The thought process of Anne Applebaum

The below entry was drafted on October 28, 2008, but not posted then. While it deals with issues pertaining to the 2008 presidential campaign and the immigration debate of that time, it is still relevant to the thought processes of supposedly moderate opinion-makers as to what constitutes acceptable politics in America—namely what constitutes acceptable opposition to Obama and acceptable opposition to illegal immigration.

From the first time I became aware of Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum, in an interview on CSPAN a few years ago about a book she had written on the Soviet Gulag, she struck me as a total intellectual mediocrity, a person with nothing going on upstairs except unexamined conventional notions. The columns of hers I’ve read occasionally since then have confirmed that first impression. But she’s outdone herself in her column today (October 28, 2008) on why she cannot vote for John McCain and is voting for Obama.

In the manner typical of every “right-leaning” independent and soi-disant conservative, she says that she used to admire McCain a lot, especially for his deep knowledge of foreign policy [sic]. In fact (get ready for this), she calls McCain a “true foreign policy intellectual.” But now, she moans, he’s lost his integrity by appealing to the “extreme” base of his party. That’s right. According to Applebaum, McCain is running an “extreme right” campaign. What the “independent” Applebaum really means is: anything that is not 100 percent liberal-approved, is extreme right.

Though he is a true foreign policy intellectual, his supporters cultivate ignorance and fear.

Meaning, they actually care about the fact that Obama is a radical leftist. The one thing that phony “independent” types like Applebaum cannot tolerate is attacks on leftism. Any attack on leftism is, for her, right-wing extremism.

And as if that weren’t enough to give her away, she says this:

Finally, I admired McCain’s willingness to tackle politically risky issues such as immigration, the debate about which has long been drenched in hypocrisy. Those who want to ban it are illogically denying both the role that immigrants, especially the millions of illegal immigrants, already play in the U.S. economy as well as the improbability of forced deportations; those who want to allow it without restriction don’t acknowledge the security risks. McCain tried to put together a bipartisan coalition in an effort to find a rational solution. He failed—blocked by the ideologues in his party.

“Those who want to ban it”? The idea of banning (i.e., stopping) immigration is not remotely on the national radar. The battle is between those who want to legalize all illegal immigrants and vastly expand legal immigration, and those who oppose those measures and want to stop (ban) illegal immigration. There has not been any proposal on the table to reduce legal immigration substantially, let alone to “ban” it. Applebaum is brainless or dishonest to suggest otherwise.

Here is Applebaum’s article, with my interspersed comments, a couple of which I’ve just added:

Why McCain Lost Me
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Yesterday, while reading the latest polling data on John McCain, Sarah Palin and their appeal—or growing lack of it—to ” independent women voters” it suddenly dawned on me: I am one of these elusive independent female voters, and I have the credentials to prove it. For the past couple of decades, I’ve sometimes voted Democratic, sometimes Republican. I’m even a registered independent, though I did think of switching to vote for John McCain in 2000. But because the last political party I truly felt comfortable with was Thatcher’s Conservative Party (I lived in England in the 1980s and 1990s), I didn’t actually do it.

The larger point, though, is that if I’m not voting for McCain—and, after a long struggle, I’ve realized that I can’t—maybe it’s worth explaining why, for I suspect there are other independent voters who feel the same. Particularly because it’s not his campaign, disjointed though that has been, that finally repulses me: It’s his rapidly deteriorating, increasingly anti-intellectual, no longer even recognizably conservative Republican Party. His problems are not technical; they do not have to do with ads, fundraising or tactics, as some have suggested. They are institutional; they have to do with his colleagues, advisers and supporters.

I should say here that I know McCain, slightly: He spoke at a party given for a book I wrote a few years ago, though I think that was as much about the subject (communist prison camps) as the author. But it’s not his personality I admire most. Far more important is his knowledge of foreign affairs, an understanding that goes well beyond an ability to name the Pakistani president. McCain knows not only the names, he knows the people; and by this I mean not just foreign presidents but foreign members of parliament, foreign journalists, foreign generals. He goes to Germany every year, visits Vietnam often. He can talk intelligently about Belarus and Uzbekistan; I’ve heard him do it. Let’s just say that’s one of the things that distinguish him from our current president, who once confessed that “this foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating.” [LA replies: the fact that McCain may know various things about other countries says nothing about the qualities of his ideas on foreign policy, specifically on the most important idea of the last several years. He supports any U.S. military intervention for “democracy” or to stop “persecution.” Thus he supported Clinton’s wholly illegal intervention in Serbia in 1999. (And he was a strong advocate of the insane U.S. intervention in Libya in 2011, even before Obama got on board.)]

Another thing I liked about McCain was the deliberate distance he always kept from the nuttier wing of his party and, simultaneously, the loyalty he’s shown to a recognizably conservative budgetary philosophy. Fiscal conservatism, balanced budgets, sober spending—all of these principles have been brushed away as so much nonsense for the past eight years by Republicans more interested in grandstanding about how much they hate Washington. McCain was one of the few who kept talking about them. He was also one of a shockingly few to understand that there is nothing American, let alone conservative, about torture, and that a battle for civilized values could not be won by uncivilized means. [LA replies (5/27/11): torture means causing grave physical harm. Waterboarding does not cause physical harm. To call waterboarding “torture” is a lie. Furthermore, waterboarding was only done to three top level leaders of a mass murdering terrorist organization over a period of several years, which shows the extraordinary retraint, truly worthy of a civilized country, with which the U.S. used this practice.]

Finally, I admired McCain’s willingness to tackle politically risky issues such as immigration, the debate about which has long been drenched in hypocrisy. Those who want to ban it are illogically denying both the role that immigrants, especially the millions of illegal immigrants, already play in the U.S. economy as well as the improbability of forced deportations; those who want to allow it without restriction don’t acknowledge the security risks. McCain tried to put together a bipartisan coalition in an effort to find a rational solution. He failed—blocked by the ideologues in his party.

If these traits appealed to me, they probably would have appealed to other independents, too. Why, then, has McCain spent the past four months running away from them? The appointment of Palin—inspired by his closest colleagues—turned out not to be a “maverick” move but, rather, a concession to those Republicans who think foreign policy can be conducted using a series of cliches and those in his party who shout down the federal government while quietly raking in federal subsidies. Although McCain has one of the best records for bipartisanship in the Senate, he’s let his campaign appeal to his party’s extremes. Though he is a true foreign policy intellectual, his supporters cultivate ignorance and fear: Watch Sean Hannity’s ” Barack Obama and Friends: A History of Radicalism” on YouTube if you don’t believe me. [LA replies: So I guess Obama and his friends do not have a history of radicalism, and there is no reason for rational people to fear making a radical the president of the U.S.] Worse, McCain has—in a fatal effort to appeal to the least thoughtful, most partisan elements of his base—moved away from his previous positions on torture and immigration. Maybe that’s all tactics, and maybe the “real” McCain will ditch the awful ideologues after Nov. 4, if by some miracle he happens to win. But how can I know that will happen?

Here’s what I do know: I would give anything to rewrite history and make McCain president in 2000. But in 2008, I don’t think I can vote for him. Barack Obama is indeed the least experienced, least tested candidate in modern presidential history. But at least if he wins, I can be sure that the mobs who cry “terrorist” at the sound of Obama’s name will be kept far, far away from the White House. [LA replies (5/27/11): Under Obama, terrorist enemies of the U.S. are no longer called terrorists. Under Obama, the fact that a mass murder was carried out against U.S. Army personnel in Fort Hood by a Muslim U.S. Army major who was an openly declared jihadist has been covered up, and the official position is that the jihadist mass murderer was simply an unstable individual with no connection to Islam. A president who covers up what America’s Islamic terrorist enemies have done and are seeking to do to America is indeed an ally of Islamic terrorists. That Obama signed on to the raid on Osama bin Laden, whom everyone recognized as our enemy, does nothing to change this.]

applebaumletters@washpost.com

- end of initial entry -

Ed H. writes:

Thanks for the tidbit of truth concerning Anne Applebaum. She lives at the Washington Post and attends Georgetown cocktail parties and has the audacity—the sheer gall and presumption—to write a book on the Gulag. It wasn’t enough that Solzhnitzyn or Eugenia Ginzburg, who lived through it, earned some right to tell the story. No, we must have the story told from the viewpoint of a contributor to Mademoiselle magazine and the Washington Post. She can fool the Georgetown creche but the people of Eastern Europe have a better sense of Applebaum’s real worth. After all, Estonia awarded her “The Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, Third Class.” Go Estonia!

Laura Wood writes:

I’m not sure why someone would be disqualified from writing about the Gulag because she attends Georgetown parties and works for the Washington Post. Would it be better if such people didn’t care about the subject? I read Applebaum’s book. I thought it was well-researched and brought the important facts together for an American audience largely ignorant of the Soviet camps and exiles. I’m sure there are some people who read Solzhenitsyn and Ginzburg as a result of Applebaum’s work.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 27, 2011 07:07 AM | Send