Mamet's Plays vs. Political Commentary

I've seen David Mamet interviewed, so I know he's no slouch. He seems to be writing his political drivel in earnest, so I can't say that he's a fraud. So what does that leave me with? Some form of narcissism crossed with life in a self-imposed bubble. Back when Mamet "came out" as a conservative, he did so through an essay that reflected a surprising lack of depth and intellectual rigor. But the surprise is not that a smart person can be foolish, or that his initial comments on a subject that he has consistently overlooked will demonstrate the fact that he's new to the issues. The surprise is that somebody whose work suggests that he grapples with serious issues would be so inept at grappling with actual issues.

Five years later, Mamet shows no more sophistication as a political thinker than he did on day one, and if anything his positions are even further removed from objective fact and history. My inference is this: Mamet is good at picking up on serious issues, and of creating fictional scenarios that expand upon those issues, but he's not particularly good at relating his scenarios to reality. Meanwhile, he restricts himself to a circle of similarly minded people who gush over his brilliance, but have no greater knowledge or capacity for analysis than he does. That appears to have been true when he was coasting through life giving essentially no thought to politics except for occasionally fuming that NPR was too sympathetic to Palestinians.

Paul Waldman opines,

To be clear, the point isn't that Mamet is conservative, even though it's true that the overwhelming majority of artists are liberal, so that makes him unusual. The point is that he brings to his political analysis none of the things that make him a good playwright. It would be one thing if Mamet was, let's say, a widely admired painter or photographer who turned out to have simplistic political views. Visual artists sometimes disappoint their fans by not being particularly eloquent when they're called upon to discuss their work, but words are not their tools. A playwright, on the other hand, spends his time studying and manipulating language, ideas, and characters. That someone who has produced insightful art about corners of American life and the human condition more broadly would then turn around and offer political analysis with all the sophistication of the twelfth caller to Sean Hannity's radio show this afternoon is profoundly puzzling.

But it's a good reminder of something: Political writing is a craft, just like writing plays. Pretty much everyone who has ever read a newspaper thinks they could do it as well or better than those who do it for a living, but most of the time they can't. David Mamet spent a lot of time and energy working on his craft, but the fact that he got famous doing it doesn't mean he has any opinions about or analysis of politics that anyone would gain anything from hearing.

I agree with the latter part more than the former. That is, I agree that somebody who has great gifts in one area may lack gifts or skills in another. But I think the things that make Mamet an interesting playwright and screenwriter are the same things that make him a terrible political analyst.

I have enjoyed a lot of Mamet's work, but I have the impression from some of his work that he tell into the same sort of trap that we have seen with other writers, that of thinking he's smarter than his audience. Works like The Spanish Prisoner succeed based upon the strength of the acting, the "solution" to the protagonist's problem was obvious and I find it a bit painful at times to watch "brilliant" characters do one stupid thing after another when the solution is right before their eyes - and when the character finally figures it out, rather than applying a logical ending (not very dramatically interesting) he resorts to the deus ex machina. Even in works I like a lot more, such as The Verdict, Mamet demonstrates little patience with reality. When he needs to force an outcome, his characters do what is necessary to force the outcome - absurd evidentiary rulings, a "feel good" jury verdict without regard for what would happen on appeal. But in Mamet's better dramatic work, the deviations from reality are a form of poetic license. It's not important that the courtroom scenes are often absurd, because the goal isn't realism - Mamet is showing us the flaws of the characters, the arbitrariness of the legal system, how a case can turn more on the personality of the judge than on the law and facts.... And sometimes he's just spinning a ridiculous yarn about one con game or another, with uneven results.

To me, it seems that Mamet is doing the same thing in his political commentary that he does in his scripts, but that he has somehow lost track of the difference between spinning an entertaining yarn that happens to address some important issues and speaking about the real world. Much of Mamet's fiction leaves me with the impression that he does little research, that he's not interested in interviewing experts or poring over books to try to determine if his stories are plausible or if he could accomplish the same dramatic effect while hewing closer to what actually might happen in real life. His political writing displays a similar disdain for research - he'll go with the common wisdom, the buzz from his sycophants and adherents, with reality being less important than belief, perhaps justified by the narcissistic conceit that "If my friends and I believe it, it must be true."

From his political "conversion",

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

From his latest screed,

The Founding Fathers, far from being ideologues, were not even politicians. They were an assortment of businessmen, writers, teachers, planters; men, in short, who knew something of the world, which is to say, of Human Nature. Their struggle to draft a set of rules acceptable to each other was based on the assumption that we human beings, in the mass, are no damned good—that we are biddable, easily confused, and that we may easily be motivated by a Politician, which is to say, a huckster, mounting a soapbox and inflaming our passions.

Has Mamet truly grown less informed about government over the past five years? Perhaps he floats in a circle of ignoramuses, and their ignorance is catching. Or perhaps he doesn't want to let the facts, even facts he has previously acknowledged, get in the way of his story. I recognize that many of Mamet's factual errors, such as his ignorance of Marxism, may simply be that - repeating the conventional wisdom of his new circle of peers, a reflection of the aforementioned conceit, "If we believe it, it must be right." But with mistakes like "The Founding Fathers... were not even politicians" it's difficult to imagine that Mamet even cares about whether his assertions of fact are correct. For the story he's telling, it's better that the founding fathers be non-ideological non-politicians so, just as with the fictional characters of one of his plays, he changes the facts and personalities to fit his story.

Another flaw of Mamet's political analysis? His logic is terrible. One small example,

As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator. The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences. Anyone acquainted with both black and white people knows this assessment is not only absurd but monstrous. And yet it is the law.

Except government rules are not "one size fits all". Even if they were "one size fits all," that would not necessitate that a "any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities" (whatever Mamet means by that) "must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator". Mamet statement about race is absurd. It appears that he's alluding to affirmative action and civil rights laws, but those programs are not predicated upon a government determination "that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people". They're predicated upon this nation's history of institutionalized racial inequality and racial discrimination. Based upon Mamet's false and absurd distortions, anti-discrimination laws become "monstrous", proof that the government can't believe what everybody knows, that the races are equal in every respect. And yet, in a wonderfully ambiguous flourish "it" is "the law".

Mamet continues,

President Obama, in his reelection campaign, referred frequently to the “needs” of himself and his opponent, alleging that each has more money than he “needs.”

But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining “needs”? And note that the president did not say “I have more money than I need,” but “You and I have more than we need.” Who elected him to speak for another citizen?

We can start from, is Obama's statement true or false? Does Mamet believe that the President has insufficient money to meet his needs? Does he believe that Mitt Romney is struggling by on his quarter billion dollar fortune, barely able to keep the heat on in his five houses? From any reasonable standpoint the President was correct. But facts are boring, right? So Mamet goes off on a tear about how the Constitution does not place the government in charge of determining "needs". And after that non sequitur whines that the President is speaking for another person. As if Romney denied the charge. As if any person with a brain between his ears would dispute the charge. And then what he seems to think is his pièce de résistance, his brilliant and irrefutable point, "Who elected [the President] to speak for another citizen?" (Well, you see, David, we live under this system of government referred to as a representative democracy, and we do in fact elect our representatives to speak for us.) And yes, it gets worse from there - for the President to suggest that Romney has more money than he needs is the same thing as the government imposing "one-size-fits-all", never mind that the President was speaking about treating different classes of people (notably the ultra-rich) differently than the average working stiff. And there is no difference between that and slavery.

Mamet makes one ridiculous assertion after another.

What possible purpose in declaring schools “gun-free zones”? Who bringing a gun, with evil intent, into a school would be deterred by the sign?

The purpose of the law, of course, is to allow the police to stop and detain, and when appropriate prosecute and imprison, somebody who brings a firearm into the gun-free zone. If it's not illegal to have a gun in a school zone, the police are constrained in their ability to act before the gun is drawn.

We need more armed citizens in the schools.

Why? Because Mamet says so? And this is a universal truth? A school with a gang problem will be a better and safer place if every kid above the age of 18 has the right to bring a gun to school?

Walk down Madison Avenue in New York. Many posh stores have, on view, or behind a two-way mirror, an armed guard. Walk into most any pawnshop, jewelry story, currency exchange, gold store in the country, and there will be an armed guard nearby. Why? As currency, jewelry, gold are precious. Who complains about the presence of these armed guards? And is this wealth more precious than our children?

Actually, no, in most such stores there are no armed guards. But where they are, it's to protect against robbery. Fundamentally, Mamet knows the difference between children, money, precious metals and jewels - not one of the scam artists in any of his plays or movies has mused over whether it would be better to scam somebody out of a valuable patent, tens of thousands of dollars, $millions in gold, or their kids. I doubt we would have to explain to Mamet that just because banks transport cash and securities in armored cars, it does not follow that we need to replace the nation's school buses with armored cars. Businesses don't invest in bulletproof glass and armed security because they are protecting against obscure risk and enjoy wasting money, but because due to the nature of their operations they are under genuine risk of armed robbery.

Q. How many accidental shootings occurred last year in jewelry stores, or on any premises with armed security guards?

I'm not sure how many of the shootings were accidental, but it would seem quite a number - often by somebody who disarms the security guard. ("In 23% of shootings within the ED, the weapon was a security officer’s gun taken by the perpetrator."). As if we needed further confirmation that Mamet does no research and has little interest in facts. Mamet believes that all that is involved in having armed security in schools is "the cost of a pistol (several hundred dollars), and a few hours of training (that’s all the security guards get)" - reflecting his deep ignorance both of the cost of gun ownership and maintenance, and of the actual and continuing training required to make sure that the person with the gun has the necessary skills to use it safely and appropriately.

Did I mention Mamet's inaccurate claim that the President "just passed a bill that extends to him and his family protection, around the clock and for life, by the Secret Service". Does Mamet even know how a bill is passed? That the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans? Apparently not. Mamet makes the absurd assertion that by recognizing that the President and his family have different security needs than the average American, the government is "regulat[ing] gun ownership based on its assessment of needs", which is... Marxism. Wait - you thought Marxism was when the government treated all people as if they were the same, and that "one size fits all" solutions were tantamount to slavery? That was paragraphs ago. Things have changed. And is Mamet seriously suggesting that the only solution that avoids Marxism is to either extend Secret Service protection to everybody in the nation, or to leave the President unprotected? To the extent that you try to find logical coherence in his arguments, yes, in fact he is.

Getting back to Mamet's plays for a moment, some defend his often stilted, stylized dialog as being "how people talk in real life." I've met a lot of people in my life and none speak in the manner of the characters of, say, House of Games. But the manner in which Mamet spins into a verbal frenzy, taking the President's true statement about Romney's wealth and, in a matter of a few sentences, equating it with slavery? Perhaps the reason I don't think Mamet's dialog is realistic is that I can't hear the voices in his head.

Waldman's commentary on the craft of political analysis is fair to a point, that people underestimate what is involved in writing good political commentary, but if we look at the most commercially successful political analysts of the day we often see little of that craft in their work. If I open a newspaper, I might find Charles Krauthammer opening a column with a dig at the President's use of a teleprompter, an absurd, racially-tinged attack that long ago passed its expiration date. I might find George Will spouting off about how climate change is a myth, with no more interest in the facts than Mamet. And if I flip open a Newsweek... make that click open... I might find... Mamet.

Sorry to say, the biggest money makers in the world of political commentary are charlatants - Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the like - and many of the faces pushed upon us by the "respectable" media are well past their prime, or were never up to the task. Many of the best political analysts would struggle to get a column published by a major newspaper or to get invited to sit among the talking heads on a televised panel or news show. The shocking part is less that Newsweek is so eager to gain readers that it posts an editorial that is on par with an episode of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo". The shocking part is how many people who you would think would have more respect for themselves eagerly line up to play the role of Honey Boo Boo.

Credit (Only) When Credit is Due

Rush Limbaugh rant,

We have achieved, brilliant, highly accomplished African-Americans, blacks, Hispanics, you name it, throughout the Republican Party. They serve in office. Many of them are CEOs. It doesn't count. It doesn't count in the media. It doesn't count in the Democrat Party [sic]. It doesn't count with Obama voters about whom it is said that stuff matters most. It doesn't count. Why not? Why, putting it somewhat coarsely, why doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Condoleezza Rice? Why doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Marco Rubio? Why doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Suzanne Martinez?

The short answer: You'll get the credit you want when you stop acting as if treating minorities as equal should result in your getting credit. When you realize there's more to the party's difficulties than a head count, and that your very act of singling out individuals who you believe justify your getting "credit" verges on declaring their prominence in the party to reflect tokenism.

When will they "count"? Perhaps when you stop counting - or even better, when it no longer occurs to you that a list of names and a head count is a basis upon which to demand "credit".

Media Misogyny and Rush Limbaugh

Kirsten Powers, Democratic news analyst for Fox News and former Clinton Administration staffer, complains, Rush Limbaugh Isn’t the Only Media Misogynist. She is, in effect, accusing the political left of hypocrisy for attacking Rush Limbaugh's decades of undisguised misogyny, because she can identify a handful of ostensibly liberal commentators and comedians who hold or have expressed misogynistic views.

Yes, it’s true. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz have been waging it for years with their misogynist outbursts. There have been boycotts by people on the left who are outraged that these guys still have jobs. Oh, wait. Sorry, that never happened.

I think Powers' heart is in the right place. That is, I think it's appropriate to bring attention to sexist comments and beliefs by powerful media figures, and to hold them to account for their statements. But she picks an odd set of examples, both in terms of substance and degree, and rather than focusing on the underlying issue - the continued acceptance of a certain level of misogyny by the nation's media and population at large - she implies that the worse problem is hypocrisy by those who are outraged by Limbaugh but either didn't know about or didn't express similar outrage in relation to the ostensibly left-wing figures she lists.

My position on Limbaugh is pretty simple: If people wanted to be outraged by his sexism, race-baiting and inflammatory banter, they have decades of examples to choose from. The difference between then and now is not that Limbaugh has suddenly made a statement that's materially different from his more outrageous statements of past years. The difference is that he built himself a juggernaut, and advertisers have to include the potential for his outrage - wild accusations that they're trying to silence him and are tools of the evil political left - in their calculus of whether or not they should pay the high cost of advertising on his show. One or two advertisers quit over this type of statement, they're open to attack. But there's safety in numbers - so once a certain tipping point was reached other advertisers felt comfortable joining in the "boycott".

Limbaugh's future as a radio figure is similarly based upon economics. If he can sustain a sufficient base of listeners and advertisers, his show will go on. If not, he'll probably be off somewhere playing cards with Glenn Beck, reminiscing about the good old days when demagoguery, race-baiting and misogyny were considered to be wholesome American values.

Some of Powers' examples of sexist statements by (ostensibly) liberal commentators are unquestionably sexist. Some are simply offensive, with no sexual component. Some should really have been omitted from her essay, or miss the actual issue.¹ But even with her most outrageous example of a left-leaning media figure who holds misogynistic views, Bill Maher, she misses the point. She lists off some of the outrageous things he has said about women, then complains,

Liberals—you know, the people who say they “fight for women”—comprise Maher’s audience, and a parade of high-profile liberals make up his guest list. Yet have any of them confronted him? Nope. That was left to Ann Coulter, who actually called Maher a misogynist to his face, an opportunity that feminist icon Gloria Steinem failed to take when she appeared on his show in 2011.

Okay... let's give credit where credit is due to the right-wing demagogue and misogynistic Ann "If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president" Coulter for calling her friend a misogynist during the course of her zillionth appearance on one of the shows he hosts. Who backed her up? The Nation's Christopher Hayes. The audience seemed to enjoy the exchange, and did nothing to suggest displeasure at the criticism of Maher.

If you want excuses not to watch Maher's show, he gives you plenty. He is contemptuous of religion, he frequently makes anti-Muslim statements, he advocates the use of illegal drugs, he holds positions on medicine that would be downright dangerous if followed by society at large, he often plays softball with guests who make absurd statements and panders to those who share his more eccentric views, and of course he's at times disparaging to women. I'm sure I missed a few dozen other reasons not to watch Maher's show. (If you are intellectually dishonest for paying attention to a political commentator who holds a view you find offensive, you may as well throw out your TV and radio.)

Most people in Maher's audience don't watch his show because they agree with him on those issues, they watch Maher in spite of his positions. If he were to make those positions the centerpiece of his show, he would soon be off the air. Limbaugh, on the other hand, is giving his audience exactly what it wants. Why is Limbaugh already back to making misogynistic comments on his show? Because if tones things down, even to the level of Maher, he's over.

It should also be recalled that many of the comments that Powers suggests were excused by the poltical left, in fact, triggered significant outrage and at times significant consequence for the speaker.

Maher stands as a great example of my earlier point. After years of making outrageous statements on a show called "Politically Incorrect", and providing a platform to misogynistic guests like Ann Coulter,² Maher made a comment about suicide bombers that caught the nation's eye, and created the type of snowball effect - lost sponsors, lost network affiliates - that presently threatens Limbaugh. So his network fired him. Boycotts? There's no indication that any of Limbaugh's advertisers felt any economic pressure, save perhaps from the high cost of advertising on his show, or that the network affiliates who dropped the show were worried about their revenues as opposed to filling the same airtime with cheaper content.

So yes, recognize misogyny where you find it. Criticize it without double standards - or false parallels. But don't forget that at the end of the day, as far as media companies and their advertisers are concerned, it's all about the money. Right now, unfortunately, that means that change almost always needs to come from the top, down.
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1. By way of a small example, Powers finds it inherently sexist that Matt Taibbi called Michelle Bachmann "batshit crazy". But Taibbi has used the same epithet against Rand Paul.

2. Guess which guest on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrectsaid,

I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote. No, they all have to give up their vote, not just, you know, the lady clapping and me. The problem with women voting -- and your Communists will back me up on this -- is that, you know, women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it. And when they take these polls, it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care.

David Frum on the Fourth Estate

Since I'm dredging up memories of Canada, perhaps a bit unfairly, I sometimes wonder if David Frum benefits from the fact that next to nobody in this country knows who his mother was. In fairness, among U.S. conservative political commentators, nepotism reigns supreme. By moving to the U.S. Frum gave up the direct advantage of having a famous mother, although I expect that his family's political and media connections provided him with a significant boost even after he crossed the border.

Perhaps I need to take a couple of steps backward. Who is David Frum? He's a conservative commentator, originally from Canada, and son of the late and highly respected Canadian journalist Barbara Frum. I remember Barbara Frum most clearly from her role as host of "The Journal", a news magazine that came on after "The National", the evening news programming on CBC television. Despite watching The Journal for a period of years, I didn't get a sense of Frum's politics. Based upon David's politics I suspect that she, her husband, or both were relatively conservative by Canadian standards, but while on the air she didn't push an ideology.

Once he stopped personally attempting to impose ideological litmus tests on conservatives, and once he was cast out of the inner circle of conservative commentators, apparently for his suggestion that the Republicans erred by attempting to stonewall healthcare reform, Frum adopted the public position that conservative litmus tests can be counter-productive and started to speak out against the dominant Republican media personalities, and their influence on the Republican Party.

On a recent episode of Real Time, Frum made a comment to the effect that we don't want media figures influencing political decision-making. His statement was not specific to the Republican Party, but was offered as a general statement about the way things should be. It did not appear to occur to Frum that he is essentially a media personality who would very much like to influence the political debate. But I think it's important to point out that there are no media figures on the left who compare to Limbaugh, and even with his declining influence there are none that compare to Beck. The last comparable media figure who comes to mind would be Walter Cronkite, a man credited with helping to extract this country from the Vietnam War.

Now you can make an argument that politics don't belong in the media, or that news figures should be careful not to influence policy debates, and... well, growing up in Canada Frum perhaps didn't have much exposure to the First Amendment, its origins and purpose, but he should be sufficiently familiar with journalism to recognize that you cannot keep opinion out, that opinion can actually contribute positively to a debate, and that responsible journalists can reasonably assert that one side in a debate has a better argument, or that the other side has its facts wrong. (For all of The Journal's objectivity, the joke song about Brian Mulroney that I mentioned here was aired on that show, aired as part of a brief recurring segment devoted to political humor.) Frum must be familiar with the Canadian news magazine show, "The Fifth Estate," something of a Canadian "60 Minutes", and even if only out of that exposure it's difficult to believe that he's unaware of the concept of the media as the "fourth estate", an unofficial societal or political force.

If you accept that the media can responsibly take issues on controversial subjects of the day (as news magazines routinely do, by choosing which subjects to cover and what position to advance), you can draw a distinction between the media figures that Frum is willing to name as having a corrosive impact on political culture and those that might act responsibly, but whose work might advance a political agenda inconsistent with Frum's preferred policies. Or, for that matter, to admit that he's a media figure and to reconcile his own work to advance a specific political agenda through the media with his implication that doing so is a bad thing.

[Edited to correct some data corruption from the Blogger outage.]

Where's Limbaugh's Impassioned Defense of Limbaugh?

Or his scathing criticism of Clear Channel?

I understand why Clear Channel or the radio station would want to pull down the "straight shooter" sign for Limbaugh, given recent events, just to avoid the possibility of controversy. But the very act of doing so lends credence to the argument that the rhetoric of certain right-wing rhetoric political and opinion leaders has been over-the-top. Further, the sign doesn't, in my opinion, constitute the type of speech that's under discussion:

It isn't a call for violence, an expression against democratic traditions, or really, anything more than a pretty obvious visual representation of the "straight shooter" slogan.

Rush, you keep arguing there's nothing wrong with the use of violent rhetoric and imagery, so start living up to your own words. Stop trying to flush imagery that you purport to be defensible, let alone imagery that most people would agree is defensible, down the memory hole. And certainly, don't sit silent while people scrub the record on your behalf.

Mark Thiessen's Warning to Democrats

Shorter version: "Watch out, because Republicans are much better at lying and distorting the facts than you are."

Update: And away we go.

The Tea Party Purity Test

As I see it, the context of Michael Gerson's lament on the Tea Party is that he represents the faction of the Republican Party that is taking the long view - that an embrace of the Tea Party is likely to bring long-term political pain even if it results in short-term gain. But if Michelle Malkin is his "Exhibit A" of "childish political thought", perhaps he should take ownership of and responsibility for his own past actions and opinions.

In Tea Party theory, inexperience is itself seen as a kind of qualification. People like O'Donnell are actually preferable to people like Rove, because they haven't been tainted by public trust or actual achievement. This is the attitude of the adolescent -- the belief that the world began on their thirteenth birthday. It is also a sign of childish political thought.

So let's flash back to 1999, when the nation at large was introduced to G.W. Bush, with that introduction engineered in no small part by Karl Rove. His inexperience was of no concern, we were assured, because he would surround himself by experts. He was a different breed of Republican - an outsider; a uniter, not a divider; a compassionate conservative; an advocate for immigration reform. Don't ask about his "lost years" - he had become a sober, Christian conservative, and that should be enough for anybody.

From what I've read, a lot of Tea Party members haven't been politically active during their lives. They may have voted, but they didn't spend a lot of time reading about or thinking about the issues. That, frankly, is far from a surprise. You can read the paper before work (or, at least, you could have back in the day of most Tea Party members), work all day, watch the TV news before bed and think you're informed, and that would likely set you above and beyond most Americans in terms of your effort. But let's face it - at the end of the day that's likely to leave you with only a superficial understanding of the issues. Hence partisans like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and, yes, Karl Rove are able to identify opportunities to sink their hooks and reel people in, the goal not being to illuminate but to create a following. Had Karl Rove created the Tea Party movement in his own image, Gerson would be praising his genius.

I find it interesting that Gerson blasts Michelle Malkin, for her criticism of Karl Rove, as part of the problem - she's "childish". Why not go after Rush Limbaugh for saying what amounts to the same thing. Why not go after the big dog? Oh, that's right - because for doing that even Karl Rove can be called to heel, and Gerson's no Karl Rove. Malkin's prominent enough to be recognized, but not so prominent that Gerson is likely to face blowback.

Gerson's first complaint about the Tea Party approach is that it sends the message,

The facts do not matter. Politics is war carried on by other means. Anyone who doesn't consistently take one side is a traitor.

Would any of that bother Gerson if the warfere weren't internecine? Michelle Malkin has been using the same tactics ever since she gained prominence. What about Ann Coulter and her eager use of the word "Treason"? The facts don't matter now? When did they matter under Bush?

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

What about Ari Fleischer's infamous warning¹ (his very late explanation taken for what it's worth)?

Gerson continues with his explanation of what makes the Tea Party's political thought "childish":

Some conservatives have adopted the Bolshevik approach to information and the media: Every personal feeling, every independent thought, every inconvenient fact, must be subordinated to the party line -- the Tea Party line.

This reminds me of something....

When I was a speechwriter for the Bush Administration, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a columnist for the Washington Post, I put away childish things.

Gerson's accusation is something of a hollow man - he doesn't name a conservative who fits his accusation, although by implication he's including Malkin. I doubt he can name a conservative commentator who truly fits that description, who has abandoned past opinions and principle and now subordinates his every opinion to the Tea Party. Were he to find such an individual he would do us all a very great favor, because we would finally know what the Tea Party stands for.

Gerson offers up a second criticism of "Tea Party purists", again without identifying a single such purist, as believing that "their ascendance makes other elements of the conservative movement unnecessary":

If Tea Party activists believe they can win in a political coalition so pure that it doesn't include strong, mainstream conservatives such as Karl Rove, they are delusional. And they are hurting their own cause.

Is this to be read with an eye toward history, with G.W. and Karl Rove deciding that they could rule the country based upon the support of 51% of the electorate, rejecting the qualms of the "paleocons", the "reality-based community", fiscal conservatives, foreign policy conservatives, and any other faction whose believes and agenda didn't match their own? If so, yes, he has a point - if you represent a minority of Americans you will not be able to sustain victory at the ballot box without expanding your base. If not, his complaint reduces to the question of whose elephant ox is being gored.

Gerson's third complaint is a magnification of his second,

Third, some conservatives seem to display special venom for those who are "compromised" by the experience of actually winning and governing. Rove, according to Malkin, is an "establishment Beltway strategist."

How much of the last few decades of political history, including campaigns involving Karl Rove, are we to ignore? Because in case Gerson missed it, everybody wants to be an outsider. One of G.W.'s remarkable feats in constructing his brush-cutting cowboy image was convincing the nation that he, grandson of a U.S. Senator, son of a former President, beneficiary of his family's vast wealth and generations of political connections, was a Washington outsider. When you work as hard as Rove has done to turn words like "insider" into slurs, you don't have much ground to stand on when your work is turned against you.

[Karl Rove's résumé] does not make him always right. But it means he has had responsibilities bigger than running a Web site. This is an advantage for a commentator, not a drawback.

I joked a while back that the most prominent people held up as possible Republican Presidential nominees - Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney - quit the jobs that supposedly qualify them for the White House. In their recent experience, the only thing they've been running is their mouths. I recognize that Gerson has no love for Sarah Palin, but what do his words say about the rest of his party?

But seriously, the number of prominent right-wing pundits whose most significant "real world" experience came from writing speeches for politicians is high. Can Gerson truly be surprised that many of them fail to 'put away' their 'childish things'?
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1. While I have some sympathy for the idea that Fleischer, in warning Americans to "watch what they say, watch what they do", meant something other than what he said, he had ample opportunity on the very same stage to correct himself and the Bush Administration could easily have issued a clarification. The fact that they did not suggests that, whatever Fleischer's intent, the Bush Administration was content to let the public perception of the remarks stand.

The Perils of Democracy

When I watch the Obama Administration forming its policy on Afghanistan, I'm reminded of the Bush Administration (and, well, every administration I've seen in my lifetime) - Push back the date for decisions that may cause blowback such that any negative consequence, that is anything that might hurt the incumbent President in the polls, occurs after reelection (or after his successor takes office).

I suspect that Obama will order an approach that he believes will improve the situation in Afghanistan, but with the idea of wrapping up major military operations by mid-2011. At that time he can begin withdrawing troops without fear of a Najibullah-type collapse of the Karzai government before the election. His Republican opponent will have to decide if he wants to run on a platform of re-escalating and perpetuating the war, or effectively endorsing Obama's policies - and I suspect that in a national election there's a lot more danger to a politician who does the former.

This is hardly unique to the U.S. - there are issues around the globe that could be resolved if elected leaders spent less time worrying about getting reelected and more time worrying about what's truly in the best interest of their country and countrymen. And no, I'm not calling for the abolition of democracy - a cure far worse than the disease. And I would probably be arguing against human nature if I were to ask politicians to treat the public as if it has the knowledge, respect and maturity to accept that it can take years to see the benefits of good policy choices, and that a significant short-term price tag (figurative or literal) can be a small price to pay for those benefits.

Alas, I'm dreaming of a world without lobbyists, and in which people would treat the notion of "Sarah Palin, 2012" as a joke, and where it would be laughable to conceive of people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck as thought or opinion leaders. I don't mean to single out the political right, but it's difficult to think of a current "thought leader" or "political leader" on the left who offers so little substance yet is taken seriously by the media and the majority of the members of a major political party. People are people, and history tells us that the political left is far from immune from the dubious charms of similar "leaders".

In the Washington Post's tepid "America's Next Great Pundit" contest, a Nobel Prize winning scientist asked why our nation doesn't make an effort to separate science from partisanship, recreating the Office of Technology Assessment to try to "help Congress arrive at a common starting point for complicated legislation". Why not? Because the facts, or scientific consensus, frequently aren't politically convenient. Consider, for example, the British Government's decision to appoint a genuine scientist to advise it on drug issues, only to be embarrassed when he pointed out that much of the hysteria surrounding ecstasy and marijuana were exactly that. So he was fired.

Armed conflicts pose a similar problem, with proponents of war eagerly declaring any action with which they disagree to be a sign of weakness, empowering the enemy. We of course see that in pretty much every pro-war analysis of the War in Afghanistan. And, as Roger Cohen's column on Israel-Palestine implies, it's an argument that can lead to self-destructive behaviors that drag out a problem to the point that the best and easiest solutions may no longer be viable. When things are going well, the politicians respond to the popular sentiment that "Things are going well so why do we need to make any sacrifice," and when things aren't going well they respond to the sentiment, "Why do they deserve anything?" And the problem drags on for years, decades, potentially even for centuries.

As the experience of Britain in the Republic of Ireland indicates, the form of government can change dramatically without any significant impact on how the government responds to a serious issue, problem or conflict. Perhaps it's true that we get the government that we deserve - small-minded, foolish, vengeful, irrational, selfish, short-sighted... just like all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time.

Influence

The Atlantic 50 claims to list "the most influential commentators in the nation". It's a fascinating list, not merely due to the inclusion of many mediocre commentators, but by the way it highlights how the columnists of a handful of prominent publications almost automatically gain "influence". The definition of "influence" is a bit scary,

A survey of more than 250 Washington insiders – members of Congress, national media figures, and political insiders – in which respondents rank-ordered the commentators who most influence their own thinking.

Well, it's not the definition that's so scary, but the implications of "members of Congress, national media figures, and political insiders" admitting that they follow the lead of the likes of Rush Limbaugh. But then, they rank Paul Krugman #1, and if his thinking is influencing Congress and the media these days you would hardly know it from current policy proposals and their associated media coverage. And to their credit, the triumvirate of former Bush speechwriters didn't rank.

And boy, what a handicap it is these days to be a white male.

Having a Volunteer Military

I'll give Bob Herbert his due, as he was drafted into military service and served in Korea. But when he speaks of the modern, volunteer military, I disagree with some of his contentions. He's completely right, in my opinion, that many members of the public don't appreciate what's involved in military service (and arguably you can't fully appreciate what's involved unless you've served in combat), but that's in no small part a matter of design - a political convenience advanced by the Bush Administration and continued under Obama.

As long as media coverage of casualties remains low, there's little pressure to change present policies. No doubt, the book Herbert mentions contains chilling pictures of the casualties of war, but if you're shocked by them it's because the mainstream media has decided it's distasteful, exploitive, or [insert excuse of the day] to run them.

America’s young fighting men and women have to make these multiple tours because the overwhelming majority of the American people want no part of the nation’s wars. They don’t want to serve, they don’t want to make any sacrifices here on the home front — they don’t even want to pay the taxes that would be needed to raise the money to pay for the wars. We just add the trillions to deficits that stretch as far as the eye can see.

It's hard to argue with that. Again, that's the fruit of deliberate political policy. The Bush Administration's response when asked about sacrifice on the home front? It boiled down to "Ignore the war and keep on spending." If you took the Republican Members of Congress who were the strongest advocates of the Iraq War they would still howl like banshees at the notion of raising taxes to pay for the war, even as they use the cost of the war as an excuse for opposing healthcare reform, stimulus bills, or similar initiatives.

But Herbert continues,

A clear idea of the pathetic unwillingness of the American people to share in the sacrifices of these wars can be gleaned from a comment that President Obama made in his address last week to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “We are a country of more than 300 million Americans,” he said. “Less than 1 percent wears the uniform.”

The president was not chiding those who are not serving, he was only intending to praise those who are. But the idea that so few are willing to serve at a time when the nation is fighting two long wars is a profound indictment on the society.

Well, yes and no. It's an indictment of our present political culture that praises ever soldier as a hero while burying the most painful illustrations of sacrifice. For individual members of society, I think it's a fair indictment of the "fighting typists" - the faction of the Republican Party that expressed unbridled support for the war in word but not in deed. The Rush Limbaughs and Dick Cheneys of this world always have "other priorities".

Does it indict those who argued that the Iraq war was a war of choice, would put an undue burden on the military and jeopardize the mission in Afghanistan? Not so much. Had Bush not launched the war in Iraq, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. If Obama succeeds in significantly reducing troop levels in Iraq, we wouldn't need this discussion.

But even taken at face value, the argument has its limits. Yes, if we had more volunteers we would have a reduced need for "stop loss" and might even be able to eliminate it. But how many more volunteers do we actually need? If you raised the number of volunteers from "less than 1 percent" to 1%, you would likely exceed capacity. If you believe the need is to put 650,000 combat troops into Afghanistan and Iraq, you must have the capacity to train, support and supply those troops - you're talking about adding millions of people to the military. And in fairness to the American public, after 9/11 there was great interest in joining the military.

Five years after military recruiting hit the ceiling after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, recruiting remains solid, with every service meeting its active-duty recruiting goal for the 15th consecutive month.

To the extent that interest in joining the military has declined, it's less an indictment of society than it is of the Iraq war and the Bush Administration.

Herbert continues,

If we had a draft — or merely the threat of a draft — we would not be in Iraq or Afghanistan. But we don’t have a draft so it’s safe for most of the nation to be mindless about waging war. Other people’s children are going to the slaughter.

I disagree with this, as well. I recognize the talking point that, with a draft, people will oppose entering wars of choice. but... let's take another look at Herbert's résumé:

He was drafted during the buildup to the Vietnam War, but was ultimately sent to Korea.

Which of those two wars was prevented by the fact that there was a draft? For that matter, what war in any country has ever been prevented by virtue of conscription? To put it another way, with conscription in place, was the country not largely supportive of the Vietnam War at its inception, as it was with Iraq?

If you want to learn about the sacrifice of soldiers, you have to work at it. It's not in the mainstream media. Beyond platitudinous expressions like "support our troops" it's not in the right-wing media. It may well be that our political leaders and media conglomerates are right - we don't want to hear about it - and if true that is an indictment of our society. But it's more of an indictment of our media and political system.

Timing Is.... Difficult

In relation to the anti-healthcare reform propaganda campaign, Paul Krugman writes,

So far, at least, the Obama administration’s response to the outpouring of hate on the right has had a deer-in-the-headlights quality. It’s as if officials still can’t wrap their minds around the fact that things like this can happen to people who aren’t named Clinton, as if they keep expecting the nonsense to just go away.

What, then, should Mr. Obama do? It would certainly help if he gave clearer and more concise explanations of his health care plan. To be fair, he’s gotten much better at that over the past couple of weeks.

What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.

Personally, I think it's a bit silly to suggest (as many do) that Obama can somehow make a speech or hold a press conference and transform the moment. From what I can see, we have a two-fold problem:

• Irresponsible politicians who are willing to lie to a gullible public, to create an atmosphere of fear, anger and uncertainty about reform; and

• A media that fans the flames, presents false equivalence rather than debunking the lies, or engages in the type of meta-analysis Krugman offers.

In fairness to Krugman (and to myself) there's room for meta-analysis. His column could be viewed as a commentary on President Obama and his critics, not a commentary on healthcare reform. This post is about the weaknesses of our nation's media and its effect on politics, not about healthcare reform. It seems that that the two competing media themes right now are the advancement of anti-reform lies versus "This is a referendum on Obama so he needs to find a solution - all by himself." Except that latter theme is a right-wing talking point, not in any sense a valid approach to the issues or to Obama. (But boy, the media loves the "referendum on Obama" theme.)

People who were watching this phenomenon develop, such as Robert Reich, pushed hard for a vote before the August recess. I don't think that anybody estimated the amount of astroturfing, fear mongering, and lying - not just by professional hysterics like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, or astroturfoing organizations and lobbyists such as Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity, but by prominent Republicans like Sarah Palin and Michael Steele. The amount of media attention on the failure of the Republican Party to stamp out the lies? Next to nothing. Is deliberate lying now an accepted part of party politics, such that it isn't worthy of media attention? Is it "objective" to fail to call out a liar, instead putting on a "he said, she said" show and pretending not to know who's telling the truth? Or deferring to Obama to magically save the day?

What does Obama have to do? He has to line up enough votes to get an acceptable reform package through, then worry about fixing it in future years. Just as happened (and continues to happen) with programs like Social Security and Medicare. Does it make sense for him to launch his massive effort right now in the face of the deliberate, willful lying of the Republican Party coupled with a media more interested in the outrage the lies inspire than in their truth? I suspect we will receive a solid speech from Obama, addressing healthcare reform, as we get closer to a vote. Offering such a speech now would, in my opinion, be followed by a blitz of right-wing distortion and misrepresentation, with the media again taking primary interest in "whose message is winning" rather than who was presenting better policy or even telling the truth.

Some are comparing the present right-wing propaganda campaign to the Swift Boat Liars attacks on John Kerry. There are parallels: People are coming forth with misrepresentations and lies, the target of those lies seems slow to respond, the media is happy to make it the target's responsibility to debunk the lies rather than its own, and the media focus is on "whose message is winning" instead of "whose message is true." So I can understand supporters of healthcare reform being concerned that Obama may "lose control of the message" and be unable to recover the momentum needed to get healthcare passed... never mind that if he had that momentum we would have had a vote before the August recess.

But there's an important difference. Obama isn't trying to win a primary or an election. He's trying to get enough votes to pass a bill. If he gets those votes it doesn't matter if Sarah Palin and Micheal Steel have successfully convinced a third of America that Obama will personally preside over death panels to kill their grandmothers and children - it will have passed, and those lies will be betrayed by history. Seriously, what would Obama's speech accomplish right now - will he change one mind among those who eagerly embrace every insane lie of a Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin or Michelle Malkin? Will those right-wing commentators suddenly become contrite, apologize and tell the truth? Get real. He's not going to win over people who believe - and who are encouraged to believe - that this is a "government takeover of Medicare". To the extent that some "independents" are wavering, due to the extent of the propaganda and their ignorance of the issues, his best bet to win them back is probably not to start a personal campaign right now, but to let the gun-toting nut jobs undermine their own credibility, then to step in at a more crucial juncture with his explanation of the reform bill.

When Congress resumes session, I expect Obama and his team will do a lot of arm-twisting to get votes on board, and to keep votes already committed, and that Howard Dean wasn't just speaking for himself when he fired this shot across the bow of the "Blue Dogs" - "I do think there will be primaries as the result of all this, if the bill doesn't pass with a public option". And Obama has to give enough of a speech to let the country know, in advance of the vote (and after the present round of childish, Beck/Limbaugh-fueled, astroturf driven hysterics are "old news") that their Member of Congress has done the right thing.

Update: I came across a Mencken quote that highlights both that the problem with our news "elites" is far from new:

A good reporter used to make as much as a bartender or a police sergeant; he now makes as much as the average doctor or lawyer. ... His view of the world he lives in has thus changed. He is no longer a free-lance in human society, thumbing his nose at its dignitaries; he has got a secure lodgment in a definite stratum. ... The highest sordid aspiration that any reporter had, in my time, was to own two complete suits of clothes. Today they have dinner coats, and some of them even own plug hats.

Mencken saw some rotten apples in the barrel, but nobody took them out and now.... Actually, I think the problem is more than the celebrity journalist who now, more than anything else, strives to advance his social status - it's that they've been joined, perhaps supplanted, by a class of pundits and commentators who do the same thing, but do no actual reporting (and in many cases never did).

A Difference of... Style?

David Frum, attempting to rehabilitate his conservative bona fides after being rebuked by Mark Levin, presents a tepid defense of his criticisms of Rush Limbaugh.

Now, of course, Mark Levin knows perfectly well where I come from. We've known each other for years, had dinner together. I'm a conservative Republican, have been all my adult life. I volunteered for the Reagan campaign in 1980. I've attended every Republican convention since 1988. I was president of the Federalist Society chapter at my law school, worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and wrote speeches for President Bush—not the "Read My Lips" Bush, the "Axis of Evil" Bush. I served on the Giuliani campaign in 2008 and voted for John McCain in November. I supported the Iraq War and (although I feel kind of silly about it in retrospect) the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The only thing on that list that makes him feel silly is his support for the impeachment of Bill Clinton? (Why did he even include that, then, in his list of conservative "credentials"? Is it to convey, "I can be as knee-jerk as anyone"?) As a résumé of conservative credentials go, it seems like weak tea, and seems more designed to convey a sense of similarity to to likes of Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin than to create any point of distinction. So it's fair to ask, how does he distinguish his brand of conservative from Rush:

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as "losers." With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence—exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we're cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush's every rancorous word—we'll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

That entire criticism is stylistic, verging into ad hominem, not substantive. Rush is "aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic", and dismissive of his critics - style. He is a rich, self-indulgent, cigar smoking recovering drug addict... I guess distinguished from Frum's "lord and master" by the fact that he's also fat? But it's somehow problematic that factions of the Republican party are lining up behind Rush they way they lined up behind GW, because... he's problematic as the "public face of the enterprise", and it's thus important to make plain that he's just one Republican voice among many.

Responding to Limbaugh's statement, "I Hope Obama Fails", Frum proposes:

Notice that Limbaugh did not say: "I hope the administration's liberal plans fail." Or (better): "I know the administration's liberal plans will fail." Or (best): "I fear that this administration's liberal plans will fail, as liberal plans usually do." If it had been phrased that way, nobody could have used Limbaugh's words to misrepresent conservatives as clueless, indifferent or gleeful in the face of the most painful economic crisis in a generation. But then, if it had been phrased that way, nobody would have quoted his words at all—and as Limbaugh himself said, being "headlined" was the point of the exercise. If it had been phrased that way, Limbaugh's face would not now be adorning the covers of magazines. He phrased his hope in a way that drew maximum attention to himself, offered maximum benefit to the administration and did maximum harm to the party he claims to support.

This from Frum, who even now can't stop himself from implicitly crowing about his role in the coining of the phrase, "the axis of evil". More accurately, he suggested "axis of hatred", but has no apparent problem with the modification of that phrase and its use to falsely suggest alignment and cooperation between Iraq, Iran and North Korea, or to distort and impede debate on important foreign policy issues. Proud and smug, he has effectively declared for years, "It was me who coined the phrase that subverted debate and helped advance Bush's Middle East and North Korea policies without regard to facts," but apparently that's okay because his approach is more nuanced than Rush's. Again, Frum's cricism is stylistic - It's okay for Rush to hope for Obama's failure, but the leader of the Republican Party needs to at least pretend to be hoping that things will work out. (This is reminiscent of fellow Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson's "Gawrsh, I hope I'm wrong" editorial.)

I'm not sure if Rush has the courage in his convictions that his public pronouncements suggest. He's first and foremost an entertainer. I can't recall a single time in his entire history of broadcasting that he's demonstrated actual leadership - intellectual or otherwise. Frum's correct to note that Rush's principal goal is to draw "maximum attention to himself"; that's Rush's job, not offering the damage control to the Republican Party that Frum would prefer.

Step back for a moment. Rush launched his nationally syndicated show in 1988, more than 20 years ago. He's been saying incendiary things over the course of his entire career. Throughout that time, he's been treated as a demigod by many in the Republican Party. Now, as that party's intellectual foundations have collapsed, Rush is perceived as a Republican leader because, in a sense, he's the last man standing. And only now do people like Frum decide that his approach to conservative politics is problematic.

Frum also complains that Limbaugh is defending conservative principles from the 1970's, even though "the connection between big government and today's most pressing problems is not as close or as pressing as it was 27 years ago". Frum laments, generally, about Republican leadership, that there's a reluctance to address how the issues of our time differ from those faced by Reagan, or presenting a set of possible solutions to current problems. But while that may help explain why Rush Limbaugh has ascended - at least he's putting forth the solutions of the 1970's as the others sit silently - it doesn't suggest how his leadership is less desirable than that of other Republican leaders who also have nothing fresh to contribute to the debate.

Frum offers a lengthy statistical dissertation on the poor showing of the Republican party among key demographics, none of which are comprises of rich, older white men. That may help explain why certain Republicans have latched onto the likes of Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal as the future of the party, but that's not a reasoned approach to selecting leadership. There's also a certain naivete in the notion that there's something inherent about Rush's style, as opposed to his political ideology, that alienates key voter blocs from him. As if they're hungering to vote for a Republican leader who has Rush's certitude, but Frum's personality.

Frum proposes three reforms that he apparently believes will reinvigorate the Republican party:

• "We need to put free-market health-care reform, not tax cuts, at the core of our economic message" - That's great, but it would help if somebody could define a meaningful set of "free-market health-care reforms" that can reign in costs and inflation and/or increase universality. The last great free market idea was the introduction of HMOs and PPOs, which have proved wholly inadequate.

• "We need to modulate our social conservatism (not jettison—modulate)." - by this, Frum apparently means adhering to a pro-life, anti-gay agenda but not excluding potential vice presidential candidates (like Tom Ridge) on the basis that they're pro-choice or accepting of gay marriage. I'm not sure how Frum thinks this will help - it weakens the party's position with the religious right, while doing nothing to reassure the small bloc of "single issue" pro-choice voters that the Republican Party is for them.

• "We need an environmental message." - Frum apparently wants to move away from "deny, deny, deny" mode on issues such as carbon emissions, and to recognize that environmental protections can serve to protect property interest as well as harm them (presumably by restricting polluting or environmentally destructive activity or requiring clean-up).

Frum concludes that "Above all, we need to take governing seriously again." Frum laments that the popular myth that the Republican Party represents "personal integrity and fiscal responsibility" has been shattered by reality. Yet he's upset that Limbaugh is a myth-builder? In what alternate universe can we find the Republican leaders who, but for Limbaugh's prominence, would be ushering in a new era of fiscal and personal responsibility? No, really, the problem is stylistic:

And if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, [voters who can't stand Rush] will vote against us.

Yeah. The Republican Party needs somebody who's a "uniter, not a divider." (Which speechwriter came up with that one?)

Frum's argument gets more self-pitying, and more hypocritical, toward the end.

Most of these e-mails say some version of the same thing: if you don't agree with Rush, quit calling yourself a conservative and get out of the Republican Party. There's the perfect culmination of the outlook Rush Limbaugh has taught his fans and followers: we want to transform the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan into a party of unanimous dittoheads—and we don't care how much the party has to shrink to do it. That's not the language of politics. It's the language of a cult.

Where can I find Frum's similar lament that, during or after his tenure as a Bush speechwriter, similar efforts were made to shout down the debate on issues such as the Iraq War, warrantless wiretapping, respect for human rights.... Didn't it bother him that people who tried to introduce traditional American values into the debate of important subject, some of whom approached the issue from the standpoint of conservative thought and tradition, were shouted down, shut out, and even derided as being a "fifth column" or something just shy of traitors? No, this says it all:

I'm a pretty conservative guy. On most issues, I doubt Limbaugh and I even disagree very much. But the issues on which we do disagree are maybe the most important to the future of the conservative movement and the Republican Party: Should conservatives be trying to provoke or persuade? To narrow our coalition or enlarge it? To enflame or govern? And finally (and above all): to profit—or to serve?

So again we find Frum's disagreement with Rush is stylistic, not substantive, and he takes umbrage only in that he is being derided for having challenged Rush. Even when singling out a few of Rush's more inflammatory statements, Frum couldn't bring himself to say, "I disagree with this," as opposed to, "I would have said it differently." He's perfectly happy for people who disagree with his own (and apparently also Rush's) political views to be treated with scorn.
___________
Update: Clark Stooksbury reminds us of Frum's attack on paleoconservatives:

The antiwar conservatives aren't satisfied merely to question the wisdom of an Iraq war. Questions are perfectly reasonable, indeed valuable. There is more than one way to wage the war on terror, and thoughtful people will naturally disagree about how best to do it, whether to focus on terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah or on states like Iraq and Iran; and if states, then which state first?

But the antiwar conservatives have gone far, far beyond the advocacy of alternative strategies. They have made common cause with the left-wing and Islamist antiwar movements in this country and in Europe. They deny and excuse terror. They espouse a potentially self-fulfilling defeatism. They publicize wild conspiracy theories. And some of them explicitly yearn for the victory of their nation's enemies.

* * *

There is, however, a fringe attached to the conservative world that cannot overcome its despair and alienation. The resentments are too intense, the bitterness too unappeasable. Only the boldest of them as yet explicitly acknowledge their wish to see the United States defeated in the War on Terror. But they are thinking about defeat, and wishing for it, and they will take pleasure in it if it should happen.

They began by hating the neoconservatives. They came to hate their party and this president. They have finished by hating their country.

I guess that answers my rhetorical question about where Frum was when attacks like that were being made....

Cowardice

Why is the GOP so scared of Rush?

n comments that were broadcast over the weekend, Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele called Rush Limbaugh's rhetoric "incendiary" and "ugly" and insisted that he is in charge of the GOP.

On Monday, however, after a blistering response from the conservative talk-radio kingpin, Steele told the online journal Politico that he "was maybe a little bit inarticulate."

"There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership," Steele said. He added, "There are those out there who want to look at what he's saying as incendiary and divisive and ugly. That's what I was trying to say. It didn't come out that way."

Steele apparently was one of those people, before being confronted and proving that his backbone is in no way as impressive as his name.

Tough Words To Say....

Our society makes it really hard to admit, but the excuses? Come on. A judge in disciplinary proceedings for being intoxicated on the bench explains,

during the alleged drunken appearances, he was taking the painkiller Vicodin for back and knee injuries from a car accident; an anti-inflammatory medicine; Ambien for sleep apnea; and medication for diabetes and high blood pressure.

Let's get one thing straight. You don't take Ambien (or any other sleep medication) for sleep apnea. You take it to help you sleep if you are having trouble with a CPAP or BiPAP machine, the actual treatment for sleep apnea. After you take it you go to sleep. You do not take Ambien and then go to work unless you are either intending to go to sleep on the bench or you are an addict.

He admitted that he went on the bench on two occasions after taking Vicodin and consuming alcohol.

On Dec. 6, 2006, he took three or four Vicodins before a 9 a.m. session in Bridgewater, and at lunch that day had two to three glasses of Chardonnay.

When you're gulping down a triple or quadruple dose of Vicodin, with a substantial alcohol chaser, you're either being extremely foolish and reckless in the treatment of your physical pain or you've moved well hinto the territory of addiction.

Sasso said he knew he should not take his daily Vicodin dosage all at once but added that he generally needs a large dose because he is 6'3" and weighs 290 pounds.

More likely, because if you take three or four times your prescribed dose you build up a tolerance. If you are taking prescribed pain relievers and they're not helping, here's what you do: You go back to your doctor and say, "These aren't helping at the dose you prescribed. What do you recommend?"

Similarly, if you find yourself taking Ambien and not falling asleep, you go back to your doctor and say "These aren't helping me sleep. Can we try something else?" If you take Abmien and intentionally stay awake, it's unlikely that you're taking it for any purpose other than its intoxicating effects (which, as Patrick Kennedy (and the officer who investigated his accident) can tell you, are a lot like alcohol intoxication).

Let's draw a line here between addiction and dependence. If you take certain medications for a long enough period of time, including opiates, you develop a physical dependence on those medications. You may also develop a tolerance that requires an adjustment of your dose or a change of medication, and may be dependent to the point that you will suffer withdrawal if you suddenly stop taking your medications. That's not addiction. Where you transition from dependence to addiction is when your medications stop improving your ability to lead a normal life, and your focus shifts to clock-watching or drug-seeking. There's also a syndrome called pseudoaddiction, where somebody who is receiving inadequate pain relief may demonstrate obsessive or drug-seeking behaviors that resemble those of an addict, but those symptoms resolve when their pain is adequately treated. But if you're buying shoeboxes of drugs from your maid (in addition to taking the drugs you get from your doctor), or gulping down huge doses of opiate medication with alcohol, it's safe to assume that you're an addict.

The AA/NA model for addiction dictates that the very first step in recovery is admitting your powerlessness over your drug of choice. I'm fortunate enough not to have a history of addiction, but I can say this: When the Rush Limbaughs, Patrick Kennedys, and even lesser known people like Judge Sasso avoid making that direct, honest concession - when they insist that their addictions are somehow more elevated because they claim to have physical pain, or are somehow more pure because they're abusing prescription pharmaceuticals - they're lying to themselves and to anybody who listens to them.

It would be really nice to hear one of these high profile addicts discard all of the excuses and finger pointing and simply admit, even if prefaced with an explanation of how they became addicted, "I did it because I am an addict." (e.g., "Although I didn't seek out this disease, and had no experience with addiction before I received opiate medication for a back injury, I stole drugs from my charity because I am an addict.")

Addendum: To be clear, I believe that if high profile addicts are honest about their addiction, they will help diminish the stigma of addiction. While we sometimes pretend otherwise, addiction strikes at all levels of our society and, while the rich and powerful are often better able to cover for their addiction or avoid street drugs, nobody is immune.

Free Markets At Work

The inimitable Rush Limbaugh:

Now, here in the United States, for a whole host of reasons, chief among them the high price of gasoline - But I also think there's a herd mentality in this, too. People apparently, supposedly, according to Drive-By Media reports, for the last two months, three months, have been showing up at automobile dealerships and trying to trade in their SUVs and other automobiles that are, quote, unquote, gas hogs, 'cause they can't afford 'em anymore with the tipping point price of gasoline now reaching four bucks per gallon. So we here in America, the most prosperous, the most advanced, the freest, greatest potential, the most amazing collection of human beings in the history of collections of human beings, we are getting rid of our SUVs and pickup trucks, and we are in the process of downsizing to driving bubbles with wheels, lawn mowers with wheels, battery powered cars and so for forth, what are they doing in China?

What are the ChiComs doing - while we move ourselves back to the Stone Age - well, at least in that direction. China's most popular car is an SUV. SUV sales in China are exploding. "Nodding his head to the disco music blaring out of his car's nine speakers, Zhang Linsen swings the shiny, black Hummer H2 out of his company's gates and on to the spacious four-lane road. 'In China, size matters,' says Zhang, the 44-year-old founder of a media and graphic design company. 'People want to have a car that shows off their status in society. No one wants to buy small.' Zhang grasps the wheels of his Hummer, also called a fierce horse in Chinese, and hits the accelerator. Car ownership in China is exploding, and it's not only cars but also sport-utility vehicles, pickup trucks and other gas-guzzling rides."

How can we be living in this horror, where Americans respond to market forces by buying fuel efficient vehicles while China's new elite do not?

Folks, I don't know what the price of gasoline is in China and I don't know to what extent, if any, it is subsidized - okay, it is subsidized. See, the ChiComs need their economy growing. They need people driving around, moving around. They need people to be able to afford fuel, so they're subsidizing fuel. They're not bailing people out of stupid home mortgage messes. They're buying their gasoline for them, because they need an economy.

It defies parody.

"But That's Different"

A confessed drug addict and suspected felon, with the aid of the ACLU and a clever trial lawyer, is trying to get a judge to suppress on a "technicality" the records which are likely to result in the addict's criminal conviction - they claim that the records, although accurately reflecting the addict's conduct, were improperly seized by the prosecution and should thus be suppressed.

Rush Limbaugh, as you might expect, stands firmly behind the drug addict, the trial lawyer, and the ACLU.

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