Category: The Dish

This blogger has a very smart critique of my book:

Sullivan and many others misdiagnosed the disease back in the 1980s: like Margaret Thatcher, they thought that there was no such thing as society, identified liberalism with socialism, and concluded that everything apart from conservatism should be flushed down the drain. What we can now see is that conservatism without liberalism cannot stand: it is too easily warped by the forces of reaction, just as it has been for the last two hundred years.

The challenge is simply this: how do we restore the creative balance between liberalism and conservatism: between compassion and prudence, between idealism and skepticism, between inventing the future and learning from history? Andrew Sullivan has grasped part of this.

I don’t actually disagree with this general analysis. Oakeshott’s genius was in understanding that society requires both impulses to function correctly: what he called "civil association" (involving individualism, skepticism and prudence) and "enterprise association" (suggesting collectivism, compassion and idealism). But Oakeshott’s sympathies in the middle of the twentieth century – after the horrors of fascism, the threat of communism, and the suffocation of big government liberalism – was with civil association. My own sympathies right now are the same – but, for me, the great threat to civil association is collectivist fundamentalism, both at home and abroad. Even worse, at home, this collectivist fundamentalism is calling itself conservative. Hence my distress.

The book is simply an attempt to remedy that by reminding conservatives of something some of them have forgotten: that conservatives have historically been much more leery of enterprise association than civil association. And in this administration, we have one of the most controlling, certain and dangerous manifestations of that tendency since Nixon.

And I might add that this balancing act as a whole – sometimes favoring reformed liberalism, sometimes favoring chastened conservatism – might itself be called conservative in a philosophical sense because it rests on a prudential judgment as to what is right at any particular moment in a particular time and place. I.e. it is not a fixed ideology. It is about prudence or practical judgment. Which is, at root, a conservative insight.

A reader writes:

Watching Senator Barack Obama on Meet the Press last Sunday, I suddenly understood how so many people felt about Robert Kennedy in 1967 and 1968.  Here is an enormously talented political figure with the capacity to inspire Americans and remind us of why America is the world’s hope. Yet Obama, like Robert Kennedy in 1968, is a freshman senator for whom convention wisdom holds that a presidential run should be another cycle away.  Many of Robert Kennedy’s advisors pleaded for him to wait until 1972, when the field would be clear for him.  I have no doubt that Sen. Obama has advisors today who are counseling him to wait until 2012, by which time the Democratic party will be cleared of Clintons seeking the presidency (assuming, of course, that Hilary runs and loses in 2008).

Robert Kennedy died before I was born, but he is my political hero because of his capacity for growth, because of his idealism, because of his toughness, and not the least because he chose to run for the presidency when it was difficult rather than preordained.  He heeded the call to run at a time when our country was mired in an ill-conceived and and badly executed war.  He ran for the nomination against a titan of the party (Hubert Humphrey) who had long been beloved by liberal party stalwarts but whose popularity had waned among among these activists (in Humphrey’s case, because of his service as LBJ’s vice-president).  RFK declared his candidacy at a time when Americans had come to distrust the words of the occupant of the Oval Office.  And when Kennedy finally decided to run for the presidency, he chose to appeal to the better angels of America’s nature.

Robert Kennedy famously quoted George Bernard Shaw: "Some men see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’  I dream things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’"

Today I find myself hoping that Barack Obama will think of running for the presidency and say to himself, "Why not?"

But Kennedy had been attorney-general, he had a record as an aide to McCarthy, he’d been intimately involved in foreign policy in the Kennedy White House, and he’d been imbroiled in the civil rights movement for over five years. Obama has none of that experience. Not that I’m opposed to him. But if there’s one lesson I’ve learned these past few years is to be skeptical of potential leaders. I find Obama impressive. I have an open mind about him. But I want to know more – as I’m sure many others do as well.

(Photo: Scott Applewhite/AP.)

I think the president is fine with the New Jersey Supreme Court decision. Well, at least if he still believes this:

"I don’t think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that’s what a state chooses to do so. I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights. And I strongly believe that marriage ought to be defined as between a union between a man and a woman. Now, having said that, states ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others."

So it’s up to New Jersey’s legislature. And Bush would vote for civil unions. I can live with that. I’d prefer marriage equality, but within a another generation, I really don’t think it will even be a contentious issue.

An email controversy has erupted about the precise time-line of A-Ha’s "Take on Me" and CGI. I had no idea so many of you were so … well, here’s the Wikipedia entry that clears it all up. Meanwhile, I was actually right about the video in question:

A-Ha’s "Take On Me" video doesn’t use CGI. It’s an example of rotoscoping, an animation technique in which live-action footage is traced directly onto paper or cels. Max Fleischer developed the rotoscope around 1919 for his "Out of the Inkwell" cartoon series. Ralph Bakshi still uses it.

A reader writes:

Generally, I am not a huge fan of Lowry, but to characterize his brief piece on the TN ad as a "celebration" appears to me that you are picking a fight for the sake of picking one. It appeared to me that he was offering only his opinion as to what the effect of the ad may be. It may be unfortunate that people’s opinions, and votes, can be swayed by an idiotic ad. However, merely stating that it is one’s opinion that the ad will have that effect is not the cause of the problem.

Re-reading Lowry’s post, I think the reader has a point. I over-reacted, and apologize. But the term "scored a direct hit" is a little ambiguous when the ad was so vile. And there is a touch of glee in the phrase: "the controversy helped the ad get more play that it would otherwise, amplifying its effect." I’m pretty sure Rich Lowry backs Corker.

I’m on Tavis Smiley’s PBS show tonight, talking about the book. We had fun. I just finished an hour and a half of an inquisition on Hugh Hewitt’s show. His first question: "Are you a Christian?" "Nooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" But that’s roughly what it was. I asked Hewitt I think about a dozen times how he could be a Christian and support torture. He refused to answer. But it was a blast. Anyway, why not take being grilled by Cardinal Hewitt as an opportunity to show this:

A reader points out I was wrong:

It was done with CGI. The full length CGI movie Tron came out in 1982, this video is from 1985.

Rich Lowry celebrates the impact of the disgusting ad against Harold Ford I YouTubed yesterday. Even Corker has said it went too far. But Lowry is glad. You realize eventually how few principles these so-called conservatives have. It’s about power. It’s only about power.

Is Jim Caviezel speaking in Aramaic? Anyway: here’s the counter-ad.

I have to say this must be the front-runner right now. It’s Barbra Streisand’s hideously awful video for "Left in the Dark." No, it’s not camp. It’s just too bad. Don’t miss the bit where she takes a drag on her cigarette, while her voice continues singing. She can’t even lip-sync in this one.

Matt Drudge, this one is for you.

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