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June 22, 2009
AROUND THE CORNER.... Noting some of the oddities in Jonah Goldberg's latest column, Kevin Drum observed the other day, "Obama really drives conservatives to the loony bin, doesn't he?" It's an observation with broad applicability, especially when it comes to the team at National Review. Over the weekend, Victor Davis Hanson did his level best to read President Obama's mind before concluding, "Obama is almost more at ease with virulent anti-Westerners, whose grievances Obama has long studied (and perhaps in large part entertained), and whose estrangement alone offers opportunity for Obama's sophisticated multicultural insight and singular narcissistic magnanimity." Today, Andy McCarthy keeps pushing the envelope, explaining his belief that the president is "steeped in Leftist ideology, fueled in anger and resentment over what he chooses to see in America's history," but willing to yield ideologically "in order to maintain his grip on power.
I expect some hysteria from The Corner -- McCarthy, after all, has expressed concerns about the president's birth certificate -- but the quality of the attacks are getting increasingly delusional. Cornerites can't bring themselves to refute the fairly obvious argument -- intervention in Iran would be counterproductive for everyone except Iran's ruling regime -- so we get this bizarre hybrid of pseudo-psychology, cheap smear, and conspiracy theory. Jason Zengerle added, "I suppose McCarthy at least deserves some credit for creating a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose scenario for Obama on Iran: If the protestors in Iran succeed in toppling the regime, then their success will have come in spite of Obama's reticence (and Obama's subsequent embrace of them will be cravenly cynical, since we know at heart, like the always insightful Hanson, that Obama really prefers the mullahs); and if the resistance fails, it will of course be because Obama didn't make a big enough speech on their behalf. Either way, guys like McCarthy and Hanson needn't adjust their myopic world view in the slightest." They never do. Update: Chris Orr adds to the criticism, with an amusing comparison involving magic unicorns and ravenous zombies. I wish I'd thought of that. —Steve Benen 1:15 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (78)Comments
What false prophets like Andy McCarthy fail to discern is that life flows on within and without them. Seemingly, McCarthy doesn't think the Iranian people are capable of fighting for themselves. Always with these pundits, it is the need to interject American military power or some such scorch the earth response to events not of their own concern - and we all see what good that does! -Kevo Posted by: kevo on June 22, 2009 at 1:20 PM | PERMALINKSteve, Who's "Jonah Golberg"? [Fixed now. Thanks for the catch. --Mod] Posted by: freelancer on June 22, 2009 at 1:24 PM | PERMALINKI love it. So now Republicans think Obama can overthrow the Iranian government with "just words". Who knew? Maybe it's his celebrity. Posted by: Danp on June 22, 2009 at 1:30 PM | PERMALINKAny standard that exemplifies cognitive dissonance is one that is embraced by these folks. They are held to no rational standard as held by our reality, certainly not by their editors or by those in the Village who would be the first to cry wolf if these sad missives were penned by Democrats or progressives. It would be funny if it weren't so pervasive, and thus not prone to be absorbed without question by those who cannot be bothered with truth. Posted by: terraformer on June 22, 2009 at 1:43 PM | PERMALINKWhat these loons seem unable to realize is that, for all practical purposes, siding with the "freedom fighters" is like siding with the Gambino Family against one of the other Dons. Neither side is for "freedom" in the way we see it. It's a complicated and internecine power struggle, and yes, the anti-democratic element is winning, but just because the other side wanted votes counted, it doesn't mean that, should they win, anything at all in Iran's foreign policies would change one whit. The people of Iran, angry at their loss of power, are struggling against the ruling clique, but when one contender for rule is as hard-right authoritarian as the other, even the most ardent democracy-loving Iranian is not your soon-to-be Republican stalwart. This is not what's happening. If the ethnic minorities, such as the Kurds, get involved, it might turn into a "democratic resistance" or even open revolt. But so far, it's disappointed (and cheated) followers of one side in a strongly authoritarian government. Obama is right not to side with the out-of-power population, since the government is already claiming US involvement; adding fuel to that particular fire won't help.
Why would anyone think any other American would be pro-Mullah? These guys are all basically brain dead and delusional. Posted by: JM on June 22, 2009 at 1:47 PM | PERMALINKPoor old Hanson, so desperate for intellectual prestige. Anyone who crams virulent, estrangement, multicultural, singular, narcissistic, and magnanimity into the same sentence is beyond all help, or hope of recovery. Posted by: penalcolony on June 22, 2009 at 1:48 PM | PERMALINKI was considering a measured response to the staff of the National Review, but after reviewing the logical content of their opinions, I've decided instead on this: What I find most fascinating about the claim that Obama doesn't do or say enough, is that the same people who make this claim are the exact ones who understand why, as they have used it against someone in the past as a political tool. Obama understands that the US, a nation viewed negatively in Iran, would have the exact opposite effect by taking a side. Whoever we back, will be painted as the chosen side of the imperialistic US and pro-Western, which would not be very helpful. Ironically, those who claim to be unaware of this fact are the ones who, in the past, accused someone of the very thing, for none other than political purposes. You will recall that if any group or individual viewed as being negative even remotely expressed a positive opinion about a politician, whether true or made-up, that immediately translated into the politician being pro "that group". It would be interesting to find out exactly how many times these same people used "supported by Hamas," "terrorists will be dancing in the streets," and other such rhetoric in the past. It is hard to take these claims seriously when they are from the same people who used the very logic against someone. Throw in a "birther" and you have crazy stew. Posted by: ashton on June 22, 2009 at 1:53 PM | PERMALINKWhat Ed said above. I find it impossible not to be moved by the amazing, appalling demonstrations in Iran but let's face it, Mousavi is merely the lesser of two evils. (As is Obama, who every day carries on many of Bush's disastrous policies, so McCarthy's klaxon call to his readers about Obama's "leftist ideologies" is rather overdoing things, though no one at the Corner is likely to notice.) Posted by: zhak on June 22, 2009 at 1:57 PM | PERMALINKfueled in anger and resentment over what he chooses to see in America's history Shorter Andy McCarthy: If you ignore all the bad stuff about American history, it's perfect! Jackass. Add this note of false witness about international affairs to your previous post about false witness on a key domestic issue and you have the modern GOP in brief: nothing germane to say and nobody with credibility to say it. America has rejected neocon warlovers, climate change deniers, Big Oil and Big Pharma apologists, and racists. Establishment Republicans have no interesting arguments left. Fortunately for America, the GOP has no real opportunity to change its style and thus to regain power. The GOP's main propaganda avenues of talk radio and mass mail fund-raising--Limbaugh, Savage, Viguerie, Bozell and their ilk--are all independent agents. The MSM, with its mission to create false "balance" on every issue, books mainly extremist GOoPers to "balance" the Dems. The Right is locked into its irrelevance. Posted by: Radio Head on June 22, 2009 at 2:02 PM | PERMALINKSteve Benen wrote: Today, Andy McCarthy keeps pushing the envelope, explaining his belief that the president is "steeped in Leftist ideology, fueled in anger and resentment over what he chooses to see in America's history," but willing to yield ideologically "in order to maintain his grip on power. E Henry read: Today, Andy McCarthy keeps pushing the envelope, explaining that he is steeped in Rightwing ideology, fueled in anger and resentment over what he chooses to see in America's history, and unwilling to yield ideologically in order to completely avoid his grip on reality.
To Victor Davis Hanson, Andy McCarthy, Zengerle - WHAT A BUNCH OF BLATHERING HORSE HOCKEY! These idiots have no sense of Iranian/American history, no sense that the ruling theocrats are trying their darndest to draw us into this for THEIR OWN benefit, no sense that Obama is laying back appropriately to avoid making this struggle about the U.S. versus Iran. In a nutshell, THEY HAVE NO SENSE. Posted by: whichwitch on June 22, 2009 at 2:15 PM | PERMALINKThe salient fact here is the inability of most right wingers to tolerate ambiguity or nuance. Andrew Sullivan had something good on this recently. They are so simple-minded that they think that if Obama doesn't immediately support the anti-Ahmadinejad forces then he is supporting Ahmaninejad. If the demonstrators are not supporting Ahmadinejad then they would love to have US support and, indeed, are pining for our way of life. They see no ambiguities, shades of grey, uncertainties here. And they have no ability whatsoever to evaluate a foreign country on its own terms, with its own history, agendas, etc. It is almost as if they don't even admit that such a thing exists, except for one other country, and even there they can't deal in ambiguity and frequently are wrong-headed. The morons at The Corner = the kids at the cafeteria Nerd Table, sullenly bitching about the Cool Kids. Empty snark is all they've got to work with, and even cracking the thesaurus and dressing it up with vocabulary builders makes it nothing more than empty snark with more syllables. Posted by: Stranger on June 22, 2009 at 2:27 PM | PERMALINKwhichwitch, those "idiots" know exactly what they're doing. Yeah, the ruling theocrats in Iran are trying to draw us into their election drama for their own benefit...but so are the nonruling theocrats over here. If we ever buck the odds and can get Iran to start behaving more diplomatically, the rightwingers have one less boogeyman to use as a fundraiser and talking point. They have an interest in keeping Iran as an enemy an agent of fear. Meanwhile, as far as neocons go, if Obama said it was raining, they'd run outside without raincoats saying Obama doesn't know what rain looks like. And if it just so happened to be raining, they'd either claim that it's not rain, God is crying; OR they'd fly someplace where it wasn't raining. Either way, they'd feel confident in branding Obama a liar for it. Posted by: slappy magoo on June 22, 2009 at 2:28 PM | PERMALINKWilliam F. Buckley would be turning in his grave to see the kind of Soviet-style, content-free hyperventilating that has contaminated the National Review brand since Buckley lost control of it. But the increasingly delusional and desperate talk we hear from the Right Wing on Iran stems from the fact that for the Right the popular Revolution in Iran isn't a foreign policy issue at all, it's a domestic one. In foreign policy terms the Right has no legs to stand on since virtually no one disputes that Obama would do more harm than good for the very side we support by saber-rattling or shouting down the mullah dictators. So, the Right has to invent issues with which to vent its speen. And in consequence they come off sounding increasingly unhinged, as when they accuse Obama of somehow secretly supporting the totalitarian mullahs just because he refuses to read them the riot act -- a caution that most rational conservatives applaud. The Right isn't interested in a real policy debate over Iran, and it's beginning to look suspiciously as if they really don't care if the protesters with whom they declare such solidarity are injured just so long as they can find a way to score a few ideological points against a president who really does seem to be acting in a way that has the protesters best interests at heart. Posted by: Ted Frier on June 22, 2009 at 2:28 PM | PERMALINKThese guys are issued their Daily Talking Points for deployment in their sound bites on the TeeVee. (the DTP's are manufactured in the undisclosed location that creates fortune cookie slips). It doesn't matter if the talking point is wrong, been disproven, or an outright lie, they still utter them at any opportunity. Senator Kit Bond was on CNBC today, 'debating' health care with Dr/Gov Howard Dean. Bond's stale talking points -the government takeover of healthcare, permission from a bureaucrat to see a doctor- were batted down one by one, culminated when Doctor Dean told Bond he was wrong. Bond, that intellectual giant and debater par excellence, countered with the withering reposte "Well, I think you're wrong, too . . ." Posted by: DAY on June 22, 2009 at 2:29 PM | PERMALINK[...] he was moved grudgingly to burble a mild censure of the mullah's 'unjust' repression -- on the order of describing a maiming as a regrettable 'assault,'[...] -- Andy McCarthy That's some enhanced interrogatory technique of logic, that McC is using... Posted by: exlibra on June 22, 2009 at 2:38 PM | PERMALINKDAY, I would like to watch that "debate"...is there a link to it? Posted by: whichwitch on June 22, 2009 at 2:47 PM | PERMALINKthe quality of the attacks [at The Corner] are getting increasingly delusional. Last fall, some of them were going on about the "Obama-Ayers-Khalidi connection." That was pretty delusional. But I think they've amped up the intensity this year, which is pretty scary. Posted by: low-tech cyclist on June 22, 2009 at 3:38 PM | PERMALINKHow long a drive could it be to the looney bin? It is probably walking distance, so why use the fuel when you can walk? I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation Why would anyone think any other American would be pro-Mullah? It's the old "objectively pro-Saddam" mentality rearing its ugly head again. If you weren't sufficiently gung-ho toward the Iraq war, you must therefore support the then-Iraq regime. The fact that there were more than two choices or that there were damn good reasons to oppose the war never registered with those morons. The same is true today. If you're not prepared to bomb the Revolutionary Guard, as a commenter on another site insisted we must, you must be "objectively pro-Mullah." Again, the fact that there are more than two choices and that there are damn good reasons to be extremely cautious here just doesn't register. Their black-and-white world just doesn't leave room for nuance, or for intelligence. Posted by: PaulB on June 22, 2009 at 5:52 PM | PERMALINKRegarding Andy McCarthy's bit on Obama's alleged anti-westernism. This illuminates the violently toxic narcissism of the authoritarian 21st century conservative. The only purpose they can imagine is the political calculus of the President. They can't imagine that stifling their pieholes may be the best thing to do for Iranian dissidents. Should the opposition hold in Iran, it will be neck-spraining to watch conservatives re-evaluate, once they see how similar the Mousavists are to the Ahmedinejadi. The difference, while vivid to Iranians, would be entirely invisible to culturally and historically ignorant American conservatives. Posted by: labradog on June 22, 2009 at 11:10 PM | PERMALINKhttp://www.esquire.com/features/obama-crazy-0709 What If Obama's Out of His Mind? "It took a county commissioner from Ohio to convince me. It is important to note here that county commissioners are of a lower political phylum than most other politicians. They do not walk entirely upright across the savanna, and their political thumbs are not necessarily opposable. As witness Mike Kilburn, a commissioner in Warren County in Ohio. In April, the county was supposed to receive $373,000 in federal stimulus money from President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan. This money was meant to go to the laudable purpose of buying buses and vans for the rural communities. The Warren County Board of Commissioners turned down the money, and Kilburn announced, with a curious kind of pride, "I'll let Warren County go broke before taking any of Obama's filthy money." Until that moment, I didn't fully realize how deeply what Obama's been trying to do had penetrated the entire country, and how deeply it had sunk into the lizard brain that had controlled American society for the previous eight years. On January 20, Barack Obama became president of a deranged nation. He did so apparently taking no notice of the fact that a good portion of the country, a country that otherwise repeatedly voiced its support for him in poll after poll after poll, continued to be completely out of its mind. He was calm and reasoned, and he spoke in measured tones about the challenges he and the nation were facing. And then he seemed to go manic on us . . . . . . . By acting so quickly on so many things, he had forced upon his political opposition a kind of instant obsolescence. He had arranged things so that the country could look at the contortions of the lizard brain in comparison with the frenzy of political activity, and those contortions looked tepid and ineffectual, something out of a different and slower time. Say what you will about the policy implications of seeming to do everything at once. Politically, it came onto his opponents like Stonewall Jackson's soldiers pouring out of the forest at Chancellorsville. The basic, important subtext to what so bothered Commissioner Kilburn and so convinced me was that, Jesus, this guy's liable to do anything. In a radically different context, Richard Nixon once called this the "madman" strategy." Who are these people at NRO, and why do we keep paying attention to them? Posted by: church-lady-strikes-again on June 22, 2009 at 11:43 PM | PERMALINKla plus la change, la plus le meme chose...
Attack of the Unicorns: Reply to AJC Guest Editorial 11/8/04; Republican Myths and gullible voters Dear Editor: Regina Gulick writes that "Liberals need to listen to America's clear voice," but she reveals more than she intends about why Republicans win elections when she states "[o]n gay marriage, you imposed your abortion policies with activist judges 35 years ago, but we've gotten smart. . If you want your liberal polices to pass American muster now, you have to go through the normal American channels." So what's wrong with that assertion? Only everything. Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, 31 years ago, not 35. Decided by "activist judges" who were presumably appointed by liberal Democrats? Only if you turn history upside down and reframe Richard Nixon as a liberal Democrat, because he was the president who appointed Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade. Nixon also appointed Warren Burger, the Chief Justice who joined the majority opinion. Dwight Eisenhower appointed William Brennan and Potter Stewart, two other justices in the majority. Byron White, one of two justices who dissented, was appointed by President Kennedy. For the history challenged, Nixon and Eisenhower were Republicans, Kennedy a Democrat. And the "activist justice" who wrote the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 case which overturned Texas' sodomy law was Anthony Kennedy, who was appointed by that other liberal Democrat- Ronald Reagan. Karl Rove must be laughing in his sleeve at the whoppers he has managed to pull off to win elections: the epidemics of elective partial birth abortions, gay marriages, and activist judges imposing their ultraliberal views on America. If gullible voters are going to blame liberal Democrats for those shibboleths, in 2008 I expect we will be held responsible for the rampaging herds of unicorns which are eating all the shrubbery in the Republican suburbs. 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