Right Wing Nut House

Yes, but is Glenn Beck good for the conservative movement?

After all, even if the man who seriously wondered whether the fasces symbol on the back of a 1917 dime meant that the US government under Wilson was promoting fascism is a little excitable, and, by his own admission, a “clown,” many rock ribbed conservatives seem to have adopted this paranoid waif as one of their own.

Peter Wehner believes that spells trouble for conservatives:

I say that because he seems to be more of a populist and libertarian than a conservative, more of a Perotista than a Reaganite. His interest in conspiracy theories is disquieting, as is his admiration for Ron Paul and his charges of American “imperialism.” (He is now talking about pulling troops out of Afghanistan, South Korea, Germany, and elsewhere.) Some of Beck’s statements—for example, that President Obama has a “deep-seated hatred for white people”–are quite unfair and not good for the country. His argument that there is very little difference between the two parties is silly, and his contempt for parties in general is anti-Burkean (Burke himself was a great champion of political parties). And then there is his sometimes bizarre behavior, from tearing up to screaming at his callers. Beck seems to be a roiling mix of fear, resentment, and anger—the antithesis of Ronald Reagan.

I understand that a political movement is a mansion with many rooms; the people who occupy them are involved in intellectual and policy work, in politics, and in polemics. Different people take on different roles. And certainly some of the things Beck has done on his program are fine and appropriate. But the role Glenn Beck is playing is harmful in its totality. My hunch is that he is a comet blazing across the media sky right now—and will soon flame out. Whether he does or not, he isn’t the face or disposition that should represent modern-day conservatism. At a time when we should aim for intellectual depth, for tough-minded and reasoned arguments, for good cheer and calm purpose, rather than erratic behavior, he is not the kind of figure conservatives should embrace or cheer on.

Wehner is about where I was on Beck 6 months ago - a superficial reading of the man based on his outrageousness rather than making a close examination of both his stagecraft and what he sincerely believes is his “philosophy.” Since then, I have tuned in several times in order to get a better feel for where he’s coming from.

It does no good to point out the dichotomies in Beck’s on-air personae - the rational mixed with the illogical and unreasonable - because the reality Beck has created for his legions of fans encompasses the whole smash of semi-serious critiques of Obama and liberals with a passionate, heartfelt objectivism that breeds an “us vs. them” universe taken to extremes where absolutely anything is possible. How many times have I seen Beck look right into the camera and refer to some outrageous exaggeration of what Obama and the Democrats are up to and say “This is part of their plan.”

I see this “government by conspiracy” theme repeated in comment threads across the internet, and while Beck is certainly not the only pundit to advance it, he seems to be the one getting the most mileage out of it. By making opposition to liberals a cause to “take back the country” from socialists and Marxists, Beck has drawn what amounts to a “Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory” that apes the worst of what Ron Paul supporters were advancing during the campaign last year. The rich and powerful are in league with Obama and the liberals to steal our money, turn the US into a Marxist state, and rig the system so they will remain in power indefinitely.

No doubt, Beck was right about Van Jones, ACORN, and the bunch gimlet eyed radicals Obama has been peppering the government with since he got into office. But, my children, this is not conspiracy; this is politics. Obama throwing sops to his radical base by tossing a few fellow travelers and pinkos into positions of marginal responsibility is hardly indicative of the International Communist Conspiracy (does it still exist?) making inroads into the highest levels of the US government. Nor is there any evidence that there is some kind of “plan” to turn us all into good little communists, or take over the American economy, or hand us over to al-Qaeda, or “destroy the country,” or enslave us in some kind of Obama-manufactured socialist paradise.

From what we’ve seen of this crew, they aren’t smart enough to pull something like that off. Jesus Lord, look at the problems they’re having getting health care reform passed. And these are the revolutionaries who are going to remake America into some kind of Marxist Utopia?

I will ask the same question of Beckites that I asked of liberals when Bush was president; how can someone be extraordinarily incompetent and stupid while at the same time demonstrate Machiavellian cleverness in amassing power to become a dictator? Paranoid thinking throws logic out the window and allows those afflicted with it to find it perfectly natural to believe in two obviously mutually exclusive concepts.

Why Beck’s following among conservatives? Basically, his rabid opposition to Obama and liberals tends to obscure the objectivist streak that runs through much of his more rational critiques of the left. I like Dan Riehl’s take:

Only a media that doesn’t know what one is, or is more interested in defining them to be what they want them to be, as opposed to what they really are, would mistake Glenn Beck for a conservative. He isn’t and never has been that, so far as I’m aware.

[...]

What he has always reminded me of most is Larry “Lonesome” Pines played by Andy Griffith in A Face In The Crowd. And, unfortunately, no, that one didn’t end very well for many of the people involved.

And that brings us to Beck’s stagecraft, and as Riehl points out, his resemblance to the manipulative, darkly cynical personality of Larry Pines. The homespun, down to earth charm that was the public face of Pines masked a coldly calculating mind that sought to turn his radio celebrity into political power. I’m not saying that Beck wants to run for office. He’s too smart for that. But his stunts - and perhaps some of his more outrageous, exaggerated claims about Obama and the left - are extremely effective drama, worthy of anything any Communist propagandist ever dreamed of.

But this goes to the heart of the Beckian phenomenon: Does he really believe everything he says? Or is he just cynically manipulating the fears of his mostly conservative audience, playing to their paranoia about Obama that is also being stoked by other talk show hosts on the right?

Time’s David Van Drehle isn’t sure of the answer himself:

No one has a better feeling for this mood, and no one exploits it as well, as Beck. He is the hottest thing in the political-rant racket, left or right. A gifted entrepreneur of angst in a white-hot market. A man with his ear uniquely tuned to the precise frequency at which anger, suspicion and the fear that no one’s listening all converge. On that frequency, Frankowski explained, “the thing I hear most is, People are scared.”

[...]

His fears are many — which is lucky for him, because Beck is responsible for filling multiple hours each day on radio and TV and webcast, plus hundreds of pages each year in his books, his online magazine and his newsletter. What’s this rich and talented man afraid of? He is afraid of one-world government, which will turn once proud America into another France. He is afraid that Obama “has a deep-seated hatred for white people” — which doesn’t mean, he hastens to add, that he actually thinks “Obama doesn’t like white people.” He is afraid that both Democrats and Republicans in Washington are deeply corrupt and that their corruption is spreading like a plague. He used to be afraid that hypocritical Republicans in the Bush Administration were killing capitalism and gutting liberty, but now he is afraid that all-too-sincere leftists in the Obama Administration are plotting the same. On a slow news day, Beck fears that the Rockefeller family installed communist and fascist symbols in the public artwork of Rockefeller Center. One of his Fox News Channel colleagues, Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck’s studio the “fear chamber.” Beck countered that he preferred “doom room.”

It might be accurate to say that Beck is dumb like a fox and doesn’t actually subscribe to half of what he proposes. That’s not the half I’m worried about. If he wants to manipulate the emotions of his emotionally overwrought audience by creating an alternate reality where any cockamamie dot connecting is possible, more power to him and American capitalism. If millions of Pet Rocks could be sold, it should be obvious, as the equally cynical H.L. Mencken once said, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

I would add to that the caveat “about some things.” And one of those things is an apparent weakness of ours that knows no ideological boundaries, but manifests itself in our desperate desire to believe things about the political opposition that is demonstrably untrue. Whether Beck taps that undercurrent of resentment and fear deliberately or whether he has had the good fortune to fall into his success, doesn’t matter. The effect is the same; mindless and distorted opposition that plays into the hands of our political enemies and makes rational discourse impossible.

Stacy McCain thinks this opposition to Beck by people like Wehner is based on “envy” due to Beck’s overwhelming success, and what he has referred to in the past as “careerist” impulses among some conservatives who seek to climb the ziggurat of power in Washington by trashing “the grass roots.”

The GOP establishment in Washington has a surfeit of such parasitical careerists, who think that the Republican Party is about them, and not about all those millions of grassroots people who are, in fact, the conservative movement.

Wehner’s attack on Beck is framed as if the problem is political or ideological, but in fact the problem is Wehner’s own envy and ambition, which poisons his soul. And we know where that kind of attitude leads.

I wonder how Stacy can glean “envy” from Wehner’s discourse - perhaps he has been vouchsafed an ability us lesser mortals have been denied. I know that if I were a religious man, I would hit my knees every night and thank the Lord that, as muddled as my thinking can be at times, I am saved from the affliction of illogic and paranoia from which Glenn Beck apparently suffers.

How success automatically makes one impervious to criticism, I have yet to figure out. And what it has to do with whether Beck is a manipulative cynic also escapes me. I guess Stacy is saying that because Beck is hugely successful, this is proof that he is a logical, reasoned, thoughtful man - or perhaps he’s merely “effective.” If that’s the case, then we have reached a point in our political discourse where instilling fear and loathing using wildly exaggerated, over the top charges of conspiracy on the part of the opposition is the best path to power.

Is there nothing wrong with that picture? For millions of conservatives, apparently not.

There is little doubt that the nation’s newspapers are in deep trouble. And not just a few rags here and there. The entire industry is in the process of going extinct with the exception of a few papers funded by individuals with very, very deep pockets and can absorb the millions in losses incurred by running a modern, metropolitan daily newspaper.

Why this is so, is a trickier question and not conducive to simple, one sentence answers. You can say the internet is killing the daily newspaper and that would be true, but not the whole story.

You can say blogs are killing newspapers and you would be indulging in wishful thinking. They have certainly affected newspapers but most bloggers need newspapers more than newspapers need blogs.

You can say political bias is killing newspapers and you would be picking nits. Bias in reporting only makes the political class angry. No one else really notices or cares.

You can say that the standard business model for the daily paper does not reflect the reality of the marketplace and you would be correct - except most papers have already tried to adapt to the internet age and are finding it very tough going.

The number one reason newspapers are dying is because they cannot compete in a rapidly changing information marketplace. The print editions are not as immediate as television. The web editions are hard to navigate and difficult to find the information for which you are looking. Advertising revenue for both is dropping as marketing whizzes use social networking sites and techniques to drive conversation about products and services that were once full page ads. The huge falloff in revenue from classified ads moving to websites like Craig’s List has also contributed to the decline.

People’s reading habits are changing. Audio books and Kindle are revolutionizing the way we read and web sites like Memeorandum make it a simple matter to pick out information that the reader feels is necessary to know or in which he is interested. Newspapers are becoming superfluous - an unwanted appendage that doesn’t fill any need except that of tradition and continuity.

Blogs and message boards do a better job of informing about sports, style, even business. Ditto for what used to be called “opinion journalism” and is now simply ranting, for the most part. Such opinion columnists don’t marshal arguments, illuminate options, and recommend a course of action. They have - with very few exceptions - become creative writers, trying to outdo blogs in their use of colorful invective and snarky sarcasm.

If Rupert Murdoch gets his way and readers are forced to pay for the privilege of accessing on-line newspaper content, it will only hasten their demise. The New York Times “firewall” experiment proves that. Not enough people are willing to pay to read opinion - even if they are usually in agreement with the columnist. They can get pretty much the same thing for free on blogs. And sometimes, the writing and thinking is superior to that which is found at newspapers, online or otherwise.

That leaves paying for “news” stories. This presupposes that no one will step in and offer for free what these newspapers want to charge money for. The Army of Davids who would eagerly dive into the void and “report” on various news stories using what they discover on local blogs, YouTube, or even Twitter would doom to failure any attempt for newspapers to alter their revenue plans to include charging for online access - even if it’s only a “nominal” fee.

I love newspapers - both online and dead tree. But they belong to another age, much like the elegance of a horse drawn carriage or the friendliness of a Mom and Pop grocery store. What exactly is it that newspapers do that would justify their continued existence?

“Investigative” reporting? Most newspapers don’t do that anymore - too expensive. And even if a paper has an investigative reporting department, is that reason enough to pay for the privilege of access when these stories make up such a small percentage of news reported during the course of a year?

“In-depth” analysis of issues? Anyone who is interested in an issue or a story can find a dozen websites ranging from think tanks to university professors who would do an equally good job of giving context, history, and analysis to any issue.

There are niche areas where newspapers could thrive. I can see an ESPN or IDB, or Wall Street Journal remaining viable as long as their price for access was reasonable and commensurate with the value of the content. Ditto for websites that report on fashion, or movies, or any other department found in daily newspapers. I wouldn’t doubt it if there weren’t already websites that contain obituaries. Many would pay for access there too.

But why pay to read about New York sports teams in the New York Times? If you’re from New York, you could get equally good coverage and analysis on any of a dozen blogs. Sports talk radio would give the sports fan access to the same news with the bonus of it being free.

As long as newspapers were the gatekeepers for information and commanded the attention of the masses, they could charge advertisers enough money to make a profit. But with such diluted information streams coming from all points, and advertisers finding alternatives that are cheaper and actually promise to promote their products better, newspapers have become entities in search of a mission. They are casting about desperately, trying to manufacture reasons to remain relevant. And no one - not readers or advertisers - is buying it.

Nothing I’ve written so far is news to anyone who follows the newspaper industry. Nor is the idea that somehow, the government must step in and “help” newspapers survive. Direct subsidies would be ridiculous. The government should not be in the business of subsidizing opinion. The slippery slope there is so obvious a 3 year old could see it.

But what about indirect subsidies in the form of tax breaks for newspapers that reorganize themselves into non profit organizations? The Hill reports:

The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.

“I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin’s Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had played down the possibility of government assistance for news organizations, which have been hit by an economic downturn and dwindling ad revenue.

In early May, Gibbs said that while he hadn’t asked the president specifically about bailout options for newspapers, “I don’t know what, in all honesty, government can do about it.”

Obama said that good journalism is “critical to the health of our democracy,” but expressed concern toward growing tends in reporting — especially on political blogs, from which a groundswell of support for his campaign emerged during the presidential election.

“I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,” he said.

The president obviously doesn’t spend 10 hours a day on the internet like the rest of us. If he did, he would have known that there are many websites and blogs that already offer mostly unbiased analysis and fact based opinion. The idea that these qualities are solely the province of old school journalists found in the newsrooms of America is absurd.

Sadly, many on both the right and the left read only those blogs and websites that reflect their partisan tilt (this is less true on the left but there is still a very significant percentage of liberals who will read only liberal blogs.) It is not that the kind of information the president is talking about isn’t already available, it is that the number of people interested in non-partisan or less partisan reading is relatively small.

And perhaps the president would like to tell us how newspapers have promoted “mutual understanding?” Newspapers have historically promoted their own biased viewpoints, from Hearst to Ochs. Until relatively recently, newspapers were basically organs for one party or the other. Some still are.

If newspapers believe they can investigate corruption, fairly analyze politics and culture, and offer fact based opinion pieces that seek to inform rather than inflame, then by all means give them the tax breaks.

But you and I know that won’t happen. In fact, it is the profit motive that restrains newspapers from being too overtly biased in their reporting. Currently, newspapers must attract as many people as possible regardless of their political biases or party affiliation. If they were to go non-profit, what would be the incentive to be fair? There would be some, of course, who would respect the idea that they were in the business of informing their readers in as neutral a way possible of the issues and politics that are newsworthy. But such nobility would be even rarer than it is today. Without the incentive to make money, newspapers would de-evolve and revert to their past practice of being openly partisan or ideological. Remove the profit motive and you remove the one thing that governs content.

In the last 5 years, I may have read half a dozen dead tree newspapers. My reading habits have changed and the time spent perusing a newspaper could be better spent googling what I want to know. That’s the bottom line and I see no way that newspapers - online or traditional paper editions - will ever to be able to overcome the problem that the meteor has already struck Chicxulub and there is nothing they can do to save themselves from catastrophe.

A lot of things have happened this week that have entered the airy cavity sitting atop my neck and floated around waiting to be recognized as conscious thought.

I can imagine all these little snippets of inner dialogue waiting patiently in some line, bitching about how slow a goose I am at moving them from the dark of my subconscious where they effect my thinking in mysterious ways, to the light of consciousness where I can examine them, caress them, milk them for their illuminating properties.

It’s easy to allow emotion to crowd out valuable insights that appear from time to time. At best, we recognize through reflection that perhaps we shouldn’t have written this, or said that, or made a mistake in judgment when analyzing something else. You end up wishing you hadn’t snapped back at your spouse, or yelled at your kid, or dismissed a co-worker’s attempt to be friendly.

I could start a blog and fill it with such reflections without any trouble - as could most of you, I’m sure. Learning from our mistakes is the essence of being human - probably the major factor in the rise of Homo Sapiens. Don’t get too close to that mammoth or you won’t come home from the hunt. Going after a Saber Tooth cat alone is not a good idea if you want to pass your genes on to the next generation. Trial and error not only advanced human evolution, it forms the basis of modern science and has led to the astonishing outpouring of creative thought we see today in everything from computers to razor blades.

Some venues do not allow for such errors. Political blogging is one of them. As ideology is set in stone and cannot be changed or challenged on either the right and the left, variance with the established themes and theses is not only frowned upon but punished severely. Here, “getting it wrong” does not mean that you are necessarily “incorrect,” only that you are in disagreement with the vast majority who march in ideological lock step. Deviate from the shining path and you are cast out as an apostate.

No matter. I came to the conclusion years ago that I could try to be honest with myself and my beliefs, incurring the wrath and disapprobation of those who consider themselves guardians of the Ya-Ya Conservativehood by challenging the underlying assumptions of their excessive and blindered ideology; or toe the line, betray my true beliefs, and enjoy the warmth of fellowship found in their ever narrowing definition of the “true conservative” path.

Lest some believe I am nailing myself to a cross by wallowing in self pity and whining about conservatives - most anyway - not taking me seriously, allow me to disabuse you of that notion. I celebrate my freedom from conformity every fu**ing day. I will lord it over those who, when confronted with a new issue, a new attack, feel lost and alone until they are told by others how they must think, be it Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, or other “movement” leaders.

To be fair, most conservatives don’t really need to wait for the word coming down from on high. All they have to do is unthinkingly, uncritically, hold a mirror up to whatever the left is saying about an issue and simply reverse the image. That’s what the Limbaughs of the world do anyway. There’s no reason or rationale to it. That comes later - at least the rationale - as the right congratulates those whose “insights” are the most vitriolic and hateful.

The ideological screen through which most opinion on the right is washed has become internalized so that favorite themes regarding the left - unpatriotic, hate America, socialists, communists, liars, traitors - can be pulled off the shelf and slapped on to any “analysis” to make it conform to the “right thinking” brigades of hysterical paranoids who believe themselves guardians of Reagan’s legacy or, in extreme cases of delusional thinking, of conservatism itself.

(I hasten to add that there are exceptions to be found in the writings of some conservatives like Ed Morrissey, Allahpundit, Victor Davis Hanson, and several other independent thinkers on the right. But as a general rule, I believe my analysis stands.)

In this way, ideology at the expense of rational thought is celebrated and rewarded.

And yes, we find the exact same kind of irrational, nonsensical paranoia on the left. There is no difference. One is not worse than the other, except perhaps there is a bigger responsibility generally recognized throughout history for the majority to treat the minority with respect. But this hasn’t been true in American politics for decades so why bother discussing it?

Barack Obama, to his credit, said yesterday that opposition to his policies is not based on race, but on the fear of change:

In a number of interviews that will air in fuller form Sunday morning, the president also addressed the tone of a heated summer debate over health-care, and the contention of one former president that much of the criticism Obama faces is because he is black.

Some of the most heated opposition to the president’s initiatives are not racially motivated, Obama suggested in response to comments that former President Jimmy Carter had made earlier this week, but rather reflective of the turmoil that is common “when presidents are trying to bring about big changes.”

“Are there people out there who don’t like me because of race? - I’m sure there are,” Obama told CNN’s John King. “That’s not the overriding issue here.”

Instead, Obama maintained, it is concern about sweeping government change that has fueled much of the “passion.”

“It’s an argument that’s gone on for the history of this republic,” Obama told NBC News’ David Gregory. “Wbat’s the role of government?… This is not a new argument, and it always invokes passions.”

He is absolutely correct, of course. Not sure that “fear” is exactly the right word to describe what conservatives are feeling. Anyway, I am very glad he said this. But we must demand he go much farther in condemning the wild, out of control explosion of charges being made by his supporters that tar opposition to his policies as motivated solely by race. I realize this is very difficult for him to do because he benefits politically by this ridiculous, false, and hateful rhetoric coming from the left. But as long as his allies continue to deliberately, knowingly, and smugly raise the issue of race and use it as a political club, he will be seen as giving such deceitful arguments credence by the wink and the nudge.

In response to a comment from my brother Jim on my Mary Travers remembrance post, I tried to make the point that there are acceptable and unacceptable ways to engage in political combat, and they all boil down to this:

I joke about lefty folkies, of course - more playing to stereotype than reality. But we are of a generation that perhaps learned valuable lessons about civic disagreements and how they can truly lead to bloodshed unless we all remember that we are Americans who love our country and wish only the best for it. If only we could all start from that premise, I think a lot of the ugliness in our politics would be muted and we could get down to the business of truly addressing some of the problems facing the country today.

Does believing this make me any less passionate in my opposition to what I see are the wrongheaded, dangerous polices and politics of Barack Obama? Does not calling the president a Communist or Marxist disqualify my opinions because they are not hateful enough?

To some, yes. And those who cannot see what this kind of rigid, uncritical, self-defeating thinking is doing to our country - both right and left - may live to see the day where useful dialogue and reasoned debate become an impossibility and our country dissolves into weak, divided, quarreling bunch of ideologues who prevent us from facing vital challenges both at home and abroad.

There seems to be a little overreaction to President Obama’s change in policy with regard to missile defense in Europe.

First, it is apparent there should have been better preparation before just dropping this in the Poles and the Czech’s laps. While there had been talk for months about altering the deal that would have set up radar and interceptors in both those countries, the reversal yesterday apparently caught the two nations nearly flatfooted:

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed today that he declined last night to take a call from the U.S. informing him of the decision to scrap planned missile-defense bases in his country.

Two U.S.-based sources close to the Polish government said Thursday that Tusk also rejected a call from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — on the grounds that, as the head of the government, he should speak to the president.

“Hillary called — and the reason he turned it down was because of protocol,” said a source.

Questions about the exchanges surfaced in the Polish press after Obama reached the Czech prime minister late last night to warn of the policy change, but did not speak to the Pole until this morning. And the static offers a glimpse at the distress beneath the diplomatic facade being offered by Eastern European leaders.

The interceptors will be replaced with upgraded Patriot-type missile batteries (SM-3) stationed aboard ships originally and then deployed on the ground - possibly in Poland and the Czech Republic anyway.

Both President Tusk and Prime Minister Klaus put their political hides on the line, bending over backward to accommodate Washington’s plans for missile defense on the continent. To cut their legs from underneath them no doubt didn’t sit well with either man.

And this unilateral sop to Russia smacks of appeasement. Every move we make to strengthen the security of former USSR states is met with blustering from Putin. Now the Russian strong man has gotten what he wanted without giving up anything at all in return.

It seems to me that in Iran, Venezuela, and now Russia, the president seems perfectly willing to make these unilateral gestures without asking for anything as a quid pro quo. No doubt it pleases our adversaries that they receive these gifts without having to reciprocate. But it begs the question of why this eagerness to throw away perfectly good bargaining chips?

I understand it is necessary at times to make these kinds of unilateral moves but with Obama, it seems to be a habit - and a bad habit at that. In his eagerness to begin dialogue with these states, he apparently feels that we must atone for our former enmity by making unilateral gestures of “goodwill” that will encourage talks. There are other, smaller and less important things we can give up rather than something like Missile defense that is roiling the capitols of Europe as I write this, or as with Iran, a virtual guarantee that we will not attack.

As for the policy change itself, I am not convinced it is a catastrophe or anything close. At Arms Control Wonk, Jeffrey Lewis links to an explanation for the change by Gates:

Since [2006], two important developments have prompted a reassessment of our approach in Europe. First, a change in our intelligence community’s 2006 view of the Iranian threat: The intelligence community now assesses that the threat from Iran’s short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, such as the Shahab-3, is developing more rapidly than previously projected. This poses an increased and more immediate threat to our forces on the European continent, as well as to our allies.

On the other hand, our intelligence assessment also now assesses that the threat of potential Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities has been slower to develop than was estimated in 2006.

The second development relates to our technology. Over the last few years, we have made great strides with missile defense, particularly in our ability to counter short-and-medium-range missiles. We now have proven capabilities to intercept these ballistic missiles with land-and-sea-based interceptors supported by much-improved sensors.

These capabilities offer a variety of options to detect, track and shoot down enemy missiles. This allows us to deploy a distributive sensor network rather than a single fixed site, like the kind slated for the Czech Republic, enabling greater survivability and adaptability.

We have the right system being deployed that matches the threat. That should be the bottom line, shouldn’t it? I see the strategic implications of the Bush plan but are those considerations paramount? Or is the whole idea of missile defense really just for show?

Lewis has an excellent backgrounder on the development of the Iranian medium range missile and how North Korea and China are assisting them. He describes some secret Iranian memos that detail how this cooperation is benefiting them in their quicker than expected progress on perfecting the medium range Shahab 3:

The memos cover, in a somewhat sketchy way, a lot of ground. Perhaps the most important aspects are those that deal with how several countries collaborate in either developing missiles or selling missile technology to Iran. The memos use codes for the different collaborator countries but I think I know the meanings of the codes. If my understanding is correct, they indicate that representatives from North Korea and China have been present at all phases of production and flight testing. Iran has also gotten important help from Russia, though Russians do not appear to have been as ubiquitous as the Chinese and the North Koreans. The evidence from the memos indicates that this help is on the governmental level rather than “rogue” individuals. This includes Russian help though Russia has been particularly vocal in its denials of such assistance. Despite these denials, the evidence of foreign assistance, both images of engines and turbopumps that are obviously of Russian origin—either their actual production or at the very least their designs—and these internal Iranian memos, make the case overwhelmingly.

The strong implication in the memos is that this assistance was sought by Iran to reduce the risk of project failure. (See my discussion, on paths proliferators might take.) However, the exchange of technology is not automatic, as it would be in a shared development program. Iran appears to have decided that it will try to solve problems as they come up in an effort to develop indigenous capabilities. Under this acquisition strategy, transfer of technology or know-how, even the exchange of opinions, must be approved on what appears to be a case by case basis by a central authority. This could be an explanation for why North Korea’s U’nha-2 failed during its third stage even though it appears to use the Safir’s second stage; a stage that Iran had problems with but eventually got to work. The solution to that problem under this type of collaboration would not have automatically been shared and either North Korea did not ask for it or Iran refused to share it.

So the immediate threat to Europe does not come from any ICBM the Iranians might develop years from now but rather their short and medium range missiles they are making good progress in perfecting. That makes the deployment of the SM3’s a logical and prudent change in plan.

Lewis doesn’t see us doing Russia any favors by deploying the SM-3 but the obvious gloating from Moscow would seem to belie his sanguine analysis. Perhaps from a strategic standpoint, Moscow could care less but the idea that the American president has caved in to their constant demands to not deploy in Poland or Czech Republic might make Putin much more difficult to deal with in the future. That seems to be the analysis of some

The Administration’s likelier motive for scrapping the interceptors is that it hopes to win Russia’s vote at the U.N. Security Council for tougher sanctions on Iran. Maybe the Russians have secretly agreed to such a quid pro quo, though publicly they were quick to deny it following yesterday’s decision.

And as Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov has noted, Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin benefits by keeping the Iranian crisis on a low boil, because the threat of a Middle East crisis drives energy prices up while putting U.S. interests at risk. Russia also likes spooning out dollops of diplomatic help at the U.N. in exchange for material Western concessions. This time, the concession was missile defense. Next time, perhaps, the West can be seduced into trading away the pro-Western government of Georgia, or even Ukraine.

That’s hardly an idle fear. It has been the tragic fate of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe to be treated as bargaining chips in the designs of their more powerful neighbors. Their inclusion in NATO and EU was supposed to have buried that history, but Russia’s new assertiveness, including its willingness to cut off energy supplies in winter and invade Georgia last year, is reviving powerful fears. Officials in Warsaw surely noticed that President Obama cancelled the missile system 70 years to the day that the Soviet Union invaded Poland as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany.

They may have noticed it but reading anything into Obama’s action that would smack of betrayal? Certainly on the political level that might be true. But it would be wrong to say that Poland is any less secure with the SM-3’s than they would have been with the interceptors.

I agree on one level this is a bad decision, and was handled badly by the State Department and the White House. But looking at it from the standpoint of advancing our interests and protecting our allies, I see little to fault.

Face it, my fellow conservatives. We just don’t have what it takes to play the race card effectively.

This was amply proven by that ample talk show host, cotton candy conservative, and pop righty Rush Limbaugh who took a story about a beating of a white nerd by black bullies on a school bus and tried to turn it into a spiel involving dire portents of a coming race war enabled by our president:

RUSH: Hey, look, folks, the white kid on that bus in Belleville, Illinois, he deserved to be beat up. You don’t know about this story? Oh, there’s video of this. The school bus filled with mostly black students beat up a white student a couple of times with all the black students cheering. Of course the white student on the bus deserved the beating. He was born a racist. That’s what Newsweek magazine told us in its most recent cover. It’s Obama’s America, is it not? Obama’s America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, “Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he’s white. Newsweek magazine told us this. We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives.

We can redistribute students while we redistribute their parents’ wealth. We can redistribute everything. Just return the white students to their rightful place, their own bus with bars on the windows and armed guards. They’re racists. They get what they deserve. Newsweek magazine told us this, post-racial America. I wonder if Obama is going to come to the defense the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard. I mean the assailants are presumed innocent due to the white racism we all know runs rampant in America. The Drive-By Media is ginning up all this criticism of Obama. Again today it’s all based in racism, the criticism of Obama’s health care plan or whatever, it’s all based in racism and so, if he’s going to apologize for America, Obama needs to apologize for the right reasons. White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners. It was white Americans that ran off Van Jones.

The amount of hyperbole in that snippet could fill the Superdome. There are so many straw men set up by Limbaugh (make sure you read the rest of this priceless rant), that one would think he was holding open auditions for the part of the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.. Outright falsehoods, gross and unfair exaggerations, and the preposterous notion that Obama is responsible makes this sarcastic, bombastic, idiotic nonsense the reason that thinking people should not listen to Rush Limbaugh - ever. He makes my head hurt and my bowels churn when he takes off like this.

Yeah…but is it racist?

Sorry, no. The effect, however, as Ron Dreher points out, is bad enough:

It’s undeniably true that black males, as a group, are disproportionately responsible for violent crimes today (and blacks are disproportionately victims, too). This is important to talk about. This means something. I hate the kind of political correctness that demands we pretend not to see what we see. But as far as I’m concerned, if the Limbaughs of the world are going to be doing this kind of thing, and trying to blame, with no logical grounds whatsoever, a black president for black-on-white violence, and if they’re going to do this in an increasingly hysterical atmosphere of protest against that black president, I don’t want to talk about these things at all. Now is not the time. With this kind of inflammatory rhetoric, they are quite simply tearing the country apart.

Where do they think this is going to go?

I think Dreher overreacts a little but his point is well made. I am not convinced that the “hysterical atmosphere of protest” against the president is increasing. Seems about the same to me as it was a few months ago. I think some of the opposition is irrational but I would not refer to it as “hysterical.”

But am I reading too much into Limbaugh’s rant by thinking he is talking about some kind of race war being started by Blacks? I think not. It seems that Limbaugh believes that this one incident that police now say did not have any racial overtones (and the video proves that) is the start of a pogrom against white school children - or something. Is he joking when he says,”You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering,…?”

What is the purpose of this out of control, hyperbolic, loony charge?

Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Hannity, Savage - they’re all jousting for attention. This leads to a syndrome that begs the question, “How can you top ‘over the top?”

I wrote about it when examining something outrageous Ann Coulter said a few years ago:

In the end, this is Coulter’s dilemma. And the great trap she has set for herself as she has climbed the ladder of success to achieve fame and fortune. In this celebrity, media soaked age where the ravenous appetites of the news nets, “lifestyle” shows, and political talk radio are constantly demanding more and more controversy, more and more outrageous personalities to fill the time and attract more audience, the danger for any one personality like Coulter is that yesterday’s jaw droppers and head shakers can’t be repeated. She must come up with entirely new derogatory sobriquets to call her political opponents and ever more outrageous metaphors to describe her political pet peeves. By definition, she must go “over the top” on nearly a daily basis.

Limbaugh is an expert at “over the top.” He knows full well rants like the one above will draw enormous criticism on the left and Huzzahs! on the right. He is no dummy. He is a seasoned entertainer who has been hawking his wares on radio for a quarter of a century. His planned rhetorical bombs are set to go off and splatter all over the media landscape generating controversy, noteriety, and ultimately, higher ad rates.

It doesn’t matter to him who gets hurt or what emotions he stirs in his 15-20 million daily listeners. All he wants is to get their heads nodding in agreement as he plays to their emotions while deliberately failing to engage their minds. For if his listeners paused in mid-Rush-rant to think about what he was saying - I mean truly examine his thesis, his arguments, and his logic, they would understand that Limbaugh, at bottom, is nothing but a clown. A clever, articulate, experienced clown - but a clown nonetheless.

Conor Friedersdorf:

Already Mr. Limbaugh’s behavior is raising the ire of folks who already dislike him, but this transgression against honesty and prudence is so obvious and grave that his audience members should take it upon themselves to contact the talk radio host, politely articulate why his commentary in this instance is so irresponsible, and request that he never engage in such behavior again. It is Mr. Limbaugh’s listeners who have the most pull here. Those who say nothing, and continue tuning into this kind of rhetoric, share partial responsibility for worsening the country in which they live, though the bulk of responsibility will always reside with the millionaire race agitator himself.

A racist clown? I refuse to toss that epithet about as casually as the left. “Race agitator” sounds about right. But what Conor Friedersdorf suggests is unrealistic. Those who have tired of having their emotions manipulated by Mr. Limbaugh have long since stopped listening to him and have seen through the bombast, the sneering put downs that passes for humor among many on the right, and the bilious sarcasm that drips so often, and so expertly from his lips.

I will go to my grave wondering how in God’s name so many people who think themselves “conservative” can find anything of value by listening to such a pompous lout.

The sanctimonious Jimmy Carter is lecturing America again about how scummy we are. This time, he is accusing you, dear readers, of being closet Kluxers - racist pigs - for opposing anything our Dear Leader does.

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man,” Carter said. “I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that share the South’s attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans.”

Carter continued, “And that racism inclination still exists. And I think it’s bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply.”

It is a fact: Barack Obama was not qualified to be president of the United States. It is laughable to make the case that someone with such a sparse resume of achievement, failing to demonstrate any qualities of leadership, could possibly have the skill set to be president. To say otherwise brands you as a rabid partisan whose opinion can safely be ignored.

I honestly don’t know that if Barack Obama was white, he would have been dismissed outright as a candidate. Those who make that argument assume too much. For Obama is not without ability. He is not without intellect. And some would argue he has the right temperament to be president.

Is that enough to be president? Obviously, I think not. Without the leavening of experience, none of that matters. I have said the same of GOP candidates in the past so it is not a partisan matter. I think the idea that Gary Bauer was qualified to be president is equally laughable. Or Alan Keyes. Or any one of a half dozen Republicans who, for vanity’s sake or because they are true believers, threw their hat in the presidential ring with fewer qualifications than Obama.

Carter is a putz for saying that opposition to Obama is based on the idea that no black candidates are qualified. Perhaps because it became painfully obvious to all when he was in office that Groucho Marx was better qualified to be chief executive than some peanut farmer with one term as governor of a small state, that he can’t recognize what qualifies anyone to be president.

Carter has always had that magical ability to peer into the souls of men and glean their intent - as all liberals possess to some degree. It’s why they can play the race card with impunity. They just KNOW that opposition to Obama is based solely and exclusively on the color of his skin. There simply is no other explanation because, how can you oppose a liberal? How can anyone oppose a BLACK MAN?

It’s a shame that dueling has been outlawed. If it were not, I would gladly call Mr. Carter out and challenge him to prove his charges. Spitballs at 20 paces. At dawn.

If Obama was truly concerned about being “post racial,” he would condemn Carter in the strongest possible terms. But he won’t. And the reason he won’t is because Carter, Maureen Dowd, and other liberals who are accusing the right of being racist are helping him. Playing the race card - at the moment - is politically profitable for the president. It unites his base by giving those who support him the feeling that they are morally superior to the opposition.

It is also the most damaging epithet one can hurl at the opposition and serves the purpose of putting doubts into the mind of more independent and moderate voters that if opposing the president is tantamount to being a racist, best keep their complaints to themselves. The left loves to intimdate people in this manner; like a bully who gets off on playing with their victim before beating them up. Those who might have questions about the direction the president is taking the country feel constrained about expressing themselves lest the hammer fall on them as well.

The stink of being called a racist is impossible to remove - which is the whole point. Delegitimzing any - and I mean any - opposition to President Obama by dismissing the people who are against him by accusing them of being on the same plane as the Klu Klux Klan is monstrously unfair. There is no comeback to the charges. If you open your mouth in your own defense, you supposedly prove their point. And if you remain quiet, silence equals assent. You are well and truly trapped in the briar patch set up by unscrupulous, dishonest, and immoral dogs who know full well the charges are not true, but make them anyway.

And it’s damned effective - as its practioners know. The cold calculation that goes into deliberately smearing your opponent with the one charge in American politics for which there is no answer, no possible response, should scare even some honest liberals.

What gives anyone the right - liberal or conservative - to make such an outrageous statement as Maureen Dowd makes here, and try and pass it off  legitimate analysis:

Surrounded by middle-aged white guys - a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club - Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.

But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

“Fair or not?” Okay, MoDo, it’s not fair. Now what? Do you apologize for your rank smear perpetrated against someone you don’t know, have never met, and only assume the worst based on the region of the country he comes from? Of course not. To do so would reveal your towering ignorance and beastial judgment, not to mention a sneering elitism directed against those who you see as being beneath you.

And how about this whopper from Rep. Hank Johnson:

Making an obvious reference to the Ku Klux Klan, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said Tuesday that people will be putting on “white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside” if emerging racist attitudes, which he says were subtly supported by Wilson, are not rebuked. He said Wilson must be disciplined as an example.

“Subtly supported?” Holy Jesus Christ on a pogo stick what the f*ck does that mean? It means anything that Johnson and his ilk want it to mean. Using his faux “moral authority” as a black man, Johnson is allowed this smear - this non-specific, egregiously unfair, and ultimately unprovable smear - because his kind of dishonesty is accepted by his liberal colleagues as “authentic” outrage against the white man.

After getting on my high horse to condemn this broad brush attack on Obama’s opponents, there will be those who will ask whether or not I believe there are any racists who oppose Obama? My answer is, of course there are. And I would gladly join any legitimate, specific, verifiable instance in which that kind of ugliness is demonstrated. There’s no room for it in American politics, the conservative movement, or the Republican party. I have already noted a significant, but still relatively small number of protestors at the 9/12 rallies who were truly fringe actors - racists among them.

But I would echo the late great Carl Sagan in paraphrasing “Extraordinary charges require extraordinary proof.” And baby, you don’t got any. There is no evidence that any but a small subset of protestors were opposing Obama because of his race. It’s just not there and for anyone to posit the notion that they can read people’s minds and peer into their heart to determine what they were thinking or feeling when protesting, I would call them a liar to their face.

But for Carter, or Dowd, or Johnson, or any other liberal to accuse the broad swath of Americans who oppose this president as being motivated by the color of the president’s skin in opposing him is impossibly dangerous to the idea of free speech, not to mention patently and grossly unfair. It’s not hitting below the belt. It is taking a pair of garden shears and cutting them off.

We must demand that President Obama make it absolutely clear that the patriots who marched on 9/12 as well as others who oppose him, do so not because of his race but because we strenuously disagree with the direction he is taking the country. And he must condemn all of his supporters who so casually, and so viciously attack their opponents so unfairly and with so little cause.

Not that he will do anything about it. But at least we’ll be able to reveal Obama as the cynical, political manipulator he truly is.

Some of this post originally appears in The American Thinker

As far back as 1999, it was apparent to anyone who listened closely to what he was saying that George Bush was not much of a conservative. This despite the lip service he gave to some conservative ideas (I wouldn’t say he was a study in advocating conservative principles), and his ability to excite the party’s evangelical base.

True, he was “more conservative” than Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. But so was about 70% of the country. It took about 5 years for the scales to fall from the eyes of many conservatives (some have never lost their true belief) for them to see that George Bush was a crony loving, big government elitist whose tangential connection to conservatism was more for convenience and political calculation than any belief in the efficacy of its principles.

Were we taken in? Partly, yes. But an honest appraisal of my former support for the man must include the fact that I was fooling myself more than anything. The writing was on the wall all along regarding the man’s faux conservatism - not to mention his many screw ups including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the prosecutors fiasco, justification for torture, and his curious habit of promoting and appointing incompetents for important jobs in government who also happened to be big campaign contributors or other cronies.

Now a book has been written by a former Bush speechwriter which has pretty much confirmed what most on the right now think of the ex-president. Matt Latimer reveals Bush to be an arrogant, self centered, elitist who looked down his nose at the conservative movement:

Latimer is a veteran of conservative politics. An admirer of Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, for whom he worked for several years, Latimer also worked in the Rumsfeld Pentagon before joining the Bush White House in 2007.

The revealing moment, described in “Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor,” occurred in the Oval Office in early 2008.

Bush was preparing to give a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The conference is the event of the year for conservative activists; Republican politicians are required to appear and offer their praise of the conservative movement.

Latimer got the assignment to write Bush’s speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic.

“What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?” the president asked Latimer.

Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement — the movement that gave rise to groups like CPAC.

Bush seemed perplexed. Latimer elaborated a bit more. Then Bush leaned forward, with a point to make.

“Let me tell you something,” the president said. “I whupped Gary Bauer’s ass in 2000. So take out all this movement stuff. There is no movement.”

Bush seemed to equate the conservative movement — the astonishing growth of conservative political strength that took place in the decades after Barry Goldwater’s disastrous defeat in 1964 — with the fortunes of Bauer, the evangelical Christian activist and former head of the Family Research Council whose 2000 presidential campaign went nowhere.

Now it was Latimer who looked perplexed. Bush tried to explain.

“Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say,” the president said, “but I redefined the Republican Party.”

Yes, Mr. Bush. You certainly “redefined” the Republican party by showing the GOP could be even more careless with the public purse than Democrats, as well as being a political cynic of the first order by pandering to the base of the party - the “movement” - while sneering at what it represented.

The charge of “patrician” made against his father back in the day should also be applied to the son. Here, the blue blood shows why you can’t trust elites. At bottom, their arrogance directed toward ordinary people is so profound as to cloud their judgment.

Given everything we now know about Bush, would I have pulled an Andrew Sullivan and voted for Kerry in 2004? Definitely not. But, as I did in 1992 when his father ran for re-election, the chances are pretty good that I would not have voted for president at all.

True, Bush’s fiscal profligacy was known back then, but weighed against the war on terror and what most of us believed was a slowly improving situation in Iraq, it would have been enough to dissuade me from voting against him.

Now we have a different story - that of Bush the hypocrite who had few, if any, guiding principles save “Whatever’s best for George Bush, is best for the party and the country.” That kind of selfish conceit may be endemic among presidents - it certainly was for Nixon, and probably Johnson - but it explains a lot as far as Bush’s cronyism as well as his cozying up to Wall Street, his sticking with Rumsfeld long after he had outlived his usefulness, and other stubborn acts that many conservatives still mistake for resolve. Quite simply, it didn’t matter if all the wise heads in government were telling him to change course in Iraq. He, George Bush, knew better. And the United States paid a bitter price in blood and treasure because of this hubris.

And, it explains Karl Rove to some extent. No doubt that Clintonites like James Carville had vast knowledge about the intricacies of American politics. But Rove is a human computer - a veritable font of information about the most arcane, and fractional tidbits of political trivia. There may never have been his like in the White House.

But Rove was decidedly not a creature of ideology. He possessed a burning desire to win as all good political consultants have. Beyond that, Rove eschewed the idea of using the movement for anything except what he termed a “permanent Republican majority” that combined massive numbers of evangelical Christians energized by relying on “wedge” issues like gay marriage and abortion to turn them out, as well as the foreign policy hawks. Fiscal conservatives could come along for the ride if they wished but it was clear that neither Rove nor Bush gave a tinker’s damn about them. Add supply siders and libertarians and Rove believed he had his “permanent” majority - a majority not based on conservative issues as much as on political expediency.

The results were predictable; a fracturing of the “permanent” coalition within two years of his 2004 victory. The corruption, the spending, and the war between libertarans and evangelicals over the Terri Schiavo matter exploded any hope that Rove’s makeshift, rickety political construction would outlast his boss.

So here we are in the wilderness with many conservatives still clinging to the notion that Bush made some mistakes but was still a good president. I have said in the past that fingering Bush as the “worst president in American history” is ridiculous. In the bottom ten, yes. But I abhor those who would use history for political purposes and the facts simply do not bear that judgment out.

Until conservatives can let go of Bush and his checkered legacy, we will not learn the lessons from supporting him and probably end up voting for someone similar. That is the mistake Democrats made when they were in the political badlands and we would do well not to repeat it.

(Note: Please do not crow in the comments “I told you so.” What - you expect me to listen to partisan lefties at the time? That’s unreasonable and you know it. Your verdict on Bush was reached looking through the prism of partisanship just as mine was. Just because the left was right about some of Bush’s shortcomings does not mean they had - or have today - a corner on truth when it comes to criticizing him. I would also add that their hate of the man - as virulent a hate directed against another politician I had not seen before, even against Clinton - disqualifies most on the left from making any rational judgment on Bush that a reasonable person could agree with.)

I have been taken to task in the past for railing against those whose rants against President Obama have crossed the line of reason and entered the dangerous world of paranoia. I include in this category the Birthers, of course, as well as those who believe Obama wishes to set up some kind of dictatorship, and those who believe our freedoms have been “destroyed” or are in the process of destruction.

As for that last charge, I don’t think it accurate to say that Obama wants to destroy freedom in America, but there is little doubt his policies “infringe” upon personal liberty. That’s the point of his “common good” agenda; that sometimes, individual rights must be subsumed for the good of all. The fact that the Supreme Court occasionally agrees with that idea is troubling but not indicative of any bent to eliminate constitutional protections for speech, religion, or assembly. The idea that the courts, or the opposition, would simply stand aside and allow our individual liberties to be “destroyed” is therefore, paranoid thinking.

There is a line between passionate, reasoned opposition to Obama and the kind of paranoid thinking that drives Birthers and others to oppose the president. The terms are not mutually exclusive but one kind of thinking is productive and effective while the other is poisonous and unbalanced. Equating the president with Nazis may be emotionally satisfying but is so far beyond the pale of rationality that it pegs anyone who uses such a cockamamie analogy as ignorant and not seriously engaged in debate. Ignorant because it is painfully obvious that anyone who refers to any American politician, right or left, as a Nazi” hasn’t a clue what Hitler and his thugs believed; and not serious about debate because the epithet is used to stifle discussion rather than encourage it.

Similar attempts to paint the president as a “Communist” are equally paranoid and stupid. (Using the term “socialist” may seem more accurate but there too, it appears that there is a deliberate attempt to exaggerate the effect of the president’s policies and incorrectly define the term.)

I saw a lot of passionate opposition to the president’s policies at the tea party at the Capitol on Saturday. Most of it was spot on and based on patriotic notions of the constitution as well as a fierce desire to protect our liberties from the “common good” brigade of liberals who seek to promote policies that infringe upon our personal freedoms.

Were these protestors, who eschewed labeling Obama as dictator, or a Communist, or illegitimate because of his birth, any less passionate in their opposition than the paranoids who hold those beliefs?

I think it is demonstrable that they were not. The fire that burns in their bellies against the president’s policies is no less bright, nor does their failure to join the kooks in their conspiracy theories mean that their commitment to the cause is any less total than those whose passion has allowed their thinking to spill over into the realm of the silly. To infer otherwise is not logical, nor is it very helpful.

“Passion” for a cause, by definition, engages the emotions and motivates one to act outside of themselves for a higher purpose. Those who believe that the president is wrongheaded, that his policies will lead to economic disaster, who can’t abide Obama’s prevarications, and see the enormous debt being piled on our children and grandchildren as preposterously unfair - without claiming the president wants to put his opponents in concentration camps - are channeling their opposition down a healthy, democratic path.

Not so much the paranoids. Despite evincing similar passion, all they are doing is giving the opposition the wherewithal to define all opponents to the president as crazies:

Amid a rebirth of conservative activism that could help Republicans win elections next year, some party insiders now fear that extreme rhetoric and conspiracy theories coming from the angry reaches of the conservative base are undermining the GOP’s broader credibility and casting it as the party of the paranoid.

Such insiders point to theories running rampant on the Internet, such as the idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is thus ineligible to be president, or that he is a communist, or that his allies want to set up Nazi-like detention camps for political opponents. Those theories, the insiders say, have stoked the GOP base and have created a “purist” climate in which a figure such as Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) is lionized for his “You lie!” outburst last week when Obama addressed Congress.

They are “wild accusations and the paranoid delusions coming from the fever swamps,” said David Frum, a conservative author and speechwriter for President George W. Bush who is among the more vocal critics of the party base and of the conservative talk show hosts helping to fan the unrest.

“Like all conservatives, I am concerned about this administration’s accumulation of economic power,” Frum said. “Still, you have to be aware that there’s a line where legitimate concerns begin to collapse into paranoid fantasy.”

There was plenty of that on display at the 9/12 protest in Washington but a fair assessment of the tone and substance coming from the hundreds of thousands who were there would relegate the crazies and paranoids to a small, but significant minority. I would guess that up to a quarter of the protestors could be identified with those fringe elements. This is worrying but not as fatal as Obama supporters would have you believe. In some respects, the real problem is not so much their numbers, but their influence on mainstream politicians:

Insiders’ criticisms have been dismissed by some conservative leaders, who argue that the party needs an energized base — even if it’s extreme — to gain in future elections. Some analysts think that conservatives’ summer revolt against Obama’s healthcare agenda helped erode public approval of Democratic leadership enough that the GOP could pick up as many as 30 House seats next year.

Leaders in both the establishment and the base think that the tension could define the upcoming battle over the party’s 2012 presidential nominee.

“There’s a war going on, a pretty big one,” said Dan Riehl, a Virginia conservative whose popular blog, Riehl World View, has criticized those challenging the base. “Many of us distrust the elite Republican establishment.”

Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for John McCain’s GOP presidential candidacy last year, likened the conservative fringe to liberal activists during the Bush years. The antiwar group Code Pink drew headlines, for example, when a protester with fake blood on her hands accosted then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — but Democrats still won elections later.

A little refresher course in recent history; in 2004, Democrats played with their own kooks, catering to many of their conspiracy theories, lionizing fringe players like Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore, while trying to tap the “enthusiasm” of the netroots - as bonkers as any conservative crazies we have today.

That worked out well for them, didn’t it?

The point isn’t necessarily to purge the paranoids, but to marginalize them and deny them influence in the party. I know that Dan Rheil is not a paranoid and that his anger - justified at times - directed against GOP and conservative “elites” has both practical and ideological elements. But I think Dan would draw the line at some of the more paranoid beliefs held by those in the base and recognize the damage it does to reasonable, and wholly legitimate arguments against Obama and his agenda.

Passion does not equal paranoia. Those on the left who insist on equating “anger” with psychosis do so knowing full well that the passions aroused by President Obama’s policies take many forms and are not all outside the realm of legitimate debate. It is simply convenient for them to lump all opposition to the president as crazy, or “racist.” And it plays well among their own base as well.

Accepting those who are passionate in their opposition to Obama without having arguments meander into the fever swamps of conspiracy and fear would lead to the more rational elements in the opposition to come to the fore while de-emphasizing the kooks. That can only lead to more effective resistance to the president’s plans to “remake” America in an image none of us - kooks or rationalists - want to see become reality.

I penned a special column for PJ Media on the 9/12 protests yesterday, pointing out the historical significance of the event; that it represents the first truly mass movement of conservatives in American history.

A sample that will no doubt bring the wrath of the right down on my head:

It is definitely an opposition movement, however. Certainly there is mass unhappiness with President Obama and his policies. And there is opposition to the Democrats in Congress. But does this really translate into electoral strength for Republicans? I am going to go out on a limb and say no. The anger here is a reaction (reactionary?) against a growing government, higher taxes, and the sense that the country that they grew up in is slipping away right before their eyes.

This is all fed, of course, by the pop conservatives on talk radio who have ginned up outrage against Obama and the Democrats. I say “ginned up” because what the president and his party have already done doesn’t need the added fear mongering being promoted by Beck, Hannity, Rush, and Savage in order for conservatives to rally. Raised taxes, cap and trade, health care reform, bailouts and takeovers, and other liberal agenda items should be sufficient to outrage anyone on the right and motivate them to protest these horrific policies. It is unnecessary to brand Obama a “communist” or even a “socialist” to realize that his policies spell disaster for individual liberty and the free market economy.

Getting caught up trying to guess the number of attendees at Saturday’s protests (as I and many others are doing today and will continue to do) is irrelevant. This is history in the making, something the United States has never seen: a genuine grass-roots conservative mass movement, activated by the new technologies, communicating effectively using the new software and hardware — and it is growing.

I received an email from a long time reader yesterday who was concerned I couldn’t see that the protests were, at bottom, “anti-American, racist, and dangerous…” There’s nothing “anti-American” about protesting anything. We are, after all, a nation born out of protest, nurtured in the bosom of contrarianism, and defining progress by going against the grain in order to right significant wrongs in our society. This is not “dangerous” by any stretch of the imagination - except to the comfort of the elites who always believe it dangerous when the hoi polloi become restless and disagree that only they in their superior wisdom are fit to tell the rest of us what to do.

As for the charge of the protest being “racist,” well, that’s nonsense. If you’re going to tar an entire movement with that epitaph based on the beliefs of a tiny fraction, then you should have no trouble referring to the civil rights movement of the 1960’s as a “Communist” movement since the CPUSA played a prominent role in the SCLC and other civil rights organizations. The same holds true for the anti-war movement where you couldn’t attend a protest without tripping over a Communist or two.

This protest movement encompasses the right in all its contradictions, it’s factions, and its various conceits. From far right nullification supporters to Rand Objectivists, conservatism in all its glory was on display. The dominant theme as it appeared to me was “Don’t Tread on Me” - the words emblazoned on the iconic Gaddsen Flag. This is both a warning and a statement of fact. The truth is, whether due to agitation by talk radio hosts or the very real belief held by millions that President Obama is going too far, too fast, in his quest to “remake” America, there is a sizable segment of the population who has stood up and said “enough.”

In their struggle to define what it is they don’t like about the direction Obama and the Democrats are taking the country, I believe they mis-identify their concerns as fighting “socialism” or “Communism.” But at bottom, I believe above all else, that they wish to “conserve” their own vision of what America is and what it should aspire to be. This vision is no more invalid than that of the presidents’ despite attempts on the left to delegitimize it. It is Burkean in its roots, and has to do with classic conservative values that have been at the root of conservative thought for as long as the republic has endured.

Change is coming to America. Change always comes to America because we are a dynamic society that stands still for no one. But the value of conservatism has always been that, in Bill Buckley’s words, conservatives “stand athwart history yelling Stop!” It is always better to manage change, to channel the revolutionary nature of our society into acceptable, and accepted paths that lead to consensual change. Any other path leads to blood and revolution. Just ask the French.

President Obama and the Democrats are moving too far, too fast. They have exceeded the comfort level for change that many Americans - perhaps most - believe is right and proper. You can argue the merits of the president’s agenda. That’s politics. But the pace of change is structural in our society. We aren’t set up for the kind of rapid, dizzying alterations that Obama and the Democrats are proposing. This is especially true because some of what the president advocates would change the fundamental relationship citizens have with the government.

“Small moves, Ellie. Small moves…” was the advice that Elenore Arroway’s dad gave to the youngster as she fiddled with the dial of her ham radio in the film Contact. By moving the dial in small increments, she was much more likely to be rewarded by making contact with another ham radio enthusiast.

Hundreds of thousands of people at the Capitol yesterday gave President Obama the same message.

Both the Times and AP are equating the crowds turning out in DC to protest Obama’s policies with crowds turning out to see the president later today at a town hall meeting. Both are saying “thousands” have turned out.

Here’s AP’s and the Times notion of “thousands:”

According to CNN, the event got underway an hour and a half early because so many people showed up at the bottom of Pennsylvania avenue, there was simply no more room for new arrivals.

Pictures supplied by Fox and CNN appeared to me to show a crowd stretching all the way from the Capitol steps, back many, many blocks, stretching off into the distance.

By any stretch of the imagination, such a crowd should have been identified in “the hundreds of thousands.” And yet. here’s the Times report by Jeff Zeleny:

As President Obama flew to Minnesota on Saturday to rally support for his health care plan, thousands of protestors from around the country arrived here to demonstrate against the White House and Congress for what they say is an ever-expanding intrusion of government.

On a cloudy and cool September morning, scores of people waved flags and carried signs as they arrived in Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington for a march to the capital. The event was being billed as the culmination of summer protests at town meetings, where opposition to the president’s health care plan boiled over.

“Scores of people…?” Are you kidding me?

The DC Park Police stopped trying to estimate crowds years ago. But given the  estimate for Obama’s inauguration by some (”more than a million people”), I would say the number of people out today comes close to matching the number on January 20.

More pics will be available later.

Most of this post originally appears at The American Thinker.

UPDATE

Stacy McCain just called and told me that Barbara Espinosa , a volunteer with Freedomworks, reports that the organization’s “metered” count of protestors is “more than 450,000.”

I think they missed a few hundred thousand but it won’t matter. The official media line will be “thousands” unless someone in an official capacity - police or otherwise - says differently.

My estimate was probably a little overenthusiastic, definitely not matching Obama’s inauguration crowds. But by any measure, an impressive turnout.

UPDATE II

Michelle Malkin reports that Capitol Police are estimating crowd at 1.2 million. ABC saying 2 million.

Can’t say where Malkin got the “police” estimate. And the ABC website has only the AP story where they have now upped their estimate to “tens of thousands.”

UPDATE III

Daily Mail hed - “Up to Two Million march to Capitol to protest Obama’s spending…”

Sorry, but that is certainly an exaggeration. This time lapse aerial sequence taken from where the march kicked off shows, in my opinion, less than a million marchers. A long time ago, a park policeman told me that 7 blocks of people shoulder to shoulder equals a half million marchers. Someone might want to correct me but it looked to me that there might have been 9 or 10 blocks of a massed crowd. Maybe less than that.

Of course, there were people already at the Capitol who didn’t participate in the march. And there were many late arrivals. It would be more accurate to place the total at between 750,000 and a million.

Impressive by any yardstick.

UPDATE IV

Well, there are estimates…and then there are, you know, estimates:

Carrying signs depicting President Obama as Adolf Hitler and the Joker, and chanting slogans such as “‘No big government” and “Obamacare makes me sick,” approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people flooded Pennsylvania Ave, according to the Washington DC Fire Department.

M’kay. That’s fascinating. To each his own, I guess.

They appear to be satisfied underestimating the number by a factor of 10. If there were on 60,000 marchers, I will run naked down Pennsylvania Avenue singing the Internationale while kissing an Obama poster.