDREN WHOLESALE. Maybe retail as well! Sing it, Brother Douthat!

In 90 percent of cases, a positive test for Down syndrome leads to an abortion.

Gasp! What could this mean for our national morality? America is conservative! If 90% of all women with a Down syndrome child have an abortion, almost all such abortions are being committed by conservative women and their conservative husbands and partners in crime!

A 2010 Gallup poll says:

The ideological orientation of Americans seen thus far in 2010 would represent a record-high [42$%] level of conservatism (since at least 1992) if it is maintained for the full year. This follows an increase in the percentage of conservatives in 2009 that was fueled by heightened conservatism among independents, a pattern that continues today.

Also:

Independents today are slightly more likely to say they are moderate than conservative, with fewer than 20% identifying as liberal. While this is similar to 2009, it represents an increase in conservatism among this group since 2008.

The fact that the nation has become more conservative while the conservative party has become much more ideological, aggressive, authoritarian and destructive is proof that the nation is, indeed, conservative. Plucky little pockets of liberal resistance might keep up the good fight but they are penniless and powerless and therefore can be utterly ignored.

Fortunately for liberals, with power comes responsibility and with powerlessness comes irresponsibility. Conservatives are the majority, which means it is conservative politicians who have enough corporate or private cash to have a successful "election," by which we mean "purchase." And therefore it is up to conservatives, the majority, the powerful, the wealthy, to stop the conservative aborting of Down syndrome children.

Fortunately for conservatives, they have already shown us the way for conservatives to attack their horrendous Nazi Socialist geno-and-gynocidal murder of their very own teeny-tiny conservative babies. Conservatives can take little fetus-sized video cameras into abortion mills and doctors' offices and film conservative women choosing to abort their babies while drinking martinis and wearing tiny pillbox hats in pastel colors, just like Jackie Kennedy. The faces of these conservative women can then be plastered all over the internet and a non-stop bloggy cry of Shame! Shame! Slut! can ring righteously across the land.

Then little women who pretend to be nuns can take up the battle cry in the name of God. No more conservative abortions! Defend the differently abled! Shame on the conservative women who selfishly have an abortion! If you can't afford the baby, hold a bake sale! If you already have too many children, God will provide! Sure, the nation, which is conservative you know, decided that abortion would be legal, making abortion as conservative as apple pie and hot dogs at a Forth of July picnic on a baseball field with a flag waving overhead and a military drone buzzing across the sky, but remember the conservative babies being aborted by their conservative mothers and must be stopped!

Oh, thank you, Ross Douthat, for manfully girding your mighty loins to fight the Godly battle against the conservative women who murder their unborn children with Down syndrome! Go forth and attack conservative women forthsooth, brave Knight!

Congratulations, Megan McArdle!

Once again we offer congratulations to Mrs. Megan McArdle, blogger extraordinaire, who has failed upwards soared to new heights of achievement and will now write for Newsweek (motto: people used to read us a few decades ago) and blog for The Daily Beast. The latter might be a little awkward as McArdle took to sniping at Andrew Sullivan after he could no longer help her career, but as we all know our DC upper class is perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones when there is money to be made.

A few years and a couple of dozen embarrassments later McArdle will no doubt be writing for The New York Times.

Going Galt

You might think that I have not been posting because of real life commitments such as graduations, out-of-town visitors, getting the house and yard in shape for out-of-town visitors, multiple birthday parties, and birthday-related outings but you would be wrong, wrong, wrong. For I have been refraining from blogging to protest the shredding of our Constitution and our national descent into socialist Hell via the diabolical works of our Kenyan overlord. As long as he still sits on his throne of power I cannot muster up the emotional strength necessary to commit random insults to digital paper and must retreat into the safety and security of my little Texas homestead where the taxes never rise, unlike the floodwaters, buckling asphalt streets, and strange groups of people who purport to be holding tea parties yet never drink tea or eat small cucumber sandwiches.

I'll be back tomorrow.

ADDED: Bwahaha!

The Children's Crusade

There's plenty more where they came from.


Conservatives preach that we need to do everything possible to care for the all of God's little children, from eradicating divorce to demanding that all parents are married to ensuring that parents will always be encouraged to pull themselves and their children up by their own bootstraps. Strangely, they do not mention one group of Americans whose children suffer as much, if not more, than all those ungodly liberals who don't care how their policies affect The Children. From The National Center For Children In Poverty at Columbia University:

More than two million American children have had a parent deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.14

• At least 19,000 children have had a parent wounded in action.15
• Over 2,200 children have lost a parent in Iraq or Afghanistan.16

Impact of Deployments on Children’s Mental Health

Children in military families experience high rates of mental health, trauma and related problems.

Military life can be a source of psychological stress for children. Multiple deployments, frequent moves and having a parent injured or die is a reality for many children in military families.

Wartime parental deployments can be one of the most stressful events of a child’s life.17

• Changes reported included changes in school performance, lashing out in anger, worrying, hiding emotions, disrespecting parents and authority figures, feeling a sense of loss, and symptoms consistent with depression.18
• High levels of sadness were seen in children in all age groups.19
• Depression was seen in about one in four children.20
• Academic problems occurred in one in five children.21
• Thirty-seven percent of children with a deployed parent reported that they seriously worry about what could happen to their deployed caretaker.22
• Parents reported that one in five children coped poorly or very poorly to deployment separation.23
• Media coverage of the war posed a significant source of stress for children and makes it much more difficult for children to cope with a parent’s deployment.24

Length of deployment was associated with mental health problems including depression, acting out, and externalizing behaviors.25

What Service Use Data Show

Service use data also indicate high need for mental health services and supports among the offspring of military personnel.

• Outpatient mental health visits provided to children of active duty parents doubled from one million to two million between 2003 and 2008.26
• Total days of inpatient psychiatric care for children of active duty personnel 14 and under increased from 35,000 in 2003 to 55,000 in 2008.27
• One-third of children with a deployed parent were at “high-risk” for psychosocial issues.28

Factors associated with the negative impact of deployment on children and youth include age, the mental health of the remaining parent, re-integration, and employment status.

Age as a Risk Factor

Current research shows that a child’s response to a parent’s deployment varies by age, phase of deployment, gender, as well as other family factors. The research is mixed: but the stress of war affects children even prior to their birth.

• Wives of deployed personnel experience more stress, a factor known to increase risk for medical complications of pregnancy.29
• Children ages 3 to 5 with a deployed parent exhibited greater behavioral symptoms than did peers without a deployed parent.30
• Children of military families ages 11 to 17 were found to have a higher prevalence of emotional and behavioral difficulties than children in the general population.31
• Parental deployment places school-age children and adolescents at higher risk for a range of adverse mood and behavioral changes: anger, apathy, anxiety, depression, withdrawal, decline in school performance, loss of interest in normal activities, and social isolation.32

The war bloggers have all moved on to better, if not bigger, battles, such as the War on Women and the War on the Poor. They have carefully mended their reputations with belated horror or shrugged off the past or moved on to the next war. Authoritarian leaders and followers love war because it gives them power. They will not give up that chance to grab more power without a fight.

But a war orphan never forgets, and some never forgive. And it's not a good idea to fight someone with a soldier's blood in their veins.

A Sunday Sermon On Diversity

Ross Douthat's new New York Times file photo.


Ross Douthat doesn't think much of diversity. He feels it's fake; that it's liberal and therefore self-congratulatory and hypocritical. As he described in his book about his Harvard education, he scorned Harvard for promoting diversity when the students really weren't diverse, since even the minority students usually came from money. Douthat sees no benefit in ensuring that the majority can't exclude the minority out of tribal loyalty, since tribal loyalty is what Douthat has depended on for success his entire life. If we genuinely lived in a meritocracy, which Douthat says we do, Douthat would need to be an intelligent, thoughtful, hard-working and talented writer to find success. Obviously that was not going to happen, so  Douthat depended on money and connections instead. There are very few spots at the top and keeping some of them open for someone who is not Ross Douthat is unfair because it reduces his own odds of success. Douthat managed to become successful anyway, thanks be to God, and now puts on his vestments, picks up his Bible, mounts the short staircase up to his pulpit, and begins to sermonize. He comes to us not in anger but in sorrow, to examine the actions of the parishioner Elizabeth Warren, who has sinned against her community in the Eyes of God. Sayeth "Cotton" Douthat. She has made a "clumsy" effort to explain why she believed her family story about Cherokee ancestry.

The whole story has a tragicomic, Nathaniel Hawthorne meets “Curb Your Enthusiasm” feel. It’s easy to imagine Warren originally checking a box more on a whim than out of any deep determination to self-identify as Cherokee. (She didn’t use the minority-applicant program when applying to Rutgers, where she attended law school, and she identified as “white” during an early teaching job at the University of Texas.) Then it’s easy to imagine her embarrassment when the diversity wars of the 1990s made that whimsical choice something from which she couldn’t dissociate herself without intense public awkwardness. Those wars faded, she no longer listed herself as a Native American, she thought the whole thing was behind her ... until she went into politics, where no secret stays buried. The appropriate response to such a tale is probably sympathy rather than scorn. What does deserve scorn, though, is the academic culture in which an extremely distant connection to a Cherokee ancestor ends up being touted by a law school as proof of its commitment to diversity. A diverse faculty and campus can be a laudable goal. But the point is to build academic communities that actually contain a wide variety of experiences and perspectives, not to wax self-congratulatory because you’ve met a set of ethnic quotas. The story of Elizabeth Warren, “woman of color,” represents a reductio ad absurdum of the latter tendency, which has been all too prevalent in elite universities — giving us affirmative-action programs that benefit West Indian immigrants more than the descendants of slaves, and faculties that include a wider range of skin tones than of political and religious views. (my bold)

Amen, Brother Douthat! Why aren't there more conservatives, especially religious conservatives, in elite universities? Why isn't everyone at Harvard just like Rev. Cotton Douthat? Just imagine--a world of Ross Douthats, in which it wouldn't matter that you are awkward and self-conscious, pompous and moralizing, and terminally uncool because everyone else was the same way! All the cool people would look just like you! George Clooney would have facial hair designed to point out that he does, too, have a chin, and the president of the United States would turn red when a good-looking woman looked at him. Dear God in Heaven, would that not be bliss? A Nation Of Douthats!

For many colleges and universities, then, this contretemps represents a timely gift: a chance to think anew about these issues, before the pursuit of a cosmetic diversity leaves them looking as ridiculous as poor Elizabeth Warren does today.

Why have a superficial diversity of race, nationality and gender when you can have real diversity--more fundamentalist Catholic conservatives?

The Quick (Fingered) and the (Brain) Dead

A video of a speech on inequality is making the rounds, and Megan McArdle sniffs her disapproval.

McArdle goes on to recommend the Brookings Institute's view, which says that income inequality is high but doesn't matter because it doesn't hurt the middle class. They say that if liberals want to say it does they have to prove it. Of course that has already been done, but we all know that nobody can trust those liberal facts, which often have shady motivations for being liberal. And factual.

Just as the Brookings Institute ignores unemployment, McArdle ignores the fact that the economy depends on consumer demand, not inequality. Giving all the money to the rich doesn't create jobs, as the speaker in the video says. It just makes the rich richer. The rich are not going to build factories to make things that nobody can afford to buy; they will hire more workers only when they need them.

Of course conservatives think they are winning Twitter. Why go through all that analysis and math and thinking when you can just say something "isn't very good" and your followers will agree with you immediately?

ADDED: The Thinker adds his two cents.

A Hierarchy Of One. Maybe Two.

Know your place.

(Diagram from here.)


The process of denial is fascinating. It's as if an alien movie monster takes over someone's body, forcing the human to do things he doesn't want to do, then erasing any memory of the acts committed while under the influence. The poor innocent human is just a victim of this thing, this ungovernable force, and there's nothing he can do about it. But denial isn't just fascinating--it's very, very powerful. Some people create an entire alternate world in which to live, where they are powerful, good, and always right, even when they aren't.

Let's look at a conservative pundit who lives in a constant state of denial. Glenn Greenwald tried to explain to Andrew Sullivan that blind obedience to authority is not a good thing.

First, [this episode] shows the dedication some media figures and Obama followers have to glorifying and justifying whatever the President does, even when the acts being defended are the exact opposite of one another. Sullivan spent three years aggressively scorning everyone who criticized Obama’s marriage position on the ground that it’s irrelevant and inconsequential what the President thinks about marriage equality, even arguing that it’s “sad” to watch gays seek presidential approval; then, the minute Obama announces that he supports same-sex marriage, Sullivan takes the lead role in depicting this act as the Peak of Human Courage and Integrity, one of monumental significance, while he all but crusades for Obama’s instantaneous Sainthood. Given how effusive Sullivan now is about the incalculable importance of Obama’s support for same-sex marriage — for gay youth, for equality generally, for all that is Good and Noble in Our Politics — doesn’t he at least owe an apology to all those gay activists who endured Sullivan’s condescending scorn when they were trying to pressure Obama to “evolve”?

Of course not. Leaders lead, the direction is irrelevant because the followers just want to follow. Therefore Sullivan was merely doing his duty when he rebuked those who disagreed with him. Sullivan always does his duty when he must look after his own interests. It is wrong to deny gays civil rights when Sullivan wants civil rights. It's also wrong to deny Sullivan a war when he wants to go to war. It's wrong to take money from Sullivan and give it to the poor. It's terrible to embarrass Sullivan by dragging down the good names of Republicans like Sullivan. We could go on. Andrew Sullivan did apologize for his action, but he will continue to make the same "mistake" over and over until he realizes, as driftglass says, that there is a club and Andrew Sullivan is not in it. Sullivan places himself above his fellow conservatives by flouting their basic tribal laws of identity, loyalty and conformity. Conservatives must publicly conform to their authority or they will be rejected. And this is where denial enters our picture. Sullivan simply denies that his tribe exists solely to preserve the power structure of its leaders. And he denies, even more vehemently, that he is one of those pathetic powerless people on the left.

First, as Greenwald shows, Sullivan repeatedly pushes the followers into line behind Obama.

Will Obama Evolve In A Few Hours? Obama is sitting down with ABC News today for an interview which will, in part, address his excruciating non-position on marriage equality. Some are saying he will make news. I doubt it, and I don't much care. The Congress and the states are the players here - not the president. And this desperate desire among some gays for some kind of affirmation from one man is a little sad.

We know Sullivan felt the same way because he said so. From the Mediaite article that Greenwald links to:

When asked how important Obama’s move was, Sullivan responded “hugely important” and said he didn’t know how important it would be until it happened. Through muted tears, Sullivan explained the impact of Obama’s announcement for gay Americans like himself: “Beforehand, I was kind of steeled. I was like, ‘I didn’t care; he’s going to disappoint us again.’ And then I sat down and watched our president tell me that I am his equal. And that I’m not going outside – I’m fully part of this family. And to hear the president who is in some ways a father figure speak to that – the tears came down like with many people in our families.” “I never understood the power of a president’s words until that day,” Sullivan continued. “This man saying, ‘I’m with you. I get it. You’re like me. I am like you. There is nothing between us.’” Sullivan went on to say that the gravity of that moment was “overwhelming.”

Despite his denials, being excluded from full membership to the club was very painful to Sullivan. "You’re like me. I am like you," he rejoices.  I am accepted, loved, wanted. It is what every unaccepted child longs for. Sullivan denies that his joy is in finally being accepted by his authority, however. He says it's just joy in achieving a long-sought goal of public equality.

I will leave it to you, dear readers, to decide if what I said above was "creepy", as Glenn Greenwald has it. It seems to me I was completely candid about the emotions that flooded my frontal cortex in the wake of Obama's ABC News interview. I did not say they undermined my core point that technically the president doesn't matter on this matter. It is possible both to assess the limited practical impact of an interview and express emotion at the same time. Still, Glenn and I have different temperaments. He's perfectly entitled to label me a pathetic, sappy human being for being moved by the great cause of my life finally finding a home in the Oval Office. But it's deeply unfair to accuse me, especially on the issue of gay rights, of being a sycophant to this president. On this very blog, I often lacerated Obama and the administration when I thought they were dragging their feet - on the HIV ban, on the DOJ's original defense of DOMA, and especially on gays in the military, when I went on CNN to accuse the president of "betrayal". I wasn't a terribly reliable hagiographer then, was I? And you can read my cover-essay and see if it is pure hagiography, as opposed to a genuine judgment of a political and moral evolution. As to my reference to Obama as a father figure on the Chris Matthews Show, after constantly saying that we shouldn't be looking for a father figure, well: consider me busted. The power of a president's words did surprise me. The president is the head of state. When he speaks, history is being made. When a president uses that authority to express solidarity with gay citizens and their families, and to assert his belief in their core equality, for the first time ever, I'm not going to apologize for being moved, just as I was moved by the sight of an African-American being sworn into the presidency in the first place. And forgive me, but if someone had told me two decades ago that by 2012, a black president would be endorsing gay marriage, I would have asked where he got that stuff he was smoking. Glenn is a fantastic blogger and a friend. I'm sure my occasional sentiment irritates him as much as his detached purism sometimes baffles me. But I am not a toady to power; in this village, I am more of a feral creature. I have excoriated presidents and hailed them at times. I just believe this president matters; and, for me, he now matters more. If that is a position a blogger should not take for fear of being seen as a suck-up, so be it. It's from my heart. Update: Glenn emails to say that his point was that I should apologize to those who insisted that it would matter a lot if the president said the words. I don't recall a specific individual I criticized on those grounds, but, yes, those who believed his words mattered were right and I was wrong.

Sullivan is neither a conservative nor a liberal; he belongs to a party of one, the Andrew Sullivan Party. Conservatives are the party with the economic power and the party that is eager to use its military power, so mostly Sullivan is a conservative. Liberal bloggers have no money or power but liberal leaders are willing to share power with their followers, so when it is convenient Sullivan is liberal in deed if not name. He sees this devotion to his personal wealth and advancement as fair-mindedness and, no doubt, political savvy. But he wants to be accepted for who he is, as we all do. And since he does worship power he is elated when the powerful claim him as one of their own--in his eyes, at least. The next time Sullivan wants something from the right he'll be a conservative again. He'll criticize the authoritarian followers when they conflict with his image of himself as a learned, wise and passionate man and he'll sneer at the left when they get in the way of his climb up the ladder. At the same time Sullivan is making his calculated moves to gain and maintain his personal power, he will long for and rejoice in any sign from his authority that he is an important and valuable person. His neediness is a sign of weakness and he will never acknowledge it.

Obama's journey on this has been like that of many other Americans, when faced with the actual reality of gay lives and gay relationships. Yes, there was politics in a lot of it. But not all of it. I was in the room long before the 2008 primaries when Obama spoke to the mother of a gay son about marriage equality. He said he was for equality, but not marriage. Five years later, he sees - as we all see - that you cannot have one without the other. But even then, you knew he saw that woman's son as his equal as a citizen. It was a moment - way off the record at the time - that clinched my support for him. (my bold) Today Obama did more than make a logical step. He let go of fear. He is clearly prepared to let the political chips fall as they may. That's why we elected him. That's the change we believed in. The contrast with a candidate who wants to abolish all rights for gay couples by amending the federal constitution, and who has donated to organizations that seek to "cure" gays, who bowed to pressure from bigots who demanded the head of a spokesman on foreign policy solely because he was gay: how much starker can it get? My view politically is that this will help Obama. He will be looking to the future generations as his opponent panders to the past. The clearer the choice this year the likelier his victory. And after the darkness of last night, this feels like a widening dawn.

Five months before the election, Obama expresses support for gay marriage. Sullivan acknowledges the calculation of the move but denies that it is calculated. He chooses to believe that Obama "evolved" and came around to Sullivan's point of view. Obama "let go of fear." The President of the United States personally accepted Mr. Andrew Sullivan, gay Republican. He could have no greater happiness in this world. The same selfish and authoritarian impulse that compelled Sullivan to cheer for military adventure under Bush compelled Sullivan to praise civil rights advancements under Obama.

Reasoning With Authoritarians

Jonah Goldberg isn't stupid because he is the son of Lucianne Goldberg, American Medusa. Or because he needed to be both a legacy pledge and an affirmative action recipient to be accepted by a university. Or because he is a conservative and conservatives have dumber brains. Jonah Goldberg is stupid because he chooses to be stupid.

He chooses to ignore any information he does not like and he chooses gloating, goading, or insulting instead of thinking. He is stupid by choice and nothing will change that.

The only option is to tease him until he cries and runs home to his mommy.

On The Use Of Cliches

The Jonah Goldberg Intellectual Society meets to read and discuss his latest book.


Jonah Goldberg in The Tyranny Of Cliches:

Hindsight Is 20/20

How often do we hear people say we must “get on the right side of history,” as if they know their own history? “When they say it, what do people mean?” asks my National Review colleague Jay Nordlinger. They may mean “my side,” or “the good side,” or “the side that posterity will smile on.” People may be alluding to the ultimate triumph of liberal democracy. Or they may be alluding to the ultimate triumph of socialism, or a stricter form of collectivism. For generations, the Left has assumed that history marches with them: Get out of the way, or be crushed. The phrase has what British historian Robert Conquest calls a “Marxist twang.” The Marxists believed that history was predictable and unidirectional, so of course there must be a right side and a wrong side to it. The candle makers were on the wrong side, the lightbulb makers the right side. But history doesn’t work like that. There were times when it was obvious that technology aided tyrants and there have been times— much like our own—when it seemed equally obvious that technology must liberate the individual. The truth is, it must do neither. As Richard Pipes tells Nordlinger, “The whole notion is nonsensical.” To which Nordlinger adds, “History does not have sides, although historians do.” Marxism surely contributed to the idea that there’s a right side to history, but the chief culprit is the arrogance of the present (Marxism, one could say, is a subspecies of this arrogance). We look back on the past and see it as prologue to our moment in time. History becomes a movie for which we know the ending and we think the characters of yesteryear are fools for not seeing it, too. Like the idiot teenager who declares, “I’ll search the attic” in a horror movie, we marvel at the stupidity of earlier generations. (my bold)

Liberals think that their side of history is the right and therefore the only side of history, unlike conservatives. Liberals are arrogant; they think they are smarter than past people and that they know what the future will bring, and that it will go in only one direction--theirs. Unlike conservatives.

Jonah Goldberg in an interview about his book:

But on the broad sweep and thrust of it, almost all of the criticisms [of Liberal Fascism] to me seemed ill founded, ill tempered, and off the mark. And going through it, I was like, holy crap. You know, if this is the best that the living—that the leaders or the leading scholars of fascism have to say about my book, then man, I did a pretty good job. And so I sort of concentrated on—what’s his name—Robert Paxton, who was sort of—he himself considers himself the dean of living American scholars of fascism, and I went point by point through his assertions, and if memory serves—I mean, people are free to go back and look themselves—I think I rebutted all—if not every single one of his claims, then, you know, ten of twelve, pretty authoritatively. And if that’s what the dean of fascism studies had to throw at me, then I felt okay. Because until then, you know, when I was working on the book, it was so other-worldly, the stuff I was reading and the conclusions I was drawing. I was getting very nervous that man, I am heading out into crank territory. And you know, what am I—and I started to restrict myself to sources that were entirely mainstream, just trying to be careful. And I kept waiting when the first reviews came out for somebody to sort of catch me getting me something colossally wrong, like just totally missing it, or convincing me of how stupid I was. And that review never materialized. And it wasn’t until the History News Network thing that I finally said, okay, just the hell with these people. I think history is going to continually move to my direction. And I’m perfectly fine with what I wrote in the broad scheme of things.(my bold)

If you think that Jonah Goldberg is being a hypocrite for saying that liberals are arrogant and wrong for saying that the future will agree with them, and then going right ahead and saying that the future will agree with him, you could not be more wrong. Goldberg is not being a hypocrite because the future really will agree with him because conservatives are right and liberals are wrong. It's proven by the Circle Of Argument.

No, the reason why I find Cohn’s argument so useful is that it illustrates the progressive mind-set so perfectly. Cohn argues that LBJ made a covenant with the American people—a covenant is a sacred contract— to ensure that the poor would henceforth and forever get comprehensive medical insurance. Here’s the problem: Presidents cannot bind future presidents, never mind future Congresses. Any law can be revisited, any presidential decree may be rescinded. One would hope that Cohn would recognize this fact given that his magazine routinely argues that not even the Constitution itself should be considered permanently binding and restrictive (which is to say it shouldn’t permanently bind or constrict progressives in ways they find inconvenient). What offends Cohn and his fellow progressives is the suggestion that any liberal victory once pocketed can ever be reversed. Laws and words have no binding power on future generations, but once Team Progressive puts points on the scoreboard, they can never come off . That is what is sacred, because their conception of history only goes in one direction.

This is the living, breathing heart of the progressive worldview. It is as ideological as any conviction can be. And that is fine. There is nothing wrong and a great deal that is right with having ideological convictions. What is offensive to logic, culturally pernicious, and, yes, infuriating to me is the claim that it is not an ideological tenet. Progressives lie to themselves and the world about this fact. They hide their ideological agenda within Trojan Horse clichés and smug assertions that they are simply pragmatists, fact finders, and empiricists who are clearheaded slaves to “what works.”

ADDED: Goldberg is not impressed that liberals think it is inevitable that gays will gain all the same civil rights that straights have.

It just so happens that “the right side of history” is one of the topics I discuss early in the book. My chief problem with the “right side of history” argument is that it is used an appeal to the authority of an imagined future that hasn’t even happened yet. It is a way of saying to your opponents: you should give up not because your arguments are wrong but because you will eventually lose anyway. It is an attempt to demoralize your opponents not engage them. ... Anyway, we may yet come to a point where gay marriage is an unremarkable institution in everyday life in the United States, but if we do it won’t be because it will be inevitable. Very little in the affairs of men is inevitable.

How on earth can anyone think history will move in his direction?

He Meant To Do That

Oops. He's one of the right's most brilliant intellectuals, you know.

The Tyrannay Of Cliches: A Closer Look

As we pointed out earlier, there is a strange diversion of style and content in Jonah Goldberg's work, in which he relates snippets of history in a somewhat formal, apparently scholarly manner but otherwise uses an informal and conversational style. Goldberg will start out informally:

After an eighteen-month campaign, all of the informed, conscious, and ideologically consistent voters have already made up their minds. All that’s left are the undecided centrists, who actually think they have the more sophisticated and serious position; their indecision comes, actually, by virtue of the fact they’ve either not paid much attention until way too late in the game, or more simply, they’re a**holes who think they must be at the center of the universe.

Now, hold on, I mean that in a fairly literal way. Let me explain.

As always, Goldberg states that people who don't agree with him are stuck-up and egotistical. Those leftists think they're so smart with their facts and arguments when they really are liars who think they know everything. Their liberal facts are wrong and Goldberg's conservative facts are right, because everything is a matter of interpretation, not actual historical record.

Behold and marvel, for nearly every word is a lie, smear, misunderstanding or irony. Meet formal, scholarly Jonah:

The notion that the center is a place of privilege and esteem has a very long pedigree, with a somewhat anti-Catholic bias.

This entire paragraph has nothing to do with political centrism. Goldberg wanted to cover the liberal lying cliche that the Catholic Church is anti-science. He is writing a handy-dandy debating manual for conservatives so they can defeat their neighbors and relatives in conversation. For the left are cheaters who win arguments and debates by lying.

For instance, you may have heard that Galileo dealt the Western, Christian mind a devastating blow when he confirmed that Copernicus was right. The Earth revolves around the Sun and the Sun is at the center of the solar system (i.e., heliocentrism).

Because the left rejoices in destroying Western civilization and Christians especially and everything, even the positions of the planets, must glorify the authority. When an alternate authority arises the authoritarian follower becomes confused and this threatens the power of the leaders.

John Bargh, a scientist at Yale, says in David Brooks' The Social Animal that Galileo “removed the Earth from its privileged position at the center of the universe.”

First, let us marvel at the use of centrist David Brooks to attack centrism. Or any use at all. Second, Goldberg cannot imagine that it is possible to look at a fact or truth impartially. Either the fact aids and flatters him and is therefore conservative, or it does not, and it is liberal.

The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia tells us that the “[d]ethronement of Earth from the center of the universe caused profound shock.”

Goldberg seems to think that people were upset because they were no longer, literally, the center of the universe. The little matter of whether Galileo had disproven the inerrancy of the Bible and Pope is ignored.

The less reliable but more relied upon Wikipedia agrees: “[T]he transition between these two theories met much resistance, not only from the Catholic Church, which was reluctant to accept a theory not placing God’s creation at the center of the universe, but also from those who saw geocentrism as a fact that could not be subverted by a new, weakly justified theory.” Get that? The Church opposed heliocentrism because it couldn’t handle man’s “dethronement” from the center of the universe; meanwhile, other, more sensible, opponents objected because they thought the science was weak.

Because people never declare that the science is weak to avoid unpleasant realities. Many astronomers refused to even look through Galileo's improved telescope to see if he was right.

Inconceivable that the Church might have thought the science was weak, too.

It's very odd that this brilliant conservative historical scholar does not think of looking at the Catholic Church's statement on Galileo. We don't have to theorize; we can see what they actually said:

Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vaincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled "On the Sunspots," wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it, by glossing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning: and whereas there was thereupon produced the copy of a document in the form of a letter, purporting to be written by you to one formerly your disciple, and in this divers propositions are set forth, following the position of Copernicus, which are contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture: This Holy Tribunal being therefore of intention to proceed against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, by command of His Holiness and of the Most Eminent Lords Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the Sun and the motion of the Earth were by the theological Qualifiers qualified as follows: The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. The proposition that the Earth is not the center of the world and immovable but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically and theologically considered at least erroneous in faith. But whereas it was desired at that time to deal leniently with you, it was decreed at the Holy Congregation held before His Holiness on the twenty-fifth of February, 1616, that his Eminence the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine should order you to abandon altogether the said false doctrine and, in the event of your refusal, that an injunction should be imposed upon you by the Commissary of the Holy Office to give up the said doctrine and not to teach it to others, not to defend it, nor even to discuss it; and your failing your acquiescence in this injunction, that you should be imprisoned. In execution of this decree, on the following day at the palace of and in the presence of the Cardinal Bellarmine, after being gently admonished by the said Lord Cardinal, the command was enjoined upon you by the Father Commissary of the Holy Office of that time, before a notary and witnesses, that you were altogether to abandon the said false opinion and not in the future to hold or defend or teach it in any way whatsoever, neither verbally nor in writing; and upon your promising to obey, you were dismissed. And in order that a doctrine so pernicious might be wholly rooted out and not insinuate itself further to the grave prejudice of Catholic truth, a decree was issued by the Holy Congregation of the Index prohibiting the books which treat of this doctrine and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to the sacred and divine Scripture. ... We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced in trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgment of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely, of having believed and held the doctrine—which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as probably after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to the Holy Scripture; and that consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. From which we are content that you be absolved, provided that, first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, you abjure, curse, and detest before use the aforesaid errors and heresies and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church in the form to be prescribed by us for you. And in order that this your grave and pernicious error and transgression may not remain altogether unpunished and that you may be more cautious in the future and an example to others that they may abstain from similar delinquencies, we ordain that the book of the “Dialogues of Galileo Galilei” be prohibited by public edict. We condemn you to the formal prison of this Holy office during our pleasure, and by way of salutary penance we enjoin that for three years to come you repeat once a week at the seven penitential Psalms. Reserving to ourselves liberty to moderate, commute or take off, in whole or in part, the aforesaid penalties and penance. And so we say, pronounce, sentence, declare, ordain, and reserve in this and in any other better way and form which we can and may rightfully employ.

The Catholic Church might or might not have doubted the science but they certainly squashed the scientist whose discoveries cast doubt on their authority.

It took a long time to make a scientifically persuasive case that the Earth isn’t the center of the universe and that it revolves around the Sun. If you can’t sympathize with that, please stop referring to the rising and setting of the sun across our sky, since we are the ones moving, not it. The theological reason men stuck with the old scientific paradigm had nothing to do with arrogance and everything to do with humility. And there’s the rub. The real arrogance here is on the part of those who see the past as populated with unsophisticated bumpkins, as if ignorance of scientific truth is the same thing as stupidity. But if in fifty years it’s discovered that there’s life on Mars, does that mean future generations can look at us today and legitimately say, “Look at those idiots, they didn’t even know there was life on Mars”?

It's not that the Church hierarchy was trying to preserve power in the face of the Protestant Reformation, it's just that nobody knows anything ever and it's only humble to admit it, unlike those stuck-up scientists who think ordinary, God-fearing Italians from the Heartland are stupid. 

We find the same sort of bias in glib assertions about “flat-earthism.” We’ve all heard about how Columbus proved to the skeptics that the world was round (the basis for one of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons). It’s not true, as we will see in a moment. But first of all, is it really so crazy that people five hundred or a thousand years ago might have thought the world was flat? Really? Cut some slack for the people who lived without powerful telescopes, satellites, and the rest for at least considering this a somewhat open question. Anyway, it’s simply not true that medieval Christianity taught that the world is flat. This myth, like many others discussed later in this book, stems from the biases of Protestant historians in the nineteenth century, who were eager to paint the Catholic Church as a giant wet blanket on scientific and human progress (see Chapter 21, The Catholic Church). Hence the myth that the Church tortured and imprisoned Galileo for his confirmation of Copernicus’s findings. There’s a legitimate question of whether he was in a jail cell for three days—or not at all. But he certainly wasn’t tortured. More important, the people who most ardently clamored for the Church to silence and punish Galileo were his jealous, lesser, scientific colleagues, not the theologians. When Galileo’s heretical Starry Messenger was released, the Vatican threw a huge book party for him.

 Galileo was under house arrest for the rest of his life and forbidden to even discuss his work. Was he tortured?

[...T]he Pope informedthe Tuscan ambassador Francesco Niccolini that the new book did not discuss Copernicus in a hypothetical way but rather presented its case in an assertive and conclusive way (McMullin, 2009: 205‐207). The interrogation period during the trial had as its goal to get the subject to confess his errors. To aid the church investigators in this process, Finocchiaro (2004:11) argues that torture was probably used on Galileo. The Inquisition, he writes, “conducted a ‘rigorous examination’ of the accused. . . . The term rigorous examination was the standard inquisitorial jargon for torture.”14 Many authors (Kelly, 1995: 281) acknowledge that torture or the threat of torture was probably used on Galileo, but what type was utilized? Did interrogators use verbal threats, visits to dungeons where physical torture was performed, or was there actual infliction of physical pain? It suffices to say that given the general agreement that torture was injected in the trial process, we have to seriously question the truth value of Galileo’s responses to questions and his confession. After all, he was close to 70 years‐old and suffering from various ailments. He more than likely said things church officials wanted to hear.

Why does Goldberg choose to believe that Galileo wasn't punished by the authoritarian Catholic Church? Because the idea that the Church attacked and punished Galileo for his scientific observations and conclusions is unpopular with Catholic apologetics. Why does Goldberg care what Catholic apologetics think? Many Catholics are conservative and the right depends on identity politics as much as they criticize it. Religion belongs to the right, science belongs to the left. Of course Goldberg will support a pope dead for hundreds of years over historical facts. And right here, in The Tyranny of Cliches, is all the proof anyone needs that the facts are conservative, not liberal.

Stupid liberals think they're so smart. Jonah knows better. Robert Nisbet said that other scholars were jealous of Galileo so the Church did not persecute the astronomer. Medieval Christianity did not teach that the earth was flat so the Church was not anti-science.

And the Vatican threw a book party for Galileo.