Saturday, September 27, 2008
PLAYING PARTISAN WHEN POST-PARTISANISM DOESN'T WORK. At the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan says she wants McCain and Obama to explain to people why they are respectively a Republican and a Democrat. I expect Noonan is influenced by the current bailout situation, in which Republicans who built and prospered from the go-go, lightly-regulated economy are positioning themselves for the moment as rebels from its bailout -- though, as tipped by McCain's remarks tonight, they will cave as soon as they think they are sufficiently covered politically. It's standard-issue Noonan jiu-jitsu -- to call for something that can't possibly happen because of her own party's tactics, and hope the uninformed will find her lofty and wise rather than disingenuous.
Of the many things that are ridiculous about this, a few scream to be mentioned. First, as we just saw, the Presidential debates, which McCain lately endeavored to evade, are meant to explain this -- or, more usefully, to explain why the parties are properly represented by them. Second, I recall that Noonan used to swoon over George Bush, who was allowed to distance himself from his party as a "compassionate conservative" before he went on to embody Republican principles so thoroughly as to discredit them for all time, and even force Noonan to renounce both Bush and the Republicans (though I think their refusal to hire her had something to do with it).
Both parties have evolved, not to say been shifty, and their candidates have prospered by playing for them and against them as they see fit. I can't imagine Noonan, who despite the paucity of her paying gigs with the GOP of late is still a reliable tool, would be suggesting this party-identification program if McCain were leading strongly. Then, as always, she and her colleagues would be doing the identifying -- Democrats treasonous and spendthrift, Republicans butch and economically sound, and so forth.
It must also be mentioned that Noonan wonders at Obama's slim lead, and attributes to it to Obama being "unusual, singular," "not your basic Dem," and "exotic," without ever mentioning that he's black. This too is audacious, but only in a familiar way.
12:52 AM by roy edroso
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Friday, September 26, 2008
MORE REACTIONS FROM AROUND THE BUFFOONIVERSE. Megan McArdle's pretense of support for Obama notwithstanding -- I think it has/had to be some sort of social networking gambit -- she's really bending over for McCain tonight. She gave Obama a hard time for momentarily stumbling over McCain's name ("Who's having senior moments again?"), but when McCain couldn't quite get the name of the President of Iran, whom he wishes to bomb, she "thought it was rather charming." Chalk it up to the soft bigotry of low expectations.
"Obama Implodes in Debate," says Confederate Yankee, which is the sort of ooga-booga you have to expect from someone who calls himself Confederate Yankee, I guess. The myth of Obama's black rage is strong with these people, and impervious to such externals as the evidence of their senses.
The Ole Perfesser, as usual in situations where there is no believable talking point for his side, punts, sighing that "it's hard to believe that these two are the best that a country of 300 million can produce." Even reliable partisans are reduced to making fun of Obama's pronunciation of "Pakistan." It seems only paid operatives and religious maniacs are sufficiently motivated to tell themselves and anyone else who'll listen that McCain was the overwhelming victor. But in a national contest in which one of the candidates is black, that may be enough.
11:50 PM by roy edroso
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DEBATE FOLLOW-UP. As we might expect, McCain's conscript army of conservatives are engaging in wishful thinking, describing Obama as "angry" when anyone with eyes will have seen, in the frequent flashes of that bizarre, toothy McCain grin that appears only when he is challenged, the grill of a cage that barely restrains a dangerous rage.
It's easier to judge the candidates if we can credibly imagine their objectives. I imagine McCain thought he would get away with the usual flag-waving bullshit, but in the context of the wordy debate, these ploys just seemed like bizarre, maudlin, and possibly senile episodes. McCain tried hard to make Obama look naive (he in fact called Obama naive), and that clearly didn't work against Obama's detailed answers. McCain was mostly effective at portraying himself as a "maverick," if only by calling himself that, by running away from his own record, and by having an opponent who, oddly, did not challenge this absurd idea much.
Obama seemed to want to accurately portray his own views to the American people (the fool) and to avoid sighing and rolling his eyes Al Gore-style as McCain seethed, blinked, and flashed his teeth. That I think he achieved, and much good may it do him.
The talking heads after the event are horrible buffoons. And what's with Mike Murphy's Vulcan mullet?
10:37 PM by roy edroso
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FIRST THOUGHTS. This country's fucked.
Actually what I mean is:
At the 70 minute mark, this is simultaneously an information-heavy debate and an incoherent one. It's nice that the candidates get time to talk at length because that provides the best opportunity for candidates who have been cleverly and consistently slandered by liars (hint hint) to lay out their side of the story. On the other, it's an opportunity for endless filibustering, especially on matters like the Wall Street bailout where both candidates, I regret to state, are more interested in misdirecting our attention from the massive heist their parties are about to engineer than in explaining the situation.
If Obama isn't overwhelming (and given who and what he's running against he should be), at least he has managed by his patient and even tone to put into perspective McCain's bizarre hot-button issues. McCain now seems like a Speaker's Corner nut on the "League of Democracies" and "preconditions," and for that at least we should be grateful.
More later.
10:00 PM by roy edroso
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008
AN ECHO, NOT A CHOICE. There's no place in a rational campaign for the kind of tabloid crap that's been making the rounds today. Of course I'm not the only one who thinks so, but some parties, such as My Pet Jawa and Jules Crittenden, have come around late, having been more excited when a Democratic candidate was getting the treatment. Now MPJ is more dismissive and Crittenden, well below the fold, insists "who's gonna care." Well, wisdom is welcome whenever it comes.
But it's hard for a citizen to know what does qualify as relevant. The President goes on TV to plead for for a massive Wall Street bailout, and gets oddly distracted readings from his advocates. Kathryn J. Lopez wonders if Bush's speech "wasn't a wasted opportunity to convince the unconvinced (including worried conservatives)." Larry Kudlow, usually reliably energized in his cheerleading, claims without force of logic or argument that "ironically, this huge government action will be solved by free-market auctions and private sector loan workouts that will pay us back." He adds that he doesn't really like the plan, but "When I spoke to Alexander Hamilton last night about this, he told me it was the right thing to do. Like he did in the 1790s." Sadly he did not supply quotes, reminding me of the old story of a young reporter wiring from the Johnstown flood, "God looks down upon a desolate Johnstown tonight..." to which his editor wired back, "Forget flood. Interview God. Rush pictures."
Meanwhile the Republican Vice Presidential candidate reassures Americans worried about a new Depression that "Unfortunately, that is the road that America may find itself on," and won't take a stand either way on the bailout, while her running mate bails out himself.
But Obama doesn't want to get stuck either, and has joined McCain in a non-denial denial, though without endorsing the Republican candidate's more spectacular plan to avoid the storm by retreating into its calm Congressional eye. It may be that Obama's cautiousness supports McCain's claim that electoral politics is not at present meaningful, but the impending deal seems not to have much real drama in it either: that will come afterwards, when the shouting heads debate winners and losers.
Bukowski used to say that in America money was more serious than death. It would appear to be more serious than politics, too. It may be that after the hurlyburly's done some of us will begin to wonder whether all our political shouting is worth more than the baying of wolves at the moon.
10:51 PM by roy edroso
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Monday, September 22, 2008
THE VOICE COLUMN IS UP. Less Palin than usual! But not as much Wall Street as I'd expected. A lot of rightbloggers went to great lengths to minimize that story -- which is of course the opposite of their usual method.
4:24 PM by roy edroso
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Sunday, September 21, 2008
WHY I'M NOT A LIBERTARIAN, AND NEITHER ARE YOU. The magazine Reason and its blog Hit & Run are libertarian outlets. Of course, purity being not our lot in this life (to paraphrase Jake Gittis, they have to swim in the same water we all do), some contributors might reasonably be called left-libertarian -- that is, devoted to personal liberty to an extent that mostly pits them against the law and order obsessions that are the turf of today's conservatives; and some might with justice be called right-libertarian -- that is, devoted to economic liberty to an extent that mostly pits them against the social-equality obsessions that are the turf of today's liberals.
Brian Doherty I have long considered one of the latter class. He's the author of Radicals for Capitalism (from descriptions a celebration of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman's dynamic I-got-mine-ism), as well as of Reason items on the corruption of Al Gore, censorship among foreign Muslims, Cathy Seipp, the joys of fast food, comics as capitalist signifiers, and contempt for Kurt Vonnegut, teachers' unions, and old hippies, and of reliably anti-Obama articles -- in other words, a good resume for an editor at National Review but for the occasional off-message message which, given his overall tendency, could be handled in orientation training.
But Doherty had the other day a revelation on the recent short-selling ban that must be shared:As someone who had been saying for the past few years that things like Nixonian wage and price controls would be considered beyond the pale in a world that, I thought, understood and appreciated some basics of free markets more than it did 35 years ago, well, it's a good thing my jaw has dropped so much on the past week's news that I have room to fit a lot of crow. As someone who has for years heard gags about liberals "mugged by reality," I have to wonder how many more cycles of this it would take before we got similarly used to hearing jokes about right-libertarians mugged by conservatism.
If you involve yourself in national politics, however tenaciously you hold an alterna-indie-position, you will inevitably be drawn into what simply is. And in that horrible place there is not much room for libertarianism.
It reminds me of New York during its crime-crisis days. When Giuliani confiscated 90,000 guns there was no visible groundswell of opposition, because it was perceived to be the medicine New York needed. Liberal and libertarian civil-liberty arguments were swept aside by the demands of the moment.
In the recent Presidential campaign, crime was not a pressing issue and Giuliani saw his previously popular gun-authoritarian argument become a liability in the provinces. He tried to suck up, but to no avail, and he was rebuffed by people who saw no reason to give up their own guns, and apparently could no longer understand why anyone else would.
Does that mean the country turns out to be more libertarian that Giuliani anticipated? Sure, when it doesn't cost anything. The candidate who had become "America's Mayor" and the long-time front-runner for the nomination went down because his authoritarianism no longer captured the public's imagination, but it had worked, and worked well, for him in a climate of fear and reaction that dwindled before he could ride it all the way to the White House.
Now we have a new crisis. I notice this has not brought new attention to the libertarian policies of Bob Barr and Ron Paul -- though Paul was on TV this morning advocating a "return to sound money" to which no one is likely to listen. America's finances and priorities badly need reorganization, but from what I can see, the energy is all on putting some expensive patches on the tires of the economy we have and pushing it back on the road.
Doherty thought he was living in a libertarian country where "price controls would be considered beyond the pale." But most voters are not devoted to concepts, and I doubt many of them worried that the market was less pure than it might be when it was giving them a good return. When panic strikes, they'll accept the fastest route out of danger. Shock therapy may be alright for Chile, but not for us.
Much was made of Obama's comment about Americans "clinging" to guns and religion. But Americans are clingy in lots of ways, and it would take a lot to pull them away from a system that has been rewarding many of them handsomely for decades. If you're a libertarian, you might consider this a kind of false consciousness, and believe that Americans yearn for a truly free market which none of them has ever really seen, and would prefer to a money machine which has long been rigged in their favor.
But most of us, to say the least, are not libertarians, at least not when it comes to this. Maybe when the wheels come off the economy entirely we'll consider it, but more likely something resembling a second New Deal -- one not limited to large financial institutions, I mean -- will be what we go for.
If the spit and sealing wax hold, we'll go on calling our market a free one, and holding it up as a signal blessing of liberty. We are after all Americans, and freedom is important to us, at least until the next hard time.
4:07 PM by roy edroso
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