Category: The Dish

From WFB To BHO

A reader writes:

Thanks for the lovely assortment of WFB testimonials.  Here’s one from me… In the early 1960s, when I was in high school, I read Up From Liberalism. As someone who had done precinct work for Richard Nixon in 1960 at the age of 14, but probably couldn’t tell you why I had – other than loyalty to my family’s Republican roots – Buckley spoke like lightning to my fatigue with all the stereotyped political arguments of the era.  He had the spirit of dissidence against establishment thinking, with a dash of dry sherry and topped up with cackling good humor.   

So I worked for Goldwater in ’64, and then went through the intellectual crises of the ‘60s with my Baby Boom friends.  One thing I couldn’t do, however, was fall in line with the gung-ho, pro-Vietnam War enthusiasm of many of my fellow conservatives.  I was appalled at their cavalier disregard for the costs of that war, as I am today about the Iraq misadventure.

Then after succumbing to Lyndon Johnson’s war, Republicans fell into line with Richard Nixon in ’68 – a man whose campaign that year was philosophically inert and substantively disingenuous.  That’s when I realized that the Republican establishment would swallow and digest any idea or leader, so long as elections were won and the system didn’t change.  By ’72 I was for McGovern, because at least he “spoke truth to power”, as Buckley had in the ‘50s.

That spirit of dissidence carried me into major work for Gary Hart in 1984, and a flirtation with Clinton’s campaign in ’92, until I realized that Clinton had no real interest in changing the system either – as indeed Hillary does not today.  As someone now who is influenced by many disparate thinkers, such as the great conservative political thinker Harry Jaffa at Claremont, and the radical populism of the great civil rights veteran James Lawson (who Martin Luther King called “the mind of the movement”), I have no difficulty seeing in Barack Obama the fusion of dissident impulse and unreconstructed American civic spirit which has always fired me.  Obama has Bill Buckley’s class, Barry Goldwater’s flinty individualism – and a passion for changing the way we govern ourselves in this country.  Conservatives lost that passion at approximately the moment when Newt Gingrich gaveled the House to order on the first day he was speaker.

But now, with luck, and with the help of this tall skinny lawyer from Illinois with only a single congressional term to his name – a nice historical parallel — we may be on the brink of a once-in-a-century sea-change in the way we produce and distribute political power in this country…

McCain And Paxson

An interesting big-picture Forbes piece. Money quote:

As the company’s business faltered, McCain, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, was in a position to help Paxson win–or lose–billions.

During the six-year-long fight that followed, McCain never wavered from his opposition to the legislation Paxson pushed, which would have diverted those billions into his company’s coffers and away from the U.S. Treasury. Whether McCain did any other, smaller favors for Paxson is a question that will draw new attention as the campaign heats up. But, at least on the issue of most consequence, the two strong-willed men were implacable foes.

The Dish In South Dakota

I was wrong:

I live in South Dakota, and I’m one of your biggest fans. I’ve been here since the beginning. I was a financial supporter of the original blog, and I bought some of the books for the old book club. I own all of your books. I subscribe to the Atlantic. I read your posts religiously, and I send you email responses, some of which you have replied to. You’ve even used my responses as the basis of a post or two.

I’m sorry. Samples of 2,000 don’t capture the full picture. And I’m really grateful for the support.

Transgendered Orientation

My association of being transgendered with being straight was a little garbled. It can get confusing but this is what the APA says:

What is the relationship between transgender and sexual orientation?

The great majority of cross-dressers are biological males, most of whom are sexually attracted to women. People generally experience gender identity and sexual orientation as two different things. Sexual orientation refers to one’s sexual attraction to men, women, both,or neither, whereas gender identity refers to one’s sense of oneself as male, female, or transgender. Usually people who are attracted to women prior to transition continue to be attracted to women after transition, and people who are attracted to men prior to transition continue to be attracted to men after transition. That means, for example, that a biologic male who is attracted to females will be attracted to females after transitioning, and she may regard herself as a lesbian.

Clinton’s Own Farrakhan Moment

An Hispanic supporter in Texas says:

"Obama’s problem is that he happens to be black."

On live TV, Clinton didn’t disown the remark. More explicitly, she refused to "reject or denounce" it:

“People have every reason to express their opinions. I just don’t agree with that. I think that we should be looking at the individuals who are running.”