ALSO LINCOLN WAS TALL, WHEREAS OBAMA... WELL, LINCOLN WAS WHITE.

Conservative writing on the Iran Deal has been so feverish that it conjures an image of a red-faced Bibi Netanhayu screaming at the authors to "DO WHAT I'M TELLIN' YA!" like Broderick Crawford in Born Yesterday.  One of the weirder specimens appears at National Review where, after some preliminary obvious bullshit ("It’s nice to see that even CNN recognizes the president’s deal with Iran for what it is: 'another legacy-making item on his checklist'"), Ian Tuttle tries this gambit:

What could account for [Obama's] astonishing indifference to American security? In his 1838 address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Ill., Abraham Lincoln suggested ambition, and that seems to me as good an explanation as any.

Lincoln? Iran? Huh? Tuttle preambles a quote from the speech...

This “field of glory” harvested, to what would the next Alexander or Napoleon turn? He warned: 

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction... 

Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.

 ...and interprets:

Barack Obama’s ambition, his hunger for his own aggrandizement, has long been obvious. No humility afflicts a one-term senator who promises to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America, or who proclaims his mere nomination for the presidency “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” 

He is an ideologue, yes, a Chicago leftist, community organizer-in-chief, unreconstructed Columbia poli-sci grad student. I’ve no doubt he thinks a diminished America a better America — for us, and for the world. But “building up” or “pulling down” is secondary. America is merely the instrument with which Barack Obama would carve his name into history.

The short version is: Lincoln said America would have ambitious, bad presidents in the future -- and that's just how I feel about Obama! Plus Alinsky!

The subterfuge seems at first merely lazy,  the prose equivalent of the Obama paintings of John McNaughton. But I see a deeper purpose: The connection between the modern Republican Party and Lincoln has taken a beating over the past 50 years, and the recent Confederate Flag controversy has pretty much severed it. (Tuttle was a big help there!) Now that they've totally blown it on race, I guess they have to find some other way to associate themselves with Honest Abe. Foreign policy seems a stretch, but what else do they have? It's not like they can endorse high tariffs. (And if they don't have Lincoln, what other GOP president is left beside Reagan, who is losing his charm as a demigod? They disowned Teddy Roosevelt. Tricky Dick, maybe your rehabilitation is at hand!)

There's always abortion, which some of the more hysterical brethren (including Tuttle!) like to portray as the new slavery, but in order to get traction on that they're going to have to work on their approach:

COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 13, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ -- Created Equal, a national anti-abortion group, will be displaying abortions in progress on a Jumbo-Tron TV screen at the Lincoln Memorial on July 14, 2015 as part of our week-long Justice Ride.

I'm seeing the hearts and livers angle, but not the hearts and minds. Maybe they should put a beard and stovepipe on Mike Huckabee and see where it gets them.

I'LL TAKE IT.

There are plenty of reasons to celebrate the sudden consensus on the Confederate battle flag. For one thing, since the ball really got rolling there appears to be practically no one left on the sidelines to claim that the neo-Confederates are being oppressed. Usually these days, when someone points out outrageous beliefs -- or even just promotes non-outrageous beliefs of his own -- the counter-strategy is to claim oppression. Schoolbook writers wish to inform AP U.S. History students that antebellum slaveholders believed in white supremacy? "Orwellian," says Daniel Henninger at the Wall Street Journal. Want to see more minority writers? Then you want to "crack down on the number of Fitzgeralds or Faulkners or Cormac McCarthys," says Ian Tuttle at National Review (because literature is a zero-sum game). Don't want public money used to pay for privatized schools? You're George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door, howls NR's Kevin D. Williamson! Conservatives have become the nation's biggest drama queens, yet scores of them are abandoning the Lost Cause and not even crying Boot Human Face Forever about it. That's impressive!

Well, not all of them. "Behold the Cultural Power of the Left," wails Rich Lowry at National Review:

On the Confederate battle flag, we are once again witnessing the sheer cultural power of the Left: take an irrelevancy (or at the very least a sideshow), make it the central, all-consuming issue, move the debate with astonishing speed, and then, after achieving the initial victory (in this case, removing the flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol), demand yet more (now Wal-Mart and other retailers aren’t going to sell Confederate-flag paraphernalia and there will be a broader assault on anything associated with the Confederacy). This is the grinding wheel of the Left’s cultural war in action.

Sarah Palin gave him starbursts, but Nikki Haley has left Lowry limp. Now, I know Haley's just made a calculation here to sacrifice this many goobers for this much national cred. And I suspect, as the tide turned, Republicans both Southron and otherwise looked on the bright side and saw the big upside in severing the Party's connection to this symbol of Treason in Defense of Slavery. (Some of 'em are even trying to pin the flag to Hillary Clinton!) But that's politics, kids -- the scumbags who rule us won't get their asses off the stove unless someone turns on the heat. And now a significant number of citizens won't have to explain to their kids why their town tells them every day that they would put them in irons if they could, at least by that medium. Let us enjoy the moment.

UPDATE. Jonah Goldberg makes everything worse!

I agree with you, of course, about the moral horror that was slavery. I basically agree with you about the ultimate issues at the heart of the war. I may or may not agree with you about the extent to which southern soldiers saw the war for what it was, but that’s probably as much a matter of my ignorance as anything.

No comment.

...As a matter of reason alone, the United States flag stood for “white supremacy” too, at least when looked at through the eyes of African slaves and Native Americans. But I think everyone here would agree that while that may have once been one of many arguable interpretations of the Stars and Stripes, it no longer is (though I have no doubt there are plenty of professors out there who would like to argue the U.S. flag still stands for white supremacy).

I wonder if Goldberg knows what flag the Union soldiers carried into Richmond, and which flew when Lincoln came and the city's freed slaves gathered to celebrate their emancipation?

UPDATE 2. How's this for a Forced March through the Institutions? Rand Paul is agin' the battle flag now! The same Rand Paul who just five short years ago was explaining that the Civil Rights Act is anti-freedom. I've heard politics makes strange bedfellows, but this is practically Man on Dog.

UPDATE 3. Now Mollie Hemingway is comparing taking down Confederate flags and statues with the Taliban blowing up Buddahs, bless her insane little heart.

UPDATE 4. "I’ve been getting the feeling over the past few days that the Left is trying to troll us into defending the Confederate flag, simply by way of the trivial, obnoxious, and gratuitously partisan way they’re campaigning against it." I wonder if Mollie Hemingway is miffed that Robert Tracinski apparently doesn't read her stuff. In short, Tracinski wants some of the traitor relics to come down, but because of "love," not for the eee-vil reason the Left (whoever that is) is asking for it -- that is, as part of their endless "chipping away at America’s culture and seeking to expunge the parts of its history that don’t suit their ends." For example:

I have no problem striking the name of Jefferson Davis from our roadways, but I wouldn’t entirely expunge Robert E. Lee, and here’s where I think the campaign smacks of totalitarian-style overreach, attempting to send inconvenient history down the memory hole.

Orwell! Drink!

Lee’s reputation is not as a tyrant or fanatic but as a good and honest man fighting for a bad cause. I think it’s worth honoring him here and there, just so we are reminded that this combination can in fact occur.

You can read here the testimony of one of Lee's slaves on Lee's goodness and honesty ("Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to 'lay it on well,' an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine..."). Well, we all make mistakes; Lee probably had his slaves whipped but seldom, being so busy arranging to keep them in bondage through treason.

CHARLESTON 2015: WE HAVE A WINNER.

Feeling bad about what happened in Charleston yesterday? Spare some sympathy for Mona Charen at National Review:

The heinousness of a person who can sit for an hour studying the Bible and then open fire is unfathomable. Even more depressing, if that’s possible, is my suspicion – and I truly hope I’m wrong – that this event will play a role in the 2016 presidential campaign.

This was treated with appropriate contempt on Twitter and elsewhere, and Charen roared back:

Some people, determined to see bad faith in those with whom they disagree, are seizing upon my post earlier today...

("Seizing upon" means "accurately quoting," in this case.)

Am I someone who’s more upset about politics than murder, hatred, and death? Um, no.

She said "um," that settles it. Wait, Charen has more:

I should have put it more precisely. The feelings of grief, rage, and horror at an atrocity such as we saw last night should be taken for granted among all civilized people. One doesn’t feel “depressed” about an event like a mass shooting. One does get depressed at the cynical uses to which such outrages have lately been put.

She didn't mean what she said, and we're monsters to think she did. Context doesn't redeem her, though. I've read quite a bit of Mona Charen's work. Here she's beating up on unwed mothers ("Of course some women want babies the way others crave shoes..."). Here she's tying thwarted attacks on the White House to Obama's "divisiveness"  ("his death at the hands of an assassin could still well be more pain and stress than our republic could stand. It’s a good bet that close to 100 percent of blacks and a good percentage of others would believe that a demonic conspiracy brought him down..."). Here's "Democrats do tend to be less patriotic than Republicans. There, I've said it out loud." I could go on, but if there's one thing covering these guys for years has taught me, it's that with someone like Charen there's no reason to interpret anything she says charitably.

Nine dead and she and the Republican Party are the victims. Sheesh.

UPDATE. Now Ian Tuttle is over there defending the Confederate flag:

But with respect to Ms. Kendall, this hateful man’s use of a slogan is no proof that the slogan itself is hateful. Elected leaders make this distinction constantly when it comes to Islamic terrorism, after all: The teachings of Muhammad, the Koran, the black flag with the Shahada (the flag of ISIS) — they have been “hijacked” and “perverted.” Why hasn’t Dylann Roof merely “hijacked” or “perverted” the main symbol of the Confederacy?

Interesting approach -- if you think Islam is different from Islamic terror, you must accept that those who fly the Battle Flag aren't necessarily endorsing the Peculiar Institution. But apparently it doesn't work the other way around: Here's Tuttle last year with a post called "No, Pointing Out Muslims Have Been Beheading People for Centuries Isn’t Islamophobic":

The larger question is whether Islam qua Islam sanctions beheading — or if jihadists pervert a religion that, in its orthodox form, is peaceful.

That debate can be left to religious scholars. What is evident is that, as Tantaros observes, the masked men in our age who delight in chopping off heads are typically Muslim, and they believe that they have the sanction of their religion. Furthermore, that religious fervor has made them less than amenable to reasoned, dispassionate negotiation.

If you tried this approach on the Charleston killer -- "the question is whether racism is a perversion of the neo-Confederate cause," for example, "but what is evident is that racists are typically neo-Confederates..." I expect Tuttle would be grievously offended on behalf of Nathan Bedford Forrest and the rest of his heroes.

P.C. B.S.

I keep hearing from conservatives that political correctness is ruining everything. For example, at National Review, which runs stories about PC at about the rate The Federalist runs stories about Caitlin Jenner, Ian Tuttle extrapolates from an advice column at a site you never heard of that the peecee people "would do much to crack down on the number of Fitzgeralds or Faulkners or Cormac McCarthys" and supplant their brilliance with "the Afro-Cuban lesbian experience," har har; also,

No doubt over the next several years book clubs across America will pore over many a bestseller fitted to Gabbert’s advice, in the process sacrificing better authors — e.g., Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton.

If Ian Tuttle knows where the next Shakespeare is, he should tell his editor, so they can use him to replace Kevin D. Williamson, Dennis Prager, or one of National Review's many other shitty writers. (For perspective: previously Tuttle told his readers "If you’re looking for a genuinely open-minded academic experience, Brooklyn College may not be the place for you" because the school refused to take money from the Koch brothers.)

Anyway, a lot of prominent liberals (including Amanda Marcotte, conservatives' favorite feminist voodoo doll) are saying Laura Kipnis got a bad rap from hypersensitive apparatchiks-in-training at Northwestern, and good for them (the liberals, not the apparatchiks). The other day Edward Schlosser had a long piece at Vox, of all places, complaining about student noodges. You'd think that if PC were as much of a menace as it's been portrayed, conservatives would be happy to at last have bipartisan support in fighting it. Well, here's James Taranto at The Wall Street Journal:

As we read the Schlosser piece, we felt more Schadenfreude than sympathy, and we wondered if that reflected poorly on us. (Spoiler: Nah.)

Instead Taranto complains that liberals like Schlosser are only upset because they're getting it in the neck, and are fundamentally incapable of understanding the pain of censored "outgroup" conservative academics like Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, Harvey Mansfield, William A. Jacobson, et alia. Taranto explains:

Social systems have existed—think of the American South under slavery and Jim Crow—in which a dominant ingroup governed itself in accord with liberal principles while subjecting the outgroup to a combination of oppressive rules and often-cruel whims.

Time for a Poor Wingnuts' Campaign! Back at National Review Charles C.W. Cooke says

Of course Jonathan Chait is turning against political correctness and campus self-indulgence. Of course Vox’s editor, Ezra Klein, is now peddling lefty academics who are willing to stand up to the mob. Of course the good denizens of Jezebel are beginning to wonder aloud whether a feminism that eats the likes of Laura Kipnis is useful. If neo-McCarthyism “becomes a salient part of liberal politics,” Schlosser writes in his conclusion, then “liberals are going to suffer tremendous electoral defeat.” The American Left has started to rebel at the exact moment that its own interests are being hurt? Naturally. This isn’t about standards; it’s about power.

Cooke's essay is called "Is the Tide Turning against PC?" but it's not clear that he wants it turned if it means linking arms with those people. So I guess PC must not be such a big deal after all.

Sympathetic as I am toward Kipnis, I never thought so myself -- if some dumbasses want to play thought policeman in select programs at elite colleges, I figure, let them waste their parents' money and God help them when they graduate. And let those other dumbasses turn their tattered propaganda equity now this way, now that, trying to catch the wind. (Good luck explaining the menace of "social justice warriors" to downsized factory workers!) We who have free souls, it touches us not.

UPDATE. Comments are all glorious, but special thanks to commenter atheist for invoking La Rochefoucauld: "Our hatred of favorites is but a love of favor, and our scorn of those who enjoy it is only a balm to our vexation at being deprived thereof." Conservatives had their way exclusively for several centuries before the Enlightenment, and have been sore ever since they lost the franchise.

UPDATE 2. What causes political correctness on campus? Joseph Bottum at the Weekly Standard:

It’s possible to ascribe the situation to the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012.

Ain't even kidding.

The guidelines for Title IX issued by the Obama administration have shifted power to the outraged, and everyone seems to know it.

Everybody Joseph Bottum talks to at the Club, anyway. But wait, Bottum allows that the roots of PC do go deeper:

The reaction to Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, leading to his impeachment in 1998, may have been the first hint of a new choosing of sides, followed by an abiding anger over the outcome of Bush v. Gore in 2000. But the fate of the Democrats is not quite the same thing as the fate of radicalism, and to find the real springs of what is now washing over the nation’s schools, you have to go back, I think, to the fall of the Iron Curtain, 26 years ago.

Everything Democrat causes everything bad, and the same goes for the Soviet Union! In fact the title of Bottum's column is "I Still Blame the Communists." I expect if you swapped out "political correctness" for "riots in Baltimore," "Ebola," "potrzebie," etc., it wouldn't have to be changed much. Sometimes I think they work from Mad Libs.