WEDNESDAY,  FEBRUARY 27,  2008

THE DEBATE

I am informed that there was a debate in Ohio last night between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Oh.

At this point it's all about numbers.  We'll soon see the tracking polls.  The debate points, which are familiar to us, are not significant.  This whole thing may be over in a week.

I see that Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut has endorsed Barack Obama.

Oh.

That will give Obama one more vote, if Dodd remembers the address of his polling place. 

HILLARY AND HER FRIENDS

I continue to be intrigued by the lack of support Hillary Clinton receives from the feminist crowd.  The reason, I think, has much to do with the political left, and it's troubling. 

The modern feminist movement is a creature of the left, and on the left there's a pecking order.  At the top is contempt for the United States.  You'll notice the utter lack of response, on the left, to Michelle Obama's disgraceful comment that this is the only time in her adult life that she's been proud of her country.  There was no response because the left would agree.

Next in the pecking order, and related to the top slot, is contempt for free enterprise.  And next comes race.  Gender equality is far down the list.  Race simply trumps gender, every time.  Show me an exception.  Yes, it's true, The New York Times endorsed Clinton in the New York Democratic primary, but that was an aberration, probably reflecting internal personnel issues.

I recall that, during the O.J. Simpson trial, the sister of Simpson's murdered wife asked permission to address a feminist rally about violence against women.  She was refused, on the remarkable ground that Simpson's trial wasn't about violence against women, but was about race.  That was blatantly false, of course, but it conformed to leftist ideology.  Even feminist groups fall in line, just as they fall in line when they refuse to denounce Muslim oppression of women.  On the left, the party line endures, and is sacrosanct.

One of the great myths about the left is that it cares about women.  Remember the support Bill Clinton received from women's groups, despite his awful record in treating women?  He was useful because he favored Roe v. Wade, which is the feminist Book of Genesis. 

Another myth is that the left fights fascism.  It will fight fascism when convenient, and go along with it if that's convenient.  The left had no problem with the Hitler-Stalin pact.  It had no problem with it even though the synagogues of Berlin were already burning.  Anti-semitism is no problem for the left.  If it serves a purpose, it's accommodated.   

Another myth is that the left cares about human life.  Ask a leftist friend to name two victims of the Cambodian genocide.  You'll lose a friend.

The left lives in a world of ideology and myth.  Hillary is learning that the sisterhood will support her, but only if the party line is maintained.  Race trumps gender.  The line is maintained.  This year, Hillary didn't qualify. 

THE OBAMA WATCH

Again, and again, and again, the British reporters are doing better work on Obama than are the Yanks.  Maybe they have the luxury of distance.  Or maybe they're not concerned about retaliation.  London's Telegraph has a report:

Critics are increasingly asking in what direction he will lead the country if he wins the nomination and election in November.

The Washington Post said that the candidate remains an enigma.

"Is Mr Obama a standard liberal clad in the soothing language of inclusiveness? ... Do voters understand where, exactly, he would like to lead them?" it said.

He is also facing criticism for being too liberal from Republicans, who expect to be fighting against him soon for the White House.

Example:

At their previous debate in Austin, Texas, Mr Obama was asked if he had reversed his stance on Cuba, one of several examples being cited in the closer examination of his voting history.

In a debate at Southern Illinois University in Jan 2004, while he was still a state senator, Mr Obama said: "I think it's time for us to end the embargo with Cuba."

Last August, with his White House campaign in full swing, he adjusted that position before an audience of Cuban Americans in Miami, saying the embargo was "an important inducement for change" which he would not automatically remove as president.

Another one:

In early 2004 at another university debate during his campaign for the US senate he argued for decriminalising marijuana.

But at a debate last October he tentatively raised his hand in joining other Democratic candidates in opposing the idea.

Yeah, problems here.  Lots of problems.  Obama was widely regarded as pro-Palestinian before he ran for the U.S. Senate.  Now he claims to be Israel's best friend.

If he gets into the White House, prepare yourselves for one of those "conditions have changed" lines. 

THE HOPE INDUSTRY

Fred Siegel, writing in the great publication, City Journal, examines Obama's connection with the hope industry, which has thrived since the founding of the country:

Aging baby boomers see in Barack Obama’s down-the-line liberal voting record the promise of a left-wing revival. The college students and twentysomethings of the Millennial Generation see in him a way of pushing the quarrelsome, narcissistic baby boomers off the stage. Someone is bound to be disappointed by this extraordinary performance artist. But what both the boomers and the Millennials share is a desire to be part of what Ralph Waldo Emerson, writing in the 1840s, called “the politics of hope.” Emerson wrote during a time of numerous experiments in utopian living. Obama—whose candidacy rests upon a standard utopian dichotomy between the earthly evils of poverty, injustice, war, and partisanship, and the promise of the world to come if we allow him to rescue us—appeals to the same Elysian strain in American and Western political life, largely in remission since 1980, when the 1960s truly ended.

And...

“Utopian . . . ideas,” notes Daniel Flynn in his new history of the American Left, are as “American as Plymouth Rock.” This is why, as Sixties activist Bo Burlingham put it, “the Left bobs up and down in American history, a battered and leaky craft which often disappears beneath the tide, but somehow never sinks.”

Siegel finds the hope industry a failing business, and concludes:

Obama’s utopian vision of transcending the interests that make up the fabric of our democracy is unlikely to fare any better than the “politics of hope” did in Emerson’s time. The key question at hand is whether Obama’s Edenic bubble bursts before or after the election.

My great fear is that it will burst after the election, since Obama will be helped along through the campaign by a sixties-induced press.  When it bursts, the result is likely to be ugly.  Obama can turn that rhetoric of his against anyone who disagrees.  We may be told, as college students are routinely told, that any dissent violates "diversity," is "hate speech," or "destroys the new patriotism."  Stuff like that is coming.

A ROUTE FOR McCAIN?

Fascinating piece in The New York Observer, normally liberal, outlining a possible strategy for John McCain.  The writer, Steve Kornacki, examines the Gerald Ford/Jimmy Carter race of 1976, and sees opportunities for the GOP:

An unelected president, Ford had barely secured the Republican nomination against a fierce challenge from Ronald Reagan, leaving the party’s conservative base dispirited and even more distrustful of Ford than they already had been. And the stench of Watergate—and Ford’s politically damaging pardon of Richard Nixon—stubbornly hung in the air. After eight years of Republican rule, an amorphous but potent yearning for change had taken hold.

At the Vail strategy session, the Ford team zeroed in on the chief vulnerabilities of their Democratic opponent, Jimmy Carter: His lack of experience, his lack of accomplishments and his lack of specificity on the issues. These had to be exploited mercilessly.

And they were. Ten weeks later, Ford came within an eyelash of a political miracle. After trailing by 33 points around Labor Day, he was edged out by a handful of electoral votes—and just two points in the popular vote. If the campaign had lasted even a week longer, many believe, Ford would have won.

Thirty-two years later, the G.O.P.’s chances of retaining the White House for a third straight term may hinge on recycling that old Ford recipe.

And...

But the ’76 example tells us that criticisms that don’t stick during the primary season can still work in the general election. Day after day in fall campaign, the Ford forces pounded away at the experience question and painted Carter as a political illusion, an affable-seeming politician who was terrified of expressing his opinion on any controversial topic.

“It is not enough to say, ‘Trust me,’” Ford said at one rally. “Trust must be earned. Trust is not having to guess what a candidate means. Trust is leveling with people before the election about what you’re going to do after the election. Trust is not being all things to all people, but being the same thing to all people.”

The media eventually caught on too, scrutinizing Carter with a daily intensity that was absent in the primary season, and Carter’s lead steadily eroded.

There is, though, a firm word of caution:

Obama may prove a more durable fall candidate that Carter. He’s been more specific in his proposals than Carter was (see: health care and diplomacy with hostile nations), and his personal bond with the electorate may prove deeper and more intense than Carter’s ever was.

But if you’re tempted to think Obama has too much working in his favor to lose in November, just remember what very nearly happened in 1976.

Yes, let's remember.  This is uphill, but it can be won if the press, increasingly irresponsible in the decades since the sixties, gives McCain an even break.

LOVE YA, FIDEL, LOVE YA

With Fidel fading, we can look forward to the usual bouquets from the trendies.  Why, Fidel brought health care.  He was loved.  He was...  He's better than BUSH!

Daniel Finkelstein, in The Times of London, examines this weird phenomenon of dictator worship on the left, and finds it bad:

We have to understand why parts of the Left, people who think of themselves as impeccably liberal, still think of communism as an heroic doctrine and communists as basically well meaning and a bit “alternative”. It's a pervasive attitude that goes well beyond politicians. Go to Tate Modern and you will find an exhibition of Soviet art - workers joyfully producing tractors or some such. In the bookshop you can buy a book of posters from the cultural revolution. Hitler memorabilia is not on sale. They wouldn't dream of having a room full of artfully designed Juden Raus! posters.

I struggle a little to understand the distinction being made here, but I think it is this. It's not that the liberals are unaware that millions died under Mao and under Stalin. It's just that they think it was different. Hitler had a killing machine; under Mao (“the greatest man of the 20th century”, according to Tony Benn) and Stalin many people just up and died.

The writer lists some reasons, and concludes that sheer anti-Americanism is one of the keys:

From time to time, Left thinkers make an effort to reconcile liberals and America. From Tony Crosland in the Fifties to Jonathan Freedland's admirable and convincing book Bring Home the Revolution, the efforts have failed. Almost anyone - a homophobic, misogynist Islamist cleric for example - is given some credit if the US is their punchbag.

So true.  And remember that intellectuals don't necessary love freedom.  Sometimes they love dictatorship, if they can be among those running the regime.  After all, it's in the people's interest.  How can those little peasants out there decide things for themselves?

Right?  No, left.

NEWS BULLETIN - URGENT

It has been discovered that materialism can be damaging to children.  Read all about it.  From England:

Children feel under pressure to own the latest designer clothes and computer games and most adults believe the "commercialisation of childhood" is damaging young people's well-being, a poll said Tuesday.

A survey by GfK NOP for the Children's Society showed that out of the 1,225 adults questioned, 89 percent felt that children are more materialistic now than in previous generations.

Evidence submitted to the inquiry from children themselves suggests that they do feel under pressure to keep up with the latest trends, the society added.

The poll is part of a larger inquiry into childhood and includes evidence by professionals and members of the public on issues such as lifestyle, learning, friends and family.

Professor of child psychology Philip Graham -- who is leading the inquirys lifestyle theme -- believes that commercial pressures may have "worrying psychological effects" on children.

I'm always amused by these surveys that report that something is worse now than in previous generations.  How many generations we talkin' about?  How would the respondents know?  Were they there?

I remember surveys like this in the 1950s.  Same result.  Kids are grabby.  Want those cars.  Want those TVs.  And then there was this guy, Thorstein Veblen, who wrote pretty much the same thing more than a hundred years ago.  Well, no cars or TVs, but there was other good stuff.  Did you see the Crawfords' horse 'n buggy?  I want, I want.

It's like the hope industry.  It's part of Western society.  The kids are being destroyed, wrecked, crushed by the machine.   

But somehow, they survive.

I'm going shopping.  Be back later.

Posted on February 27, 2008.