"Writing is a skill, not a talent, and thus one's ability as a writer can be improved by thoughtful effort. The problem with some people is that they graduate college as good writers, experience early success on account of that, and thus never devote themselves diligently to the relentless quest for improvement that could make them great writers."
My husband and I are getting ready to do what many couples in these brink-of-recessionary times would consider unthinkable. No, we're not buying a Martha's Vineyard retreat or planning a month in St. Bart's or eco-decorating our house. We're planning to have a third child.
(OMG! Stop the world!)
What shocks people, when we tell them, isn't the thought of hauling three kids onto a place for a vacation, or even the idea of coming home every night to a houseful of runny noses and homework assignments. What gets them is the sheer financial audacity. Raising kids today costs a fortune. Last month, the Department of Agriculture estimated that each American child costs an average of $204,060 to house, clothe, educate and entertain until the age of 18.
("Sheer financial audacity"!)
What's worse, the desire to have another child opens one up to charges of elitism and status consciousness. In many major U.S. cities and their suburbs -- especially New York, where I live -- having three or more children has now come to seem like an ostentatious display of good fortune, akin to owning a pied-Ã -terre in Paris. The family of five has become "deluxe." Last year, novelist Molly Jong-Fast mused in the New York Observer, "Are people having four or five children just because they can? Because they feel that it shows their wealth and status? In a world where the young rich use their $13,000 Birkin bags as diaper bags, one has to wonder."
OK, lady, if the family of five is now "deluxe," then what adjective applies to a family of eight? Yes, I said "eight." My wife and I have six kids. No one has ever accused us of elitism or "ostentatious display." Drop by and visit sometime, we'll have macaroni and cheese.
There's a big mystery at the heart of Barack Obama's Dreams For My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. What was Barack Obama doing seeking out Marxist professors in college? Why did Obama choose a Communist Party USA member as his socio- political counselor in high school? Why was he spending his time studying neocolonialism and the writings of Frantz Fanon, the pro-violence author of "the Communist Manifesto of neocolonialsm", in college? Why did he take time out from his studies at Columbia to attend socialist conferences at Cooper Union?
The answer, Ransom suggests, is that young Barack was falling in the radical footsteps of his father:
Barack Obama's father, a Harvard trained economist, attacked the economic proposals of pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya from the socialist left, siding with communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga, in a paper Barack Obama's father wrote for the East Africa Journal.
Well, that cuts it: "a Harvard trained economist"! You know who else studied at Harvard? George W. Bush, who got a Harvard MBA. Obviously, Obama is a dangerous man, unfit for office.
I don’t even like holding people to what they wrote in their own college theses; now we have to worry about congenital bolshevism? There’s plenty of material to suggest Obama himself is hard left without weakening the argument by holding him responsible for his father’s views. What am I missing here?
"There is a tremendous amount of respect for John McCain out there," says the fundraiser. "He's seen as a gritty, kind of stand-up guy. They're not familiar with the dark side of John McCain that folks inside the Beltway are."
Jonathan Martin opines:
McCain has considerable appeal to those Republicans and conservative-leaning Americans who are not hyper-engaged and consumed by an issue matrix. The more casual the voter, the more likely he or she is to like McCain. Why? Because . . . the information flow they have is largely confined to Vietnam vet, POW, straight talker and maybe maverick.
Martin does not say what's likely to happen after Labor Day, when the Democrat/MSM complex starts bombarding the public with a non-stop barrage of negative information about McCain. Nor does Martin suggest how voters will react when they see a 72-year-old, 5-foot-7, bald man notorious for his bad temper in a nationally-televised debate against young, tall, lanky, affable media darling Barack Obama.
At the risk of sounding like part of the "political elite," McCain's biggest problem as a candidate is that he doesn't look presidential. George W. Bush may be an idiot, but at least he's a tall idiot with hair. The last three bald candidates for president were Hubert Humphrey ('68), George McGovern ('72) and Gerald Ford ('76).
NotoriousFamous idioteconomist John Kenneth Galbraith once wrote a strangely influential book called The Affluent Society in which he argued, among other things, that advertising caused people to buy things they didn't actually want. Consumer spending was wasteful, Galbraith argued, and therefore government should raise taxes and spend the money on things that people really needed.
Pushed by a host of factors — the guilt and exhaustion of working parents, the dispersion of family networks that once passed knowledge from generation to generation, the pressure of admissions from preschool to college, and a culture that worships all things celebrity (including its offspring) — we are intimidated or bamboozled into buying all sorts of goods and services that we not only don’t need, but that may harm our children.
"Intimidated"? "bamboozled"? We're victims!
There are people who have more money than sense, and I suppose stupid people are easy marks for purveyors of worthless products. But what can be done? There's no point writing books about the subject, because stupid people don't read books. If they had enough brains to read a book, they probably wouldn't be buying that crap to begin with.
As a parent of six, I've seen my share of baby stuff, so here's some advice on what not to buy:
Walkers -- These icons of White Trash Motherhood are actually bad for your child's development. If your child is not old enough to walk, the child should be down on the floor crawling. The experience of crawling is vital to developing motor skills. It's exercise that stimulates both brain and body. The ironically-named "walker" actually delays a child's progress toward walking. The only time a walker comes in handy is if you're mopping the floor, or you're outside and don't want your child crawling around in the dirt. But the White Trash Motherhood thing of leaving the child in a walker for hours at a time is to be strenously avoided.
Talking "educational" toys -- Another classic icon of White Trash Motherhood, the toy that talks to your baby so you don't have to. Generally speaking, avoid any baby toy that requires batteries, but especially avoid any toy with batteries that claims to be educational. It's mind-boggling to see these "baby computers" and fancy "learn to read" gizmos at the store for $54.99. Hello? Go buy Dr. Seuss's ABC for $4.99 and read that to your kid.
Electric kiddie cars -- Perhaps the ultimate icon of White Trash Motherhood, these overpriced toys can be found swarming over every trailer park in Alabama for a few days after Christmas. Then the kids get bored, the cars left in the yard during a rainstorm, and by spring are non-operational. The likelihood that a parent will buy their child one of these things is inversely proportional to the number of books in the home.
If anyone can wage a low-cost campaign to victory it’s John McCain. He won the nomination on a shoe-string budget. However, wouldn’t he have more room for error if he had the luxury of additional funds? By relying more on online fundraising McCain would have more time to do the townhall meetings he loves and talk with the press and webloggers. Getting more online donors means McCain would do what he does best: campaign.
Let me explain this for the benefit of anyone who doesn't understand it. McCain is not a grassroots candidate who can count on getting the majority of his campaign money in $50 and $100 contributions from online donors. He collects the bulk of his cash from elderly rich people and the big-money crowd on K Street.
As for the "shoe-string budget," McCain won the GOP nomination on the basis of (a) Democratic crossover votes in New Hampshire, (b) divided opposition, and (c) fawning media coverage. None of those factors will be in effect in the general election.
Hackbarth writes:
If you’re a Republican who wants to retain the White House in November you should be disappointed.
Right. I've been disappointed ever since McCain clinched the nomination. He's an albatross, a certain loser. McCain is not Reagan '80, he's Dole '96. I can't understand why some Republicans can't see that putting Crazy Cousin John at the top of the ticket guarantees a disaster in November -- probably the worst GOP wipeout since 1974.
There's just so much news out there, I despair of attempting to comment about even a fraction of it. So, via Memeorandum, here are the important headlines as of 5 p.m. Monday:
Barack Obama did not hunt or fish as a child. He lives in a big city. And as an Illinois state legislator and a U.S. senator, he consistently backed gun control legislation. But he is nevertheless making a play for pro-gun voters in rural Pennsylvania. By highlighting his background in constitutional law and downplaying his voting record, Obama is engaging in a quiet but targeted drive to win over an important constituency that on the surface might seem hostile to his views.
[S]o many liberals felt a need to say, on this day of all days, that Heston was a bad actor (though I don’t believe Fire Dog Lake or the Yglesias commenters are doing anything but rationalizing their political judgments; you want to retch at stuff like this). Acting tastes differ and acting fashions change (more on that in a moment), but how narrow must a man’s moral sight be to waste neurons, silicon space, and perfectly good 1s and 0s ranting about what a bad actor a man (supposedly) is on the day of his death. Though political figures by definition have mixed legacies, and noting this in a respectful fashion is quite fair even in an obit, I devoutly believe in “de mortuis nil nisi bonum,” particularly about artists, and doubt the moral sanity and basic decency of those who do not — one reason I doubt that moral sanity and basic decency are widespread among liberals.
Definitely read the whole thing. The Latin phrase roughly translates to "speak no ill of the dead." I know Latin because I studied it in high school. Victor knows Latin because he's a latter-day Guy Fawkes.
I swear to God that it is a coincidence that Stacy and Jennifer quoted almost the same two lines — they were such clear-cut choices for quotation. The first-named line was the one the AME in charge at the Times imitated when he and I were discussing Heston on Sunday — it’s a guttural cry of despair that a lesser voice could not make so memorable, even for parody’s sake (he also remembered an SNL sketch in which Heston parodies himself). As for the second line, it’s the first time that the apes have heard humans speak, and hearing them from the Charlton Heston voice, you better believe it shook them down to the bones as much as an ape talking to us today would.
Sure, it's just a coincidence -- like it's just a coincidence Karl Rove knows Republicans in Alabama. Ask Don Siegelman about that. UPDATE:Michelle Malkin links what she calls a "most excellent and thorough tribute to Charlton Heston" by Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post. Except . . . it's not a tribute:
Was he a great actor? Many think not, and few would rank him with contemporaries like Brando, Dean, even Widmark or Wayne. . . . His greatest film, 1958's "Touch of Evil," featured Heston as a Mexican narcotics detective, probably his biggest stretch and not really an outstanding performance. . . . In his private life, he was given to follow that strange calling that is half public service and half self-aggrandizement with the distinction frequently blurred. . . . Why . . . did he take the leadership of the NRA, never the most popular of lobbying outfits in Washington? One cynical explanation is that the old star was looking for an audience that would treat him as he had been treated in the late '50s and early '60s, almost as a god.
Hunter repeatedly damns Heston with faint praise. Would a "most excellent and thorough tribute" suggest that Heston was less able an actor than Richard Widmark or John Wayne? Hello? If there is anything that is a solid consensus among film snobs, it's that John Wayne was a lousy actor. I'm not a film snob, and thus not part of that consensus, but when Hunter says "few would rank" Heston with Wayne, that's about as vicious a put-down as a Washington Post film snob can muster. And while Widmark worked steadily, he was never the kind of marquee name who could carry a picture all by himself. So by classifying Heston as inferior to both Wayne and Widmark, Hunter is double-damning him as barely better than a B-movie actor. Even more astonishing is that Hunter, in the process of taking these oblique cheap shots at Heston, trashes Cecil B. DeMille:
Nobody ever accused . . . Cecil B. DeMille, of greatness; DeMille was more entrepreneur, logistics expert, visionary and carny barker than true artist. And [The Ten Commandments] remains a monument to kitsch. . . .
Great balls of fire! Technicolor spectaculars may not be your cup of tea (or my cup of tea), but to deny "greatness" to an Academy Award winner? DeMille was one of the few directors to succeed first in silent films, then in talkies and then in color. He was and remains one of the giant figures of motion picture history. What kind of twisted and embittered soul would diss DeMille as a "carny barker"? And anyone who accuses Heston of overacting or playing a "type" should hesitate -- and perhaps halt -- before heaping praise on James Dean, who exemplified what might be called the Schizodramatic Style: 90% morose neurotic, 10% raging psychotic. To suggest that Dean's acting was "nuanced," in a way Heston's was not, is just balderdash.
I was deeply saddened to hear of Charlton’s passing and want his devoted wife Lydia and children Holly and Fraser to know that they are in my heart and prayers at this difficult time. He was a truly venerable figure off the screen as well as on. Like his friend Ronald Reagan, he showed true courage by turning his back on liberalism and publicly embracing principles of liberty at a time and in a place where it wasn’t just unpopular, it was a perilous career move. By the time I came to know him through his work with the NRA, he had become the Second Amendment’s very best advocate. I am honored that he campaigned for me in each of my Congressional races, and am privileged to have worked with him as a NRA Board Member during his tenure as President. We are better off and more secure in our freedoms thanks to him, so let us rejoice in his life even as we mourn this loss.
The Thompson cult is too hip for my tastes — and many a young writer has been ruined trying to emulate the godfather of gonzo — but I’m enjoying the book a great deal. George McGovern is the hero of the book, and since McGovern is also one of the good guys in Kauffman’s book (which I’ll eventually be reviewing, the fact that I’m quoted therein notwithstanding) means that I suppose Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail counts as research. My Ron Paul campaign colleague Jonathan Bydlak was the one who recommended the book to me — a good call.
The big mystery is why McCarthy didn't contact me, since I'm arguably the Right's foremost authority on all things Gonzo. In addition to having been a fan since 1979, I'm on friendly terms with Thompson's widow, which is something few right-wingers can say.
Certainly McCarthy's friend Bydlak made a good recommendation -- HST's '72 campaign book is arguably the most honest book of its kind ever written. (I wrote a feature about the book when it was re-released in 2006.) Thompson's hilariously blunt assessments of liberal phonies like Ed Muskie and Hubert Humphrey are worth the price of the book. He also provides some fascinating inner-circle glimpses of how the McGovern campaign fought it out during the Democratic primaries -- and then hopelessly bungled the general election campaign against Nixon.
What's important to understand about HST's journalism, as I explained last month in my "Notes on Gonzo" post, is that he did not plan to become a journalist. He planned to be a great novelist -- his heroes were Hemingway and Fitzgerald -- and stumbled into journalism as a way to pay the bills. As he writes in Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (pg. 478 of the latest paperback edition):
There was a time, about ten years ago, when I could write like Grantland Rice. Not necessarily because I believed all that sporty bulls---, but because sportswriting was the only thing I could do that anybody was willing to pay for.
Throughout his writing (including Hell's Angels and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), HST persistently ridicules the self-important cluelessness of "serious," "objective" journalists. Thompson himself never claimed to be objective -- he had strong feelings about the stories he covered and never bothered to hide his feelings -- and engaged in wild antics (such as giving his press pass to a drifter who wreaked havoc on Muskie's campaign train) that injected chaotic mischief into the compulsory dullness of "serious" journalism.
McCarthy is correct that "many a young writer has been ruined trying to emulate the godfather of gonzo," as Thompson's widow herself said:
"A lot of young people are under the assumption that if you do a lot of cocaine and drink a lot of Wild Turkey, you, too, can write like Hunter S. Thompson," she told the audience that included Richard Cusick of High Times magazine and R. Keith Stroop, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Gonzo journalism is not about substance abuse, but about the writer's self-awareness -- and his awareness that much of what passes for journalism is no better than "hired bulls---," to quote Thompson. What he was trying to get at was something beneath the PR hype, something real and true, something honest and human.
I became a fan of HST three decades ago because his books made me laugh. Now, after more than 20 years in the news business, I still laugh, but HST also makes me think, and stand amazed that he was able to do what he did. That's why I get angry when John McCain's ditzy daughter compares her insipid blog to Thompson's campaign opus. That stupid brat hasn't paid enough dues, and never will pay enough dues, to compare herself to Thompson.
Oh, one more thing I meant to point out: McGovern is not the hero of Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72. McGovern is a nice guy, but he's also a loser. The real hero of the book is Thompson. He always is the hero of his books, which goes a long way toward explaining the "Thompson cult" among young writers who dream of being heroes themselves.
UPDATE: Linked by James Poulos, whose monstrous sideburns are proof that long-term ibogaine abuse can lead to the growth of bizarre facial hair.
It disturbs me, however, that Poulos calls me a "DC fixture." (A urinal is also a fixture.) What James means is that I show up once or twice a month at the same open-bar gatherings of right-wingers that he attends regularly. But while James lives in DC, I live 70 miles away on the far side of South Mountain in rural Maryland.
So how is that I have managed, via these periodic visits to DC, to create the impression that I am a ubiquitous "fixture" in the city? Poulos must be hallucinating, and it's probably not just the ibogaine. He must have gotten into the ether. And I remind you, there is still "nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge."
A global rice shortage that has seen prices of one of the world's most important staple foods increase by 50 per cent in the past two weeks alone is triggering an international crisis, with countries banning export and threatening serious punishment for hoarders.
Bans and punishment! Pretty soon, we'll see Coast Guard cutters chasing down rice smugglers and customs officials at foreign airports will be asking departing tourists, "Ma'am, do you have any rice in your luggage?"
An amusing naivete to this article:
The impact will be felt most keenly by the world's poorest populations, who have become increasingly dependent on the crop as the prices of other grains have become too costly.
Well, duh. Food is a commodity. It is sold for money. If prices go up, poor people are always hurt worse than rich people because -- big surprise -- rich people have lots of money.
Thurston Howell III may have to postpone the purchase of another yacht, but he ain't going to starve to death. On the other hand, the poor guy in the slums of Calcutta lives day-to-day with no money to spare, and an increase in prices means he might go hungry, or go even hungrier than he's already going.
Amazing thing about wealth and poverty: Whatever your problem, being rich makes it better, and being poor makes it worse. And that's true for nations as well as for individuals.
Rich countries have more resources to cope with their problems than do poor countries. A hurricane hits Florida, causes a few million dollars in damage, people evacuate and maybe one or two people die. But if the same hurricane hits Haiti, hundreds of people might be killed.
So whether you are a nation or an individual, it's better to be rich than to be poor, and most people understand this. That's why so many people watch those stupid TV informercials about "no-money-down" real estate deals -- they want to get rich. And it's why poor people in Mexico want to live in the United States: They'll still be poor, but it's better to be poor in a rich country than to be poor in a poor country.
All this is just common sense, but still the Guardian feels the need to state in the second paragraph that higher rice prices "will be felt most keenly by the world's poorest populations." This is an "international crisis," the reporter proclaims, as if Swedes will soon be starving in the streets and Canada is about to descend into anarchy.
In reality, the rice shortage is a crisis in the same poor Third World countries that are always in crisis, if by "crisis" you mean the persistent problems associated with widespread poverty. The higher price of rice will make things worse for a while, but apocalyptic famine is unlikely, except where governments try to "fix" the problem, for example:
Already China, India, Egypt, Vietnam and Cambodia have imposed tariffs or export bans, as it has become clear that world production of rice this year will decline in real terms by 3.5 per cent. . . . In Bangladesh, government-run outlets that sell subsidised rice have been besieged by queues comprised largely of the country's middle classes, who will queue for hours to purchase five kilograms of rice sold at 30 per cent cheaper than on the open market. In Thailand yesterday . . . Deputy Prime Minister Mingkwan Sangsuwan convened a meeting of key officials and traders yesterday to discuss imposing minimum export prices to control export volumes and measures to punish hoarders. The meeting follows moves by some larger supermarkets in Thailand to limit purchases of rice by customers. In the Philippines, where the National Bureau of Investigation has been called in to raid traders suspected of hoarding rice to push up the prices, activists have warned of the risk of food riots.
OK, so famine might strike the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, etc., but not because of high rice prices. It's the governments' anti-market paranoia -- "Someone might be making a profit here!" -- that will lead to real shortages. Where trade is criminalized, prices go up and shortages become routine, as you may have discovered the last time you tried to score some Bolivian flake cocaine.
Attacks on Heston's politics are one thing, but politically-motivated attacks on his ability as an actor are absurd. Matthew Yglesias is dismissive, though he is at least civil. TBogg, on the other hand:
[I]t was from Charlton Heston . . . that I started to understand the concept of "acting" and "actors" and how really bad Heston was at this acting thing. . . . Heston was a star and nuance was not in his repertoire; he was a slab of heroic beef who forged ever onward to the final credits with grim determination, gritted teeth and a heroic mien. . . . I'm not sure what it is about bad actors that causes right wingers to clutch them to their chicken-breasted bosoms. . . .
TBogg's rant, uh, forges ever onward from there, but you get the drift. It's the "heroic mien" that he rejects.
Yes, of course, if you despise the characteristics of the traditional hero -- the stoic resolve, the "grim determination" -- you must hate Heston. On the other hand, if you admire those qualities:
Dignity was the essence of Heston's onscreen appeal. He was barely 30 when DeMille cast him as Moses, but already possessed the mature dignity needed to play the mighty prophet, and Heston was as believable as the gray-bearded Hebrew lawgiver as he was as the young Egyptian prince. The theme of human dignity runs like a thread through Heston's career, both on and off the screen. Heston was seemingly typecast as the voice who speaks for the dignity of downtrodden mankind, whether enslaved by Egyptians or Romans, oppressed by apes, or euthanized and ground up for food in Soylent Green. . . .
Read the whole thing, but only if you're in a mood to forge ever onward in fond remembrance of the late, great Charlton Heston.
Charlton Heston, the Oscar-winning actor who achieved stardom playing larger-than-life figures including Moses, Michelangelo and Andrew Jackson in historical epics and went on to become a best-selling author, a contentious Hollywood labor leader, an unapologetic gun advocate and darling of conservative causes, has died. He was 84. Heston died Saturday at his Beverly Hills home, his family said in a statement.
(Via Memeorandum.) While everyone remembers Heston in The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, I remember him most as a staunch Second Amendment advocate. During the height of the "assault weapon" hysteria of 1990s, Heston stood firm as a leader of the NRA and helped rally conservatives to defend gun-owner's rights.
Heston, who grew up hunting in Illinois, famously said they could take his gun "when they pry it from my cold dead hands." Courtesy of Macsmind, here's the video:
Today, my heart is heavy with the loss of Charlton Heston. America has lost a great patriot. The Second Amendment has lost a faithful friend. . . . . My heart is heavy, but not without a sense of pride. Pride in a man who devoted his life to his profession with grace and dignity. Pride in an American who devoted himself to civil rights, to correcting injustices around him, and to standing up for what he knew was right. Pride in a friend who stood with me and stood with fellow NRA members to preserve our freedom for future generations. Pride in a patriot who believed with every fiber of his being that our Bill of Rights is the foundation of our freedom that makes Americans singular among the masses of nations.
Does $300 million sound like a lot of money? It does, except when you consider how much more Gore stands to personally profit from the climate of mass hysteria he’s been been helping to create with a no-holds-barred campaign of misinformation aimed at marginalizing and ostracizing all those who dare to question his take on global warming. . . . Gore himself is chairman and founder of a private equity firm called Generation Investment Management (GIM). According to Gore, the London-based firm invests money from institutions and wealthy investors in companiesthat are going green. . . . If carbon emissions trading ever comes to the United States, Al Gore will be uniquely positioned to cash in. . . . If Gore can keep up the pressure for carbon emissions restrictions, he could end up a very wealthy man. Given that, the $300 million doesn’t seem like a lot of money after all.
All I know is that Gore has a hammer -- of sorts -- and it looks like most of the most pressing problems in the country and on the globe are starting to resemble nails.
Something else to remember: Just because something is "non-profit" doesn't mean that people aren't getting paid. There are plenty of people making six-figure incomes -- to say nothing of tax-free perks like expense-paid travel to "conferences" held at resort locations -- on the payrolls of non-profit groups.
And that's just the legit stuff. Outright non-profit fraud is something else. As part of the Abramoff scandal, a former Tom DeLay aide set up a bogus "think tank" in a beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., hiring his buddies for no-show jobs.
The mere fact that someone has a non-profit 501(c) ostensibly devoted to some worthy cause does not for a minute convince me that they're on the up-and-up. Given that Al Gore is a Democrat, I naturally suspect he's running a scam of some sort.
When I lived behind the iron curtain, my parents taught me never to talk anyone about anything. This caveat was not restricted to the typical warning given by regular parents to their regular children about the regular concerns of every day life. No, the lecture I got, as did so many others like me, was a sober lecture given by Soviet parents to their Soviet children, who had to begin schooling in big brother's tactics at an early age. One wrong word could send an entire family to a work camp or prison. . . . [T]his was the reality of life under the Soviet regime, knowing that everything was watched, everyone was listening, no one could be trusted, and children were often he targets for inquiry into what their parents say behind closed doors. Friends were the next best thing, which may explain what we are about to hear out of the halls of the state legislature of Alabama.
(Via Memeorandum.) As with so many other disjoined rants at HuffPo, it's kind of hard to understand exactly what Larisa Alexandrovna is talking about, except that it has something to do with a federal investigation of Democrats in the Alabama legislature, possibly related to the case of former Gov. Don Siegelman, who was convicted of federal corruption charges.
Subpoenas were issued. Democrats got scared. Considering the notoriously corrupt history of the Democratic Party -- hey, you want to buy a book? -- it's hard to blame Democrats for being scared. But "Darkness at Noon," it ain't.
Seeking clues to the cause of Alexandrovna's outburst of hysterical hyperbole, I checked her biography:
Larisa Alexandrovna is a journalist, essayist and poet.
"... and poet." Bingo. She's a crackpot who guzzles gin, listens to Air America and lives in a tiny apartment with 14 cats.
Lest anyone fear that the Red Army has captured Opelika and established concentration camps in Phenix City, I have assurances that Alexandrovna's extravagant metaphor is bogus.
Friday night, I was able to establish communications with an operative near Huntsville who assured me that he was sitting on his front porch, smoking a cigarette and drinking a Guinness. No telltale clanking of T-72 treads was heard in the background.
UPDATE: OK, OK -- I have no idea how many cats Larisa Alexandrovna owns, or whether she listens to Air America. But when somebody lists "poet" in their biography, it automatically alerts my finely tuned crackpot-detection system. As for the gin-guzzling, that's almost certainly wrong. She probably guzzles vodka.
UPDATE II: Strangely enough, a fairly straightforward explanation from the New York Times:
The concern is a result of a long-running federal investigation into corruption within the state’s system of two-year colleges that has led to guilty pleas on bribery and corruption charges by one state lawmaker and the system’s former chancellor. The Birmingham News reported in 2006 that a quarter of the 140 members of the Legislature had financial ties to the college system, with most of the jobs or contracts going to lawmakers or their relatives. Recent reports indicate the number has grown to nearly a third of the Legislature.
Cronyism, nepotism, corruption -- maybe there's something to that Soviet Union analogy, after all. But if Larisa Alexandrovna meant to compare Alabama Democrats to Breshnev-era Politburo members, she should have made it clearer. More vodka!
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December. Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
Oh, the horrible stress of it all! Forget about global warming. Forget about famine in Africa. We must find a solution to . . . The Blog Crisis!
Leave it to the New York Times to find eeevvilll capitalist exploitation wherever people work for a living:
Blogging has been lucrative for some, but those on the lower rungs of the business can earn as little as $10 a post, and in some cases are paid on a sliding bonus scale that rewards success with a demand for even more work. . . . Some write for fun, but thousands write for Web publishers — as employees or as contractors — or have started their own online media outlets with profit in mind. Bloggers for such sites are often paid for each post, though some are paid based on how many people read their material. They build that audience through scoops or volume or both. Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month. Then the goal is raised, like a sales commission: write more, earn more.
Let's see, Wal-Mart is evil because it sells stuff cheap and isn't unionized, and Starbucks is evil because it sells expensive coffee and isn't unionized. The pattern of New York Times-disapproved capitalist exploitation is clear. Obviously, there can be only one solution to The Blog Crisis:
BLOGGERS of the WORLD UNITE! You have nothing to lose . . . but your pajamas!
This message paid for by the International Amalgamated Blogworkers Guild, Local 374.
Actually, blogging is kind of therapeutic. . . . Some people do yoga; I pound the keyboard. The blood pressure goes down either way.
"Some people do yoga"? Right-wing homophobic code words, obviously. Once you understand his repressive theocratic agenda, you know that what See-Dubya really means is: "Pinko faggots who should be be deprived of their civil rights do yoga."
To me blogging is a pure joy. I have been a working journalist for most of my life but now find that the mainstream media has undergone a sea change, and those who learnt the professional nuances in the pre-1980 era have little opportunity to contribute. . . . I had almost begun to feel left out three years ago in the absence of a platform to write. . . . So in this way blogs can get people out of stress and listlessness.
Two great points there:
Blogging can be a stress-relieving outlet for people who feel a desire to share their views in writing.
Compared to life in a newsroom, blogging is a walk in the park.
I disagree, however, with Chauhan's assertion that older journalists "have little opportunity to contribute." This is a misunderstanding of the actual situation: The print journalism industry is shrinking, and has been shrinking for 20 years, which makes upward mobility problematic. Older journalists can still work, but they're expected to work with the intensity and enthusiasm of 25-year-olds -- and for the same crappy pay that 25-year-olds get.
Speaking of which, an editor called me this morning with an assignment, one that requires real research and real writing. Oh, the horrible stress of it all . . .
Gloom, despair and agony on me! Deep, dark depression, excessive misery! If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all! Gloom, despair and agony on me!
Christopher Orlet began by asking if " 'young conservative intellectuals' . . . are as gloomy about the movement's future as is the old guard?" J.P. Freire responded by noting Hart's surprisingly savage attack on Rush Limbaugh, and remarked:
"[I]t's curious that the older conservatives are gloomy. The ideas are still salient -- so who cares about political power? Us young folk got all the time in the world."
James Antle weighed in by naming Ann Coulter as an example of "cookie-cutter Republican cheerleaders"(!) and said:
I see leftward trends in American politics, an overidentification of conservatism with the electoral interests of the Republican Party, and so many conservatives seemingly resigned to government growth, it's hard not to feel a little gloomy.
Being neither young nor an intellectual, I suppose I'm imposing myself on the discussion, but what the heck?
Antle is correct in seeing the current trends as hostile to conservatism. I would amend his first clause to read "leftward trends in American culture," because I believe culture dominates politics rather than the other way around.
Friere is correct that young conservatives like himself -- he's about 25 years old -- are very optimistic. Anyone who thinks that the cause of conservatism is hopelessly lost should spend time around college conservatives, who tend to be gleefully combative.
The post-9/11 security debate and the war in Iraq have highlighted the divisions in the conservative movement, while uniting liberals. Paleos and neos had been uneasy allies for years, but this internecine feud went spectacularly public after David Frum published his "Unpatriotic Conservatives" attack. (Did any paleo think of "Unconservative Patriots" as a title for a rejoinder to Frum?) It is possible for conservatives to hope that (a) the neos have learned a lesson from the disappointment of their more sanguine predictions for Iraq, and (b) the paleos have gained ground in the process, so that the postwar internecine feud might be somewhat more balanced.
The Bush administration has been bad for conservatism. Almost from Inauguration Day, Dubya has done things that have gone 180 degrees against the sentiments of grassroots conservatives (e.g., No Child Left Behind). Many times I've found myself in arguments with liberals who would cite some specific Bush policy and taunt me, "How can you be in favor of that?" To which I'd answer, "But I'm not in favor of that. And neither is Phyllis Schlafly, or Pat Buchanan, or Paul Weyrich, or . . . ." Conservatives can therefore be grateful that the Bush years are near an end.
The causes of conservative gloom are easy enough to see, but despair is not warranted. Things are looking bad just now, but things were also looking bad in 1959, 1965, 1974, 1993, etc. There is every reason to hope for improvement. As a great man once said, "It is history that teaches us to hope."
Reason magazine's David Weigel offers "four ways [Bob] Barr can avoid Ron Paul's mistakes," and you can click over to read for yourself.
The trend of political journalists offering unsolicited advice to politicians is nothing new. I've said before that I "dislike it when journalists do the armchair-strategist routine with campaigns," and criticized Jim Antle when he seemed to be "acting as an unpaid advisor to the McCain campaign." But since everybody with a press pass seems to be getting in on this game . . .
Top 5 Campaign Strategies
Rejected by Bob Barr
5. Pro-Skinny-Dipping -- An unnamed Barr adviser, eager to solicit the "youth vote" and emphasize that Barr has made a clean break with his Republican past, suggested that the congressman go skinny-dipping at Daytona Beach during Spring Break. Idea rejected after polling showed the "youth vote" was strongly opposed to seeing a 59-year-old man naked. 4. Barr Cigars -- Seeking to capitalize on Barr's role in the 1998 impeachment of Bill Clinton, a New York tobacco merchant suggested the idea of distributing "100% Lewinsky-free" cigars endorsed by Barr. Nixed because Kerry Howley complained of the gimmick's "misogynistic overtones." 3. "Campaign Shoot-Out" -- Highlighting the NRA board member's pro-Second Amendment stance, this projected reality show would have pitted Barr in a series of target-shooting matches against rival candidates, using a variety of firearms, including .50-caliber machine guns. Other campaigns inexplicably refused to participate. "No comment," said an Obama adviser. "Figure it out for yourself." 2. Karaoke Fund-Raiser Party -- Hoping to cash in on the "American Idol" craze, Libertarian strategists planned a $50-a-ticket "Karaoke Barr" night in Northern Virginia with Barr as the featurer performer. Event canceled after a campaign aide heard Barr practicing "The Surrey With The Fringe On Top." 1. Ulitimate Fighting Debate -- This was Barr's own idea -- a "No-Holds-Barr-ed" grudge match against Hillary Clinton. Advisers talked the candidate out of it by pointing out that (a) Hillary outweighs him by at least 20 pounds, and (b) Hillary might actually look better in spandex shorts.
Strong rhetoric, calling John McCain "part of the problem, part of the status quo, more of the same." He calls Obama "an empty suit" and says Hillary is "no leader."
UPDATE 3:58: Barr announces formation of his presidential exploratory committee, after quoting Dante on the perils of remaining neutral in "times of great moral crisis." The streaming video was kind of crappy. Will update momentarily with the press release. UPDATE 4:25: Finally, the long-promised press release:
Barr Announces Presidential Exploratory Committee
Kansas City, MO – Addressing Midwestern activists at the Heartland Libertarian Conference today, former Congressman Bob Barr announced the launch of the Bob Barr 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee (BobBarr2008.com).
In his speech, Barr noted that, "America today faces a grave moral and leadership crisis, and those of us who care about our country's future can no longer sit on the sidelines and remain neutral." "As Dante Alighieri said many centuries ago,” Barr observed, "the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." Continuing, Barr stated that, "some say it is not now expedient or politically pragmatic to do the right thing, for the right reason." But, he then asked his audience, "When has there been a better time? When has the risk of inaction carried more serious consequences? When will it be appropriate to take extraordinary steps? What must happen to our Constitution before we set aside our complacency and expediency in favor of principle?" Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, where he served as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, as Vice-Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and as a member of the Committee on Financial Services. Prior to his congressional career, Barr was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and also served as an official with the CIA for nearly eight years. Since leaving Congress, Barr has been practicing law and actively advocating American citizens' right to privacy and other civil liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. He serves also as a board member for the National Rifle Association, and works with the American Conservative Union and other groups. Barr's speech to the Heartland audience touched on the issues the candidates for the two major status quo parties have not addressed sufficiently, namely: the urgent need for truly cutting the size of the federal government, protecting our civil liberties, securing our borders, and fundamentally reforming our tax code. "Removing 'earmarks' but not cutting the underlying spending is simply government as usual and is nothing more than a cynical shell game," Barr stated; adding, "and that's the high water mark in the debate thus far." Barr said this is not adequate, and that America’s voters deserve better than a choice between "the lesser of two evils." The Libertarian Party, America's oldest and largest third party, formed in 1971, is on track to achieve ballot access in at least 48 states. Its nominee will be chosen at the Libertarian National Convention which will be held in Denver, CO May 22 through 26.
UPDATE 3:52: Barr is now speaking live in Kansas City. UPDATE 3:45:Barr's presidential Web site just went live with this message:
Thank you for visiting the official web site of the Barr 2008 President Exploratory Committee! Our staff is working tirelessly to establish a strong foundation of support for authentic Liberty in America, which has been too long absent from our Nation’s Capitol. We truly need the support of patriotic Americans who want to restore our government to its proper size and role. To this end, I ask that you help me take our message of abundant freedom, true hope and government restraint to Washington with your most generous contribution. Together, with your help, we will send the two-party system a message.
A member of the Barr entourage in Kansas City just promised me (again) I'd get the press release soon.
UPDATE 4:10 p.m.:Weigel links me and observes of the Barr Web site:
It looks a whole lot like Ron Paul's site. Liked "Hope for America?" Hey, try some "Liberty for America."
(Yeah, I know, my updates aren't in any time sequence. They are, however, in logical sequence.)
UPDATE 2:30 p.m. (and bumped):Reason magazine says the announcement will be streaming on live video 3:50 p.m. EDT. A source in Kansas City says that a press release will be e-mailed to me momentarily.
UPDATE 1:20 p.m.: Barr is scheduled to make his announcement speech in Kansas City at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (2:30 p.m. Central). More updates below.
* * * * *
Maybe Dave Weigel didn't make it clear enough in his Thursday post at Reason, but Bob Barr will be a candidate for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination.
Today (Saturday), the Barr campaign plans to announce the formation of an exploratory committee and Barr's people have alerted TV networks that his speech in Kansas City will be newsworthy.
It seems necessary to state this clearly because -- more than 24 hours after Weigel got the scoop -- I'm still reading tentative headlines like:
Suggestion to the MSM: Stop with all the question marks, and try contacting some Libertarian Party sources -- you know, what used to be called reporting. You might find out, for instance, that there has actually been a poll of Libertarian Party activists (including LP national convention delegates):
Barr received 29.7 percent of the vote, followed by Root with 21.7 percent. Ruwart trailed a little bit behind Root, with 17.1 percent. She was followed by Phillies at 8.6 percent. Kubby and Gravel tied at 4 percent. They were followed by Jingozian, Smith and then Hess. In head-to-head matchups, Barr clearly outperformed both Root and Ruwart. Barr received 48 percent of the vote, defeating Root with 30.9 percent. Barr received 48 percent, defeating Ruwart with 37.7 percent of the vote.
Barr has not officially announced his plans, because he's saving that announcement until the time and place of his choosing (i.e., today in Kansas City), but he's definitely running. I expect to be e-mailed a press release in a few hours, but I don't need a press release to report the facts.
The fear of “irrelevance” or playing a “spoiler” role may overwhelm the desire for real representation, but that fear needs to be resisted. The way to make the antiwar right irrelevant is if we back a candidate that is either pro-war or not on the right. . . . [W]hat worries me is the perception and the spin of the outcome that will blame any McCain defeat on Barr rather than on the appalling policies of this administration and McCain’s embrace of them.
Fear and loathing is not an unfamiliar phenomenon in election years. The problem with Larison, and other political worrywarts, is that they take this stuff far too seriously. Politics is far more enjoyable if you simply focus on the spectacle of the campaign, the carnival aspect of elections. If you want to put this stuff in proper perspective, a bit of small-stakes gambling always helps. Stop worrying about the fate of humanity and start worrying about whether you'll lose $10 in the office pool.
Rick Perlstein wants to "push back against the conservatives' excrescent Santa Clausification of Martin Luther King," so he quotes from his own forthcoming Nixon book, describing the 1968 crisis in Memphis brought about by the sanitation workers strke. Perlstein ends by saying:
I'm so, so proud to be a historian today, and to be able to do my own little part to wrench Martin Luther King's awesome radicalism out of the the blood-crusted arms of grubby clowns like David Brooks who dare try to embrace him.
(Via Memeorandum.) Being no great admirer of Brooks, the prophet of "National Greatness," far be it from me to leap to his defense, but I think Perlstein's criticism of Brooks highlights the inherent tension over MLK's historic legacy.
If America is to celebrate MLK as a universal hero, the celebration will inevitably revolve around King's 1963 "I Have A Dream" speech, and its vision of a color-blind America. Since liberals today are advocates of racial quotas and identity politics, then MLK of 1963 is hard to reconcile with the current liberal agenda.
On the other hand, in the context of his own time, King was an extremely controversial figure, widely suspected of communist sympathies. It was not until 1963, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, that MLK purged his staff of Communist Party members, including Jack O'Dell, who was identified as the fifth-ranking member of CPUSA.
Furthermore, Perlstein is correct in saying that the MLK of 1968 represented a "radicalism" that most conservative would not embrace. After all, the Memphis sanitation workers strike was a labor dispute involving municipal employees (the kind of stuff AFSCME does today) and as such was characterized by the sort of leftistclass-warfare rhetoric one might expect in such a situation.
MLK's legacy is thus a complex thing, and Perlstein's complaint raises an obvious question: If conservatives who "dare to try to embrace" King without endorsing King's "radicalism" are to be excoriated as "grubby clowns" engaged in "Santa Clausification," then why is John McCain apologizing for voting against the federal MLK holiday?
(BTW, in the book excerpts Perlstein quotes, he doesn't seem to put much emphasis on the fact that Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was president in 1968, was a liberal Democrat. Just thought I'd point that out. Anti-war protesters used to chant: "Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?")
"Like many of you here who are of a certain age, I will never forget where I was when I heard Dr. King had been killed. I was a junior in college and I remember hearing about it and just feeling such despair,” Clinton said, pausing, her voice quivering. “I walked into my dorm room and took my book bag and hurled it across the room. It felt like everything had been shattered, like we would never be able to put the pieces together again."
She threw a bookbag! What "awesome radicalism"!
I was only a third-grader in April 1968, so I don't know if I was one of those "of a certain age" that Hillary meant. I remember seeing the news on TV that afternoon, then going outside to tell a neighbor kid, who replied by using a crude slur to refer to King and saying it was "about time" somebody shot him.
The neighbor kid's reaction shocked me then, and jt still shocks me to remember. My parents were reasonably liberal, considering the time and place -- this was Douglas County, Ga., in the 1960s -- but I don't imagine they were big fans of "awesome radicalism." However, my parents never tolerated the use of racial slurs; such language was considered low-class and uncouth.
After hearing the neighbor say what he said, I realized that he must have heard that kind of talk from his parents. It was shocking, as I said.
UPDATE II:Donald Douglas notes that the Left has used the 40th anniversary of King's assassination to portray America as "as an unmitigated evil, an irredeemable enormity, the greatest stain on human progress in world history."
Douglas also points out that Perlstein is a journalist, not an "academic historian," but I certainly don't hold think that Perlstein suffers by that distinction. Some of the greatest historians of the 20th century -- including William Shirer, Bruce Catton and Cornelius Ryan --were journalists and not academics. In my experience, academic historians are good researchers, but bad writers. There is a tendency of academic historians to get bogged down in details or distracted by historical "themes."
ELDORADO, Texas (AP) — Child welfare officials following up on an abuse complaint took custody of 18 girls Friday who lived at a secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs. A total of 52 girls, ages 6 months to 17 years, were bused away on Friday to be interviewed, but only 18 were immediately taken into state custody . . .
How do you interview a 6-month-old? And have these polygamists sunk so low that they're now marrying 6-month-old girls? What does a 6-month-old wear to her wedding, bridal Pampers?
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Clinton made nearly $109 million since they left the White House, capitalizing on the world's interest in the former first couple and lucrative business ventures. . . . According to a summary of the seven years provided by the campaign, the former president's speech income since he left the White House totals $51.85 million and his income from his two books — "My Life " and "Giving" — totals $29.6 million, including a $15 million advance for "My Life." Bill Clinton has traveled the world, giving paid speeches to multinational corporations, investment banks and motivational groups.
Executives around the world pay big money to attend Bill's most popular motivational seminar: "How to Get Oral Sex From 20-Year-Olds in Your Office -- And Get Away With It."
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki sought to defuse recent tensions among Iraq’s Shiites on Friday by suspending raids by government forces on militias, less than 24 hours after he threatened further raids. In softening his tone, Mr. Maliki said in a statement that he was suspending raids “in order to give a chance to those who have repented and want to lay down their weapons.”
In related news, police in Los Angeles announced they had stopped arresting Crips and Bloods, to give them a chance to lay down their 9mms.
The more I think about it, Bob Barr's apparent decision to enter the presidential race may be the worst news John McCain has gotten all year. . . . If Barr enters the race and captures the Libertarian Party nomination, he will bring a 98 lifetime ACU rating to the table; he has served as a National Rifle Association board member; he sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act; Numbers USA notes that he, "usually supports less immigration, less population growth, less foreign labor" and has been a strong opponent of chain migration; and as far as I can tell, he has a solid pro-life voting record.
Bob Barr certainly could be a threat to John McCain, but it's worth noting that third-party candidates on the right have not done well in previous elections. Pat Buchanan, who is better known than Barr and did much better in the Republican primaries than Ron Paul, got 0.42 percent of the vote as the Reform Party nominee in 2000. . . . The Libertarians' best showing in history, with Ed Clark in 1980, similarly failed to put a dent into Ronald Reagan. Even if you go back to George Wallace's 13.5 percent and 46 electoral votes in 1968, Nixon still won the presidency.
In the complete post, James offers an extensive history lesson on third-party candidates, but the problem with citing precedent in politics is that every election is different, so no historical analogy is perfect.
That may be especially true in this unprecedented year, when the Democrats will nominate either a woman or a black man, and when there is neither an incumbent president nor vice-president in the race. It's what George Carlin once called "vuja de": The peculiar feeling that this has never happened before.
Simply by being the Republican standard-bearer, John McCain faces three major disadvantages in 2008:
There's a war on. It's unpopular with Democrats, with independents, and with a minority of Republicans. (Ron Paul's best result was 14% in the Nevada caucuses.) John McCain is the pro-war candidate, and that puts him in a tough position from the start.
In the final year of a two-term Republican administration, the economy is on life-support, being propped up by unprecedented interventions from the Fed. (You should have heard how the crowd in Greensburg, Pa., cheered Hillary's class-warfare applause lines last week.) McCain faces a huge challenge to escape the political fallout of the mortgage crisis and economic slump.
The Democrats are hungry. Democrats have suffered a long streak of tough breaks, including the 2000 Florida recount, the 2002 midterm setback and Bush's re-election in 2004. Democrats' midterm victory in 2006 helped even the score, but the Dems still have an edge in what might be called emotional momentum. They're fired up; Republicans are not.
Regardless of who the GOP nominee is, this looks like a bad year for Republicans. But McCain has the additional disadvantage of having spent the past 10 years attacking the GOP's conservative base. He sponsored McCain-Feingold, he trashed religious conservatives as "agents of intolerance," he voted against tax cuts, he twice sponsored bills granting amnesty to illegals -- his ACU rating for 2006 was a meager 65, and his average ACU rating since 1998 was only 74.
McCain is clearly vulnerable to a challenger on his right, and the prospect that 2008 will be a bad year for Republicans only heightens his vulnerability. Here's why: If polls in October show McCain lagging substantially behind the Democratic candidate, many disgruntled conservatives will figure there's no hope for McCain anyway, so why not vote for Barr to show their dissatisfaction with the GOP?
If the October polls show a neck-and-neck race, conservatives who might not be huge John McCain fans will rally to his cause anyway, just to prevent the election of a Democrat. But if McCain is trailing badly, then a vote for Barr has no real consequence.
This was a big factor in what happened to Bob Dole in 1996. If the October polls had shown that Dole had a chance to defeat Clinton, Dole might have benefitted from the "rally effect." Instead, Clinton got 49%, Dole got 41% and third-party candidates (Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Harry Browne, Howard Phillips, etc.) divvied up the other 10%.
In other words, a third-party challenge tends to hurt a major-party candidate mainly when the major-party candidate already looks like a loser. It's the opposite of a bandwagon effect (in which undecided voters trend toward the candidate who looks like a winner). There are many voters who wouldn't vote for any Democrat, but who also won't vote for a Republican who looks like a loser.
It is an ill omen for McCain that, having secured the GOP nomination while the Democrats are still badly divided, as of April 3 he is only polling even with Obama, and barely ahead of Hillary. His best hope is that the Democrats disintegrate in Denver, a la Chicago '68.
Speaking of 1968, Antle's analogy is misapplied. Humphrey was the candidate who represented the incumbent party and was defending the outgoing president's war. Nixon represented the party that hadn't had the White House in eight years and promised "change." Wallace's third-party challenge largely appealed to disgruntled Democrats.
If precedent is prediction, then, Nixon's election in '68 is actually evidence that Barr (appealing to the incumbent party's disgruntled voters) will hurt John McCain in November.
It's time for the GOP to get over the notion that it "owns" conservative votes, and that our voting for a third-party candidate constitutes giving away something that belongs to them.
E.J. Dionne says that the assassination of MLK marked the death of liberalism. Ed Morrisey argues that it was the Iran hostage crisis that did the trick.
Dionne's column is nothing but a rehash of a well-worn liberal myth: "Oh, those eeeevilll conservatives only succeed by appealing to the innate bigotry of the American people." The possibility that Dionne actually believes this is even more disturbing than the possibility that he's just another cynical and dishonest Democratic Party hack. After 10 years in Washington, I've become accustomed to cynicism and dishonesty; gross naivete is frightening. (He went to Harvard. You figure it out.)
The myth that Dionne is propagating (whether cynically or naively) is based on moral narcissism: The desire of liberals to believe that they are morally superior to ordinary people. Support for the liberal agenda -- from welfare to gay rights to "peace" -- is conflated with moral virtue, so that merely voting in favor of various programs and policies is to "do good."
Programmatic virtue, as we might call it, relieves the liberal of the burden of actually doing anything to help people. They don't have to give food to the poor or take care of their aging grandparents; they merely need to vote for politicians who promise to do such things. Whether or not the politicians accomplish these goals -- whether grandma gets the help she needs or not -- is irrelevant to the feeling of superiority experienced by the liberal voter. It's the (political) thought that counts, you see.
Helping people understand this psychological aspect of liberalism is why I so enthusiastically recommend Thomas Sowell's book, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. Once you figure out that liberal policies don't work, the next logical question is why liberals support such policies. That's what Sowell explains.
Now, as to when liberalism reached its sell-by date, I would call attention to another book, Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism, by Alfred S. Regnery. Regnery notes a key turning point in liberalism, namely the appointment of Earl Warren to the Supreme Court in 1953. This marked the beginning of the era of liberal judicial activism.
Under Wilson, FDR and Truman, liberalism had advanced via the political process. People voted to elect politicians who promised to enact liberal policies. The politicians debated and compromised and the policies were enacted. Even if the policies didn't work as planned (and they usually didn't), the process was still consistent with the American political tradition.
Beginning with the Warren Court, however, the federal judiciary began to make law outside the democratic process. It was this hijacking of the legislative function by the federal courts that was gave the vital spark to the grassroots resentment that fueled the conservative ascendancy.
Yes, as Ed Morrisey points out, liberal foreign policy (exemplified by the Iran hostage crisis) was utterly inept. But there is no reason why a rejection of the Carter administration should have necessarily led to a more thoroughgoing rejection of liberalism. What provided the broader base for the conservative movement -- and what fatally weakened liberalism -- was the anti-democratic nature of judicial activism that the Warren Court inaugurated.
Ordinary Americans began to feel as if policies were being "shoved down their throats" by imperious judges with lifetime sinecures. Liberals grew intellectually lazy, being accustomed to having the federal courts impose liberal policies without regard for public opinion. Conservatives, meanwhile, honed their arguments, organized opposition groups, and solicited support among those who resented the elitist oligarchy of the "nine old men" on the Supreme Court.
Liberalism's decline began many years before Dionne's 1968 myth would have you believe. Dionne doesn't want to acknowledge how Miranda v. Arizona or Murray v. Curlett -- the first empowering criminals, the second banning prayer in public schools -- enraged ordinary Americans and turned them against liberalism. It's easier (and much more flattering) for liberals like Dionne to look at the tens of millions who voted for Reagan and shout: "Bigots!"
UPDATE: Readers are invited to enjoy the eloquent logic offered by the first anonymous commenter on this post.
In theory, at least, there's room for a sort of John Anderson figure and you could see Barr playing that role.
Eh? Anderson was a bland technocratic geek, a moderate Republican who appealed to voters who were sick of Carter but feared Reagan's Radical Right reputation.
Barr has impeccable conservative credentials. He served in the CIA when the agency was run by the elder Bush, and served as a U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration.
Barr's publicly-stated reason for leaving the GOP was the Bush administration's internal-security measures. Barr's Fourth Amendment critique of the USA-PATRIOT Act has been echoed by such stalwarts of the Right as Phyllis Schlafly and the John Birch Society.
What a Barr presidential candidacy represents -- and he has said this in nearly so many words -- is a conservative dissent against the drift of the Republican Party toward statism. Barr is trying to resurrect the "Spirit of '94," the anti-Beltway agenda on which he and the rest of the "Contract With America" Republicans were first elected to Congress.
The anti-statist flavor of Barr's conservatism is what made him simpatico with the Libertarian Party, although it remains to be seen whether the LP's convention delegates will be simpatico toward Barr as their presidential candidate. Some LP members are purists to the point of fanaticism and will oppose Barr on ideological grounds; some longtime LP members are likely to resent Barr as a newcomer.
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"When R.S. McCain talks about gonzo journalism, he knows what he’s talking about." -- Chapomatic
"You are reading Robert every day, aren’t you? If you aren’t, you’re missing out, folks. The guy brings the good stuff every day." -- Jimmie, The Sundries Shack
". . . the one-of-a-kind Robert Stacy McCain, whose blog should be on your must-read list, if it isn't already." -- Dyspeptic Mutterings
"The most enthusiastic blogger I have yet to meet." -- Pam Geller, Atlas Shrugs
"The guy has to be the hardest working dude in DC. I've yet to meet someone here he doesn't know." -- Dan Riehl, Riehl World View
"The fount of wit and wisdom, Robert Stacy McCain." -- Brian C. Ledbetter, Snapped Shot
"A very sharp mind and strong writing that pulls no punches." -- Matthew Archbold, Creative Minority
"One of the most important conservative writers working today." --Donald Douglas
"For what it's worth, the man can also hold his liquor better than most; that's probably how he gets his scoops." -- Little Miss Atilla
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Cazart! It seems that Daniel McCarthy of 
