Month: January 2008

It’s a long year and, mercifully, I don’t have to address all the many good points you’ve made in the past week or so by email about the weirdness of a conservative supporting Obama. Right now, I’m considering who should get the Democratic nomination. It seems to me that a conservative who picks Obama over Clinton or Edwards in that context doesn’t betray any great principles. But in the general? Isn’t he a leftist? A socialist even? Derb’s splutter is not unreasonable as splutters go.

A preliminary comment. Compared to what? It seems to me that any Republican cavilling at Obama’s incremental liberalism who has not exploded in rage during the last seven years has no standing to debate this question.

No conservative who has not gone nuclear at the Bush administration’s Medicare bill, or its doubling of federal education spending, or its adding $32 trillion to unfunded liabilities, or its long record of nanny-state initiatives, or its trampling of states rights in education, drug laws, marriage laws, and on and on … has much of a leg to stand on when complaining – now – about big government liberalism. In many ways, it’s much worse coming from the Republicans, because Bush and his cronies have legitimized left-liberalism in ways that even Clinton could not (and did not).

Of course, I have exploded in rage at the GOP.  But part of that explosion is a hope that they are collectively punished for trashing the brand and the principles of conservatism. If the fall comes around and there is a vast difference between the spending plans of the Democratic and the Republican nominee, I’ll happily revisit this question. But I should add that, while I’ve never met a tax cut I didn’t like, I’ve never subscribed to the idea that indefinite government debt is a conservative principle. And sometimes, as Reagan showed, that means raising taxes. Clinton’s tax hike did not kill the economy. Something similar won’t either. And the notion that a bankrupt government in a post-industrial economy needs to maintain the same economic policies as the 1980s is arguable. If you didn’t catch Chris Caldwell’s typically sharp essay on Sunday, check it out.

I have further thoughts – on foreign policy, climate change and identity politics – but I’ll save them for later posts. But let’s be clear here: Compared to Bush, Obama is a conservative. He is promising nothing like the expansion of government or debt that Bush pushed through in eight years. Nothing like. That doesn’t mean I like the idea of even bigger government. It does mean that a little historical context helps.

"I am more and more coming to the conclusion that National Greatness Conservatism, like all quasi-fascist movements, is based on a weird romantic teenager’s fantasies about what it means to be a grown up. The fundamental moral decency of liberal individualism seems, to the unserious mind that thinks itself serious, completely insipid next to very exciting big boy ideas about shared struggle, sacrifice, duty, glory, virtue, and (most of all) power. And reading Aristotle in Greek," – Will Wilkinson. I’ll bet ya Bill Kristol does not read ancient Greek. Allan Bloom did that for him.

David Roberts looks at the rationale behind Gore endorsing:

If he has a chance to make an influential endorsement, possibly even to nudge Obama to victory, does he have the willpower to refrain? I don’t see how. It would be such sweet balance to his botched endorsement of Howard Dean in ’04. Like Ted Kennedy, Gore would become a huge fish in the comparatively small(er) pond of Obama’s powerful backers. He would enter 2009 with the full power of an historic new presidency at his back. Imagine what could be done with that power. Gore as climate envoy? Climate czar? Climate secretary?

In that event, Gore would have achieved a balance between the conflicting demands of his conscience. He would have the freedom to be a focused advocate and change public opinion, alongside the power of government to affect real change. Best of all, he could get there without the inanities and indignities of a political campaign.

If the Dem. primary reaches the point where Gore could become kingmaker, I suspect the temptation will be irresistible.

Michael Crowley thinks that Gore could deliver a "death blow" of sorts to the Clinton campaign. C’mon, Al. Just do it.

According to this article, he is only 4 points behind in the city. The state as a whole is a different story, but winning Manhattan would be sweet.

Michael Spencer, a recovering fundamentalist, has trouble with eschatology (I know the feeling) and pens an unconventional movie review:

Just how bad can things get and Christian eschatology remain “on track?” What versions of eschatology can accommodate the facts of catastrophism as we know them today? How do the scenarios of Cloverfield and Armageddon work into Christian theology?

Do those Christians who believe in global warming need to say we could wipe out human life with a man-created catastrophe? If that’s true, why wouldn’t we say it? Because Jesus won’t let it happen and upstage his return?

I tend to think that eschatology is often the weakest area of applied Christian theology; the area where there is the least reflection and rigorous examinations of what we assert. If the giant lobsters come ashore to have us for dinner, where does all of it fit into the totality of Christian belief?

Until we work all this out, I’ll be watching more monster movies, and keeping an eye on the lobster tank at Krogers.

Jesse Walker notices something missing in the new movie:

…the word "Iraq" appears nowhere in the movie, and neither do "Al Qaeda," "Islam," "9/11," or "bin Laden." The writer/director/actor told Ain’t It Cool News that he did this because "the idea of Rambo dealing with Al-Qaeda, etc. would be an insult to our American forces that are actually dying trying to rid the world of this cancer. To have at the end of a 90 minute movie the character of Rambo seizing Osama bin Laden in a choke hold then dragging him into the Oval Office then tossing him in the President’s lap declaring ‘The world is now safe, Chief’ would be a bit insulting." I don’t doubt Stallone’s sincerity, though World War II-era GIs didn’t seem to mind the fact that Superman, Captain America, and the rest were fighting alongside them in the comic books. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded seeing some of the Afghan heroes of Rambo III return as villains in Rambo IV, but that might push the franchise into areas that Stallone would rather leave alone.

Matt Zoller Seitz differs:

Cowritten and directed by Stallone, the fourth Rambo movie is a bracingly political picture — as much an argument in movie form as No End In Sight; a pro-interventionist rebuttal to all the 2007 documentaries and dramas about America losing bits of its soul in Iraq. The I-word is never spoken in Rambo, yet in its coded way, the film makes a case for why we are in Iraq and should stay there until the job is done, whenever that may be. […]

I can’t think of another blockbuster action franchise that has been so unabashedly right wing in its world view. The original Rambo picture, 1982’s First Blood — based on David Morrell’s engrossing 1971 novel — gives no obvious hint of where the series would eventually go. It’s one of the most accomplished action films of the 1980s, a have-it-both-ways thriller with a persecuted prole hero that pretty much any viewer, from Ralph Nader to Pat Buchanan, could cheer. For much of the film’s running time, Rambo comes across as the latest incarnation of The Man Pushed Too Far — a police-brutality-victimized drifter terrorizing the small town cops and soft-bellied National Guardsmen that mistook him for a smelly hippie. The film is fundamentally left-wing in its conception. But in its final scene — Rambo’s post-rampage meltdown in Trautman’s presence — it makes a sharp right turn. The hero weeps about being called a "baby killer and all kinds of vile crap" by protestors, and says he only did what he needed to do to win — but "Somebody wouldn’t let us win!"

A story of historical karma:

The bond began with Kenyan labour leader Tom Mboya, an advocate for African nationalism who helped his country gain independence in 1963. In the late 1950s, Mboya was seeking support for a scholarship program that would send Kenyan students to US colleges – similar to other exchanges the US backed in developing nations during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Mboya appealed to the state department. When that trail went cold, he turned to then-senator Kennedy.

Kennedy, who chaired the senate subcommittee on Africa, arranged a $100,000 grant through his family’s foundation to help Mboya keep the program running…

One of the first students airlifted to America was Barack Obama Sr, who married a white Kansas native named Ann Dunham during his US studies.

I’m with Drum. Really: is that all there is? Brooks actually does some work for his.

London, England, 7.40 am.

The far-left Clinton supporter who went ballistic about Ted Kennedy’s Obama endorsement has voiced similar sentiments before. When Obama and Edwards both criticized Clinton in a debate, Pappas’ press release was titled:

Psychological Gang Bang of Hillary is Proof We Need a Woman President

Take it away, Malkin!