Category: The Dish

Dobson asks his followers to pray for election day. Jesus wants a big turnout, it appears.

Here’s an ad for Bob Corker, Glenn Reynolds’ candidate in Tennessee. Enjoy.

Glenn Reynolds tries to extricate himself from one of the lamest piece of partisan rationalization I’ve read in a long time. My advice to Glenn: when you’re in a hole, stop digging. My post was based on his own stated reasons for voting. And I stand by it. So Reynolds now has another stab. He says a libertarian would have supported Corker over Ford in the Tennessee race. Here’s why:

Ford voted for the detainee military commissions bill, which Sullivan regards as anathema. And he took a hard-line stance on immigration. As for spending and pork, which Sullivan also mentions, both Ford and his opponent, Bob Corker, say they support spending reforms, porkbusters, and increased transparency. Ford also supports public display of the ten commandments, a ban on flag burning, and says he’s closer to Bush than McCain on military interrogations.

So is Reynolds saying that Corker is more libertarian than Ford on these issues? That’s the only relevant question when picking between the two of them on libertarian grounds, and Reynolds ducks it again. By the way, I am not enthusiastic about Ford and have never said such a thing. But Reynolds is adept at putting words in other people’s mouths. Then there’s this:

As for the "outing" business, I’ll admit that Republicans run on opposition to gay marriage, etc. – but so do Democrats (see John Kerry and Ford, above). And deliberately targeting individuals’ sex lives as a form of political blackmail seems to me to be nastier than policy positions with which, alas, most Americans agree.

Again: Pathetic. The difference between the GOP and the Dems on gay issues nationally is vast, as Glenn knows. Choosing Republicans over Dems if you are a single issue voter on gay matters means your partisanship has warped your judgment beyond measure, as, in Reynolds case, it has for a very long time.

If you thought talk-show conservatism couldn’t get any uglier, think again.

Falls Church, Virginia, 3.45 pm.

I had a public conversation last Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin, about conservatism and the elections with NPR’s Steve Paulson and Brian Mann in a theater. Mann’s new book, "Welcome to the Homeland" is a guide to the reality of rural America and its emerging political power. I was so impressed with his knowledge and insight I’ve already dug in to the book and recommend it. One of the things Mann emphasizes is how the electoral college and the Senate strongly favor rural areas over urban ones in American politics and how the Republican gerrymandering of the past decade or so has accentuated this still further by wedging in small majorities of rural voters in seats that might otherwise be dominated by suburban and urban (i.e. Democratic) voters. The appeal to the rural vote is critical to the Bush-Rove Republican party, which is why they have abandoned trying to persuade the suburban middle classes and devoted most of their resources to appealing to the rural vote on hot button social issues – abortion, same-sex unions – and on patriotic values, like war and terror. The key to the narrow Republican victories in the past three election cycles has been increasing turnout among these voters. Bush and Rove haven’t persuaded, in other words. They’ve mobilized.

This is familiar ground, But Mann fills it with impressive detail and nuance. And he makes a further point. If these rural voters were to abandon the current GOP, or stay home in sizable numbers, then the entire strategy collapses. Many, many more seats would fall to the Dems than most of us now expect. Republicans have lost a lot of support in the suburbs and cities this past decade and a half – making them more than ever dependent on the rural base and exurbs. The Foley affair has rattled this base in many ways. But the key issue that keeps them in the fold is the war. Rural voters with deep traditional values often send a disproportionate share of soldiers to defend all of us. Their sacrifice is inspiring. But if the hard truth of this war – and the appalling way in which it has been handled – were to seriously sink in with the rural community, the payback could be huge.

Right now, they are there with the president, proud, patriotic, and every casualty another reason to "stay the course" – in part to honor the fallen. The real reason Bush cannot level with Americans about the actual state of the war is that it would mean that this argument implodes. It would mean that thousands of rural sons and daughters have lost their lives or been seriously wounded because of Bush’s incompetence, arrogance and fecklessness. That is too much for many to admit right now. They are too emotionally committed to victory. It is hard to believe that your son or daughter died for a cause this president bungled. And so they buckle under, do their duty, and keep the faith. And their motives in this are good and honorable.

But if the facade cracks, if these rural voters begin to believe they have been misled, or their president has been criminally negligent in the conduct of this war, then the rock-solid patriotic support could become something else. It would not fade into indifference. It could turn in an instant into rage. That’s why Bush cannot concede real error. It might please people like me, but it would tell the rural base that their enormous sacrifices have been in vain. And so he will wait till after the election to tell the whole truth. It’s shrewd, smart politics – but morally and ethically of a piece with this man’s record.

Here they come. First up: honorable mention in the worst department: Animotion’s "Obsession:"

A reader notices:

Reading David Brooks’ review of your new book yesterday, I found myself focusing on the same passage that you highlighted in your response:

"When a writer uses quotations from Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and the Left Behind series to capture the religious and political currents in modern America, then I know I can put that piece of writing down because the author either doesn’t know what he is talking about or is arguing in bad faith."

Something about the passage struck a chord in the memory. It only took about ten minutes of googling to find the following passage from a column he wrote for The Atlantic in December of 2001:

"We in the coastal metro Blue areas read more books and attend more plays than the people in the Red heartland. We’re more sophisticated and cosmopolitan – just ask us about our alumni trips to China or Provence, or our interest in Buddhism. But don’t ask us, please, what life in Red America is like. We don’t know. We don’t know who Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins are, even though the novels they have co-written have sold about 40 million copies over the past few years. We don’t know what James Dobson says on his radio program, which is listened to by millions."

How can this passage be seen as anything but an effort, through the citation of Dobson and LaHaye’s influence, "to capture the religious and political currents in modern America." Just asking.

Here’s a gem:

"On the one hand [Burke] is revealed as a foremost apostle of Liberty, on the other as the redoubtable champion of Authority. But a charge of political inconsistency applied to this life appears a mean and petty thing. History easily discerns the reasons and forces which actuated him, and the immense changes in the problems he was facing which evoked from the same profound mind and sincere spirit these entirely contrary manifestations.

His soul revolted against tyranny, whether it appeared in the aspect of a domineering Monarch and a corrupt Court and Parliamentary system, or whether, mouthing the watch-words of a non-existent liberty, it towered up against him in the dictation of a brutal mob and wicked sect. No one can read the Burke of Liberty and the Burke of Authority without feeling that here was the same man pursuing the same ends, seeking the same ideals of society and Government, and defending them from assaults, now from one extreme, now from the other."

It’s Winston Churchill, as brilliant as ever.

I recall an Oxford tutorial I once had on Burke. The great thing about my Oxford education was not only that it was free. It was the tutorial system in which an undergraduate reads out loud an essay on a subject before a professor in the professor’s study once a week. That’s your course. Anyway, I was given the task one week of reading and of summarizing the message of Burke’s "Reflections on the Revolution in France". I was full of myself (big surprise). I went on and on about how Burke was the father of Toryism, how conservatism was born in his prose, how Tory wisdom flowed from his pen, blah blah blah. When I finished on some suitably rhapsodic note, my tutor was still fussing around on his desk, ruffling papers, as if he were looking for something. He’d been doing this most of the time I was speaking. Then he looked up in my general direction, as if suprised I was still there, and said something I will never forget:

"But Burke was a Whig."

So he was. You can look it up.

A reader writes:

I found out today that there’s a decent chance I have tuberculosis and am going in tomorrow for blood tests. I’ve been incredibly depressed and anxious since – that is until I watched the video of Losing You. I shared it with around ten friends online, all in their teens, and everyone loved it. Thanks a ton for sharing.

The miracle of YouTube.