Dead Center

With the announcement Tuesday by Maine's Republican Senator Olympia Snowe that she will not be seeking re-election this fall, some in the media are pointing once again (with either feigned concern or a concern born of ignorance) to the ever-shrinking "Vital Center" in American politics.  Snowe joins similarly described Democrat Senators Joe Lieberman, Kent Conrad, and Ben Nelson in forswearing yet another run for office.

First, please know that the "center" in American domestic politics has been decidedly left of center since the New Deal at least.  Even the coiner of the phrase "The Vital Center", the late Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., an unapologetic man of the Left, felt compelled eventually to clarify that his term should properly be restricted to the area of foreign policy.  And up until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, his description was more or less apt.  But, as I say, with respect to domestic policy it has not been the case for some time now.

So, what then will these retirements bring to our politics?

Clarity...and will no matter who replaces them.

While it's true that each of these senators speaks publicly in a less overtly ideological and partisan  fashion than do many of their colleagues, it's also true that when when the vote is tough, when push comes to shove, when party loyalty and identity really matter, they all, to include Senator Snowe,  vote with the Democrats.  (I'll concede that you can probably find a few exceptions to this rule, but they are exceptional precisely because of the rule.)

In major league, hardball politics, it's very important to know who's on your team.  While the Democrats could be more or less sure of their roster, with senators like Olympia Snowe, the Republicans could not.

The Great Reckoning continues.

Liberal Firsters

Have you been keeping up with the Media Matters saga?   No?  Can't blame you.  Its head David Brock has struck me as a passing strange and pathetic fugure ever since he famously moved from the Right to the Left in the mid-90s. 

Anyway, to make matters worse (hey, I just punned without meaning to), it seems they've got Harvard Law Professor and fellow uber-liberal Alan Dershowitz on their back as well, and quite publicly so.  For him, the charge against the organization is one of anti-Semitism for among other reasons the group's use of the term "Israel Firster" to describe and discredit American Jews whose primary loyalty they think is to...well, you get it.

Alana Goodman over at conservative Commentary apparently thinks that as a result there may well be some political hay to be made for our side:

A vocal campaign against Media Matters, especially if it includes other prominent Democrats in the Jewish community, could cause major problems for Media Matters and increase pressure on Obama to distance himself from the group. 

But it will also be a test of whether Democrats are willing to call out anti-Semitism and Israel-bashing within their own ranks. After former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block criticized Media Matters staffers for making anti-Semitic comments late last year, the Truman Institute cuts its association with him, claiming Block was trying to shut down “honest debate.” Will Democratic Party institutions side with Dershowitz on this issue? Or will they continue to stay silent on the uncomfortable but very real Israel problem at Media Matters?

My guess is they'll do both and neither.

I recall many years ago watching Dershowitz on a split-screen with the late Jerry Fallwell.  They were debating either the verdict in the O.J. trial or the verdict came up and Fallwell said something like, "That jury would have acquitted O.J. even if the murder charge had been made by Mother Teresa herself and the entire crime captured on video-tape."  Before he could even finish the sentence, Dershowitz was yelling, "That's racist!  That's racist!"  Like so many Lefties, Dershowitz is a bully and reflexively reaches for his weapon of choice, one always kept very close at hand, i.e., charges of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, etc.  Hence, when someone, when anyone, even an ideological ally, criticizes something dear to him, in this case Israel itself, he just starts swinging.  He'll think about it later.   And when he does,...?

While I enjoy as much as any conservative these episodic family feuds among liberal, I wouldn't count on them having much effect.  The Democrat Party's support for Israel has been soft since the Carter Adminstration at least, while the GOP's support for the country has remained steadfast for even longer.  Does anyone honestly think that, as a result, Alan Dershowitz of all people will ever vote anything other than "Democrat" in an election?
 
Liberal ideologues, whether they be Jew or gentile, are liberals first and last.  Fidelity to their ideology supercedes, and easily so, all other ties that bind.

Howling All the Way to the Bank

There are few pastimes I enjoy more that poking fun at the various pretensions and sundry hypocrisies of the avant-garde artiste.  His love-hate relationship with capitalism is a particularly target-rich environment as when after pointing his venomous pen at the money men, he without flinching then passes them the bill for the effort.  And fools that so many of them are (foolish because they're rich no doubt), as often as not they quite happily fork over the cash for the singular pleasure of being insulted.  Go figure.

But not so much anymore, and especially so in the case of poetry.  Which brings us to the question we've been asking for as long as I can remember:  Why don't Americans read poetry?  Or, perhaps more to the point, why don't poets write verse that Americans read?

Professor Micah Mattix ventures a partial answer.  (By the way, he does so in such gentle and measured a fashion that the thought did cross my mind that he, like the angry poets he describes, was playing me as reader for a fool as well.)  At any rate, my favorite paragraph is one in which he describes and explains the first of two common responses these poets make to what they see as the evil of capitalism:

One of those responses has been for poets to create poems that rail against hierarchy and morality in an effort to free their audience from the shackles of the great capitalistic machine. The form of these poems is usually highly experimental, using repetition and fragmentation, along with taboo subject matter, to supposedly create a poem that both resists commodification and shocks the middle-class into seeing that property ownership, marital fidelity, proper grammar, and so forth are all constructs that restrict personal and, importantly for poets, aesthetic freedom.

"Property ownership, marital fidelity, proper grammar, and so forth..."?

I love it.

Empty as a Pocket

Britain's Broke!

Or so concedes George Osborne, the country's Chancellor of the Exchequer.  My favorite sentence in the piece reporting the news:

Mr Osborne made it clear that due to the parlous state of the public finances the best hope for economic growth was to encourage businesses to flourish and hire more workers.

Uhh, ya think?

The truth is that Great Britain, along with every other country in the West has been broke for some time now.  The real news is not that Britain or the rest of us have run out of money, it's that we've run out of creditors, you know, saps who will loan us money.

I haven't mentioned it for some time, but little has changed, the Great Reckoning continues apace.


BTW, what's the source of my title?

Who's Sorry Now?

I've noticed that even a few liberal commentators are expressing reservations about the Obama Administration's persistent groveling before the Afghan people, before the world. 

But they, and certainly we, should not be surprised by this behaviour. 

Unlike his Democrat predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama is an essentially honest man and his adherence to left-wing ideology has been consistent throughout his Administration, during his '08 campaign for the presidency, indeed for the entirety of his adult life:  He believes that at best our country is fundamentally flawed and has been since its founding.  At worst, as the richest and most powerful nation on earth, we are the fountainhead of the lion's share of the world's injustice.  As a result, he feels we owe the world an apology and so long as he's president he aims to pay that debt.

And yes, it's as simple as that.

A Counsel of Fear

I've said it before, in this very blog in fact:  I like Mona Charen.

BUT (you knew it was coming) her counsel in her most recent NRO post is fundamentally a counsel of fear.  It's useful, however, because as such, it serves to highlight that which is wrong with the GOP as well.  The Republican Party not only lacks the courage of the convictions that describe it, it also lacks courage, plain and simple.  It is afraid and it operates almost invariably from a posture of fear.

Charen's piece is titled "Don't Pick Rick" and while she lists many quite sound reasons why Rick Santorum would make a poor candidate against Barack Obama this fall, the problem with her reasoning is that it springs in the first instance from this consideration:

Because he has phrased his socially conservative views in vivid terms, he is precisely the sort of candidate who will evoke a Pavlovian response from the press. Just as they were driven mad by Sarah Palin, they will be outraged by Rick Santorum.

To my mind, this very point serves more, much more in fact, to recommend rather than disqualify Santorum.

When, oh when, will the too many conservative pundits to count and virtually every professional Republican ever learn?  The "press" has not been for some very long time, is not now, and will not be in any foreseeable future, an ally of conservatism.  Nor, so long, that is, as any conservative remnant continues to reside chiefly in the GOP, will it ever be an ally of the party either.

Appeasing the press is a fool's errand and would be even if it were attempted from a position of confidence.  But coming as it does from a posture of fear, it not only fails to inspire undecided voters, it disgusts the party's conservative base as well.

Short Memory

For the record...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today defended President Obama's apology to President Karzai and the Afghan people after GOP presidential candidates Gingrich, Santorum, and Romney each criticized him for making it:

"I find it somewhat troubling that our politics would inflame such a dangerous situation in Afghanistan."

But then Senator Clinton had these words for General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker during their Senate Committee Hearing appearance in September 2007:

"I want to thank both of you, General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, for your long and distinguished service to our nation. Nobody believes that your jobs or the jobs of the thousands of American forces and civilian personnel in Iraq are anything but incredibly difficult."  

"But today you are testifying about the current status of our policy in Iraq and the prospects of that policy. It is a policy that you have been ordered to implement by the president. And you have been made the de facto spokesmen for what many of us believe to be a failed policy."  

"Despite what I view as your rather extraordinary efforts in your testimony both yesterday and today, I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief."