The Dish

Not just a victory but a landslide. Mickey explains far better than I why this is a good thing. Roger Simon gets the basic point: the Eagle revolution. It’s a potentially excellent development for the state of California, for punishing a certain type of interest-group-beholden Democrat, and really, really good news for the future of the Republican party nationally. (Can you imagine how gloomy Alan Keyes is this morning?) Money quote:

Bruce Cain, the overquoted Berkeley professor, was just on television sneering that the recall doesn’t get California any closer to solving its problems. What an idiot. Schwarzenegger as governor will have weapons Davis doesn’t have, the most important of which is the ability to go over the heads of the legislature and rally public support–behind an initiative, if necessary. He might even be able to threaten to go into legislator’s districts and campaign against them (although the state is so heavily gerrymandered there may be no unsafe “swing” districts left). You want to amend the state Constitution to get rid of the paralyzing requirement that two-thirds of the legislature approve any budget? Schwarzenegger is the man who can do it. You want a tax increase if cutting the budget isn’t enough to close the deficit? Schwarzenegger’s the man for that too. As a nominal Republican, he is in a position to attract at least some Republican votes for a budget package that includes both taxes and cuts. And if even an anti-tax candidate like Schwarzenegger tells the voters some increases are needed, they’re more likely to accept it from him than from a Democrat whose first instinct is to pay whatever it takes to avoid public employee layoffs.

But Arnold also shows that Eagle politics can work – fusing low-tax conservatism with social tolerance and a tough foreign policy is the great missing politics in America. We may have just found our first truly charismatic candidate.

Not so heavy dish this morning because I spent one of the most enjoyable evenings in a very long time. Lecture by Steven Pinker at AEI, dinner afterwards, then off to “Lost In Translation,” the sublime Sofia Coppola movie. Then home to news of Arnold’s triumph. You have to savor days like this. Now to walk the beagle …

RAINES AWARD NOMINEE: “Behind a seemingly calm facade, with Damascus toothless to respond militarily to the deepest Israeli air raid in Syria in three decades, the Arab world was reeling Monday from the idea that yet a third major conflict could erupt in the Middle East. Already, the region is traumatized by the open wound that Israeli-Palestinian clashes have become and by an American-occupied Iraq teetering on the brink of bedlam.” – Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times. The “brink of bedlam?” And what evidence is there of that? None given. Gee, do you think MacFarquhar was opposed to the war? More anti-war spin from the NYT. The spirit of Raines is back.

The first casualty of the Clintonista Manchurian candidate is, er, the campaign manager. Not exactly a good sign.

THE TURKS COME THROUGH: Important progress in the military stabilization of Iraq. Safire’s right about the position of the Iraqi neo-government. This is time for conciliation and support.

The minute Sharon started taking the fight back to the terrorists, something strange happened. Terrorist deaths dropped by

WHEN LESBIANS BLINK: Eugene Volokh follows up on the born-gay story.

THE IMMINENT LIE: “David Kay, the head of the US team of 1,200 experts scouring Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, reported to Congress last week that he found none of the nuclear, biological or chemical weapons that President George W. Bush (news – web sites) said Saddam had and were an imminent danger to the world. The threat from these weapons was cited in Washington as the main reason for the US-led war that toppled the Iraqi leader.” – Agence France Presse, October 7.

I’ve just received Jean-Francois Revel’s new book on anti-Americanism. I haven’t had time to read it yet (the blog takes more and more hours out of my day). But here’s an extract worth perusing from the New Criterion.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “Arnold is no Eagle; he’s a power hungry Vulture. I notice you didn’t mention any of his fight back speech posted on Drudge’s site. He’s all upset because these allegations are so close to the election. Must be a vast left wing conspiracy. He said why didn’t the women come to him, he would have “apologized.” We should be cool with that after all it’s like you said, “once and out.” This is as bad as Gloria Steinem’s “one grope” rule established to defend Clinton. How dare you? As I woman and a conservative, I find that thinking vile. I found Clinton’s behavior vile and I find Arnold’s vile. The only difference between Arnold and Clinton, besides the rape allegation, is Maria: she’s prettier than Hillary. But like Hillary, she stands by her groping husband. But then again, Kennedy women have experience with power hungry, sexually abusive husbands, don’t they. I could go on, but I won’t. I’ll just leave with this. He released part of the book proposal to explain why he admired Hitler so much. He said Hitler and Kennedy could walk into a room and command it. They would speak and the people would follow. He liked them because of their power over people; he finds this exciting. This is just more evidence to me that he’s no Eagle. He’s a power hungry Vulture, preying on the weak minded and women. And shame on you for supporting and defending him.” – more reader feedback on the Letters Page.

Click on the link to see the full TV ad, for the right effect. This is almost NAACP territory. Vote Arnold.

“On all the matters that touch upon the critical moral issues, Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the evil side. This is a fact. A mere list of the positions he supports is enough to make this plain: abortion as a “right,” cloning of human beings, governmental classification of citizens by race, public benefits for sexual partners outside of marriage, disrespect for property rights against environmental extremism, repudiation of the right to bear arms – no more need be said to show that this candidate is wrong where human decency, human rights and human responsibility bear directly on political issues… The worst enemy Republicans face in the political realm is not the Democrats, but the power of evil that lurks in all hearts. In the context of this true reality, the decision to vote for Schwarzenegger is not a clever tactical calculation. It is a strategic blunder. Troy did not fall until the Trojans brought the horse into their city. The Greeks offered them a false victory, and so destroyed them. The leadership of the California Republican Party does not appear much wiser than the Trojans’, nor, I fear, will its fate be any happier.” – Alan Keyes, describing the leading GOP candidate in California as an accomplice to “evil.”

Another poll on same-sex marriage finds yet more evidence of rapidly growing acceptance. In the fifteen years I’ve been arguing for this reform, I’ve never seen numbers like these. When you look at the younger age-groups, especially those in their twenties, the debate has been strikingly won: 67 percent support the reform. What I particularly liked about this poll was that it asked the important question: will this change hurt or help the broader society? A tiny majority said it would help. What chance does a Constitutional Amendment have that cannot even get a simple majority in most polls? Close to none, I’d say.

Why is it that both the left and the right have it in for Arnold Schwarzenegger? (I’m not referring to the last-minute dirt-dump by the L.A. Times/Gray Davis/CodePink brigades. The alleged behavior strikes me as boorish, gross and wrong. But that’s not unknown in the heterosexual lifestyle, no one has sued, no one was actually screwed, he has apologized, and I’m a tolerant, inclusive kind of guy.) AS’s candidacy, however, is far more than a classic political event. It’s a cultural event. What he represents is best displayed, to my mind, in the classic movie, “Pumping Iron.” That movie is about cunning, wit and irony – as incarnated in the larger-than-life figure of an Austrian super-star who is more American than millions of native-borns. But it is also about the 1970s – an era of sexual freedom, bravado, excess and pleasure, especially pleasure. Arnold is far, far more in touch with that ethos – and with the culture of the generations that came after it and have been permanently altered by it – than most contemporary politicians. Check out this account of an AS rally by Weintraub:

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays guitar while Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider sings the campaign anthem, “We’re not gonna take it.” The rally at the state Capitol drew about 10,000 supporters and was a rainbow of ages, races and social status. No wonder the Democrats fear Schwarzenegger.

And no wonder some uptight Republicans do as well.

CULTURE VERSUS POLITICS: This color, this cultural sympathy, this comfort with pleasure and irony and laughter, is made even more dramatic in contrast with the dry, political paste represented by Governor Davis – a spectacularly bland and corrupt hack who seems to come from some political factory. That Arnold should represent this and the Republican Party is threatening to all sorts of people: to the joyless, paranoid scolds who run the Dixie-fied GOP; to the professional political class (although AS will likely coopt and manipulate them to no end); and to the new left that likes to believe it has a monopoly on politicians who aren’t horrified by sex, drugs and rock and roll. There’s no one else in today’s Republican or Democratic parties who comes close to this. Who else could enrage both Rick Santorum and Katha Pollitt? Clinton is and was a schlubby, sexually guilt-ridden Rhodes Scholar who desperately associates with Hollywood dreck in order to get some smidgen of cool rubbed off on him. Hillary’s even more frumpily puritan. Dubya is relaxed but in a post-recovery, Bible-class kind of way. McCain came close to being real and genuinely cool, but has nothing like Arnold’s pop-cultural draw. In this universe – where your options are drones like Kerry or Lieberman – Arnold is a cultural revolution. I don’t know whether he’s going to be a decent governor but he’s said a few of the right things and it’s hard to think of anyone being worse than Davis. What I do know is that his election would do an enormous amount to ameliorate the disconnect between culture and politics in this country. His election would be a sign of a tectonic plate shifting in the culture. About time. I hope he wins – not least to warm up the frigid soul of the Republican party.

It seems to me that a good blogger or pundit may legitimately stay above the fray for an election campaign, leaving whom he’ll support till the last minute. Well, it’s election eve as I write this and Mickey Kaus, who has devoted his entire blog to the California recall, still won’t say who he’s supporting. I can understand neutered blogger, Daniel Weintraub, staying mum. The Sacbee might fire him for endorsing a candidate. But what’s Mickey’s excuse? Is it that he either has to say he’d vote for AS and have all those neolibs and Dems screaming at him for being a neocon, Republican stooge? Or is it because he’ll reveal that, like most neolibs, he’s a partisan Democrat who just thinks his party is often wrong but can’t bring himself to pull the GOP lever? C’mon, Mickster. Don’t be a wuss.