The Dish

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.

A reader writes:

A better question would be:

"How have occupying armies been successful in extricating themselves from a recently defeated country without becoming engaged in either a prolonged occupation or insurgency, while still achieving the national objectives for the war?"

If that question had been asked, answered, and heeded before the war, then we would be in a better position today. Unfortunately from what we are told in the press, my question was asked, answered and ignored.

I think the key issue in Iraq was actually the WMDs. Without them, the key rationale for the war – both for us, the world at large, and to the Iraqis – changed from self-defense to something far more nebulous. Democratic change was one reason for the war but it was never the sole reason, and if it had been the sole reason, there would never have been domestic support for it (especially among conservatives). But when it became apparent that the WMDs were not there, the war’s rationale became willy nilly a nation-building project which the president simply refused to commit sufficient resources or knowledge to. To make matters even worse, the defense secretary never believed such a project should be part of the military’s purpose – and refused to let any other wing of the government take responsibility either. And so we entered a no-man’s land in which we are still staggering.

Are you a conservative who feels that the Republicans no longer represent you in any way? Are you sick of the spending, the borrowing, the nannying, and the bungling of the war? Are you still uncomfortable thinking of yourself as a Democrat or a liberal? Me too.

We are not the only ones. The NYT explains.

A reader writes:

I find it painfully insightful that you are having a pedantic discussion of why our constitutional framers created such disjointed institutions and processes to govern this country.  The fact that we need to be reminded of why our country‚Äôs constitution was so cleverly crafted not to give one group ultimate power may be one of the reasons we find ourselves being governed by neocons who believe they know what is best for all of us.

Thank you for reminding us.

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"The entire mechanism of American government was designed to ensure that as little as possible is ever done by government, that doubt is welded into the core system"

Exactly! Madison’s writings in the Federalist Papers are about the merging of the conservatism of doubt with a post-revolution political landscape. While his words are a recipe for soothing the doubts expressed by many critics of the new Constitution, his own doubts about the power of the government are inherent in his arguments – he understands and embraces them. The fact that the movement toward independence was so deeply conservative is the very reason, in my opinion, that the grand experiment survived and thrived. The passions of the people were largely held in check – by themselves and government in the American movement, while in France the passions flamed out of control and its own revolution became disastrous. It is also why ideological purity such as reflected in the writings Thomas Paine, fell mostly out of favor in America in the post-Revolutionary period.

Doubt-based conservatism, in other words, is not just Burkean and English. It is Madisonian and American. This reckless era of big government fundamentalism is exactly the time to recover and celebrate it.

That’s the central issue in this campaign, as it should be, and as a new poll shows.

"The New Masses politicians knew exactly, at any given moment, what the true line on any event or problem was; and they saw it not only as their duty but as a therapeutic service to cram that line down the throats of believers, half-believers and disbelievers.

The New Masses ideologues, writing with the confidence possible only to those who have ceased to regard their own assumptions as an object of inquiry, were ready to claim the whole province of knowledge for their own, past, present, and future; nor did they hestitate to admit that the claim was made not on the ground of accumulated study but in the name of a general principle," – Irving Howe and Lewis Coser in The American Communist Party: A Critical History. They were writing about the political cultural magazine, "The New Masses".

Now substitute Sean Hannity’s radio show or Hugh Hewitt’s blog and see if you can tell the difference.