DAMON LINKER MARCH 6, 2009
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Roger Kimball has been a strident, highly polemical right-winger for a long time. But he's also very smart and highly literate. He writes with authority about art and philosophy, literature and politics. He knows a lot about history. And the quarterly he co-edits with Hilton Kramer (The New Criterion) has published erudite commentary and criticism on culture and the arts for more than a quarter century.
What, then, are we supposed to make of this astonishing post? Not only does Kimball endorse the view, expressed repeatedly by right-wingers over the past couple of weeks, that Obama deserves the blame for a stock-market collapse that began and accelerated months before Election Day 2008. And Kimball does not merely suggest, like many other (so-called) conservatives, that we can already, fewer than six weeks (!) after Inauguration Day, judge Obama to be an incompetent president. No, Kimball goes much further than these comparatively level-headed expressions of dissent to suggest something far more sinister. Yes, it's true: Roger Kimball -- accomplished intellectual and cultural critic -- believes that Barack Obama is a Leninist.
Now in fairness to Kimball, I should note that he's merely endorsing a tirade by that paragon of political and economic good sense, financial guru and CNBC loudmouth Jim Cramer. But Kimball not only endorses Cramer's vulgar and philistine analysis (I mean: "analysis"); he also provides readers of his blog with an informative quote from Lenin himself on the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat to impose "a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists." You know, just like Obama! It's perfectly fitting, then, for Kimball to conclude his post by quoting Article II, Section IV of the Constitution on the requirements for impeaching the president and by calling on "some clever legal talent to show how deliberately sabotaging the United States economy [sic] counts as Treason, a high Crime, or at least a Misdemeanor."
Here is Andrew Sullivan's incredulous response to Kimball's suggestion:
Obama's predecessor secretly invoked the power to suspend the First and Fourth Amendments for seven years, authorized the seizure and torture of American citizens, launched two decade-long wars of attrition, doubled the national debt, presided over the worst financial bubble since the 1930s, provided the weakest level of economic growth in decades, and left the US in the grip of the steepest depression since the 1930s. But after five weeks, it's Obama who should be impeached?
Well put. But I think something more needs to be said in response to Kimball. Something more needs to be said because Kimball's post raises important questions about just how far the American right is going to go in marginalizing itself during the Obama era. Are its leading intellectuals going to engage in constructive, thoughtful, informed debate about the policies proposed by the president? Or are they going to become indistinguishable from populist rabble-rousers like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin -- men who routinely confuse venomous, paranoid ranting with thinking? Because here's the thing: If Roger Kimball really believes that Barack Obama is a Leninist who deserves to be impeached for deliberately sabotaging the American economy (presumably as a prelude to imposing communism), then he has definitively demonstrated that he has a reckless, irresponsible mind and a temperament ill-suited to serious intellectual engagement in our public life.
The right can certainly afford to have a few cranks running around. (The left certainly has its share.) But how many is too many? When will sensible citizens conclude that the right simply should not be trusted with political power -- not because its policies diverge from what the American majority prefers, but rather because the right is in the grip of a form of ideological madness that renders it incapable of governing -- or even thinking -- responsibly? Five-and-a-half weeks into the Obama administration, I fear we might not have to wait very long for an answer.
9 comments
Great column, it is the proper push back to the rightwing onslaught that we have been seeing lately, as conservative America comes to grips with the reality that President Obama really MEANT what he said in his campaign speeches about vowing to remake the country and be an agent of positive change. Anyone who might have underestimated the coming ferocity of the reaction from the right saw it plainly last week while watching the CPAC Convention, where the crowd devolved into a moshpit of cheering zealots for the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Joe The Plumber. Now the so-called "conservative intellectuals" have joined in the braying and we can expect the intensity of the hate for Obama to exceed even the hysterical levels they achieved during the Clinton years, when entire cottage industries, supported financially by angry rich tycoons, sprouted up to become 24/7 research and propaganda operations to smear their enemies. Obama, however, seems to have learned the lessons of the 1990's, when the right was able to overwhelm the country with their well organized attacks, and so far have been abled to fight them off quite effectively. Look for the battle to intensify as the stakes become higher.
- frilz1
March 7, 2009 at 6:10am
Oh the tryanny of Clinton-era tax rates. Oh the oppression of stimulus measures to save the middle class from starving and the economy (destroyed by the utopian fantasies of a childish ideology) from utter collapse.
Oh the Leninism of 1,500K more a year for those making 250K. Oh the Marxism of trying to slow the 50% of bankrupcies caused by medical bills. Oh the seditio nof the biggest middle class tax cut in history.
These people are children, dangerous children and I am pleased the American people finally agree. I have a fragile faith that Americans disgust will only grow towards these toxic dead enders with no ability to reflect, let alone atone, for what they have done to this country.
They see a decent, reasonable family man going grey from trying to do the people's work next the same herd of fat snarling white men trying to maintain a status quo that is killing us. What will they ultimately decide? That Clinton era tax rates are socialism? Didn't they say that in 1993?
They have no frames of reference other than their trite phrases and deeply moronionc talk radio. They have been a disgrace for an entire generation now. Obama seems to know that taking on this cancer within the American political culture is worth the risk. It must be actively lanced. Fear not Obama.
- Wandreycer1
March 7, 2009 at 6:39am
This is what they did in 1949 after Dewey lost to Truman. We should study the period to see where it might lead.
- rmabbott09
March 7, 2009 at 1:53pm
You damage your credibility by linking to the Chait review of The Shock Doctrine. I had the advantage of reading the book before reading Chait's review, so I was alarmed at how he repeatedly mischaracterized the arguments made in the book in an attempt to make Klein look loony. This book is very controversial and has produced a lot of dishonest reviews, but Chait's review was one of the worst. It dripped with the stink of a suck up article meant to please the large corporations that run big media and will someday provide a much higher paying job for Chait (as this seems to be the career path of all TNR writers). Klein does not always hit the target in The Shock Doctrine - some of her claims are overstated - but this book is easily one of the most important political books written in decades. It is sad to see so many media outlets - TNR included - take the low road and produce dishonest and misleading criticism rather than engage the claims in the book directly. But it is a sign of the times in today's press.
- rhorath
March 8, 2009 at 12:13am
Your support of Klein juxtaposed with your conspiracy theorizing about Chait appeasing the large corporations that run big media do more to make Klein look loony than any paragraph she's written.
Anyway, it's funny that you should link to New Majority. I've been reading it a little and it's incredible the response that David Frum's mild criticism of Limbaugh draws. Hundreds of posts, comparing the US to a concentration camp and calling any attempt to form an electable coalition an indefensible moral compromise. Self-identified moderates or centrists get labelled as George Soros-funded useful idiots that are destroying the GOP by criticizing it in any way. I have a creeping suspicion that I just described any right wing forum, and now apparently some of the right's intellectuals. I suppose this is really the first time since the advent of the online echo chamber that conservatives have had to face rejection by the electorate.
- Simon Greenwood
March 8, 2009 at 12:42am
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- Bukharin
March 8, 2009 at 5:39pm
simon greenwood:
Your comment regarding my statements making Klein loony doesn't even make logical sense. As for Chait, thanks for calling a common sense statement about the obvious possible motivations of a journalist a "conspiracy theory." I'm sure you use that phrase like a crutch, as many others do. It's a good debating tactic with a certain crowd (particularly the TNR crowd). It's not exactly honest, but who cares.
On Chait's possible motivation, are you aware that nearly every TNR writer moves on to one of the large Washington establishment organizations, with its higher pay and profile? That a writer would try to ingratiate himself with those he wishes to work for in the future is blindingly obvious. And the national media outlets have made clear their distaste for Klein, as she challenges the very system they are such a major part of.
- rhorath
March 9, 2009 at 8:43am
rhorath:
Your criticism of Chait-- that a writer *might* have an incentive to be biased necessarily implies that he *must* be biased-- is absurd. If you have a beef with Chait's review, then you should engage the review directly, preferably in a board that's actually discussing the book. Resorting solely to an ad hominem attack based solely on a potential conflict of interest is intellectually lazy at best.
- asistos
March 9, 2009 at 9:21pm
Uh, all conspiracy theories involve "possible motives". Your theory is not only a "conspiracy theory" in that it literally postulates a conspiracy between Chait and media conglomerates, but also in the colluqial sense that it's stupid and paranoid reasoning used in a self-serving fashion. Have fun talking about honesty, though! You sure are an expert!
I like how you changed Chait's future job from being at "large media corporations" to being at the "Washington establishment". Keep throwing darts and eventually you'll hit every possible job for a pundit and actually have a chance at being right.
The national media outlets publish Klein's books and put her on their best-selling list. If she's ever come under criticism from them- something I'm not sure has actually happened- it's probably because she's a nutcase and journalistic integrity requires mentioning this.
- Simon Greenwood
March 10, 2009 at 12:08am