The Sniper's Tower
Since the GOP didn’t feel many pangs of conscience over No Child Left Behind or the 500 some-odd billion dollar Medicare extension package, it’s rather surprising to be reading passages like this from the Post:
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) yesterday called the domestic add-ons ‘unnecessary extra spending’ and denounced Pelosi’s decision to bring the bill to the House floor without first letting the Appropriations Committee review it. To show their displeasure, Republicans forced procedural votes this week that delayed consideration of the bill.
What is this pork-barrel bill? A big corporate bailout? A new welfare program? Appropriations for Hillary’s Woodstock Museum? No, it’s Jim Webb’s new 21st-century G.I. Bill, which provides 11 billion for benefits to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, including one year of college tuition.
Webb added his program on to a $195 billion bill, 162.5 billion of which was allocated to continuing both wars well into 2009. The added benefits and tuition credit amounts to around 5% of the total expenditure.
McCain made it clear a while ago that he wouldn’t back Webb’s bill, and now the GOP is threatening a filibuster.
Our ”big government conservative” love to spend, spend, spend on programs that make them feel really “conservative"--like federal marriage counseling or abstinence training in Africa. They become tight-fisted, however, when a bill comes up that might serve as a constant reminder of the f%cking mess they’ve made of soldiers’ lives.
It is extremely rare indeed to attend an “Old Right” speaking event and find the entire audience, including the liberals and neocons on hand, rolling in the aisles. But such was the case when Bill Kauffman spoke at CATO yesterday afternoon about antiwar conservatives and his new book. I certainly can’t reproduce his charm, sharp wit, and èlan, so I’d suggest that you watch a video of the event here.
There are two lines from his talk worth repeating:
“Why should political discourse be delimited by Arthur Schlesinger’s ghost and Bill Bennett’s ghost writer.”
“War: it spreads venereal disease, if not quite democracy.”
As my last attempt at humor shows, I’m highly skeptical of all forms of conservative Obamania. Still, I think that voting for Obama over a third-party traditionalist like Chuck Baldwin might be a good idea. Even if I’m not totally convinced myself, here’s my reasoning:
Baldwin might get the VDARE-Takimag seal of approval, but he’s simply not going to be taken seriously by the major media outlets, and he’ll undoubtedly end up getting under 1% in the general. That is, he’ll quickly become the “crazy conservative” candidate who’s all too easily marginalized and demeaned. None of this is fair, but it’s reality.
Republicans crossing over for Obama, on the other hand, is a major phenomenon, and the media is beginning to key in on it. Moreover, this represents the kind of movement that is disruptive of the Left/Right status quo in ways that the Constitution Party simply is not.
Sure, lots of the Obamcons are far from perfect (and here I’m thinking of those that actually believe in the Hope crap). But even these people prove that there is a large contingency of fairly conservative people who don’t go in for “Conservatism=Iraq + GWOT + vulgar Bushian patriotism.”
An Obamacon movement could be perceived, if we communicate effectively, as “these guys see little difference between McCain and Obama on domestic issues, and they really want to end the Iraq war now. Wow, maybe we need to rethink Left and Right.” This isn’t too much of a stretch, even a FOX News regular like Ann Coulter would say publicly that what divides Mac and Obama on domestic matters is inconsequential.
If we went for Baldwin, our vote would be perceived as, “Wow, those guys are to the right of John McCain!” This is not helpful.
Lawrence Kaplan, a neocon of the New Republic deviation, has some rather intriguing things to say to say about what the Iraq war will ultimately mean:
I also think that the Iraq experience has set back the cause of idealism in American foreign policy and the willingness of Western countries to intervene for humanitarian reasons. Take Darfur: I think it’s because of Iraq that nobody wants to intervene there. So on the whole the effects have been huge and overwhelmingly negative. I don’t see anything good that’s come from this war, I’m afraid.
If it’s true that the interventionist class has been chastened—and I’m not positive that this is the case—than this would be the single good thing that I can see coming out of the Iraq debacle.
To give Kaplan some credit, he does make an attempt at self-criticism:
Before the war, Iraq was an abstraction, an idea. Once you have seen the place you can’t help but be much more cautious with the ideas that you put on the table.
Later on:
So being less ‘neo’ and more conservative today makes me much less idealistic and much less optimistic about man’s capacity to change and to improve the world. I am more inclined now to a Hobbesian view of the world and to the view that this condition cannot be changed.
A Neo-culpa? Perhaps. But then what Kaplan’s words really reveal is just how much is at stake for many neocons, how the Iraq disaster threatens to explode their most cherished beliefs:
If one says that you can’t democratize Iraq because they are Iraqis or Arabs, one is really taking a step into outer space in the sense that you then have to embrace arguments about culture and pursue a certain relativism that I am not ready to embrace. We have to remember that there were also those who said that the Japanese and the Germans and the Catholics of South America could not be democrats. I still believe that all cultures are capable of democracy and liberalism. Everybody wants to be free. But obviously, in Iraq this assumption ran into a wall. Now why is that?
Yes, for the sake proving that American “democracy” (whatever this is?) is the One True Way and that all cultures want it, Kaplan is prepared to keep going in Iraq and spend at least another 1.6 Trillion and maybe throw in a few more thousand reservists. Indeed, a willingness to make other people bear any burden and meet any hardship so that he does not have to face reality is probably what Kaplan means by his becoming more “Hobbesian” or “conservative.”
(Also, BTW, the wicked proto-Nazi German Empire was a Constitutional Monarchy with a full-functioning parliament., and the proto-Hitler Prime Minister Bismarck actually installed the first social welfare system (a dubious honor.) Hitler actually seized power democratically. Also, when I traveled through the evil German parts of the world, and the doubly evil German and Catholic lands, I noticed that towns featured lots of large buildings all going by the name Rathaus. I don’t know what that that means, but I think it has something to do with representative government. As for South America, isn’t their problem not a little too much “democracy.”)
As I find myself sliding into an advanced stage of Obamania, I think I might be well suited to write a serious pathological study of this terrible disease, which is striking down so many of our best conservative and libertarian thinkers in their prime. It’s also very important that we start looking into Obamania now, for even if a cure might be out of reach, the disease seems to be having an appreciable effect on the current presidential race. According to experts in these matters,
Obama owes his first-place standing to the millions of independents and Republicans who voted for him in states that allowed them to participate in the Democratic nominating contest, the News found.
Clinton would top Obama by more than 360,000 votes if only Democrats were counted, and the delegate race--which Obama leads by 135--would likely be tighter.
It’s a pandemic! And worse still, Obamanaia has multiple strains. The disease takes effect in different patients for different reasons. Indeed, I’m tempted to say: Tell me about your Obamania, conservative or libertarian thinker, I’ll tell you who you are.
What follows is a brief catalogue of the varieties of Obamania and some of their symptoms.
Terminal Obamania: Many of these sufferers call themselves “conservative” for no apparent reason political, social, or economic, and simply became Republicans because it seemed like the really patriotic thing to do. For them, Obamania lay in a dormant stage, even while some were employed by President Bush as his media advisor or special aide. Symptoms include feeling a “thrill go up your leg” while listening to Obama speak and to use with all earnestness phrases like “Make History,” “Hope,” “the American Dream,” and “what we are as a nation,” which all seem to be interchangeable and to signify not much of anything. Sometimes this strain even affects Romney propagandists, who begin to lose powers of self-control and feel “tempted”—“he almost had me last night[!]”
Barrack Bargainers Disease: The strain afflicts people who think that electing a candidate with a high Melanin count would relieve them of the need to confront tricky issues that bother them to no end but which they’d prefer not to talk about in polite company, not to mention oppose vigorously on principle. Ergo, they make arguments like, “If Obama really wanted to transcend race, he’d end affirmative action.” There’s also a vague hope that if we elect Obama, Al, Jesse, and friends will stop calling America racist . Clearly, these people are delusional.
More sophisticated forms of this strain make patients believe that if we’d only elect this half-Kenyan Harvard-educated senator, all issues of class, race, and resentment would magically vanish—poof!:
Black and minority America would be fully integrated into the nation as the British working class was fully integrated into the British political nation by George V. Americans would feel better about themselves and the world would feel very differently about America.
White Pride Delirium For these patients, Obamania creates a spectre in their minds that electing Obama would be the thing that finally turns American whites into ethno-nationalists (as riots and miscarriages of celebrity justice didn’t quite do the trick). Some have dreams that Obama will appoint Rev. Wright as secretary of the interior, Michele to the Department of Labor, and Farrakahn at State.
Those afflicted with this strain suffer blindness to the fact that Obama is pretty skillful at dumping black nationalists once they’re no longer useful; and while he probably won’t appoint any racist reverend to high office, he’s very likely to install some really horrible white people like Samantha Power and Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Realpolitikitis: This strain only affects the most intelligent commentators, who are willing to put up with some liberal domestic programs for the prospect of ending the war in Iraq. (And in all honesty, could Obama’s liberalism really be that much worse than Bush’s!?! If anything, it’s likely to be marginally better.)
Unfortunately these patients have been focusing so intently on Iraq that they’ve developed myopia, failing to see that while Obama might be the best positioned to remove troops from Iraq, he’s likely to redeploy them somewhere more politically correct.
Leninitis of the Right Brain : The symptoms of this strain are dramatically different than those of Terminal Obamania. Conservatives who are susceptible almost always have a predisposition towards mean-spiritedness and curmudgeonliness. They look on with wicked glee at the election of Obama as the American public getting the government it deserves and the GOP suffering embarrassing, catastrophic defeat. Some have hope that this strain might inoculate the Republican Party from the far worse disease of Bilingual Open-borderitis, which has been drifting over from Arizona.
* * *
What strain do I suffer form? I think I have a bad case of Realpolitikitis, but with some warning signs of Leninitis of the Right Brain. Can I be helped?
Today I attended Paul’s talk about his great book, which is #1 by the way, with the great new organization called the American Conservative Defense Alliance. I asked Paul a question similar to the one I posed this morning regarding how us Paulians--more than a mere remnant but the makings of a mass movement--can express ourselves this November. For better and for worse, Paul wants to avoid sending down orders to the troops, and talked around the subject of long-term education. Paul doesn’t think you can change things with politics--this certainly makes him an endearing, trustworthy figure, but then frustrating as a politician since it seems to me that we now have an opening to, well, accomplish some stuff politically (!). He did mention that he’d be going into more specifics soon, so I guess we should hold off criticism for a little bit and see what he comes up with as a way of moving forward.
In his answer, he did mention that far better than a Paul presidency would be hundreds of Paul-like politicians in Washington and local governments--taking back the country district by district.
In this case, there seems to be a new hero of the Paulites on the horizon: B.J. Lawson who just won his primary in my former district in scenic Durham. Also good news coming from Tar Heel state, antiwar Republican Walter Jones, my favorite congressman, won big time.
Dan has the lowdown:
News of B.J. Lawson’s victory in North Carolina is very encouraging indeed — and what a margin! Lawson is a sterling (or maybe, as a nod to monetary issues, I should say auric) Ron Paul Republican and antiwar conservative. He faces an uphill battle in the Fall against incumbent Democrat David Price, who has been in office for over 20 years (with a one-term interregnum in after the ‘94 elections). But his win shows that a consistent small-government ethic and responsible foreign-policy views can still prevail in today’s GOP. Walter Jones’s victory provides evidence of that as well and is all the more impressive given the establishment support his opponent received. A number of Beltway neocons had hoped to make an example out of Jones. Instead, he’s become an example of how traditional conservatives can win.
This is very good news: Huckabee + Paul gets 20% in North Carolina; Huckabee + Paul + Romney gets 23% in Indiana. If you add in the “no preference” vote in NC, then the anti-McCain vote jumps up to 27%. Some of this might be a flailing protest vote--which isn’t a bad start in my opinion!--but then clearly there’s somewhere between 5-12% of Republican voters in states around the country who are firmly “Ron Paul Republicans.” Hucakbee, too, should be given his due for becoming the candidate for a lot of evangelicals. All of this makes Paul’s utterly dispiriting “winding down” youtube message seem even more strategically retarded. It’s great that Paul’s still on the ballot, but the fact is, the MSM is ignoring entirely the GOP “race,” if it is one. Thus the general pissed-off-ness of middle American conservatives lacks an outlet for expression--particularly after the leaders of the short-lived Talk Radio Rebellion have backed down (as we always knew they would). A Ron Paul third party that would generate even 5% in the general would make a statement; maybe the movement it generated would quickly burn out, much as the organizations birthed by the Reform Party runs of Perot and Buchanan are now small and diffuse, but it would still make people take notice. “Anybody but McCain--conservatives for Obama” is beginning to seem more and more attractive…
I’m generally sick of thinking about the presidential horse race; however, I do have one observation about this evening’s results. Rush Limbaugh, who’s officially dropped his anti-McCain independence and returned to GOP shilling, organized his “Operation Chaos” again in Indiana, which is supposedly going to send the Democratic Party into internecine indecision. (I’ve been skeptical of the plan.) Anyway, according to CNN’s exit polling, of self-identified Republicans who voted, 53% went for Clinton, 45% for Obama. So, either Operation Chaos was so tightly organized that Rush was able to get Ditto Heads whose names begin with A-M to vote for Hillary and N-Z to vote for Obama, or else Republicans who crossed over voted much like the state as a whole. Not only does this polling discredit the argument that a protracted primary will hurt the Democrats--to the contrary, it’s attracting new crossovers--but more importantly, it suggests that Obamania still has some life. Perhaps a few are making the “Iraq war trumps all” calculation of the paleo-libertarian Obamacons (Justin and Bacevich), but more are simply still fascinated with the man, Rev. Wright and all. The Great Transcender is not just popular among students and blacks but still has appeal among Republicans who buy into the “making history” stuff just as much as the Left. No wonder NR has decided that now is the time to come out against the menace of Black Nationalism.
“Your town, your street, your home, it’s all in our database.” The BBC knows where you live, and if you haven’t registered your television, it’s “impossible to hide.”
In his ongoing inquiry into Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg dug up this wonderful piece of filmmaking put in the service of the totalitarian state.
It’s Orwellian, yes; however, I find this ad less “1984” and more “Brazile”. The contemporary state excels in the cracking down on thought crimes and the collecting of telly taxes, but is incapable of the Hobbesian tasks of maintaining order, securing its borders, and pursuing its interest in the international sphere. What once was tyranny now is farce.
Returning very briefly to “Iron Man”: this weekend I mused that the central character is a personification of a fantasy of American foreign policy gone right—the good guy swoops in, kills the Nazi-like bad guys (who aren’t really terrorists but are ethnically cleansing innocent villagers), and then flies off, leaving behind no messy consequences to clean up and no democratization to pursue. He is Intervention Man, and at the end of the movie we see our superhero teaming up with the U.S. government to do some more good.
I actually agreed with the young neoconservative blogger Sonny Bunch who called “Iron Man” a “political Rorschach” that will please different people for different reasons: there’s some anti-Military Industrial Complex and anti-capitalist stuff in there to satisfy the lefties, and the fantasy of Intervention Man saving the world and kicking evildoer ass is one shared by neocons and liberals alike.
All True, but the fact is, the liberal-Left set haven’t taken to “Iron Man,” indeed, when they’ve tried to unpack its politics, they’ve instinctively hated it, as they instinctively hate everything with a whiff of being pro-War on Terror. (The anti-MIC and anti-capitalist barbs were puny compensation for the movie’s patriotic tenor). This revulsion in the face of interventionism on the part of the Left is probably temporary and partisan—the second an opportunity for an Obamian crusade in Darfur arises, the Left will all start to get really patriotic and self-righteous again. But now even a fantastical portrayal of American force abroad leaves them with a bad taste in their mouth. One can tell a lot about a class by its reaction to culture products, and I find the Left’s dissing of “Iron Man” significant.
After searching around a bit, I discovered that the comic-book Iron Man actually went through the same morning-after regret now experienced by the interventionist Left.
In my review, I speculated that Iron Man was about the fantasy/nightmare of Man turning into Machine. Perhaps. But in truth, the comic was always about intervention. The first Iron Man was a Cold Warrior who fought the evil forces of Asian Communism, represented by the strip’s supervillain, “The Mandarin.” But as the year went, it seems Iron Man lost faith in the Vietnam War, and the love of Peppe Potts, and soon turned to drink.
There’s actually an interesting article I found on the subject by a Tennessee columnist who knows quite a bit about the history of comics and “Iron Man"’s creator, Stan Lee:
But as Vietnam turned into a quagmire, Commie-bashing lost its appeal. Even comic-book heroes no longer saw the world in black and white.
When Iron Man returns to Vietnam in 1967, he fights to save villagers from a massacre. The Vietnamese villain is portrayed as sympathetic and misguided, not simply evil.
Years later, Lee admitted he was naive about Vietnam and the alleged International Communist Conspiracy. Like most of his countrymen, he swallowed the government line on the domino theory.
Stark eventually stopped making weapons for the military. In a 1975 story, he muses: “You didn’t do much soul-searching back then, did you? As Iron Man you beat the Commies for democracy, without ever questioning just whose democracy you were serving. ... Vietnam raised all those questions, didn’t it, Tony? Like: What right had we do be there in the first place?”
It’s the same question many are asking about Bush’s quagmire in Iraq.
Intervention Man remains relevant.