Right Wing Nut House

If you haven’t seen it yet, you should go over to Little Green Footballs and read this J’accuse post by Charles Johnson where he briefly lists some of the reasons why he has now, officially “parted ways” with the right.

Irony abounds for me in this situation. The fact is, Johnson and I are in lockstep agreement when it comes to many of our criticisms of the right. We both despise the cotton candy conservatism of Beck, Limbaugh, and Coulter et. al. that is occasionally tinged with sniffs of bigotry. We both bemoan the paranoid conspiracies - birthers, and other theories about Obama - that have risen up to inject some of their sickness into mainstream conservatism.

We both see an anti-science, anti-intellectual undercurrent in some of the critiques of liberalism employed by the base, including an inexplicable denial of Darwinism, and a “the science is settled” argument toward global climate change (the science is wrong and the whole thing is a conspiracy). And we both agree that the anarcho-conservatism expressed by many on the right is unrealistic and dangerously wrong.

Therefore, having established my bona fides, I can say flat out that Charles Johnson, in his wildly exaggerated, hyperbolic, injudicious, ad hominem, unreasonable, and illogical attacks on the right, has abandoned any claim to prudent analysis and temperate understanding, and has instead, joined the ranks of those on the right and left who don’t deserve to be taken seriously by anyone with half a brain.

To wit: (”Why I Parted Ways with the Right:)

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

Johnson’s use of the epithet “fascist” shows that he is ignorant of the history, the philosophy (such as it was), and the tenets of that odious ideology. He is as ignorant as the brain dead lefties who employed the smear against Bush and the moronic righties who use it to describe Obama.

Using the term immediately identifies one as an excessively ideological partisan. He condemns the entire right for the wayward beliefs of a few. There is hardly a mainstream conservative blog that has not skewered Buchanan at one time or another for his stupidity and bigotry. And the tenuous connections Johnson has sought to draw to the genuine article in Europe - neo-Fascists - is laughable. Six degrees of separation does not “connect” American conservatives to those putrid personalities and parties in Europe except in the overactive, fevered, and unbalanced imagination of Johnson.

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

If you are going to accuse someone of “hatred” or “white supremacism,” I suggest you take proving those charges very seriously. Johnson doesn’t and never has. In the case of McCain, he has quoted extensively from some of McCain’s postings around the internet through the years. The problem is that many of those entries that he so proudly features were not left by McCain, and many of the quotes he uses to crucify RSM are not even his.

McCain is quirky. He can be insufferable. His constant self promotion can be wearing. But I have met and come to know this man and I can state categorically that there isn’t a racist bone in his body and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Not recognizing that McCain was targeted by professional smear merchants only shows Johnson’s unreasoning hatred of McCain to be the product of rank emotionalism and not rational analysis.

(McCain can, and has, defended himself. I don’t agree with some of his published writings, but I have an idea of how his mind works. It is an expansive, sometimes brilliant instrument that plays with concepts and ideas as a child plays with blocks. Seizing upon out of context ramblings by McCain is a cottage industry for some of his detractors and unfortunately, RSM is also afflicted with a naivete about how some of what he writes is perceived. He actually believes his honesty and perspicacity should be rewarded. Pity it isn’t.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

The numbers of conservatives who Johnson is talking about could hold a convention in a Marriott conference room. The mainstream right may be devout, but I hardly think the exaggerated term “fanaticism” applies to all but a very small percentage. And the charge that the religious right supports “throwing women back into the Dark Ages” does not deserve acknowledgment except that it reveals Johnson’s overweening, ideological partisanship. No rational critic would make such a charge. An irrational mountebank would.

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

Ooooh - “anti-science bad craziness?” Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the very deep thoughts of Charles Johnson.

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

Is there really “support” for “homophobic bigotry” among mainstream conservatives? There is support for DOMA. There is support for an anti-gay marriage amendment. There is opposition to including gays as victims in current hate crime legislation. As I have laid out, while there is a conservative case to be made for gay marriage, there is a secular conservative case to be made against it. There are also perfectly legitimate legal arguments to be made against any hate crime statute.

At issue is whether a pressure lobby can dictate the parameters of what constitutes “bigotry.” The GLBT lobby constantly injects politics into this question, screaming “Bigot!” at anyone who fails to support their agenda. I happen to support equal rights for gays but denounce their politicization of gay marriage and their attempts to circumvent the will of the people by calling on the courts to adjudicate what is, at bottom, a political question.

Are there homophobes and bigots on the right? Yes there are. But Johnson, as he does constantly throughout his Zola-esque rant, inflates their numbers to justify his own, narrow, rigid, ideological reasons for abandoning his former allies.

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

Here, I have to agree with Johnson that there is a very large plurality of conservatives who not only distrust government, but despise it as well, and would like nothing better than to roll back both the New Deal and the Great Society to achieve “limited” national government.

(I do not include committed Federalists in this group who are much more serious minded in their approach to government and recognize many of its modern responsibilities.)

This anarcho-conservatism, where some kind of 19th century government is envisioned as the optimal solution to our problems, is a throwback to pre-Buckley days. It is unthinking, illogical, and oblivious to how the world has changed since the heyday of Robert Taft. Ultimately, it is a fearful kind of conservatism that can’t recognize or deal with change and seeks the safety of an idealized past.

But Johnson falls off the rails by lumping the “tea partyers” in with the anti-government zealots. Certainly, some in the Tea Party movement fit the description. But having observed several of their events, I was surprised at the restraint showed by most marchers, their very ordinariness giving weight to their protests. As an echo of the anti-war movement, I would say there are many telling parallels as far as the average American who felt strongly enough to commit to a cause.

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

Yes, in addition to the Birthers, there’s the “Obama is a Moooslim” crap, and “Obama wants to impoverish us all so that we become dependent on government” stupidity. But again, prove to me that this kind of thinking represents a majority of conservatives who are spouting this nonsense and I will gladly join in the cussing.

8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

“Almost universally?” Heh - that’s something a freshman in high school might use in an essay. It’s either “universal” or not. Sorry Charles, back to English composition 101 for you.

As for the rest - not even worth commenting on. Simple sophistry.

9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

This is something of which Johnson knows a lot about. I stopped visiting his site 4 years ago because of the nauseating, anti-Muslim bigotry spewing forth in his comments - cataloged many times by those on the left who are currently making him out to be some kind of honest conservative. And Johnson was their greatest enabler, if not inventing, then popularizing the denigrating mongram R.O.P. (Religion of Peace) to describe Islam.

How many pictures of Palestinian kids dressed in fatigues and armed with toy guns did Johnson publish, usually with the caption “ROP Child Abuse?” How many 7th century practices of Islam did Johnson mock on his website? How many times did he make fun of women dressed in the chador?

All of this enabled his legions of “Lizardoids,” many of whom felt no compunction in airing their out and out bigotry of Muslims. For Johnson to use this as a reason for “parting ways” with the right is the height of hypocrisy.

10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

How can you take anyone seriously who uses the phrase “every other right wing source” to describe “hatred” of President Obama among all conservatives? Kind of a broad brush you’re using there Charles. Would the Volohk Conspiracy be a hate site? The Belmont Club? Outside the Beltway? Betsy’s Page? Q & O? I could keep going down my favorites page and add a couple of dozen of the larger blogs who offer reasoned analysis, and, if not always respectful, certainly rational critiques of the Obama administration.

And I certainly hope you don’t cast you lot with liberals. The fact that the leftysphere mirrors the right in the number of blogs who express virulent, unreasoning hatred of their political opponents would put you in the awkward position of going from the frying pan into the fire.

As a final thought, I would ask how adult is it to throw a tantrum in public in order to bask in the approbation of your former opponents? I have no reason to question Johnson’s sincerity, just his emotional maturity. Why make an announcement at all except to garner attention like some two year old who throws himself on the floor when he doesn’t get ice cream for dessert? Why not allow your opinions to shine through during the normal course of your writing rather than playing the drama queen and inflicting your exaggerated, insipid ill-reasoned diatribe on the rest of us?

Only Johnson can answer that. And since it is evident that he has neither the temperament, or intellect to engage in any kind of introspective analysis that would reveal his reasons to his own conscience, we’ll probably never know.

The meltdown continues among those who sought to stifle scientific debate about man made global warming by claiming the science proving such was “settled,” or “solid,” or undeniable.”

Latest to make an ass of himself is Alan Combs who is a few days behind the curve as far as what the CRU hack has revealed:

Climate scientists who just released “The Copenhagen Diagnosis” say ice sheets are melting at an increased rate, and future sea-level rise will be higher than previously forecast. But scientific evidence means nothing to those with an anti-global warming agenda, who point to illegally hacked mails to try to prove that global warming is a hoax. Sadly for them, the anti-global-warming hysteria isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Sadly for Alan, the emails constituted about 5% of the total information that has been spilling out on to the internet for nearly a week now. Charlie Martin went into the “Harry Read Me” file that was kept by a harried programmer who couldn’t replicate the “scientific” findings of Mann and Jones because the computer code they used to reach their conclusion was such a mess. Earth to Alan: If you or others can’t duplicate your experimental results - in this case, temperature data - then your theory doesn’t pass muster.

Then there’s Marc Sheppard’s piece that delves more deeply into the codes and finds enormous problems with them. Evidence of fraud? The jury is out on that. But even giving the scientists in question the benefit of the doubt any fool can see that their theory on millenial temps is in deep, deep trouble.

Except the science is settled, right? Al Gore said so back in 2007:

Even once-skeptical Republicans are coming over to Gore’s side — and it seems the debate has shifted from arguing whether there is a climate crisis to disagreement over how to fix it.

The science is settled, Gore told the lawmakers. Carbon-dioxide emissions — from cars, power plants, buildings and other sources — are heating the Earth’s atmosphere.

Others agreed:

John Quiggin, economist

* “There’s no longer any serious debate among climate scientists about either the reality of global warming or about the fact that its substantially caused by human activity…” [2]

David Milliband, UK Environment Minister

* “I think that the scientific debate has now closed on global warming, and the popular debate is closing as well”[3]

Camilla Cavendish

* “The science debate is effectively over. The Stern review means that the economic debate is all but over. Only the political debate is left…”[4]

The science has never been “settled,” or “closed, or “effectively over.” There is good evidence that supports the theory and good evidence that rejects it. What is so hard about accepting that fact? What is so difficult about having an open debate without having skeptics compared to Holocaust deniers and Nazis?

Colmes and others who are seeing the ground shift under their feet as their long held beliefs are revealed as not set in stone, are dealing with this situation by saying they were for open debate all along and it is the skeptics that were for closing it!

RealClimate - a creature of the very lab where the emails and other data emerged - is now sounding a reasonable note:

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

They sound almost reasonable, don’t they? Of course, the real skeptics in the scientific community did not accuse the CRU or any other lab of being communists, or part of a global conspiracy. That’s for the nutcases who are saying today that the entire warming theory has been “disproved.” No responsible skeptic has made that claim as far as I can tell. If they have, they are as bad as Colmes and his ilk who are ignoring the probability of at least some fraud and certainly an effort to stifle dissent in the crudest way imaginable at the CRU lab.

George Monbiot blames…the skeptics!

It is true that much of what has been revealed could be explained as the usual cut and thrust of the peer review process, exacerbated by the extraordinary pressure the scientists were facing from a denial industry determined to crush them. One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research turned out to be so badly flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief. Jones knew that any incorrect papers by sceptical scientists would be picked up and amplified by climate change deniers funded by the fossil fuel industry, who often – as I documented in my book Heat – use all sorts of dirty tricks to advance their cause.

Yes - all that “extraordinary pressure” from fellow scientists determined to “crush them” brings out the momma in me. I just want to wrap my arms around Jones et. al. and protect them from those mean old meanies who disagree with them.

Proof that deniers are all funded by oil companies - or even prominent ones like Lindzen or McIntyre - is a little scarce from George. And how ironic is it to accuse skeptics of “dirty tricks” when the emails show that Jones and Mann used every trick in the book to keep dissenting views out of important journals?

But Monbiot sees a “crisis” for the global warming community. I don’t see it as a crisis at all. This is the absolute best thing that could have happened to the debate over climate change.

When I asked Charlie Martin on my show the other night whether I thought this would slow down cap and trade and other AGW gimmicks he thought it wouldn’t, although cap and trade may already have been dead in the US senate. But I have to disagree. The story is out there despite an amusing refusal by the major media to cover it. What makes it amusing is that they still believe they are the gatekeepers with the ability to keep a story they don’t like under wraps. But people get a lot of their news now from the internet and there is just no way this story will die anytime soon.

This will give new impetus to skeptics who may find the atmosphere to publish their findings a little friendlier. And if their papers are bogus, or flawed, they will be handled the way all science should be handled; their peers will vet their findings ruthlessly and thoroughly. If they can’t stand up to scrutiny then they will be rejected. And the same goes for the other side in the debate.

It won’t be perfect. One thing those emails honestly show is that the scientists are human. They are as susceptible to human emotions like jealousy, anger, and envy as non-scientists. They are not robots and therefore, the process will not be without problems.

But it is a process that has served us well for 500 years and has led to astonishing breakthroughs in knowledge despite the problems. Eventually, the observed phenomenon and measured data will give us enough facts to honestly reach conclusions about AGW - hopefully without much political pressure. That last may be a pipe dream but if anything can teach the scientific community to leave politics to the side, it is this scientific scandal that is as much about the politics of global warming as anything else.

The debate over “The Greatest Generation” and whether the way America is today could duplicate their stunning achievements in winning two wars and fighting through a depression while maintaining unity has been hashed and rehashed by far superior minds than mine.

But I just can’t help thinking about it after watching the History Channel this week and their excellent series, “Word War II in HD.”

If you haven’t been able to catch any of it, they will run the entire 10 hours on Saturday starting at 8:00 am central time.

Quite simply, it is the grandest, the most heartbreaking, the most stirring documentary series on World War II ever made. And that includes both “Victory at Sea” and “The World at War.”

TWAW is the gold standard - 32 hours of in-depth analysis of the politics, the strategy, the personalities, and ordeals experienced by civilians during the war. But it is rather soulless. It’s academic approach can be dry, although the images and words of survivors lend an emotionalism outside the rather clinical analysis offered.

“Victory at Sea,” on the other hand, went hard for dramatic effect. With the sonorous voice of Leonard Graves supplying the narration and music by Broadway impresario Richard Rodgers, VAS was a made for TV blockbuster that went right for the heart and kept the viewer entranced with its quick cuts, and snappy pace.

Other documentaries of individual battles (there have been a couple of excellent treatments of D-Day) have suffered from using stock footage that, if you watch enough of these things, you recognize from other projects.

But the History Channel sojourn into the past with “World War II in HD” is everything a good documentary should be; highly original, well scripted, images lining up with narration in an artistic mix, all the while marching forward with a pace that allows the viewer to digest the information and feel what the documentarian is feeling about his subject.

But it is the images that capture the mind and rend the soul. Culled from literally thousands of home movies - many in color - and long lost color combat footage, there is a freshness and even an immediacy about the entire package that has held me absolutely in thrall for the entire run of the series.

The technique is itself, fresh and original. Focusing on several individuals who fought in both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters, the survivors take us through everything from the home front, their battle experiences, the horror, mud, blood, guts, and monumental sense of loss when a comrade falls. The narration is accompanied by stunning combat footage - real “You Are There” images of mortar rounds exploding just feet from the camera, horrific sights of the wounded and dead, and always, the total destruction that war leaves in its wake.

A small example of the originality of the series can be found in the way that the narration will, from time to time, fade out slowly and the reading of the script is picked up by the actual survivor. It is an extraordinarily effective technique in that it humanizes the actor reading the narration when, after just a few seconds of the survivor reading, the voice of the actor portraying him is slowly brought back up, while the survivor’s words fade away. This is not a new technique but it it works spectacularly.

The music is obtrusive without overwhelming the action. Indeed, the music is used as a dramatic device to measure the pace of the documentary, mirroring the pace of the excellent narration (Gary Sinise). Beautiful editing builds bridges to succeeding each scene, allowing for seamless segues from clip to clip. A truly masterful job.

A word about the HD: It could be that they really didn’t have anything else to call the project, what with “World War II in Color” already taken. Shooting the program in HD is not the reason to watch it, nor is much of it in HD anyway. The films, as you can imagine, are grainy, and out of focus at times so even with an HD TV, it really doesn’t enhance the viewing experience that much.

All in all, “World War II in HD” is a triumph of documentary film making that should do for World War II what Ken Burns’ “Civil War” did for that conflict; bringing the viewer up close to the war while allowing for us to get to know some fascinating characters who increase our understanding of the conflict. (Burns’ “The War” was good but lacked the dramatic punch of the History Channel treatment.)

And as the last scenes of the documentary faded and the survivors, now all near or over 80 years old were left with their memories, it hit me that the hackneyed question about whether America today could pull together and perform such magnificent feats of arms and industry as those of my father’s generation manged, needed another airing.

Strip away our gadgets, our scientific wonders, and all the cultural, economic, and social touchstones that make up America today and ask yourself; How much like them are we? There’s no doubt that we are quite different in some respects. But like Robert Graves, the great essayist of the World War I generation who saw extraordinary love in the sacrifice of soldiers who marched lockstep into the most murderous fire, is there that kind of feeling for America today that would allow us to meet such huge challenges?

By World War II standards, our military is tiny. More than 16,000,000 Americans wore their country’s uniform in the Second World War. But there is little doubt that our current military is every bit as good, soldier for soldier, as those who beat the Nazis and the Japanese. So the question isn’t really a military one. It is a question of character. The real question should be; How similar is the character of today’s American to that of the World War II generation? Are we made of the same stuff? Do we believe in America as passionately as they did - enough to put aside our political differences and unite to see the job through to its conclusion?

I have my doubts. The whole idea of American sovereignty is fast disappearing - or at least the sort of sovereignty the WWII generation believed in. Call it a blind faith if you will, or perhaps you think it small minded and childish to harbor such notions that sometimes, there is only one side to take and that is the side of the country of your birth. It’s called “chauvinism” today and is quite unfashionable. But without it, we might have quit in 1944. Without that absolute certainty that we were in the right felt by the overwhelming majority of Americans whether at the battlefront or the homefront - whether fighting with a gun, or laboring in the factories and fields - I don’t think we could have done it.

There are many who would celebrate this loss of faith as the inevitable result of America “growing up” or worse, the consequence of a government that has betrayed the people time and again whether it was Viet Nam, Watergate, or some other national event that showed our leaders using us, lying to us, or betraying the principles on which the country was founded.

And yet…

We don’t know, do we? As implacable a foe as radical Islamism, it can’t come close to the existential threat of Hitler and his thugs or the economic threat to our emerging commercial empire in the Far East by Japan. And remember, all of this played out with the backdrop of a national depression where unemployment was still over 10% and most people hurting economically.

I want to believe we’d be up to those kinds of threats regardless of about which generation of Americans you want to talk. I don’t think it would matter what era you choose, I still see Americans as comprising a specific, exceptional “race” if you will. There are national characteristics unique to people who live here that are found nowhere else. We simply couldn’t have achieved what we have achieved, overcome what we’ve been able to overcome (self-inflicted or otherwise) without some spark deep within us that makes us “Americans.”

The conventional answer might be that we wouldn’t stand a chance fighting a long war like WWII today. But one thing is for sure; if I were a foreign power, I wouldn’t make the mistake that the Kaiser made in 1917, Tojo and Hitler made in 1941, or Saddam made in 1991.

And that is underestimate the United States of America.

I risk life and limb writing about the former Alaska governor. Like the supporters of failed presidential candidate and official GOP weirdo Ron Paul, any negative comments I would make about the real conservative’s favorite MILF is going to bring an army of supporters to her defense while trashing me in the most unseemly terms imaginable.

Fortunately, I am well hidden in this corner of the blogosphere, and few real conservatives would be caught dead reading anything I write. However, Google search is ubiquitous in its reach and chances are, there are a couple of dozen Palinbots who will receive an email in their inbox informing them of my post. At that point, their email lists will fairly crackle with activity as my offense against the Goddess will be spread far and wide, bringing wrack and ruin down upon me.

Thus, I wade into the morass that Palin has made of her career with a little trepidation, but with a clear eye and my usual muddled head. The latter might usually be seen as a deficiency but when writing about Palin, it may actually prove a boon since what other frame of mind can you employ to write about a woman so challenged by fact and in love with fancy?

Let’s get the facts out of the way first; there has never been a vice presidential candidate that was treated so unfairly by the media in the modern age. The number of rumors, falsehoods, and lies that were published as fact about her is truly astonishing and has no parallel in modern politics. (Such blackening the name of candidates with prevarications was routine in the 19th century but died out when newspapers became more independent of parties.)

I am surprised that I have not read that Sarah Palin bites the heads off chickens and drinks their blood. Charles Martin took the trouble of listing the media lies about Palin, stopping at 84 linked entries - that’s links to the lies as well as links that clearly debunk the lies.

This does not include the vicious attacks made in various magazines from Vanity Fair to Redbook that repeat some of the lies while making up a few more of their own. I challenge any fair minded liberal to refute these facts.

I normally hate to see any conservative treated so abysmally by those who claim to be, if not unbiased, then fair; if not balanced, then reasonable. Palin’s treatment has been neither fair nor reasonable. Many explanations have been given for this including the unprovable assumption that liberals hate strong conservative women. I think many liberals hate all conservatives whether they are men, women, transgendered, or eunuchs. Their mode of attack changes a little from sex to sex so perhaps it appears they single out women of the right for special treatment, but it’s really all part of the same mindset; conservatives are poopy heads and nothing is out of bounds in criticizing them.

The question before us is can the narrative regarding Palin be altered to make her a viable candidate for 2012? With 60% of the American people currently dead set against voting for her for president under any circumstances, it would seem to be a very tall mountain for her to climb in order for her to achieve the respect of the voters; something she never had to begin with among a majority and seems to have damaged herself further by abandoning her office. Her tabloid like-presence in American culture has also dragged her down, as has the fact that very few of the elites in the Republican party take her seriously as a party leader.

And well they shouldn’t. They may fear her influence with the 20% or so of the party who would support her aspirations in 2012, but beyond that, they and most of the rest of us find it difficult to take one so shallow and uninformed seriously. As far as I can tell, she has done little in the intervening year since the election to rectify her appalling ignorance of the world, and even domestic issues like health care. The author of the “death panels” remark may have succeeded in scaring old people to death but if I were her, I would hardly stand on that as an accomplishment.

Her fan base - and indeed many on the right - applauded her fear mongering because they believe it slowed down the legislative process and got conservatives back in the game. I believe they are overstating her influence as there were other factors, including senior citizens both Democrat and Republican who were already up in arms over the proposed Medicare cuts who showed up in droves at town hall meetings and voiced their concerns. In effect, Palin may have simply tossed some nitro on an already volatile situation.

And this is the kind of leader these jamokes want?

What Daniel Larison and others refer to as her “psuedo-populism” appears to highlight her very “ordinariness” and “just folks” personae. The trouble with this as I see it is that there is an undercurrent of anti-intellectualism that undergirds her anti-establishmentarian shtick. She has made her shallow, depthless understanding of the world into a badge of honor, and indeed, her supporters push the idea that this is a positive good, that having a president as unversed in nuance as they are of policy and programs would be kind of neat. Sure would be a switch from all those brainy establishment elitists who don’t want to roll back the New Deal and Great Society, making this country into a true conservative paradise.

This is not to say that Palin is stupid. She’s intellectually lazy. I wouldn’t necessarily call her incurious in a George Bush sort of way but neither would I refer to her as possessing the innate intelligence of a Ronald Reagan who actually did change the narrative about himself. Reagan had an active, curious mind and the good sense to reach out to experts who educated him, as well as filling in knowledge gaps by reading voraciously. Palin does not seem to have that spark, that drive, that hunger for knowledge that anyone as ill informed as she admits herself to be should possess. Therefore, I hold no hope that she can transform herself into a reasonably well informed politician.

You can see where this piece has been going. No, I don’t think Palin can alter the narrative about herself in time for 2012, and I think it improbable that she will ever be able to rise above the level in American politics as a curiosity, a side show -grist for the conservative base who, if they get their wish and nominate her in 2012, will find that the political baggage she carries along with her determined ignorance will lead to a Reaganesque landslide for Obama.

In order for her to flip her position with the electorate, she has to want to change the reasons they hold such a low opinion of her - alter their perceptions by addressing their concerns about her. Unless and until I see that happening, the chances are good that she won’t even be able to win the GOP nomination much less the general election.

The news that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried in New York City kind of shocked me yesterday. It has cheered some, worried others, and made some on the right white hot with anger.

Those who see this as a “triumph of the American Justice system” are blowing smoke out of their ass - including Obama. Let’s face it - he is gambling with the lives of God knows how many New Yorkers that we can stop any terrorist attacks occurring during the trial. Some on the right are accusing Obama of not thinking about this possibility, but that is certainly not true. The government is going in to this situation with their eyes wide open and the fact that we are bringing KSM to New York when he easily could have been tried in exactly the same manner at Guantanamo (or out in the middle of the Mojave desert for that matter) shows us that they wish to make some kind of grandiose statement about American justice.

This then is the calculated risk being taken by the president; that it is worth the threat to innocent Americans to prove our justice system is capable of handling even the most dedicated and evil enemy combatant. I don’t deny that this is a worthy goal. But weighed in the balance against what it might cost us, I believe, quite simply, it is a monumental mistake.

Not only are innocents at risk, but how sure is the administration that this trial won’t degenerate into the kind of idiocy we witnessed during the Simpson trial? Would that prove the efficacy of our justice system? Or would it be remembered as a shameful moment in the history of American jurisprudence?

Can any judge anywhere prevent this trial from becoming a media circus? Not unless they want to lock up half the journalists in America or censor their work. Is it even remotely possible that this trial will not be televised? Fat chance. Can both the defense attorneys and prosecutors resist the temptation to grandstand, to play to the TV audience rather than the jury? How about the judge?

The belief that this trial will show-off the “American justice system” in all its solemnity and seriousness is a laugher. And again, the government is not stupid. They know this will happen. This will be the OJ trial on steroids - the highest rated legal series on TV since Law and Order was in its heyday. And yet, despite the real possibility that terrorists - even the lone wolf Nidal Hasan variety - will try and grab the limelight by slaughtering a bunch of innocent New Yorkers, the government is insisting on idiotic posturing rather than protecting the people.

At bottom, this is a political decision, not a legal one. The Wall Street Journal:

Please spare us talk of the “rule of law.” If that was the primary consideration, the U.S. already has a judicial process in place. The current special military tribunals were created by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which was adopted with bipartisan Congressional support after the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision obliged the executive and legislative branches to approve a detailed plan to prosecute the illegal “enemy combatants” captured since 9/11.

Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren’t a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday’s decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence.

As it happens, Mr. Holder acknowledged their worth himself by announcing that the Guantanamo detainee who allegedly planned the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole off Yemen and four others would face military commission trials. (The Pentagon must now find a locale other than the multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art facility at Gitmo for its tribunal.)

Taking the side of the administration, the New York Times praises this “return” to the rule of law (the military courts, as the WSJ notes, were operating under rules passed by a bi-partisan Congress which means that the Times agrees with the tea partyers that Congress can act unlawfully.)

Putting the five defendants on public trial a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center is entirely fitting. Experience shows that federal courts are capable of handling high-profile terrorism trials without comprising legitimate secrets, national security or the rule of law. Mr. Bush’s tribunals failed to hold a single trial.

The fact that defense lawyers are likely to press to have evidence of abuse aired in court — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was tortured by waterboarding 183 times — is unlikely to derail the prosecutions, especially given Mr. Holder’s claim to have evidence that has not been released yet.

I don’t think there is a debate that our courts are completely unable to handle terrorist cases, or other sensitive trials where national security is a concern. I would note that the Times, while taking John Cornyn to task for the senator’s characterization of the government’s action of trying KSM and his friends as “common criminals,” makes the same mistake with KSM; they assume he is a “common terrorist” and that previous court cases prove that justice can be served.

KSM is a “common” nothing and the Times is being disingenuous throughout that entire editorial. If ever there was a special case where exceptions to the rule are in order, it is this one.

I am not concerned that KSM may be acquitted. I’m sure the charges will be sufficiently broad to allow him to be convicted of something. I am also sure that he will never see the outside of a cell in his lifetime.

The question is one of intelligently balancing the need for security and the need for justice - something that the left accused Bush of failing to do by pointing out that he bent over backward toward the goal of security while justice suffered.

Isn’t President Obama doing exactly the same thing? Aren’t we now putting the concept of justice far ahead of security? If justice was the goal, a New York venue for the trial would not have been necessary. There is no rational argument that makes it so without also making the point that security should be a secondary consideration.

This is what the administration has done.They have consciously made a choice to put the lives of American citizens at risk for what is, in effect, propaganda - to show the world (and satisfy his domestic liberal base) that American justice is a superior system, or, in the words of the Times, KSM will be “…tried in a fashion that will not further erode American justice or shame Americans.”

I’ll believe that when I see it. This trial has all the potential to “further erode American justice and shame Americans.” Legal circuses usually have that effect.

My latest is up at Pajamas Media about the conservative insurgency in NY23 that appears about ready to succeed in handing Doug Hoffman an unexpected victory.

A sample:

What has happened in NY-23 is that the newly empowered conservative base decided the national party had gone a candidate too far in choosing liberal Republican Scozzafava to represent them and decided on their own to adopt third-party candidate Doug Hoffman, while telling the GOP establishment to take a hike.

Why the national party believed this colorless career politician who supports gay marriage and would have voted for the stimulus bill represented Republican principles, much less conservative ones, will remain a mystery. Dan Riehl has uncovered some information that former GOP Congressman Tom Reynolds may have played a large role in choosing Scozzafava, but that only muddies the waters even further. Didn’t those numbskulls at the RNC and the NRCC even bother to check this woman’s credentials before giving her stacks of cash donated by good conservatives?

It may be understandable that they would choose a pro-choice woman to run in New York state, although the man the special election is replacing who served eight terms representing that district, John McHugh, was pro-life down the line. But pro-gay marriage? Where did that come from? And it should go without saying that Scozzafava’s support for the stimulus bill would have made her a pariah in the House Republican caucus since no other GOP congressman supported it.

All of this was known to the national party before they shepherded her choice through the selection process (rammed it through might be a better way to describe what happened). Also known to the GOP elites was the wave of discontent building beyond the beltway via the tea parties and the spectacular success of Glenn Beck, who has ridden the wave to fame and fortune.

And yet, still believing they were in total control, they proceeded as if the protests at health care town halls, the 9/12 phenomenon, and the tremendous grassroots energy those events unleashed didn’t matter. Or perhaps they believed they would be able to co-opt and use all that enthusiasm for their own purposes so they could continue with business as usual. Whatever they were thinking, they blindly allowed an old crony (Reynolds used to run the NRCC), to have his way in choosing a candidate that even Nelson Rockefeller might have had to swallow hard to support.

Hoffman, by the way, is not much more conservative than Scozzafava if you examine their positions on the issues. Dede’s problem was that she served 10 years in the Assembly and had a string of votes that she could be attacked for. But Hoffman is no wild eyed “Stalinist” as Frank Rich seems to think:

The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom has what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true.

The New York fracas was ignited by the routine decision of 11 local Republican county chairmen to anoint an assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava, as their party’s nominee for the vacant seat. The 23rd is in safe Republican territory that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in decades. And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed from orthodoxy on social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) and endorsed the Obama stimulus package. To the right’s Jacobins, that’s cause to send her to the guillotine.

Speaking as one who has been sent to the guillotine myself by those same Jacobians, Rich is full of it. Scozzafava was foisted on the district by NY state GOP leaders and especially former Rep. Tom Reynolds (former head of the NRCC as well) who decided one of his proteges should be the nominee. And while there is certainly a lot of anger that the establishment wanted to cram a pro-gay marriage candidate down their throat (a position not even mainstream in the Democratic party), the real rebellion in NY23 centers on the perception that despite the previous month’s activism, the party and the establishment wasn’t listening or “getting it.”

And Dede’s endorsement of Porkulus when not one single GOP congressman voted for it says volumes as well. In short, this cram down by party elites at a time when tea party activists had singlehandedly delayed Obamacare and became the only true organized resistance to the president’s agenda, smacked of disrespect by the GOP leadership who were benefiting from their activism.

I have written extensively about the dangers of this populist wave, and how it could easily become, if not as radical as Rich believes in his overactive imagination, then certainly a detriment to conservatism and GOP hopes in 2010. But the race in NY23 shows that there’s nothing for it now, the base has been empowered and the wave is on the move. My fear is that all this enthusiasm and resentment, and fear will be channeled into unproductive avenues and result in a lost opportunity in 2010.

Andrew Sullivan:

No one knows what might happen now. For the insurgents, it means a scalp they will surely use to purge the GOP of any further dissidence. But the insurgents were also backed by the establishment, including Tim Pawlenty, who’s supposed to be the reasonable center.

What we’re seeing, I suspect, is an almost classic example of a political party becoming more ideological after its defeat at the polls. in order for that ideology to win, they will also have to portray the Obama administration as so far to the left that voters have no choice but to back the Poujadists waiting in the wings. And that, of course, is what they’re doing. There is a method to the Ailes-Drudge-Cheney-Rove denialism. They create reality, remember?

From the mindset of an ideologically purist base - where a moderate Republican in New York state is a “radical leftist” - this makes sense. But for all those outside the 20 percent self-identified Republican base, it looks like a mix of a purge and a clusterfuck. If Hoffman wins, and is then embraced by the GOP establishment, you have a recipe for a real nutroots take-over. This blood in the water will bring on more and more and deadlier and deadlier sharks.

Scozzafava was no “radical leftist” as I point out here. No one who gets the endorsement of the NRA can, by any stretch of the imagination, be termed a “radical leftist.” And someone who opposes cap and trade, Obamacare, and much of the Obama agenda cannot be considered much of a leftist. Her support of card check is a natural given the number of union voters in the district which speaks more of her bowing to practical political realities rather than any deep, leftist ideological commitment.

And the danger, as I have constantly harped upon, is that the calcification of views by the base on issues will become so excessively driven by ideology and partisanship, that unless a candidate is marching in nearly 100% lockstep with them, they will be branded “Marxists” by Beck and “liberals” or “radical leftists” by everyone else.

But as I point out in my PJM piece, Andrew is wrong to conclude that this presages some kind of mass takeover by the far right. The circumstances in NY23 created a perfect storm for the bast that is very unlikely to be repeated in other congressional districts. If the base puts up primary challengers to those they consider insufficiently pure, the normal equilibrium of politics will take over and incumbency, money, and name recognition will overwhelm just about any challenge to the supremacy of the party establishment. In other words, if the conservative base thinks that NY23 is some kind of harbinger for the future, they will be royally disappointed.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t cheer them on in NY23. An establishment that gets too comfortable is no good to anyone. And the message I like being sent from this race is that putting up good, reasonable conservatives like Hoffman for office is usually better than the alternative.

Is Fox News a “real” news organization? Surely you joke (and don’t call me Shirley.)

If the definition of a news organization is to disseminate information to the American people in a fair and balanced manner, Fox don’t cut it.

And if you think the network that fact checked an SNL comedy skit cuts it, you’re a joke.

Or if you think the network that had an on air discussion between one of its anchors and a guest about whether Dick Cheney is mentally stable cuts it as a “real” news network, I wonder how ignorant you can be.

Or if you think the network whose news director said in a memo, “”We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn’t mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides ‘equally’ accountable when the facts don’t warrant that…” during the 2004 election cuts it as a “real” news network, you need to get your head out of your ass.

I could keep going but I have limited time today. The point is simple, obvious, and remarkably clear to anyone not so wrapped up in their own partisan personae that they are blinded to the truth.

There is no such thing as a “fair and balanced” media organization. The idea that any network on TV today does not push a partisan agenda for one side or the other is laughable.

Does Fox pursue a partisan agenda more vigorously than others? Like to see a study on that but my guess would probably be yes they do. So congratu-f**king-lations CNN and MSNBC; you aren’t quite as bad as Fox.

Is that what the left is hanging its hat on in this case? That CNN and other partisan Democratic networks aren’t as bad as Fox?

Or maybe they believe that the partisan Democratic networks are perfectly unbiased, balanced, and give the straight dope on conservatives and Republicans?

Holy Jesus nobody can be that stupid.

Anyone dumb enough to get all their news from Fox deserves to see the world only through a conservative Republican prism Just as anyone dumb enough to watch only Democratic partisan networks deserves a similar fate.

I know what the partisans are lining up to say; “Yeah, but Fox promoted the tea parties, and did all sorts of other poopy stuff that makes them more than partisan - they are an arm of the Republican party.”

OK - ya got me. Fox is worse than CNN and MSNBC, and CBS, NBC, ABC, and all the print media put together. Happy? Good.

What’s the point? What, you think you’re going to shut them down? You think they’re going to bleed viewers? You think they’re going to reduce their influence one iota with the people who they are already influencing?

This entire attack is an exercise in preening, self indulgent, intellectual and cultural elitism. You believe the rubes are too stupid to think for themselves so, in your infinite wisdom (and infinite capacity to fool yourselves) you will show them the way.

Get real. And get off it. If you don’t like it, don’t watch. And telling someone else what they should be watching is so arrogant I wouldn’t be surprised if you think so highly of yourself that you make constant attempts at auto-fellatio. (If you discover how, drop me a note.)

If you think this is an attempt to “marginalize” Fox with other “real news” (Ha!) outlets, I would question your sanity. Get a clue: Other news outlets already marginalize Fox. And look how well that has played out.

No, the real issue isn’t that the Democrats and the left is attacking Fox. The issue is the White House going after the network hammer and tongs.

This seems more like pique than policy. Just what is it they expect to accomplish? Yank their FCC license? That Nixonian threat would no doubt cheer the left while leaving them completely unaware of the monumental irony inherent in their desire.

Allah thinks it’s “containment” they’re after - a bid to make sure no stories on Fox “crossover” into “legitimate” media. But few are crossing over now. Besides, the tone of coverage on the other partisan networks is still pleasant enough towards the administration, that you wonder why they’re so worried.

And unfortunately for the White House, they are forgetting one teeny, tiny little detail in their splendid little war; the internet and talk radio are perfectly capable of driving any story compelling enough into the mainstream. That’s why this entire campaign seems more personal than political. If Obama wants to play King Canute and command the tides not roll in, he is welcome to try. But stories that are damaging to his administration - if they are factually accurate and juicy enough - are going to be covered by everybody anyway.

Unless this is an attempt to intimidate the entire media universe into reporting only happy talk stuff. But I doubt that. I could never see the White House going after CNN like this no matter what they did. And CNN knows it. So do the rest of them.

No, this is definitely personal. And a little weird, don’t you think? If there’s nothing really to gain, and if it’s not going to matter to Fox in their coverage (it won’t), I come full circle and ask why?

It has certainly energized the base. Liberals are swooning in ecstasy. Media Matters is even coordinating with the White House in their effort to…what? Silence Fox? Bring them down? Change their coverage?

I don’t get it.

As far as this being, “unprecedented,” Cole takes care of that meme. It didn’t start with Bush either, of course. Since Carter, the White House has become more and more aggressive with the media in trying to reward friends, punish foes, and shape the news to their liking. Obama has just taken the next logical step. In the process, they have totally emasculated the White House press corps, reducing them to errand persons who do little more than read from administration handouts and repeat administration spin from their “sources.”

No, there is no rhyme nor reason to this attack. It may, in fact, energize conservatives as much as it is pleasing the left. The administration has also succeeded in generating a little sympathy for Fox among those “real” news outlets. Perhaps they recognize their own vulnerability for not being a “legitimate” news organization under the next GOP administration.

If there’s one thing about Washington that is perpetually true - What goes around, comes around.

I am in something of a “Lamenting Mood” lately, as I have examined health care reform from the standpoint that it could be better, global warming from the standpoint that it should be less political, and my recent series on intellectual conservatism from the standpoint that it should be, well, more intellectual.

Now comes a truly excellent lament from the pen of Chilton Williamson, first appearing in a 2006 issue of The American Conservative, available today on their website. He writes that we Americans are a bunch of “Philistines” as far as our intellectual life is concerned because we have lost our independence of thought and have given in to a kind of “ideological pragmatism” that is shallow and dishonest.

What makes this article both brilliant and prescient is that he describes to a “T” modern day public intellectuals and how being a slave to conformist thought may make one popular and wealthy, but hardly serves the great cause of “Truth:”

There never was a time in all of history when the reward for propagating one opinion was not greater than that bestowed for disseminating its opposite, when currying favor did not pay off better than ignoring or defying it, when catering to majority taste and sentiment failed to get you further than appealing to minority and private sensibilities, when prostrating yourself before the Great Lie was not, in the worldly sense, a far better bet than standing up for Truth—an act which, in previous times as now, could be positively fatal. That is how the world was, is, and ever shall be.

His diagnosis will be very recognizable to those who read this site, and others like it, where the writer makes an effort to eschew popular themes and attempt - however pitifully in my case - to be honest with oneself regarding their own beliefs and thoughts:

The new, bantam-grade eggheads have been effectively conditioned to reject both the message and the messenger whenever and wherever they fail to match exactly with every received expectation and preconception. For this reason, the pressures exerted upon serious men and women of intellect to conform to the demands made upon them are simply terrific.

Partisans in the so-called Culture War have been insisting for a quarter-century now that every intellectual choose his side, declare himself for Progress or Reaction, Enlightenment or Ignorance, Humanity or Inhumanity, Superstition or Religion, the Glorious Future or the Benighted Past, Freedom or Slavery. In this war, neutrality on the part of any member of the intellectual class has become intolerable. What is more, a general acceptance of the hoary motto of the Left—“Everything is political!”—has resulted in the translation of the cultural conflict into partisan political warfare, setting Democrat against Republican, Blue State against Red State, no matter that the margin of disagreement between them is often very slight, the opposing sides having more in common than not owing to shared fundamental principles underlying the modern project. Society is riven by apocalyptic civil war (so the argument runs), the Forces for Good being pitted once and for all against the Forces of Evil. And so, quaint old rules regulating public discourse in the high bourgeois era, and still quainter standards of thought, logic, knowledge, and truth developed from classical times, are not irrelevant only, they are positively subversive of the war effort.

I don’t think I’ve ever read more insightful thoughts on our political discourse - where objective “truth” is marginalized and, “subversive” to the effort to tear down, demonize, and grind to powder the other side.

Think Coulter. Or Limbaugh. Or Olbermann? Or any of the pop conservatives, or jelly bean liberals who spout exactly what their audience expects - exactly what they want to hear. No deviation is possible without a fall from grace. No independent thinking allowed lest it contaminate the masses they reach and threaten their very livelihood.

Could Obermann get away with saying anything nice at all about the right? Would Beck remain as popular if he began to point out areas of agreement with Obama? Occasional forays into this kind of apostasy would probably be tolerated, but not after stern warnings from the Keepers of the True Faith on the internet and out in Punditland.

So what are the consequences to those who refuse the inducements offered by adherence to dishonesty?

The modern intellectual is encouraged to abandon and dishonor his true metier by temptations of the negative as well as of the positive sort. Either way, they are formidable inducements. On the one hand, there is the nearly certain prospect that the determination to tell the truth as he sees it, always and everywhere, will lose him close and important friends, alienate powerful people, deprive him of influence, put a luxurious and even, perhaps, comfortable life beyond his means, and end by making him a pariah among his fellow men.

For this, think Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, David Frum, and a host of others who make an effort to write honestly about conservatism, about politics and culture - about the world as they see it, regardless of whether their thinking measures up to what everyone expects. While all of the above make a fairly good living, just think of the riches and influence that would be theirs if they were to go the Coulter, or Hannity route? As it is, these conservatives are “pariahs” among many of their fellows, and denied a place of influence at the table.

But suppose they were to abandon any claim to honesty and begin to pander?

On the other, there is the only somewhat less certain chance that a readiness to tell the truth as the world sees it —or wants it seen—will win him fortune, fame, praise, intimacy with the rich and powerful, and, very likely, a degree of power itself. Never have the rewards inherent in the intellectual life loomed so stupendously; never has the failure to acquire them appeared so disappointing and ignominious. Why, in a world that so frankly and shamelessly believes in nothing beyond success, should the man of intellect squander his life in defense of that something in which no one but ignoramuses and hypocrites professes to believe and that has only scorn, contempt, impotence, and relative poverty to offer as reward?

Is it right to accuse cotton candy conservatives like Hannity, or helium liberals like Olbermann of selling out? Damn straight. If they have not, then why do they never seem to deviate from the ideological “truth” espoused by those who are making them rich? Both those gentlemen have reached the apex of the ideological ziggurat and are balanced precariously at the top, knowing that deviation from the “norm” is akin to professional suicide.

This is also part of the phenomenon of having to constantly outdo oneself in outrageous statements and behavior almost on a daily basis in order to maintain one’s position at the top of the pyramid; more hate, more nastiness, more strawmen arguments, more hyperbole is necessary to keep the rabid, slavering “Philistines” who tune in to hear exactly what they want to hear from going elsewhere for their ideological reinforcement.

Finally, Williamson laments the lot of those who seek “Truth and Beauty” instead of wallowing in pseudo-intellectualism:

The pseudo-intellectual, the pandering entertainer passing himself off as an artist, like the rich man gets his reward on earth. We need not concern ourselves here with him. Far more dangerous than temptation to the man of genuine intellect is the threat of demoralization the modern world offers him. Though there is of course no way of knowing, it seems unlikely that even the staunchest and most loyal devotee of Truth and Beauty is utterly impervious to the danger, which implies a further temptation of its own: the fatal despair that produces a sense of intellectual, artistic, and moral failure, the suspicion that one has accomplished nothing, that one has thrown one’s life away and is thereby guilty of mortal sin. The temptation is as natural as it is tragical. It must be resisted, and there is one way, and only one, to do it. That is for the conscientious intellectual to make a serious examination, not of himself alone, but of the nature and meaning of the pursuit to which he has been called.

Been there, done that, although while I have made it plain that the “examined life” is a goal worth pursuing, the thought of exploring the “nature and meaning” of my writing has escaped me. I may be a navel gazer but I stop short of looking for the lint.

I see some of me in this essay, but let me hasten to reiterate that I do not see myself as an intellectual. Williamson solves that dilemma for me by referring to “intellectual workers” who toil in the field of ideas. That’s close enough to what my “calling” may be that I’ll accept that as an identifier.

As luck (or Karma) would have it, Conor Freidersdorf writes along a similar vein here. He bemoans the state of affairs in our commentariat where thoughtfulness is seen as newsworthy, as he comments on a NY Observer article describing a forum where Ross Douthat experienced, according to the reporter, an “uncomfortable moment” when asked a difficult question:

I mean, really? That’s your lead? A guy on a panel was “uncomfortable” for “a moment”? Call Drudge and cue the siren! What kind of weird place have we reached when it’s news that a guy, being peppered with the most difficult questions a roomful of smart people can muster, once during a session displays a moment of discomfort? I’ll tell you what kind. We’ve reached a place where a stunning number of folks you see commenting on television or other public venues care so little about the substance of what they’re saying that even when they and everyone else knows their words are utter idiocy, they still refrain from displaying actual discomfort, because to them it’s all a game, unconnected to any sense that words have consequences, or that integrity is partly a matter of challenging one’s own own ideas out of a lingering sense that commenting on public affairs confers some responsibility, and that it is shameful to frivolously and lightly proffer arguments that one isn’t able to defend.

Only a society that long ago reached that place has gossip sheets writing excited leads about a polished speaker feeling a moment of discomfort when challenged with a difficult question, one that is causing him intellectual ferment. Why look, honey, that man is grappling with his thoughts! Let’s all laugh at his quaint display of intellectual honesty! This is particularly noteworthy because, as The Observer makes clear, after that shocking moment of discomfort, Mr. Douthat gathered his thoughts and cogently addressed the subject at hand.

A society that values intellectual honesty, thoughtfulness, independence, and rigorous self examination would not reward the Coulter’s, the Olbermann’s, the Hannity’s, or the Kos’s by setting them up as the ideal of intellectual attainment to be feted as legitimate doyens of our politics and culture. But that is the world as we find it, and we must embrace it or, as Williamson suggests, offend the sensibilities of the Philistines and toil in the outer darkness, always on the fringe, a stranger in a strange land.

Glad I don’t have to make the choice. The world will not rise or fall by what I write here. I only have to please myself, trying to be true to my beliefs as much as my character and humanity will allow.

Sure would nice to be popular, though…

No, Limbaugh is no racist. He’s a blowhard. He’s a conservative poseur. He’s a racial provocateur. He’s a rabble rousing polemicist.

But Rush, God love him, would find no advantage to being a racist and hence, doesn’t even try to play one on the radio. In fact, it is amusing that as always, Limbaugh knows exactly what buttons to push that sends his enemies into orbit.

Now, it is apparent his foes have gone a smear too far and actually invented some “Rushisms” out of whole cloth - with predictable results, as Limbaugh has been able to use the lies about him to both instruct his listeners in media bias (you’d think after 20 years his audience would get it), as well as generate sympathy from people like me who can’t stand him but hate the rank dishonesty and evocation of nauseating racial politics of some on the left even more.

But the real kicker in this brouhaha over Limbaugh’s purported effort to become an NFL owner is the uproariously funny spectacle of NFL owners and players solemnly opining on Limbaugh’s supposed divisive words and bad behavior.

When did the NFL become the gold standard of tolerance and diversity? And since when did the NFL Players Association and its nearly 200 members who have been charged with felonies in the last decade become the arbiter of moral wholesomeness?

The National Football League was the last major professional sports organization to hire a black coach. Art Shell was hired in 1988 to coach the Oakland Raiders. It took them 4 years to hire a second - Dennis Green of the Vikings. All told, there have been 10 African American coaches in the entire history of the league. That compares to 49 black coaches in NBA history and 22 in Major League baseball.

And these guys are worried about Limbaugh?

The NBA and pro baseball had programs in place to seek out minority hires in management about a decade before the NFL even broke the color barrier. It took the league another decade to reluctantly adopt a policy to promote minorities on the field. It was ordered that any head coaching vacancy would require at least one minority candidate to be interviewed. Predictably, there were loud complaints that the whole policy was a dog and pony show because the number of black head coaches never increased.

It was left to individual do gooders - Bill Walsh was prominent in the movement to increase minority hires - to take it upon themselves to do something about this embarrassingly shameful situation. With no help from the owners, black assistant coaches began to slowly fill the ranks of NFL teams and got their shots at the big chair.

So when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell can actually face the cameras with a straight face and say something like this, my hypocrisy meter starts going off the scale:

Commissioner Roger Goodell said here Tuesday that it would be inappropriate for the owner of an NFL franchise to make the sort of controversial statements attributed in the past to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

“I’ve said many times before we’re all held to a high standard here, and I think divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about,” Goodell said at an NFL owners’ meeting. “I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL, absolutely not.”

Limbaugh has acknowledged being part of a group bidding for the St. Louis Rams.

Goodell and several owners said Tuesday that the Rams’ sale process is in its early stages and the league is far from considering a potential bid by Limbaugh and Dave Checketts, the chairman of hockey’s St. Louis Blues.

But any proposed franchise sale would have to be approved by three-quarters of the owners, and Goodell’s comments signaled that it perhaps would be unlikely that Limbaugh’s bid would be ratified by the other teams.

“Divisive comments?” How about Falcons owner Arthur Blank on the prospects for the return of convicted dog torturer Michael Vick?

“If Michael makes a mistake and eats fried chicken and French fries in prison every day and comes out at 250 pounds, he’s not going to be able to play football,” Blank said. “

Now, anyone in public life who utters the words “fried chicken” as it relates to a black man is usually skewered over an open spit. The racialists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton scream bloody murder. But because no one wanted to be in the position of defending the monster Vick, Blank got something of a pass. (As well he should have.)

Well, since he’s part of the club already, Blank doesn’t get called on the carpet. But the fact remains that only liberal universities have a worse record at hiring African American coaches. As of today, there are exactly 4 major college coaches out of 119 schools.

And what of the professional sports criminal element? I’m speaking of the NFL players - 471 and counting have been arrested since 2000. For any of them to open their mouths about Rush Limbaugh and judge him is too absurd for words. The resistance by the NFL Players Association to ferreting out illegal steroid and other drug use puts them in no position to be commenting about anyone’s morals.

Late word is that Limbaugh will apparently be dropped from the Checketts group. Just as well. Limbaugh may very well have embarrassed the league at some point as he pushes the envelope of outrageousness ever farther in search of ratings and ad revenue. But for the hypocrites in the NFL to worry about Limbaugh’s racial agitation when their own sorry ass record is so profoundly disturbing, it gives a whole new meaning to the “pot-kettle” analogy.

There are several commentators who are tossing around the idea that this situation is so outrageous (or simply undeserved at this point) that the president should humbly decline to accept the prize.

I don’t think that is realistic, but some of the reasons given resonate.

On the right, Yuval Levin:

The prize, and the question, also risk awakening with a vengeance the notorious good sense of the American public, and its democratic intolerance for pompous arrogance and nonsense. In its fatigue with Republicans, and its unease with John McCain’s erratic and empty campaign, the voting public gave Obama a comfortable victory last year, but only the young and the silly really went in for the whole cult of personality. It has seemed at several telling moments this year, however, as though Obama himself and his circle were among those that believed it all, and remain so: Their enormous faith in the power of Obama as a messenger and presence, the sense that the world would change its attitude about America simply because he was there, the endless stream of first person pronouns. We might have thought the falling poll ratings would check this attitude somewhat, but Obama’s words and deeds — the Olympics fiasco, for instance — suggest otherwise. Now this odd moment could force the administration to face the matter one way or another. It compels all reasonably sensible people to say “come on, really?!” and it challenges Obama and his circle to assure the country that they are not delusional. It’s hard to know quite what the right response would be, but it would probably require a self-effacing show of humility (including declining the prize) that our president may not even be able to fake, let alone actually exhibit. It is a dangerous thing for a president to become a joke, and between his Olympic Committee trip and this peculiar honor, he’s getting there fast, and in a way that could do him real harm.

I wonder if any commentator, anywhere on the political spectrum, will offer a genuine straight-faced defense or case for this prize. Whoever does will no-doubt win next year’s Nobel Prize for literature.

Actually, a survey by NBI just came out that showed America being the most admired country in the world again. I have no doubt that is the direct result of President Obama being elected - as well as his humble approach to foreign policy that, by his own admission, seeks to minimize the power of his own country.

But Yuval is on to something. The reaction is almost universally one of astonishment - at least among ordinary people. All but the most mindless Obamabots are surprised and not a little puzzled. There is gladness on the left, but it is not universal nor is it uncritical of the committee.

John Dickerson of Slate:

Having worked at Time magazine when it occasionally named a Person of the Year who evoked a similar “Huh?” reaction, I recognize this language: It the sound of words groaning for a rationale. The committee can, of course, pick whomever it wants. But in his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

“Shall have done,” seems a tricky piece of language to write around. This makes the committee’s statement sounds more like a wish list. It’s not that Obama has done nothing. It’s that so much about his presidency is preliminary. (I’m not counting the beer summit.) Other recipients—Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel, and Lech Walesa—seem more aptly to hit the “have done” mark. Others who might not be household names, like Muhammad Yunus, make sense on inspection.

On the other hand, Obama may fit the bill more than some other recipients. At least he hasn’t actively been engaged in making warfare, as were previous recipients Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat. Then again, Obama is considering whether to send more troops into Afghanistan, one of America’s two wars.

That is disingenuous by Dickerson. Obama has personally ordered drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that have killed dozens if not hundreds of civilians. As the Nobel Committee was making up his mind, the president has been contemplating sending more troops to Afghanistan. There is a chance that in the coming months, we will have to reengage in Iraq to some degree.

And is bombing Iran completely off the table?

But even Dickerson recognizes the fact that there is nothing in particular that the president has accomplished that merits this high honor. And comparison to other winners certainly falls flat, doesn’t it?

This may sound overly harsh, but there are people who have risked their lives for peace, have stood up to the same thugs and tyrants that Obama is embracing, who have gone into war zones and sought to mediate conflicts, and who have, with great courage, stood up against the forces of darkness in order to bring light to the innocent.

And Obama is elevated above these? Here’s a small sampling of obviously more deserving people from Mary Katherine Ham at the Weekly Standard:

Sima Samar, women’s rights activist in Afghanistan: “With dogged persistence and at great personal risk, she kept her schools and clinics open in Afghanistan even during the most repressive days of the Taliban regime, whose laws prohibited the education of girls past the age of eight. When the Taliban fell, Samar returned to Kabul and accepted the post of Minister for Women’s Affairs.”

Ingrid Betancourt: French-Colombian ex-hostage held for six years.

Handicap International and Cluster Munition Coalition: “These organizations are recognized for their consistently serious efforts to clean up cluster bombs, also known as land mines. Innocent civilians are regularly killed worldwide because the unseen bombs explode when stepped upon.”

“Hu Jia, a human rights activist and an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, who was sentenced last year to a three-and-a-half-year prison term for ‘inciting subversion of state power.’”

“Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China’s communist system. He now lives in the United States.”

“Dr. Denis Mukwege: Doctor, founder and head of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. He has dedicated his life to helping Congolese women and girls who are victims of gang rape and brutal sexual violence.”

Any one of these courageous individuals would have been a more inspirational choice than someone who talks a good game but has done nothing to back up his words at any risk to himself whatsoever.

Michael Binyon at the TimesOnline:

The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.

Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.

Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.

A rather harsh assessment but unless you are totally in the tank for the guy, it is difficult to argue with its conclusions. One thing that is arguable is the notion that this is causing “consternation” in many capitols. From what I can see, most governments are sending words of congratulations. How they really think may be another matter. But given how the president has now been encouraged in his program to de-emphasize American power and subsume our interests to those of other nations, I can’t see them being too full of “consternation” for Obama’s continued quest to downgrade our power and influence on the world stage.

The president will not turn the prize down. Nor do I think he should. He is being rewarded for the kind of foreign policy choices that sit well with a world that is enamored of gestures and atmospherics. This kind of foreign policy works very well - as long as no one challenges the comfortable illusions it represents.

There will come a time in the next 8 years when most of those congratulating the president’s weakening of American power and influence will have need of her strength. And when that day comes - as it always has given the history of the last 100 years - those in need of that strength are simply going to be Sh*t out of Luck.

UPDATE: IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS…

This is from Robert Naiman at Huffpo and is the first take I’ve read in support of the award that actually makes sense:

The Nobel Committee gave South African Bishop Desmond Tutu the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his leadership of efforts to abolish apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid wasn’t fully abolished in South Africa until 1994. The committee could have waited until after apartheid was abolished to say, “Well done!” But the point of the award was to help bring down apartheid by strengthening Bishop Tutu’s efforts. In particular, everyone knew that it was going to be much harder for the apartheid regime to crack down on Tutu after the Nobel Committee wrapped him in its protective cloak of world praise.

That’s what the Nobel Committee is trying to do for Obama now. It’s giving an award to encourage the change in world relations that Obama has promised, and to try to help shield Obama against his domestic adversaries.

Interesting that Mr. Naiman sees it as a plus that the Nobel Committee would see fit to interfere in our domestic politics. In fact, he seems downright satisfied that foreigners want to butt their noses into our business. (Wonder how he’d feel if they did something similar for a conservative Republican?)

Other than that, however, his analysis makes sense.