[Rhodes22-list] For Ed, from Maine - political

[Brad Haslett]

Herb,

One of our dinner guests this weekend was a farmer for 10 years in a
previous life, courtesy of Chairman Mao before immigrating to the US
and earning her PhD in Chemistry.  I asked her what she thought about
the prospects of an Obama Presidency.  Her reply, "I've already been
through one Cultural Revolution, no thanks".

Below is a response to Brooks.

Brad

---------------------

Laura Ingraham vs. David Brooks   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

>From her daily e-blast:

    THE CONSERVATIVE ELITES ATTACK!

    In today's New York Times, David Brooks launches a critique of
Sarah Palin, essentially concluding that her populist appeal is
dangerous and ill-conceived. He yearns for the day when "conservatism
was once a frankly elitist movment," one that stressed "classical
education, hard-earned knowledged, experience, and prudence." Brooks,
like a handful of other conservative intellectuals, believes Palin
"compensates for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive
decisiveness."

    Well, at the risk of appearing brash, let me say that I am glad to
see my old friend finally pushed to the point where he has to make an
overt defense of elitism, after years of demonstrating covert support
for elitism. We conservatives who believe Governor Palin represents a
solid vice-presidential pick should be extremely comfortable engaging
this issue.

    Brooks's main argument against Palin is that she lacks the type of
experience and historical understanding that led President Bush to a
26 percent approval rating in his final months in office. Yet the
notion that the Bush Administration got into trouble because it didn't
have enough "experience" is absurd. George W. Bush was governor of
Texas for six years. His father was president. His primary advisors on
matters of foreign policy were Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Colin
Powell. In 2000, it could hardly have been possible to find a more
experienced team to head up a GOP administration. Brooks's notion that
the Bush Administration was "the anti-establishment attitude put into
executive practice" is simply ludicrous. Does anyone believe that Dick
Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld count as "anti-establishment"?

    Of course, we could also consider the Nixon Administration. Who
had more experience than Richard Nixon? How'd that work out? What
about George H.W. Bush? How did his administration do? What about
Herbert Hoover — who had vast experience both in terms of dealing with
foreign countries during World War I and in terms of dealing with the
U.S. economy as secretary of Commerce? How did he do? The truth is
that Brooks's basic claim — that experienced leaders are necessarily
better than inexperienced leaders — simply doesn't hold water.

    Now let's look at the broader issue of elitism versus populism.
For Brooks to be right, his elites have to make better policy
judgments than average Americans. But he overlooks the fact that in
America we have a particularly bad elite, an elite that holds most
Americans in contempt and has no sympathy for the history and
traditions that make us great. And that elite has been wrong on issue
after issue for most of the last 40 years. Who was more right about
the Soviet Union, the elites or the people? Who was more right about
the need to cut taxes in the 1970s, the elites or the people? Who was
more right about the need to get tough on crime, the elites in black
robes with life tenure, or the folks cheering for Dirty Harry? Who
would Brooks trust to decide critical issues regarding the War on
Terror today, the voters or the inside-the-Beltway types who lose
sleep over tough interrogation tactics? Elites — particularly our
American elite — are much more likely to go for the latest fad, for
seek to apply whatever notion is currently trendy in the salons of
Europe. To find true Burkean conservatism in this country — to find
citizens who are both respectful of our country's traditions and
anxious to see our country remain a world leader — you have to turn to
the voters.

    The truth is that it is no longer possible to govern this country
through a conservative elite. We have a radical elite, an elite that
believes in climate change, gay marriage, unrestricted abortions, and
the United Nations. We have an elite that intends to make massive,
liberal changes to every aspect of American life. This elite ruins
almost everything it touches — from the schools, to the media, to the
universities. Giving more power to the elites means watching the
United States become more and more like Europe.

    Populism rests on two great insights. First, it understands that
the people (taken as a whole) are often wiser and more prudent than
the elites. Average people are almost always respectful of tradition,
while elites tend to act like an angry mob trying to tear down the old
idols. Second, populism understands that it's not enough to actually
have the right policy ideas, you have to have the will to take on the
elites who will try to prevent those ideas from going into place. In
order to get anything accomplished, the GOP is going to have to use
public opinion to override the objections of liberals, including
liberals in the media.

    Does Sarah Palin have the political skills to successfully govern
this country from a populist perspective? It's far too early to say.
She is certainly the most promising such figure to come along since
the elites were denouncing Ronald Reagan. And therefore we should all
wish her well. It is silly to criticize her at this early stage until
we know a lot more about her abilities as a leader. I am glad to say
that her instincts appear to be sound.


09/16 06:38 PM

On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 5:26 PM, Herb Parsons <hparsons at parsonsys.com> wrote:
> Sorry, I disagree with the entire concept of the article. I despise
> articles that make a premise, then pretend like that's accepted fact.
> Here's one of his opening statements:
>
> " Most conservatives say yes, on the grounds that something that feels
> so good could not possibly be wrong. "
>
> However, he doesn't speak for conservatives. I don't personally know a
> single person that says "yes", and the reason they say it is because
> "something feels so good could not possibly be wrong."
>
> What an insipid assumption to make simply because he disagrees with
> another person, or group of people's, choice.
>
> He doesn't know me, or my reasons. I suspect he doesn't know the reason
> for so many others.
>
> I, and others like me, could be wrong in our choice, and even in our
> impressions of the woman (shoot, I was dead wrong in '76 when I voted,
> for the first time ever, for .... Jimma Cata ..), but "feeling good" has
> nothing to do with the choice.
>
>
> Ben Cittadino wrote:
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html?hp
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html?hp
>>
>>
>> Robert;
>>
>> The above link is to today's NY Times column by David Brooks, who you may
>> recognize as the William F. Buckley protege' and conservative commentator.
>> It concisely sets out the problem with Palin that those of us who represent
>> the dying breed of "Rockefeller Republicans" (the political philosophy of
>> your Susan Collins and Olympia Snow) have.
>>
>> As the Party falls away to the anti-intellectual wackos and fundamentalist
>> nut cases (and they know who they are) we can only hope that the
>> overwhelming support of the new politics of hope among the youth (under 40)
>> folks will bode better for the future.
>>
>> Even though I hail from the Great State of New Jersey, home of John Basilone
>> (hero of Guadalcanal), I still consider the greatest American hero to have
>> been Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (teacher, Governor, and hero of the 20th
>> Maine).
>>
>> Fair winds and following seas.
>>
>> Ben C. , s/v Susan Kay. Highlands, NJ
>>
>> Robert Skinner wrote:
>>
>>> Ed,
>>>
>>> Since you persist in making snide comments about the great
>>> state of Maine, this is to let you know that you have real
>>> opposition in Maine -- perhaps neither as bombastic,
>>> prevaricative, nor monomaniacal as you might find among
>>> your neocon fellow traveler comrade dittoheads, but at
>>> least equally valid [understatement].  As a professional
>>> musician once reminded me, volume is no substitute for
>>> quality.  And, by the way, repetition is no substitute for
>>> logic.
>>>
>>> I, for one, am paying attention to the issues, primarily
>>> the gone-to-hell-in-a-handbasket state of the nation while
>>> in the care (using the term loosely) of the Grumpy Old
>>> Patriarchs, and the fact that a good house-cleaning could
>>> not produce any worse results.  As I see it, any group
>>> of teen-age mutant turtles could do better and cost a hell
>>> of a lot less.
>>>
>>> It doesn't make a lot of difference who is the master of
>>> the ship of state when it is on the rocks.  The question
>>> is who can get it off in one piece.
>>>
>>> OK, now that I've had my turn, you can have the soap-box
>>> back, Ed.  Please clean up after you are done, and put
>>> the seat down.
>>>
>>> /Robert
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/
>>> Wednesday 10 September 2008
>>>   by: Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic
>>>
>>> Editor's Note: Historically a John McCain supporter, conservative
>>> journalist
>>> and blogger Andrew Sullivan takes on the issue of John McCain's integrity
>>> as
>>> he strives to win the presidency. - vh/TO
>>>
>>>       For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past
>>> ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish
>>> or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew
>>> about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as
>>> every
>>> sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that
>>> Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end
>>> this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless
>>> Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?
>>>       So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do
>>> so.
>>> And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him.
>>> On
>>> core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had
>>> to
>>> pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W.
>>> Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald
>>> Rumsfeld
>>> quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John
>>> Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can
>>> ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead
>>> of
>>> what he knew was best for the country.
>>>       And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and
>>> end
>>> the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear
>>> choice between good and evil, and chose evil.
>>>       He capitulated and enshrined torture as the policy of the United
>>> States, by allowing the CIA to use techniques as bad as and worse than the
>>> torture inflicted on him in Vietnam. He gave the war criminals in the
>>> White
>>> House retroactive immunity against the prosecution they so richly deserve.
>>> The enormity of this moral betrayal, this betrayal of his country's honor,
>>> has yet to sink in. But for my part, it now makes much more sense. He is
>>> not
>>> the man I thought he was.
>>>       And when he had the chance to engage in a real and substantive
>>> debate
>>> against the most talented politician of the next generation in a fall
>>> campaign where vital issues are at stake, what did McCain do? He began his
>>> general campaign with a series of grotesque, trivial and absurd MTV-style
>>> attacks on Obama's virtues and implied disgusting things about his
>>> opponent's patriotism.
>>>       And then, because he could see he was going to lose, ten days ago,
>>> he
>>> threw caution to the wind and with no vetting whatsoever, picked a woman
>>> who, by her decision to endure her own eight-month pregnancy of a Down
>>> Syndrome child in public, that he was going to reignite the culture war as
>>> a
>>> last stand against Obama. That's all that is happening right now: a
>>> massive
>>> bump in the enthusiasm of the Christianist base. This is pure Rove.
>>>       Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things
>>> about
>>> him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who
>>> cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who
>>> knows
>>> nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's
>>> safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because
>>> she
>>> polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that
>>> the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as
>>> his
>>> veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at
>>> the time.
>>>       McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have
>>> the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is
>>> more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next
>>> president.
>>> The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved
>>> it.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1156080,091008ebertpalin.article
>>>
>>> Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin: The American Idol candidate
>>>
>>>
>>> September 11, 2008
>>>
>>> BY ROGER EBERT Sun-Times Movie Critic [How appropriate!]
>>>
>>> I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah Palin's appeal. She's the
>>> 'American Idol' candidate. Consider. What defines an 'American Idol'
>>> finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny
>>> personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned
>>> near the real thing. There's a reason 'American Idol' gets such high
>>> ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could
>>> be me up there on that show!
>>>
>>> My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice president
>>> who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who is better,
>>> wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an
>>> opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald- faced lies about
>>> earmarks
>>> and the Bridge to Nowhere. Someone who doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians
>>> to 'study' global warming, because, hello! It has been studied. The
>>> returns
>>> are convincing enough that John McCain and Barack Obama are darned near in
>>> agreement.
>>>
>>> I would also want someone who didn't make a teeny little sneer when
>>> referring to 'people who go to the Ivy League.' When I was a teen I
>>> dreamed
>>> of going to Harvard, but my dad, an electrician, told me, 'Boy, we don't
>>> have the money. Thank your lucky stars you were born in Urbana and can go
>>> to
>>> the University of Illinois right here in town.' So I did, very happily.
>>> Although Palin gets laughs when she mentions the 'elite' Ivy League, she
>>> sure did attend the heck out of college.
>>>
>>> Five different schools in six years. What was that about?
>>>
>>> And how can a politician her age have never have gone to Europe? My dad
>>> had
>>> died, my mom was working as a book-keeper and I had a job at the local
>>> newspaper when, at 19, I scraped together $240 for a charter flight to
>>> Europe. I had Arthur Frommer's $5 a Day under my arm, started in London,
>>> even rented a Vespa and drove in the traffic of Rome. A few years later, I
>>> was able to send my mom, along with the $15 a Day book.
>>>
>>> You don't need to be a pointy-headed elitist to travel abroad. You need
>>> curiosity and a hunger to see the world. What kind of a person (who has
>>> the
>>> money) arrives at the age of 44 and has only been out of the country once,
>>> on an official tour to Iraq? Sarah Palin's travel record is that of a
>>> provincial, not someone who is equipped to deal with global issues.
>>>
>>> But some people like that. She's never traveled to Europe, Asia, Africa,
>>> South America or Down Under? That makes her like them. She didn't go to
>>> Harvard? Good for her! There a lot of hockey moms who haven't seen London,
>>> but most of them would probably love to, if they had the dough. And they'd
>>> be proud if one of their kids won a scholarship to Harvard.
>>>
>>> I trust the American people will see through Palin, and save the Republic
>>> in
>>> November. The most damning indictment against her is that she considered
>>> herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That shows bad judgment.
>>>
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>>
>>
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