SUBSCRIBE NOW WELCOME BACK. Do you want to continue reading where you left off? New Republic subscribers can pick up where they left off no matter which device they were previously using. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Go Home Shelby Steele's Latest Embarrassment

JONATHAN CHAIT SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

Shelby Steele's Latest Embarrassment

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Shelby Steele today has an extremely amusing broadside against President Obama. The general flavor is captured well in its opening:

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times: President Obama is destroying the country. Some say this destructiveness is intended; most say it is inadvertent, an outgrowth of inexperience, ideological wrong-headedness and an oddly undefined character.

So you can see that Steele really takes in the full spectrum of viewpoints.

Perhaps the most interesting quality of this particular column is that it is an vaporous emission of generalized complaints against Obama and the left -- they hate America, and so on -- lacking any grounding whatsoever. I was able to identify one sentence containing anything close to a concrete reference to an actual decision or statement by Obama:

Mr. Obama did not explicitly run on an anti-exceptionalism platform. Yet once he was elected it became clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. There was his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street—as if his mandate was somehow to overcome, or at least subdue, American capitalism itself.

This is the sum of the specific references to Obama's record in Steele's column: he hates America because he criticized Wall Street. Does Steele realize how many Americans hate America by this standard?

In any case, there's no other reference to anything Obama has done. It's an entire column built on the assumption that Obama is a radical leftist who hates America. Apparently everybody Steele talks to believes this anyway, so why bother to demonstrate it?

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Show all 16 comments

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

16 comments

Hi everybody! Ok, I'm back, having survived Irene. Please let me know what I've missed.

- Tristan

September 1, 2011 at 2:15pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

WB, Tristan. I'd say a piece on Stephen Moore a few days back was a must-see. They usually are.

- Jonas

September 1, 2011 at 2:33pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

This is what popped into my mind reading this article: "I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, The reason why -- I cannot tell; But this I know, and know full well, I do not like thee, Doctor Fell."

- zardoz67

September 1, 2011 at 2:35pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I love Steele's opening paragraph. It reminds of me Hannity, who begs the question all of the time. Hannity will ask, "Suppose that President Obama rapes pigs. Would you say that raping pigs is a political liability? You agree that Obama's raping pigs is a political liability....now that leads me to my second point."

- Nusholtz

September 1, 2011 at 2:41pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I think Steele has been talking to the approx. 60% of the population who don't approve of Obama's job performance. Chait -- who are you talking to that Obama's incompetence doesn't come up? Oh yeah .. moonbat cave.

- mr_rationale

September 1, 2011 at 2:57pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Steele talked about Obama with Thomas Sowell in the break room at the Hoover Institution, and they both concurred that he is a radical leftist who hates capitalism and America! Steele later confirmed this with the WSJ editorial board. He really doesn't need to discuss it with anyone else, does he? Ratty, how do you know that the "60% of the population who don't approve of Obama's job performance" come to their conclusion on the basis of his incompetence? Do you have some cross-tabs from the relevant polls that support that sterling conclusion? Is it possible that some of those people don't approve of his performance because they think he is competent but won't fight for his policy preferences against the Republican Congress? That some of those people think (like some of Mr. Steele's interlocutors) that he is a competent evil socialist genius who is deliberately destroying America and disapprove of his policies accordingly? That some of those people simply disapprove of 9% unemployment and economic stagnation and their disapproval extends to Obama and all other Federal politicians, regardless of whether they are competent or not? Are you competent to read an opinion poll and understand what it says, or only competent to conclude that a majority who thinks one way must do a shared basis with you and no other basis? Sounds like you're not so different from Shelby Steele.

- wildboy

September 1, 2011 at 3:10pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I'm honestly stumped. What has Obama done to convince any rational person he does not believe in American exceptionalism? What positions has he taken? Does anyone have any idea?

- johnbr55a

September 1, 2011 at 3:31pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Ahh yes, another broadside from pseudo-intellectuals about the Kenyan, anti-colonialist, Marxist, who hates American exceptionalism. (yawn)

- MikeB.

September 1, 2011 at 3:51pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

johnbr - It's not about his positions, but his actions: he made statements that can be cut down to briefer sound bites (bytes? I'm never sure) that imply he said the opposite of what he actually said.

- janus

September 1, 2011 at 4:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

It's amazing how those who say Obama is some radical leftist never come up with any actual decisions or policies to back it up. The health care law is more conservative than Nixon's proposal, Clinton's proposal, the Republican response to Clinton, and was endorsed by those "leftist" former Senate leaders Bob Dole and Bill Frist. Obama is so "redistributionist" that he wants to raise upper income tax levels to...where they were under Clinton (who must also therefore have been a radical leftist). He's so fond of "big government" that we're getting out of the auto industry after saving it. He's so anti-capitalist that after saving Wall Street from itself, corporate profits are at record levels. Oh yes, and let's not forget how much the radical left loves him and everything he does, they're not frustrated with him at all! I know there's a propensity to not allow reality to intrude on what what would otherwise be a good story, but is there a smidgeon of evidence to confirm these people's beliefs?

- dsimon

September 1, 2011 at 4:04pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I do wonder how much of this is because he is a black with a strange name.

- zardoz67

September 1, 2011 at 4:08pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I especially enjoyed Steele's comment that mentioning "merit" or "a Competition of Excellence" in the admissions office of an Ivy League school would lead to howls of laughter. Really? I have a 16-year old daughter applying to schools, and all they talk about at the Ivies is Super High Grades, taking 9 or more AP classes, and being an Exceptional Leader in the Community. The only people that doesn't seem to apply to, in fact, are legacies such as, dare I say it, George W. Bush.

- jblumenfel

September 1, 2011 at 4:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Welcome back Tristan - you've been missed :) "Scolding" Wall Street? When? The first thing Obama did was give those bastards 700 billion dollars of our money and hire their lackeys as his economics team! And not one of those crooks has gone to jail. Man, is Steele a serious airhead.

- WandreyCer

September 1, 2011 at 5:00pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

It's a pity about Steele as he was once a guy with some interesting things to say. There's a talk he gives on Obama and the parallels with other national figures such as Oprah and Louis Armstrong from late 2007, the very early days -- it's really good, and I've used it in class once or twice (it's archived on BookTV). Also Steele is intelligent and educated enough not to get on board with this "American Exceptionalism" crap. I'm astonished that people don't get called out on this more often. American Exceptionalism has always meant, basically for the 175 years from Andrew Jackson to the moment Barack Obama took office, the theory that the U.S. has a different history from European countries in particular, because our system of government and our economic freedom mean that we wouldn't descend into a morbid class struggle between social groups. Our political development could and would move along different and more successful lines. Ha ha! Yes, I know. And it was even a joke back in the Gilded Age, when it really looked as if America was becoming a class society like Britain or France. But still, it never meant that the United States is a country of unique and incontestable virtue, and all decisions it makes unimpeachable by any standard. This BS, however, is what conservatives are now serving up with no challenge.

- ironyroad

September 1, 2011 at 8:26pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Thank you WCer, my friend. Hope you're well.

- Tristan

September 1, 2011 at 11:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Thanks for the reminder, Ironyroad, that "American exceptionalism" was essentially a Jeffersonian notion - that "we can begin the world anew" - if we chose to break from the old, corrupt ways of European despotism, and realize Enlightenment principles - and not because the constitution was divinely inspired or that the founders were saints. The dumbed-down interpretation of the phase, the version that says we're the greatest because that's the way God wants it, has indeed become the standard pablum dished up by the right. This version has the advantage of never requiring much in the way of self-examination, just uncritical acceptance of positive self-regard. Its easy to sell.

- Haole45

September 2, 2011 at 3:46pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

SHARE HIGHLIGHT

0 CHARACTERS SELECTED

TWEET THIS

POST TO TUMBLR

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Close