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A miscellany of comments
Subjects touched on include McCain, Romney and the cult of anti-normality, David Levering Lewis’s pro-Islam, anti-Europe book, Michelle Obama and American identity, Shelby Steele’s latest pointless theory of race relations, and more.
John Hagan writes:
I don’t know what is the bigger laugh. That Jeff Jacoby backs McCain, or that Jacoby calls himself a conservative.
Mike B. sends:
How the Republican Party Committed National Suicide
By JB Williams on Feb 2, 08
Republicans no longer control the Republican Party and as a result, they can not advance a truly Republican candidate though the current liberal leaning primary process. By the time 99 percent of Republicans get a chance to vote in the primaries, all real Republicans have already been eliminated from the race. Lesser evil choices are all that remain by Super Tuesday … ?
Evariste writes:
I thought this article, “Clintons will destroy McCain,” was really interesting, and I thought you might want to read it too.
A. Zarkov writes:
Today I had a conversation with one of my personal trainers about McCain. She said he seems to have trouble raising his arm, and needs an assist from his wife. He movements betray a man with significant muscular-skeletal infirmities. McCain is almost 72 and these problems are not unusual for a man at his age, especially considering his years as a prisoner in Vietnam where he suffered torture.
We should demand that McCain and all the other candidates provide the public with the results of a physical and psychological examinations including drug tests. The office of president is stressful enough even for a young healthy man, let alone someone aged 72 who is probably in poor health.
If McCain refuses to provide independent and reliable medical information, we should assume he is in ill heath and vote accordingly.
A reader writes:
David Keene endorses Rom.
Larry T. writes:
I thought you might get a chuckle out of this. It is from today’s San Francisco Chronicle. High points:
“Ironically, by ‘winning’ at Poitiers, the emerging Europeans lost an opportunity to participate in the Islamic Empire, which might have advanced Europe’s economy and culture 300 years.”
“He makes a persuasive case that the Arabs’ failure to advance beyond the Pyrenees was a great loss to Europe … ”
But he’s right about this- “Remember this, he warns us, as the United States “[sleepwalks] on a collision course with Islam.”
LA replies:
I will have more to say about David Levering Lewis’s pro-Islam, anti-Christendom thesis later. For now, I’ll just point out that Lewis is simply taking to its logical conclusion the long-established view that “Islam was more tolerant of Jews than Europe was, as well as more diverse, sophisticated, cultured, etc.” Well, if Islam was BETTER than Europe (primarily because it was, supposedly nicer to the Jews), then shouldn’t one actively side with Islam against Europe? That is Levering Lewis’s position. Thus the long-time Judeo-centric view, “Islam was more tolerant than Europe,” has morphed into an explicitly pro-Islam, anti-Western view that bemoans the victory of Charles Martel at Tours.
Happily not everyone is going along with this civilizational treason. Thus Adam Kirsch in his review last week in the New York Sun (a neocon, Israel-centric, Judeo-centric newspaper) took strong exception to Levering Lewis’s thesis. I was glad to see it.
Michelle, ma belle
(Responses to my article, “Michelle Obama’s ambivalence about America, and what it portends”)
N. writes:
I just saw video of a rally for Barack Obama. His wife, Michelle, was the main speaker. Her hairstyle is almost identical to that of Condoleeza Rice, and her speaking style especially the pacing, was very similar to that of Secretary of State Rice. It appears that the Democrats have gone out of their way to make Michelle Obama to look and sound like a black woman who is already known and accepted by many Americans.
The Obama campaign is a formidable one. LA replies: Except that Rice is (or rather used to be, spoiled in more recent years by her insufferable vanity) cute.
Mark A. writes:
On a tangential note regarding Michelle Obama and identity, check this article out.
Terry Morris writes:
You wrote:
“The lesson is that unassimilated persons—persons who lack a simple and untroubled sense of identity as Americans—should not serve in high government or national symbolic posts in this country, for the simple reason that they cannot represent this country with a whole heart.”
I couldn’t agree more. Too bad the good people of Illinois didn’t understand this before they elected Obama to the U.S. Senate. But I have to ask, do you apply the same standard to Mitt Romney as well, given that he has articulated a troubled sense of identity as an American? What I mean is his position on immigration which makes fairness and compassion toward, and immigrant interests, not American interests, central to his view of the immigration question. He’s actually stated that he wants to end illegal immigration for the explicit purpose of protecting legal immigration. Not for protecting Americans or American children, or America’s elderly, or America’s cultural traditions, or the future of America but for protecting immigrants.
LA replies:
First, I hadn’t heard him say that. But it doesn’t matter. All the white elite share what we see as anti-national views of America. So your question is a valid one. And I guess the answer is: whites, or their children, can potentially be cured of their liberalism and become normal Americans again. Vast non-Western populations imported into the West cannot, by and large, become normal Americans. Whatever assimilation they experience will be at best partial, even as their presence forces us to change our identity in order to adapt to them.
Rachael S. writes:
Almost every Super Bowl or World Series the singer chosen for the Star Spangled Banner treats the National Anthem, not as a hymn deserving of reverence, but as an opportunity to bring attention to themselves, and “make the song their own.”
This last one at the Super Bowl has a beautiful voice, but she still didn’t sing it correctly.
Does it grate on you that the singers don’t “sing it straight” (without all that up-and-down, R&B, hip-hop, pop-culture vulgarity)?
LA replies:
The “pop-ization” of the National Anthem has been going on for a long, long time, at least since Jimi Hendrix’s tortured, psychedelic rendition of it—and that was high art compared to what we have now. In any case, if one wants elevation, one doesn’t watch the Superbowl which is America’s greatest celebration of hype every year. Further, just about everything about the presentation of professional sports on tv today is gross, not just the National Anthem.
N. writes:
Neoconservatives and groupthink:
Reading some of Frum’s recent writings I am struck by how much groupthink there is in the various neoconservative circles. It becomes clear that a lot of neocons just never talk to anyone who isn’t a neocon. They got into their heads the notion that Rudy Giuliani was the inevitable Republican nominee as part of an echo-chamber process where they never talked to anyone that didn’t agree with them, so far as I can tell.
This is really bad. Neoconservatives claim to be intellectuals, thinkers, not an insular clique. Yet real intellectuals would have looked at the election results of 2006 and asked themselves, and each other, hard questions about how such an event happened, beyond the usual “6 year itch” that is common in 2-term Presidencies.
Instead it seems that the neoconservatives just talked to each other and came up a simplistic explanation for the election that revolved around liberal Republicans. Therefore Giuliani was their logical choice (add to the fact that neoconservatism is still heavily overweighted with New Yorkers in particular and East Coast people in general). Again, though, it is clear that the neocons just didn’t bother to ask anyone outside of their own urban, socially liberal, circles if this was a sensible choice.
Here is a hard truth: neoconservatives need to start listening to people outside of their own, urban, liberal circles. If they fail to do this, they are destined to become irrelevant.
N. writes:
The cult of anti-normality: I have not read nearly as many critiques of and attacks on Romney as you have. So perhaps I’m off base on the following observation. But some of the attacks I have seen on Romney carry with them a kind of undercurrent of anti-normality; rather like the way the Osmonds were slammed by many people in the post 1968 years, “too white-bread,” which really meant “too nice, too normal.”
Romney has been married to the same woman all his adult life, his children all seem to be normal people. He is a normal, adult human being. But we have in the Western world, and especially within certain urban subcultures, a cult of anti-normality. It isn’t just enough to be “different” now, no, one must be obnoxiously, flagrantly, different. There’s been an attack on normality for nearly 40 years now, and as one can see from the tattooing and piercing that is common in the so-called “counterculture” today it has accelerated in some quarters.
Add to that the attack on men in general and “white males” in particular since the late 1970s (Bakke was decided in 1978 IIRC), then add further to that the feminist assault on fatherhood, and what we have is a definite subgroup, generally leftist, that actively is opposed to the two-parent family, to manhood as defined by thousands of years of Western culture, and to white people as intrinsic oppressors.
Mitt Romney, a married, heterosexual, successful father is thus a symbol of a whole bunch of things the left hates. They can’t just come out and say “I Hate Daddy!” even though that’s part of their cult, so they have to come up with other rationalizations.
N. writes:
If you have not already viewed this interview of author Shelby Steele by Peter Robinson, I urge you to do so in the strongest terms. Steele points out many things that are interesting, in particular his opinion of Obama as a “bargainer” is worth thinking about. The UCC church that Obama goes to is discussed, along with other things. Very much worth the time.
LA replies:
I’m not going to read anything more about or by the great Steele until someone explains to me the following: beyond criticizing the “bargainer” strategy for dealing with whites that Steele says Obama uses, how, according to Steele, SHOULD blacks deal with whites?
As I’ve pointed out many times, there is an intellectual vacuum at the core of Steele: he’s had an entire, celebrated writing career consisting of minute criticisms of racial relations, such as the way whites seek moral approbation from blacks, but he never says how whites SHOULD relate to blacks. So his criticisms are meaningless. If one cannot demonstrate a norm or a good from which any given behavior is a deviation, what is one’s basis for criticizing that behavior?
Also, here’s a criticism of Steele somewhat similar to mine, from Carol Iannone at Phi Beta Cons:
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Steele on Obama [Carol Iannone]
I have watched only the first segment of Peter Robinson’s interview with Shelby Steele, because that’s all that was up at this writing, but I must say I am quite puzzled at Steele’s analysis of Obama’s appeal. He says that Obama is a “bargainer,” saying to white America, I won’t keep pushing race and slavery and black history at you, and you reward me by liking me. This is working, as Obama does inspire a lot of affection. Steele says that Oprah is also a bargainer, Louis Armstrong too.
So black Americans who act admirably and appeal to whites are just “bargainers?” They can’t be authentically able to transcend race, at least some of the time? It has to be that they are repressing their true racial identity in order to appeal to whites, who evidently require this kind of repression? To me that sounds insulting to both blacks and whites. And who are the non-bargainers? Al Sharpton? Jesse Jackson? Is it incumbent upon black leaders to keep pressing America’s sins against blacks at every turn, everywhere? Is that the only path to authenticity? Is there no way out of this Sartre-like existential hell? I have admired a lot of Steele’s writing, but this aspect I just don’t get.
01/29 12:03 PM
N. replies:
Hmm. Put this way, it makes Steele look rather like a “bargainer” himself. Which, I rather suspect, he would object to.
I have read some of his pieces in the WSJ that were just great big thumbsuckers, 500 words of nothing. Also I don’t plan to buy his book. But I did find some useful things in the interview. Reviewing it in my mind, there isn’t anything unique, though; anyone of intelligence ought to be able to listen to Obama, or watch him speak, and realize that he’s a cipher. He projects a kind of mostly-blank slate, that people can fill in what they want to see upon. There is also a quote in part 2 or 3 where Robinson observes that Obama isn’t running on the content of his character; the color of his skin, even though it is never mentioned anywhere in the campaign, is a key element to Obama’s ability to run for President. (I was astounded to see this at any site, including NRO, because it is true that Obama is less qualified to run for President than Edwards is, but it is one of those things that “one just doesn’t say” in polite company).
There was one quote in which Steele asked rhetorically “what would happen to Oprah Winfrey if she said that the issue of racism is pretty much dead, that black people have as much control over their own lives as anyone else does, and so the time has come to start talking seriously about self-control, self-responsibility, and such things” (paraphrasing). He then pointed to what has happened to Bill Cosby lately (lost Jello contract, no more invites to NAACP, etc.) as an example of what would occur; she would become a nonentity. And that gives a clue as to why he won’t address the issue you raise; even from his secure posting at Hoover, he fears being reduced to irrelevance because he stepped over a line.
So your question is a good one, but nobody will answer it.
N. continues:
Iannone’s comment is very perceptive. As I listened to Steele talking about Louis Armstrong as a “bargainer,” it bothered me but I could not put my finger on why. I suspect it is because Steele leaves no room for a musician who just wants to play his music for the widest possible appreciative audience, because that’s what musicians do.
A few years back I saw a young pianist playing in a chamber music setting, who happened to be black. He did not fit either of Steele’s categories: he didn’t “bargain,” nor did he confront. He was a pianist who happened to be black, playing a classic work by Mozart with some other people. I wonder what Steele would have said about him?
Well. Now I’m more annoyed with Steele than before, but at least I can articulate my reasons. That’s an improvement.
James N. writes:
Your quote of Hewitt along with your comment:
“It’s instructive to study how George W. Bush united the conservative coalition eight years ago. He did so not as a Mitt Romney Republican but as a Mike Huckabee Republican. The only thing Bush offered fiscal conservatives was tax cuts. The rest was Catholic social thought. Say what you will about him, but Bush has never gone squishy on a single social issue in eight years. [Bull. His coldly pro-forma statements on that issue made it crystal clear he couldn’t care less about stopping same-sex marriage.] ”
Yes, it’s bull, but then, George W. Bush, using Karl Rove’s brain, has been elected President twice, while Mike Huckabee is going home in a few weeks.
The Huckaphenomenon is fascinating, and it contains a lot of bad news for liberty-oriented conservatives who rallied to Reagan under the “government off our backs” and “it’s our money, not theirs” slogans.
Most people have assumed (I certainly did) that in the phrase “Christian conservative” that the operative part of the phrase was “conservative.” For SOME Christian conservatives, that is true. But Huck has found a (relatively) huge voting bloc of “Christian conservatives” for whom the only conservative thing that matters is Evangelical Christianity. These people made Jimmy Carter President. They were induced to vote for George W. Bush not BECAUSE of tax cuts, but IN SPITE OF tax cuts. He and Rove made promises (well, not exactly)—they allowed the Evangelicals to think that progress would be made on some of their social issues. But apart from putting code phrases like “wonder working power” into his State of the Union addresses, Bush did nothing for them (I assume because a) he isn’t one of them and b) if he did, he would lose more votes than he would gain).
This bloc has been enraged for a year at the fact that Giuliani, McCain, and Romney (who THEY see as a phony) could rise to the top. As a Rudy supporter, I’ve been called the most horrible names over on FR, as have others. The central issue for these people is exactly what Mike Huckabee is selling—he is their champion, and they won’t quit on him.
There is, as Bush has proven, a majority that can be put together which is TOLERANT of people for whom social issues are important. That majority contains a large component, but no where near a majority, of people for whom those issues are everything.
But once an elected official moves to ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING about those issues, the majority of his voters head for the exits. Rove knew this very well, which is why the most he ever had Bush do was issue coldly pro-forma statements. They were even afraid to nominate Alito, and had to be forced to do so.
The 15 percent of the voters who are pure “values voters” are not at all interested in tax cutting or reducing regulation. They’re angry now, they feel that “Bush lied, babies died,” and the next GOP nominee won’t get away with saying in passing that “Jesus changed my heart” but will have to be committed to explicit Christian action in the White House.
Which means, of course, that he will lose.
This group of voters is now in a very tough spot. They can destroy any Republican nominee. But they can’t nominate one of their own, and they can’t elect a President without the (much more numerous) liberty and economic conservative types. The effect of Huckabee will be to drive a wedge between them and their erstwhile coalition partners that will be very difficult to overcome.
For a lot of Huck voters, I bet Obama is their second choice. Obama’s decision to make nice with Rick Warren may, in retrospect, prove very wise.
And it shows as well that successful electoral politicians can smell where there are votes to be had much, much better than we simpletons who discuss these issues on the internet.
Robert C. writes:
You once commented that if a wreck of a man like McCain could come back from the dead, why not a whole man like Romney? It seems that the media and most Republican voters want the wreck over the whole man.
A choice between McCain vs Clinton or Obama is hardly a choice at all.
Rb writes:
McCain is a total disaster. His lack of mental and emotional health, coupled to an egomaniacal personality, make him not only dangerous to himself—but to the country, Western civilization, and the world, itself. His “war hero” status has been masterfully used by him and his handlers to dupe voters into thinking that this man actually harbors some sort of allegiance and love to the nation he served. Maybe he thinks he really does love this nation and Western civilization—but his actions speak otherwise.
Just by looking at his voting record and the bills he’s supported over the years, in addition to his own, personal conduct in his personal life, we see not a man who really loves the nation but one who deeply resents it, hates it, as he projects his own personal pain and misery onto the world around him.
Leonard K. writes:
Unlike SF Chronicle’s nonsense, LA Times published a reasonable review of the same book.
Kevin V. writes:
You write:
The “pop-ization” of the National Anthem has been going on for a long, long time, at least since Jimi Hendrix’s tortured, psychedelic rendition of it—and that was high art compared to what we have now. In any case, if one wants elevation, one doesn’t watch the Superbowl which is America’s greatest celebration of hype every year. Further, just about everything about the presentation of professional sports on tv today is gross, not just the National Anthem.
I completely agree, except for my beloved NHL. I don’t know if you ever get the chance to watch Edmonton Oilers games (I’m guessing not!) but the traditional singing of “O Canada” with the crowd joining in is a nationalistic delight one could only find in Alberta. And by and large the “Star Spangled Banner” is treated with great respect and sung straight, with dignity. In general, NHL games provide a welcome relief to the b.s. that is most professional sports today. It also, not entirely uncoincidentally I would argue, is the last league dominated by European-Americans….
Finally, if you have not seen the Saturday Night Live skit featuring Maya Rudolph in which she mocks the R&B-ization of the national anthem, you should. It’s a good example of common sense, conservative humor that makes a point about the gracelessness and buffoonery that such treatments embody.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 05, 2008 01:16 PM | Send
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