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Go Home The People's People

POLITICS FEBRUARY 18, 2010

The People's People

BY LEON WIESELTIER

I should not speak ill of the dead, but what of the dead who spoke ill of the dead? Many years ago an acquaintance of mine applied for a position at the Museum of the City of New York, over which Louis Auchincloss presided. The search committee met in the writer’s apartment on Park Avenue. When the candidate was asked to describe what he would do to improve the institution, he replied that too many people were not represented in its galleries, and noted in particular the inadequacy of the museum’s portrayal of African Americans. “What would you have us do,” Auchincloss sneered, “create a period room with a hovel in it?” I was reminded of that sickening remark when I read Auchincloss’s obituary in the Times a few weeks ago. It was one of those death notices that make me chuckle. How’s this for immortality? “I knew perfectly well what it meant to be rich in New York. If you were rich, you lived in a house with a pompous beaux-arts façade and kept a butler and gave children’s parties with spun sugar on the ice cream and little cups of real silver as game prizes. If you were not rich you lived in a brownstone with Irish maids who never called you Master Louis and parents who hollered up and down the stairs instead of ringing bells.” This was Auchincloss’s bathetic reminiscence of his boyhood, though it also anticipates the shrunken epicene standpoint of the Manhattan of Bloomberg and Blankfein--except for one glaring difference, one deliciously American usurpation. Master Louis never knew what it meant to be poor in New York, of course; and when critics accused him of Park Avenue provincialism, he accused them of “class prejudice,” and protested grumpily that “nobody holds it against” James and Wharton and Thackeray and Proust. That is because their subject was not money, even if they wrote about the rich; but never mind, snobbery is a hurtful thing. It pleases me to think of Auchincloss’s white-shoe resentment. A country in which he whined about class prejudice is a hopeful place. We are not a solid but a fluid. In America, elitists cannot sleep.

And certainly not if Sarah Palin has her way. “I’m never going to pretend like I know more than the next person,” she recently told Chris Wallace, which is just as well. And she added: “I’m not going to pretend to be an elitist. In fact, I’m going to fight the elitist, because for too often and for too long now, I think the elitists have tried to make people like me and people in the heartland of America feel like we just don’t get it.” At the Tea Party convention in Nashville, Palin made a similar claim for the moral superiority of ordinariness, twangily championing “real people, not politicos, not inside-the-Beltway professionals,” and “everyday Americans,” and finally “the people.” Palin is packaging herself as the perfect image of the American mean. It is an affront to the heartland. But since the pitch is working--“the lady is good,” the sobersides David Broder exclaimed--a few clarifications are in order. For a start, there are no unreal people. Even Mitch McConnell is real. Even Frank Rich is real. The invocation of “the people” sounds inclusive, but it is a technique of exclusion. (This was also the case in the preamble to the Constitution.) It is based upon a particular definition of “the people.” How do Palin and the partiers know who the real Americans are? The mystical certainty of her divisive intuition reminds me of what intellectual historians used to call the “epistemological privilege” of Marx’s proletariat, his reprehensible old idea that access to truth is a feature of class position. Palin, too, is idealizing the proletariat for the uniqueness of its understanding, though her economics is starkly indifferent to its tribulations. And if you throw in Palin’s views on the “social issues,” on the questions by which we measure the decency of our society, then it is clear that this is an anti-elitism that is not an egalitarianism, a common touch without genuine commonality, which is quite an accomplishment.

There is also the rather immense hypocrisy of Palin and many other populists. Anyone who has run for the vice presidency, and has published a monster bestseller, and appears regularly on television, and will run for the presidency is a member in good standing of the American elite. Even lesser attainments of prominence and success confer the same loathed status. The anti-elitists in the Republican caucus in the House and the Senate, and in the conservative commentariat, and in the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute--they are anti-elitists in the elite. Scott Brown proved that nothing gets you to Washington faster than a pickup truck, but he will have a hideaway now. For years liberals used to be ridiculed for their condescension to “the people.” (Like every common man I adore the scene in The Deer Hunter when Robert De Niro, John Cazale, Christopher Walken, and the others in the bar sing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” along with the jukebox, but when I saw it a few weeks ago it looked to me like a bunch of guys from Tribeca slumming in a Pennsylvania steel town.) Now conservatives deserve the same ridicule. The comforting fact is that there is no significant ideology and no significant policy agenda that is not represented among the elite. The appeal to authenticity is universal (Obama has his “folks” and the netroots have their “roots”), but it is universally beside the point. The wisdom of a policy is not determined by its social origins. There is a distinction between populism and “the people,” though most populists do not want you to know it. The populism that bases its criticisms on a preference for one segment of the populace is merely another special interest, its denunciations of special interests notwithstanding. This does not mean that its criticisms are wrong; but when they are right, it is because their reasons are moral, not sociological. The appeasement of Wall Street after what Wall Street did to this country is objectionable not on grounds of class, but on grounds of fairness, of justice. Is there any more inclusive standard for public policy? (Financial regulatory reform and gay marriage: that’s populism!) But justice is not well-pursued by resentment. The anti-politician politicians who seek the favor of angry Americans are deceiving them, because anger is nothing more lasting than a political consultant’s contract. Emotions are stoked by elections and are spent by them. What remains after the great manipulation is the increasingly Sisyphean task of public reason, which is its own kind of insurgency.

Leon Wieseltier is the literary editor of The New Republic.

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56 comments

Leon, doesn't it tell you anything that Sarah Palin has an Israeli flag on the wall of her office and that she wears a label pin with crossed Israeli and American flags? Doesn't it tell you anything that American "progressives" are by and large anti-Israel? It's the Cold War all over again, except that in the Cold War the majority of liberals, at least until the Sixties, supported the West. Today the anti-American, anti-Western faction of liberalism is in the ascendancy. Leon, in the name of all that is holy get off that rotten, foundering ship. History has reversed itself. Today conservatism is for the most part about rationality, tolerance and philo-Semitism, and "liberalism" is just the opposite on all counts.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 1:53am

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Terrific piece Leon, great Marx quote. It brought to mind Derrida as well. You should make this a longer piece - finish it. How does Sarah Palin pass or fail in her duties to public reason?

- WandreyCer

February 18, 2010 at 6:06am

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bulbman, the reason so many conservatives (and I am certain that includes Palin) support Israel is that they believe in the false doctrine of Premillennialism -- a belief that considers the founding of Israel in 1948 a sign of the End Times leading to the Rapture, the battle of Armageddon, the return of Christ... and the end of the Jews, either by death or conversion to Christianity. Israel uses this belief to its advantage in the US, but it's a Faustian bargain with people whose ultimate goal is the same as the Palestinians. With friends like these, who needs enemies? The ubiquitousness of these beliefs in America clouds our relationship with Israel and prevent us from clearly seeing where our interests and their interests diverge. So don't think conservatives' philo-Semitism is completely altruistic.

- zardoz67

February 18, 2010 at 8:32am

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zardoz, your charge is grotesque and false. I live and work among the conservatives you are describing and I can tell you that their love and admiration for Israel is genuine.

- r.ennis

February 18, 2010 at 9:48am

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zardoz, your charge is grotesque and false. I live and work among the conservatives you describe and I can assure you that their love and respect for Israel is genuine.

- r.ennis

February 18, 2010 at 9:51am

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While it may be genuine, you have to look at their motives. Before 1948, these religious conservatives would have been anti-Semitic, just as the majority of Christian America was.

- zardoz67

February 18, 2010 at 10:28am

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r.ennis, please. "love" of Israel is one thing, but fundies and evangelicals have anti-Semitism bred into the bone. Or are you trying to rewrite history and say the Southerners have always been on the side of racial, religious, or ethnic progress, and that never a bigoted word ever comes out of their mouths? And this "love" of Israel is often ill-informed, I can guarantee you that most couldn't pick an Israeli politician out of a lineup, or have the faintest clue what the Kadima party is. I am not saying that this in itself is bad for an average person who has no influence, but politicians reflexively being pro-Israel without knowing the issues doesn't serve Israel or the US well. This was a first class piece by LW, I have only one objection though. If he thinks Walken and DeNiro look like they are from Tribeca, he hasn't been there much. And Walken, with age, is becoming even more frightening (OK, check that, maybe he looks like he is from Tribeca now, but not then)

- blackton

February 18, 2010 at 10:38am

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Who (at least among American Jews) really cares whether American conservatives have a genuine admiration for Israel because its a democracy or because they are all end-times millinarians and just want the Jews to convert or die? American Jews live and work in this country, not Israel, and expect to be treated as equal citizens with equal rights -- not as a privileged or tolerated minority whose worth is primarily evaluated on the basis of Israeli politics or policies. Those American Jews like Leon Weiseltier who hear chilling echoes of the Leo Frank lynching and the America First movement in Ms. Palin's speeches about "real America" and her hatred of "elites" won't sleep comfortably at night knowing that their rights as American citizens would be curtailed by American religious conversatives just because those same conservatives also happen to like Israel. And by-the-by, American religious conservatives were rather displeased by all of that Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking in the 1990s, even though it was supported by a large majority of Israeli Jews and overwhelming majorities of American Jews. So please don't tell me that the love of American conservatives for Israel is unconditional and uncritical, because that is a load of BS.

- wildboy

February 18, 2010 at 10:41am

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Blackton, excellent post. I've had many discussions with American Christian conservatives, and they only have the vaguest sense of Israeli politics or Israeli society. And their views of the Israeli-Arab conflict are usually so one-dimensional and anti-Arab that they would make Effie Eitam blush. I've often heard the statement that the Jews should simply expel the Arabs from the land that was granted to them by God, and the lack of understanding about why that would be either morally or politically problematic, or that no concessions to Arab self-rule in the West Bank or Gaza are needed because these lands are part of Abraham's patrimony. These sorts of opinions are out of the mainstream of 90% of Israeli politics, not to mention the politics of American Jews. As a resident of Western Pennsylvania (and a frequent visitor to mill towns), I have to say that Cazale, DeNiro and Walken (at least their 1970s personae) would still fit in pretty well. The scarier the better.

- wildboy

February 18, 2010 at 10:48am

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Populism as an ideology is as Marty says. But populist sentiment can play a constructive role when it is directed at a legitimate target. In the case of Palin that target is the liberal program of rule by "experts". Progressivism (aka liberalism, a misnomer) seeks to gradually but relentlessly expand the sphere of government at the expense of civil society. Journalists, academics, politicians and bureaucrats seek to impose their values on the working and lower middle classes, and surprise! the members of those classes resent being told how to live and raise their families. I'm not at all a populist. I take my cues about the nature of the world from science, not religion. I eat arugula and vacation in Europe. I do like country music, but I like opera more. At the same time I believe that the common sense of ordinary people often trumps the faddish made-up ideologies which progressives are always eager to embrace. Multiculturalism, radical feminism, reverse racism and radical environmentalism are stupid and harmful to society. The reason that we hear populist complaints about "elitism" is that so many so-called educated people believe such nonsense, or more likely pretend to believe it. The popular classes may lack education and polish, but they can smell BS and they aren't afraid to call it what it is.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 11:20am

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I said that conservatives' love of Israel was genuine, not conditional. They mostly agree with right of center Israelis. I prefer that to unconditional condemnation coming from the left. Anyone who is worried that American conservatism is largely anti- semitic and threatening to American Jews cannot be taken seriously. My family suffered far more anti-semitism in liberal New Jersey that it has in conservative Texas and rural PA.

- r.ennis

February 18, 2010 at 11:34am

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conflating one's stance on israel with one's position on every other subject under the sun seems a bit myopic. under this framework, conservatives love israel unconditionally, therefore conservatives are right about everything else. liberals tend not to love israel unconditionally - meaning some actually are wrong about israel (my assessment) - therefore liberals are wrong about everything else. such logical processes astonish me. i'm thrilled that conservatives tend to back israel 100%, even as their faith-based lack of knowledge of israel matches their faith-based lack of knowledge of things ranging from economics to social justice and beyond. it disturbs me that there are liberals/progressives who have concluded that israel is comparable to south africa under the yoke of apartheid and who almost unthinkingly support the blood thirsty fascists who seek to destroy israel, who turn a blind eye to the unbelievable corruption in gaza and in ramallah, who scream at israel for refusing to throw open the gates to gaza while ignoring egypt's identical actions to the west. but just because these crazies - who have become sleeping pals with the likes of david duke - are idiotically insane about israel, why does that make my position on everything else wrong? i received a 1934 political cartoon the other day from a right-wing former colleague based in texas. the cartoon shows a careening horse-drawn wagon filled with fdr policy guys labeled as "young pinkies from columbia and harvard" drinking nectar from bottles of "power" and shoveling cash willy-nilly. said the sign on the back of the wagon, "depleting the resources of the soundest government in the world." another sign states, "plan of action for u.s. - spend! spend! spend under the guise of recovery - bust the government - blame the capitalists for the failure - junk the constitution and declare a dictatorship." the guy writing that sign - presumably the cartoonist - is saying, "it worked in russia!" the subject line for this cartoon was, "cartoon from 1934. scary!!" the only response to my unthinking friend was too obvious: those economic policies ushered in 50 years of prosperity resulting in the u.s. becoming the sole superpower on the planet. that's the problem with the right in my eyes. all kneejerk and no objective thought. funny world we live in...mann troach, g-tt lauch.

- rhoneyman

February 18, 2010 at 11:47am

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Good commentary going on here. rhoneyman is right about conflation. I am familiar with the kinds of people that wildboy has met. I'm also familiar with the much larger faction of christians that quite simply have an affinity with Israel for the family kinship in concepts of justice of both individual and collective colors. Conflate away wildboy but your assertions don't make it so.

- jacko

February 18, 2010 at 12:25pm

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wildboy, I thought the same with your first posting. r.ennis, yeah, I am sure Vinnie the truck driver was a real Liberal. I lived in NJ in Bergen county, and yes there is a lot of low grade anti-Semitism, but it is mostly of the not politically correct version, ie. a bunch of gentiles cracking jokes behind the back of one of their Jewish friends (and I mean Friend). In NJ everyone makes fun of everyone else. It is boorish but it is not discrimination. And yes, you might have suffered genuine discrimination but NJ has more than its share of outright assholes (and it is a huge stretch to call them Liberals). But you are seriously wrong if you don't think NJ has not been as tremendous place for Jews. There are a half a million Jews in NJ and they have thrived there. There are far, far less in Texas (with its much greater population) and are practically non existent in rural Pa. Was there even a temple where you lived in rural Pa. or Texas? It is easy to tolerate an occasional Jewish family, but just how open were they to your dating their daughters (much less marrying them) oh if you converted, sure, but give me a break.

- blackton

February 18, 2010 at 12:30pm

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"The popular classes may lack education and polish, but they can smell BS and they aren't afraid to call it what it is." Right. Which explains why those popular classes are so susceptible to GOP hogwash phrases such as "government takeover of healthcare" as a description for an almost entirely market based health financing reform plan, or how we have more than half of the population who to this day believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the September 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, or for such wisdom on the environment as the farmer I heard the other day say to widespread agreement amongst his listeners that "no one can tell me that something invisible and measured in parts per million can possible be responsible for climate change." Give me a freakin' break. Most "common sense" is way too common, and all to little sense. Most populist BS-detectors can't smell the BS that is the primary grounding for their own anemic arguments. Good policy in a complex world is hard, and nuanced, and almost never is as simple as "the people" want to think.

- IowaBeauty

February 18, 2010 at 12:31pm

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Here's a take on "the people's" view of Jews and Israel: a small town hospital OB ward with an entire retinue of Sarah Palin loving nurses, who are likewise proud supporters of Israel, but who are full of snide whispers about "Jewish princesses" who are "just not normal" when an orthodox mother comes in and expects the hospital to provide kosher meals, and their husbands leave the room for the birth because they are not permitted by Jewish religious law to observe. So, are they pro-Israel and anti-semitic, or just another example of "common folk" with great BS detectors?

- IowaBeauty

February 18, 2010 at 12:37pm

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Blackton, more than half of my Jewish friends are married to gentiles. Your prejudice is telling and condescending. Plus, I never said that New Jersey was a bad place for Jews to live. But, I never believed in living in a self-imposed Jewish ghetto, so my kids bore the brunt of my decision. Yes we have synagogues and, yes, we are totally accepted in flyover country. Discussion over. Back to the original subject, George Will makes a similar, if less loathing, point about the Palin phenomenon. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/17/AR2010021703507.html

- r.ennis

February 18, 2010 at 12:39pm

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bulbman's platitudes require a fascinating reinterpretation of American history, since King George III was an authentic man of the people who believed that the agrarian peasantry, not the landowning and urban elite of the aristocracy, were the foundation of public virtue. Whereas George Washington was an absolute elitist who was constantly embracing radical theories of I-know-better-than-anyone-else "improvement", from abandoning tobacco for food crops on his plantations to establishing the first strong federal interventions into the commercial marketplace. And not just Washington - Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Madison, and the rest were know-it-all elitists of the first order who valued "expertise," usually their own, above the wisdom of what they so condescendingly called the "mob", and who in so doing unleashed on the American people the most radical, untested transformation of society in our history. A true populist who consistently respected the wishes of the demos on all issues would have opposed independence from Britain, as well as the ratification of the Constitution. He would have accepted Confederate secession, and he would not have aided Britain or Russia against Hitler, nor armed for war in the 1930s. All of these policies, and most else that we regard as American triumphs, were imposed by "experts" and "elites" against the wishes of the broad majority of Americans. Which of today's "populists" is willing to go first in declaring his opposition to American independence, to the Constitution, to the union of the states, or to U.S. involvement in the liberation of Europe? Sarah Palin? bulbman?

- rhubarbs

February 18, 2010 at 12:42pm

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Jacko, I'm not conflating and I'm not talking about Christians in general -- unless by Christian you automatically mean conservative Evangelical Christian, which I would guess you don't. Admittedly my opinion is limited, but I have yet to meet a conservative Evangelical (or see a program on a Christian TV station, which I occasionally peruse) that has a coherent understanding of the origins of modern Israel or contemporary Israeli society or something less than a zero-sum view of Israeli-Arab relations. Sarah Palin and those who love her are not pro-Israel for "the family kinship in concepts of justice of both individual and collective colors", except to the extent they believe such kinship derives from a shared Biblical heritage and interpretation (which, many are surprised to learn, it really does not). But, again, this is not the point for American Jews even if it may be the point for Israelis who need friends and allies wherever they can find them -- what counts as a fundamental "concept of justice" for Sarah Palin and her ilk is often far from what American Jews think of as fundamental "concepts of justice". The Bulbmen of the world (not to mention the Norman Podhoretzes and Jennifer Rubins) might wonder why this is so, but most American Jews don't.

- wildboy

February 18, 2010 at 12:46pm

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"The popular classes may lack education and polish, but they can smell BS and they aren't afraid to call it what it is." Popular classes? Like 10:00 am sex ed? Sign me up! (Bulbman, I so rarely read your bigoted psychotic rants but I was eating my lunch so what the heck. I have never read a bigger pile of patronizing snobbery in my life. You keep on keeping those "real Americans" as your personal pets bulbman, you prove conservative bigotry with it beautifully. Oh, do you like to change their diapers and read them bedtimes stories too? You're hilariously ridiculous - thanks for the great lunchtime laugh).

- WandreyCer

February 18, 2010 at 12:53pm

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wildboy: I'm hoping you might expand on...."derives from a shared Biblical heritage and interpretation (which, many are surprised to learn, it really does not)."

- jacko

February 18, 2010 at 1:06pm

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Blackton, more than half of my Jewish friends are married to gentiles. Your prejudice is telling and condescending. Whoa, where did I say that Jewish people can't marry gentiles? Don't put words into my mouth. I said, and statistics back me up, the interfaith marriages are far more common and accepted in places like NJ then they would ever be the rural Pa. or the Bible belt. And for the record, I grew up in rural Pa. I moved as an adult to Bergen county. You knocked NJ and stated that those other places are more progressive and tolerant than "Liberal" NJ. It is you who were condescending and prejudiced. That is utter bullshit and you know it, or should. Or you are burying your head in the sand. The anti-semitism (and racism) in rural Pa. is far more pernicious. (and I doubt things have changed that much since I left). Obviously, you have not got a clue what is said behind closed doors, but I do since I had to listen to it. Discussion over? yeah, right. His highness hath spoken, he can't back up his assertion so he claims prejudice and slithers away. And ghetto? Are you honestly calling places like Livingston, NJ a ghetto? I should be so lucky to live in such a ghetto. And who said anything contemptuous like "flyover country" except you. I mentioned rural Pa. because I lived there and know it well.

- blackton

February 18, 2010 at 1:23pm

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"popular classes" Grow a sense of humor WandreyCer. You're going to need it when the Dhimmicrats get trounced at the polls. Rhubarbs, I'm not against elitism when the elite really is that. What I'm against are the pretentious peecee phonies who try to pass themselves off as the elite in this country.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 1:30pm

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I would be glad to -- for starters, Evangelical Christianity (like all Protestant Christianity) is based on a close reading of the Christian Bible, which not only includes a New Testament not recognized by Jews as anything other than the writings of a completely different religion but also an Old Testament in a reorganized order, with certain added canonical books and based on translations that take many, many liberties with the apparent meaning of the original Hebrew text and significant departures from traditional Masoretic interpretation. Many branches of Evangelical Christianity insist upon a literal reading of those texts, which was never part of the Jewish interpretation of their sacred texts -- authoritative commentators like Rashi expound upon many meanings of words and stories that are not at all literal or apparent from the text. Also, all contemporary Judaism in every denomination derives its creed, ritual and customs not solely from the words of the Torah (however interpreted) but from the Talmud, Midrashic and Aggadic literature of the early Christian Era and from medieval and Renaissance-era commentators and aggregators like Maimonides (with his Mishna Torah) and Yosef Caro (with his Shulkhan Arukh) -- not to mention modern scholarly authorities whose interpretations of and departures from those texts form the basis of Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judiasm. These are texts and authors largely unknown to Evangelical Christians who don't sit in theology departments or engage in missionary outreach to Jews. Finally, and in my view most importantly with regard to Evangelical Christians such as Sarah Palin's Assemblies of God, there is little to no emphasis on eschatalogy in contemporary or traditional Judaism, and rather little thought about the afterlife and the punishment of transgressors. Thus, the Jewish values that are embodied by most Israelis in their daily lives have little to do with preparing for a Messianic age or a coming Armageddon and following the guidelines laid out in the Torah. Unfortunately, many Evangelical Christians (Sarah Palin apparently among them) don't understand and don't really bother to pay attention to it.

- wildboy

February 18, 2010 at 1:44pm

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Oh, a couple other points about how tolerant places like Texas is. I married a Chinese woman, and we drive back to Pa. from Mexico for the Summer break. We were in a store in Kingston, Texas and an old man went up to my wife, asked where she was from and told her to go back there. I didn't know this was going on, and my wife didn't tell me because she knew I would have laid him out, old man or not. And the crap I hear when I go up to the Poconos is unbelievable, things you simply don't hear in NJ. So yeah, I have no problem saying I am proud of NYC and NJ Tolerance and understanding, and beyond that, acceptance is far more prevalent in NYC than it will ever be in rural Pa. This shit is learned through experience.

- blackton

February 18, 2010 at 1:44pm

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Rhubarbs, your idea that today's left has anything in common with the founding fathers is just liberal silliness. The founders weren't populist, except to some extent Jefferson, but they did believe in limited government and individual freedom. The more honest leftists admit that they don't like the "elitist" constitution. When the "elites" are right they eventually bring the people along with them. My point is that today's liberal elite is not really an elite. It's Hollywood trash and third rate journalists, hack politicians, and various rent seekers ranging from race hustlers to thuggish union leaders to sleazy trial lawyers. Lately this motley crew has been joined by big corporations seeking to feed off the taxpayer.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 1:50pm

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IowaBeauty, you have discovered that many small-town people are ethnocentric. That is an amazing and original discovery. You should publish it and make a name for yourself as a sociologist.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 1:56pm

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wildboy, you are so right. I think what you have here is calculated ignorance. These people take pride in their ignorance. Dialogue is useless. I have heard "I don't want to hear about it, I know I am right." countless times. I simply don't discuss politics, or religion, or race or anything whenever I go home. Here though, I don't care who I offend. Tea partiers are idiots, Ayn Rand was a narcissitic freakshow, Libertarianism is lame. Where else but here can I read lines like: "significant departures from traditional Masoretic interpretation" than an elitist website like TNR Damn right you are smarter than these other people, and there is nothing elitist in my pointing out that you are.

- blackton

February 18, 2010 at 1:58pm

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Anybody who doesn't understand that Obamacare would lead to a government takeover of (what is left of) private medicine is naive. Some liberals are honest enough to admit that this is a feature, not a bug.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 2:01pm

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Jumping the shark alert: The more honest leftists admit that they don't like the "elitist" constitution. Oh, yeah, and the Republicans have no proposals whatsoever to amend the Constitution. From Democraticunderground Criticism in Time of War Summary: Would make it illegal to criticize the Commander-in-Chief in time of war, with an exception for those times when the Commander-in-Chief is not a Republican Continuous Flag Protection Summary: Authorizes on-going expenditures for a program producing astro-turf letters to newspaper editors every July 4, pointing out that if we only had more Republicans in Congress, the Flag Desecration Amendment would have passed already Naming Rights Summary: §1 Transfers to the Republican Party any and all legals right to officially name the Democratic Party. §2 provides the default renaming "Democrat Party" Treason Summary: Simplifies the Constitutional definition of treason, by allowing Rush Limbaugh to define the word Accuracy in Birth Certificates Summary: Requires every President, born in Hawaii between 1955 and 1965, to show his original birth certificate to all attendees at any official event and to answer questions about it before speaking on any other topic If Republicans so love the constitution, why do they have so many proposals to amend it? Bulbmans response "duh...uh...this is a Commie plot...Freedom fries...commonsense problems for commensense solutions."

- blackton

February 18, 2010 at 2:06pm

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Blackie, you're too kind. Next time I need a powerful right cross to stop a racist conversation, I know where to turn. Re your experiences in the Poconos, it would be really something if the good bigoted burghers there knew that there is a Yeshivah right in Scranton, with some really nice views of the surrounding hills.

- wildboy

February 18, 2010 at 2:24pm

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oy. if *only* obamacare would lead to government run healthcare...but obama is too beholden to the insurance cos and big pharma to force the issue. and with the supremes handing congress and most state houses to the right wing for the next generation, it will be a very long time before the u.s. has the balls to manage runaway healthcare costs. wildboy: the rambam instructs all jews to believe that moshiach will appear any moment. there are major differences between the jewish and christian approaches to messiah. christians seem to treat messiah as a physical manifestation of g-d who will appear out of the ruins of cataclysm centered, i guess, in the holy land. jews understand that moshiach is a flesh and blood human who will be revealed - one of the 36 tzaddikim with the potential of being chosen said to live in each generation - only after jews achieve achdus - unity - and will usher in an era of peace and universal love of g-d. then there's the old saw about the alte kacker who spent his life praying at the kosel: Sadie was a Reuters journalist. One year, she was assigned to their Jerusalem office and her apartment overlooked the Wailing Wall. On her first morning, as she was getting ready to go to the office, she looked out her window and saw an old man praying vigorously, his head bobbing up and down rapidly. So Sadie, seeing an interesting story in the making, went down to talk to him. Sadie asked him, "How often do you come here to pray?" "Every day," he replied. "I have come here to pray on this spot every day for the last 20 years." "You come every day to the wall? What are you praying for?" Sadie asked. The old man replies," I pray for peace in this angry world in the morning. Then I go home, have my lunch, and come back in the afternoon. Then I pray for a world free of illness and disease." Sadie is amazed. "How do you feel coming here every day for 20 years and praying for these things?" she asks. The old man looks at her sadly. "Like I'm talking to a wall."

- rhoneyman

February 18, 2010 at 2:36pm

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"IowaBeauty, you have discovered that many small-town people are ethnocentric." I haven't discovered anything, since I am myself a lifelong resident of the rural and small town midwest, and received those "ethnocentric" tendencies as a birthright. I also know from that experience, that the line between casual "ethnocentrism" as you would have it and genuine intolerance is a damned thin line indeed. I have seen people cross it in the blink of an eye. So were I you, and trying to argue for the philo-semitism of these salt-of-the-earth folk, I would take a good deal less comfort in a colleague's Palinesque, abstract, support for Israel, than I would be discomfited by casual intolerance like this directed toward Jewish neighbors. The foundation for tolerance is in fact the exact opposite of this casual ethnocentrism. Tolerance is grounded in an instinctive abeyance of judgment based on personal differences, and an equally instinctive tendency to focus on commonalities in the human experience.

- IowaBeauty

February 18, 2010 at 2:43pm

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I like Martin Buber's take on Judaism versus Christianity. Buber: Well, when the messiah comes we can ask him whether he has been here before.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 3:07pm

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"I also know from that experience, that the line between casual "ethnocentrism" as you would have it and genuine intolerance is a damned thin line indeed. I have seen people cross it in the blink of an eye." Well said. Yet those who loudly proclaim their tolerance are often the most bigoted when it comes to those who differ with them on matters of religion or politics. Liberals are constantly smearing conservatives and refusing to admit that they might have useful to say. On the nation's campuses conservatives are shouted down and not allowed to speak. Draconian "speech codes" mandate punishment for students or professors who say something politically incorrect. Muslims ally with radical leftists to physically threaten anyone who speaks in defense of Israel. The attitude of liberals toward all this is "no enemies on the left". Today so-called liberals are every bit as narrow minded as religious fundamentalists. But because of their control of most of the media and much of the educational system liberals are a much greater threat to American freedom than are the fundies.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 3:24pm

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Rhoneyman, well put and spoken like a true yeshivah bocher (right down to your references to g-d, achdus and the kosel). We're not in any dispute about the Rambam's views on Moshiach, which I fully embrace. Of course, my expectation of the arrival of Moshiach is really, really different from Sarah Palin's, John Hagee's or Pat Robertson's expectation of the Second Coming and goes well beyond whether the Coming is Second or First. And most Israelis, even the minority that believes in a Moshiach and knows what Rambam said on the matter, have a pretty different view of the matter than American Evangelicals. For one, they are not expecting or inviting a bloody apocalyptic conflict in their own land as a sign of redemption and salvation. To put a coda on these thoughts, I would humbly suggest that American Jews should just go about their lives and political opinions without wondering whether or not American conservatives (Evangelical Christian or otherwise) like them for it. So long as Israel remains a Jewish democratic state, let's just take the love of American conservatives for Israel for granted since it stems from roots that are different than the love of American Jews for the Jewish state. If a majority of American Jews don't want their children in public schools to have to say prayers in praise of Jesus, if they would like a Jewish woman to be allowed to terminate her pregnancy if it endangers her life (as explicitly allowed in the Talmud) or seek cures for Tay-Sachs from cultivated fetal cells, or if they would like to run for public office without the need to affirm their love of Christ they should feel free to do so without regard to whether such chutzpah offends some of those Christian neighbors. If said neighbors' love of Israel is so enduring and derives from the Holy Scriptures, then it should survive some temporary ingratitude from American Jews.

- wildboy

February 18, 2010 at 4:05pm

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"Today so-called liberals are every bit as narrow minded as religious fundamentalists. But because of their control of most of the media and much of the educational system liberals are a much greater threat to American freedom than are the fundies." I find the academic far left tiresome, to be sure. Some of their PC-antics are genuinely obnoxious. But it's fatuous to claim that they control academic discourse, or education. Students come out of our universities (I've hired a lot of them over the last 15 years) probably center-right on average, and rarely far left. Show me a single statistic that suggests the universities of this land are successfully moving the young electorate left, and we'll have something discuss. Show me how the vast left-wing conspiracy has succeeded in, say stacking the Supreme Court, or enacting their supposedly socialist agenda in congress, and you'll have an argument. Otherwise, you're shooting strawmen here. As for the media: guffaw. Rolling on the floor laughing. I don't have a television, but calling the "news" I see on them as I travel through airports, or flip channels in a hotel room left-wing is is beyond ridiculous. Trite, empty, obnoxious - all of those things the televised media certainly are. Controlled by the left? Hardly. In the print and online media, of course you can find any bias you want. But that's the point of a free press, right? Frankly, your argument strikes me as evidence for the kind of empty-headed so-called common sense which I originally pointed out gets things just plain wrong. Grab a meme (left wing control of the media) that's easy to roll out, and you don't need either evidence or analysis, cause common sense (your meme) tells you all you need to know. That's what I call BS.

- IowaBeauty

February 18, 2010 at 4:12pm

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wildboy, it's a downright love fest. :7) bulbman, re buber: and if he says he's on a return visit, punch him in the face and show him the door for being a false messiah. re your stereotypical and generalized comments about "liberals" and fanatical muslims, gimme a break. classifying all who are left of center according to the actions of the few is comparable to folks who equate arab terrorism with *ultra-orthodox, right wing settlers* and then use that to justify the actions of the *oppressed* arab population. like a small handful (a *very* small handful) of jewish zealots can offset the masses upon masses of muslim zealots and allow anyone to think they can say, "see? see?!?" that's exactly what you've allowed yourself to do vis-a-vis liberals. one of the amazing accomplishments of the pal pr campaign has been to paint israel as an oppressor, as an apartheid state, as a murdering, organ-harvesting, blood-sucking (for matzos, of course) institution that needs to be excised from the world once and for all. tell a lie often enough and, *poof* it becomes the gospel truth. that's sort of how i feel about the crocodile tears from the right in this country about how mean the narrow-minded, venal and mean-spirited liberals are, picking on us poow widdle helpless conservatives, waah, waah... christ, man. ever listen to limbaugh or hannity or beck? btw, where were you during the clinton administration? jeez...

- rhoneyman

February 18, 2010 at 5:00pm

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rhoneyman, amen to all that. everyone, left and right smears and sneers, but do you have the facts to back it up? On a lot of issues I am Conservative; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on Israel, I am pro-life, tend towards states rights, want the retirement age bumped up to 70 etc. but the Republicans have just gone off the deep end in philosophy and rhetoric.

- blackton

February 18, 2010 at 5:28pm

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IowaBeauty, doesn't it tell you anything that American conservatives, including the majority of conservatives who are not members of the Christian Right, much less pre-Millenarians, by and large support Israel? (The Pat Buchanite paleoconservatives are an exception to this.) Doesn't it tell you anything that "progressives" are mostly hostile to Israel, and liberals, with the exception of Marty Peretz and a few others, tend to be at best lukewarm in their support?

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 5:30pm

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Rhoneyman, I am fully aware that most liberals are not loony leftists like Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky or Ward Churchill. But the situation on the campuses is what it is. My complaint is that liberals lack the courage to stand up for academic freedom and to oppose the brownshirt style tactics of the radical left and the cowardly administrators who often let those radicals take the lead on setting policy. Blackton, how have the Republicans gone off the deep end in philosophy and rhetoric? Bush's "compassionate conservativism" was often hard to distinguish from liberalism in substance, though the rhetoric was conservative. John McCain got the Republican presidential nomination despite being a "maverick" who sometimes deviated to the left. He was not popular with the right end of the party, but he got the nomination anyway. Some of the media personalities on both sides like to blow hot with the rhetoric. The difference is that the Democrats who control Congress are extreme in substance, while the Republican oppositon is for the most part center-right.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 6:10pm

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Bulbman, WTF?? Which Democrats "who control Congress" are extremists in the spirit of Michael Moore, much less Chomsky or Ward Churchill? What extremist legislation are they proposing?? Single-payer or nationalized healthcare? No, a bill to that effect wasn't even voted out of any Congressional committee and couldn't get a vote as an amendment to the Senate bill. A government takeover of the banks? No such action was even seriously considered by the White House or Congress. Public works programs? The vast majority of the stimulus didn't pay for them. Tarriffs for domestic manufacturing? Not even close, unless you think some FTC action against Chinese tires counts. Outlawing nuclear power or forcing some kind of radical taxation on the oil and gas industries? No legislation or executive action in that direction -- in fact, the White House is providing loan guarantees for nuclear plants for the first time in 30 years and isn't even pushing a cap-and-trade bill that has all sorts of cushions for the coal, oil and natural gas producers. Immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan? Sure, there are Congressional leaders who are not fans but have any of them tried seriously to cut off funding for those wars under Bush or Obama, invoked the War Powers Resolution or anything else? No, no and no. They can't even vote to close the Guantanamo prison camp that was set up by executive order with the express purpose of holding terrorists indefinitely outside the boundaries of US judicial jurisdiction or to permit the trial of terrorists in open civilian courts the way the Founders intended. If I had to guess, you live in a college town where the facultariat and assorted student dopes prattle on ad nauseum about Israeli Apartheid, lookism and whether or not non-whites can be racist. I grew up in one of those (Ann Arbor) and I was a young conservative as a result. Then I moved out to the real world where none of this dreck is even on the political or social agenda. I suggest that you do likewise.

- wildboy

February 18, 2010 at 6:41pm

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Wildboy. The Democrats who control Congress certainly certainly aren't as extreme as Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and Ward Churchill. Most Congressional Democrats aren't as far off the deep end as Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders. But in terms of the American mainstream the Democrats who control Congress are way out of line. I note that the majority of the American electorate agrees with my opinion on that. And it's not just a matter of polls. Millions of hitherto politically quiescent people have joined the Tea Party movement. The Tea Partiers aren't ideologues. Most of them aren't sophisticated about the details of policy, but they do know one thing: they don't want the land of the free and the home of the brave transformed into a European style social democracy. When the Democrats lost Congress in 1994 Bill Clinton moved to the center and ended up doing a good job as president. NAFTA, welfare reform, and a balanced budget were major achievements. If we're lucky the Republicans will re-take Congress and Obama will move to the center and become a good president. By the way, it's not just the Tea Party people who thing the Democrats have gone too far left. Birch Bayh and other moderate Democrats who are quitting have made the same complaint.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 7:22pm

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Bulbman, I like how you use every post to undercut your sweeping generalizations from your previous posts. Yes, the majority of poll respondents don't think that Congressional Democrats represent their "values" and interests, but the same poll respondents state that Congressional Republicans don't either (in fact, Congressional Democrats have more support that Republicans). As for Tea Partiers, they are not sophisticated to say the least. Anyone who opposes a government takeover of health care but wants to keep his Medicare is the epitome of unsophistication. Lots of these dolts are happy with American-style social democracy, which is a social democracy for those over 65 paid for by those under 65. Oh, and another thing -- Bill Clinton passed NAFTA in 1993 with a Democratic-controlled Congress. Even Newt Gingrich doesn't take credit for that one. And please spare us the affirmation that because Birch Bayh says so it is right. The man and his buddies from Nebraska, Connecticut, Arkansas and Louisiana were among the principal architects of a watered-down stimulus and a modest health care bill loaded with special-interest goodies. Bayh was evidently shaken by the fact that his father stood by his old-fashioned Great Society liberalism and lost his Senate seat, so he made a virtue out of being a moderate for moderation's sake rather than for any ideological reason. Spineless is the nicest thing I can say about him.

- wildboy

February 18, 2010 at 7:31pm

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The tea partiers are brain dead shitheads. They are of like minds in idiocy like the dopes that Wildboy referenced in Ann Arbor, the type of idiots who thought General "Betrayus" was clever. Bulbman, the difference between you and I is I can see the morons on both sides of the aisle, you apparently can't. Republicans at the national level got nothing except cut taxes and more deregulation. The closest they got is Ryan in Wisconsin has a voucher program that doesn't come into effect for 10 years (he states it won't affect people over 55) well, if vouchers are a good idea, they are a good idea now, not later. Meanwhile Ryan screams about Obama ending the 500 billion dollar giveaway to big pharm in the prescription drug bill as hurting seniors. If he supported both, to take effect now, I would take him seriously. Everything else domestically Republicans offer is small bore. And Bush's big government Conservatism was an abomination. His philosophy was tax like Republicans and spend like Democrats. What in the world would make you think anyone could defend that? It wasn't liberal, it was deranged. In a world where Asia's economies are growing at near double digit rates, there is no earthly reason why our economy shouldn't have been progressing nicely if not for Bush completely burning it to the ground on his way out. Yes, lets build houses and pretend they will always go up in value, meanwhile lets not pay our workers enough to afford such houses, so lets give them loans they can't possibly repay. And then lets package those loans as derivatives and let AIG insure them and banks hold the notes. And not one Republican had any doubts as to the wisdom of this. Read the National Review in 2006 and 2007. No, at this point I would sooner trust a monkey with a hand grenade than the Republican party.

- blackton

February 18, 2010 at 7:47pm

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wildboy, Birch Bayh is dead (well, not literally, but figuratively in a political sense) I let that Birch -Evan mixup slip by with Bulbman. Evan Bayh is the non-entity. He was governor during Clintons terms, and he took credit for the prospering economy. 12 years in the Senate and he was just a space holder.

- blackton

February 18, 2010 at 7:52pm

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Wildboy. You have pleasantly surprised me. And here I've been thinking all along that you were just an knee jerk in the same fashion of those you happily indict. You know....that projective mirror phenomenon so common to us all. To think that there is actual substance to back up all of that depravity.....(har-har) I have to admit that I am most intrigued, inasmuch that original Hebrew text is chock full of advanced poetics, what your disposition might be as pertaining to the monotheist resolution as embodied in the reality and or metaphorical concept of the Moshiach. Intentionally or no you have, by my lights, hit the nail rather squarely upon the head..... and perhaps in the hands. Forgive the illusive allusion..... or is that allusive illusion? I'll leave the whole Palin thing for you and others to be outraged about. Oh... and the healthcare problem is an order of hierarchical identity and its implications. There is no danger of collective ratification as invested in insurance companies. One understands their motives and can compartmentalize accordingly. That becomes much more problematic under the auspices of a central governmental authority which prescribes and proscribes.

- jacko

February 18, 2010 at 8:16pm

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"And Bush's big government Conservatism was an abomination. His philosophy was tax like Republicans and spend like Democrats. What in the world would make you think anyone could defend that?" I agree with your criticism of Bush's fiscal policies. And so for that matter do the tea partiers. But that doesn't justify Obama being even more fiscally irresponsible. The best reform that could happen in this country would be to outlaw public employee unions. They are the root of all evil. Can we at least agree on that? "Yes, lets build houses and pretend they will always go up in value, meanwhile lets not pay our workers enough to afford such houses, so lets give them loans they can't possibly repay." The Democrats passed laws mandating giving real estate loans to unqualified borrowers. The Republicans foolishly went along with that. Both parties are responsible for that fiasco. As for workers not being paid enough, what would you have Bush or any other politician do? The government doesn't set wage rates. Wages in a capitalist society are determined by productivity and market conditions. In order to raise wages it would be necessary to improve education. Good luck with that so long as the Democrats are beholden to the educrats and the Neanderthal teachers' unions.

- bulbman1066

February 18, 2010 at 10:21pm

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wildboy: ann arbor? i just moved back after being away for 17 years. bulb: the pathological refusal to destroy (or even consider) formal industrial policy has all but killed manufacturing in the u.s. the problem was never wage differential. germany continues to have higher industrial wages than 'most everywhere else, including the u.s. when the u.s. actually had a serious manufacturing sector, yet manufacturing still makes up a quarter of gdp. in the u.s., manufacturing is down to the low teens. the difference? germany has structured tax policy to make it possible for local manufacturers to compete effectively against the rapacious chinese (and japanese before them). the u.s.' response under reagan was to dismantle anything that might have helped u.s. workers to survive. clinton tried to outdo reagon with a hugely flawed nafta and a refusal to look at trying to support local manufaction and we know what happened under poppy and jr. the only hope is that obama will get it and start to reverse the trendline. but it may be too late. btw, unions helped make the u.s. the power that it was prior to dubya. kill the unions (a fait accompli absent real industrial policy) and you kill the ability of workers to buy the cars that detroit puts out or to buy the houses that wells fargo now owns, thanks to the fed gifting them wachovia. in short, the u.s. economic backbone is nearly broken thanks to Conservative approach to macroeconomic management. one can only hope that obama gets it and starts to understand that without workers earning living wages and paying real taxes, deficits will start to choke any recovery that might at one time have resulted in full employment. as you can see, bulb, we are diametrically opposed on this sort of topic. on israel, we are probably is strong agreement, although i don't necessary trust anyone who makes it to pm, just because there is too much money chasing policy and decision makers in the government.

- rhoneyman

February 18, 2010 at 11:08pm

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Under LBJ, Nixon and Carter America was a workers' paradise. Along came Reagan and all was misery. Clinton made things worse by allowing the US to trade freely with that economic powerhouse, Mexico. The reason the workers supported Reagan and Clinton was that the Insiders and the Trilateral Commission put drugs into the water supply that made them amenable to Republican propaganda. Anybody not believe me? Consider the Air Force cover-up of what happened at Roswell in . . .

- bulbman1066

February 19, 2010 at 1:11am

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Rhoney, yeah Ann Arbor -- I lived there from 1982 through college graduation in 1993. Those were truly earth-shattering years. I didn't go to school there, but to a Jewish day school in Southfield. Blackton, thanks for the Birch Bayh correction. Birch is now very much dead, and very missed. Especially by his milquetoast son Evan. I would also go on the record that "Birch" is definitely the coolest name for a 20th century Senator. Jacko, our Torah is a wondrous thing and a lot more complicated that Christians think. Unsurprisingly, the perspective is often through the lens of the New Testament so there is a lot of interest as to how contemporary Judaism is different from all the Scribes, Pharisees and Temple sacrifices that Jesus disdained. But not a lot of knowledge, except for missionaries -- some of those guys could give a Rosh Yeshivah a run for his money.

- wildboy

February 19, 2010 at 11:02am

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Illuminating discussion on the tea parties that puts some of the generalizations on this thread to shame: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/26035

- basman

February 19, 2010 at 12:36pm

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wildboy: if you grew up in a2 during those years, i'm guessing i know you and/or your parents. feel free to shoot me an email at bobmisc@honeyman.org. if i'm not mistaken, jesus would have been considered frum - perhaps modern orthodox by today's standards. :7) it was paul who split the nascent church from most things jewish, thereby making possible massive influx into the system (it's a lot easier to become a formal believer when you don't have to give a really painful tip to the rabbis).

- rhoneyman

February 19, 2010 at 12:47pm

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Hey Basman, you can't spell general without generalizations, and where would we be without our generals?

- blackton

February 19, 2010 at 2:06pm

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The way the comments on this column have evolved is an absolute hoot. Who knew that Leon's original post should really have been entitled "Sarah Palin and the Jewish Problem?"

- gurwia

February 19, 2010 at 2:19pm

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How did this thread mutate away from the column's description of Palin for what she is, a know-nothing elitist hypocrite? Does every discussion on TNR have to eventually drift towards Israel and antisemitism all the time? And bulbman, have you moved to Somalia yet? No taxes, zero government intervention in your life, and there are NO unions. That is your definition of paradise so why aren't you there yet?

- tnmats

March 3, 2010 at 11:06am

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