Another way of saying that is to say that, although we hear so much about the conservative intellectual tradition, conservatism isn't really an ideology, but a synonym for the Republican party. Brooks, as moderate as his soft voice and lack of obviously Limbaughian spleen may make him seem, is a party man. That's all one need know about him.
If he, like Rove, had a choice between party and country, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't make Rove's choice.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Caught flat-footed
I caught a moment of the Lehrer News hour on PBS and didn't like what I saw.
A little Mark Shields- David Brooks Crossfire type action about the Plamegate. It was shocking to me the persistence of old rotten disinformation in this debate, particularly from David Brooks, whose reputation has long been that of a reasonable and moderate conservative.
Among empty falsehoods- the old chestnut that Wilson insisted Cheney had sent him. Any careful reading of his NY Times op ed demonstrate this is not true. But most alarming was Brooks' unshaken belief that Iraq had in fact sought Nigerien yellowcake. The basis for this is apparently Sue Schmidt's erroneous assertion in an old column that the Senate investigation had confirmed an attempted purchase from 1998. It should shock Brooks, then, that it was not Saddam who had sought said uranium but rather the Ayatollah Khamenei, as a helpful correction on that Schmidt story tells us.
Karl Rove was wrong. If Cooper's email is typical of Rove's mad dash to mislead, Rove identified Valerie Plame Wilson as the person who had sent Wilson to Niger. We now know that isn't true. She didn't have the authority. Rove wasn't right on any merits. Wilson was right about Saddam's failure to seek, or have any relevant channel to seek, Nigerien uranium. The Iraqis didn't actually have any of these WMD precursors. Iraq didn't have any WMDs. Rove was trying to preempt a critic of a war fought on false premises. Karl Rove has had a long illustrious career of spreading lies and doubt upon people who have opposed his employers. Shields was right, then, to call Brooks' talking point (and there is no question that that is exactly what it was) that Rove was trying to altruistically steer Cooper among others away from Wilsons falsehoods one of the more absurd talking points imaginable.
Brooks of course said that this is just liberals assuming Rove is the devil himself. But when you've been spreading lies about people, setting up dirty tricks, and acting like a machiavellian dickhead for decades, you don't deserve this slack. It's almost sad to see Brooks, who, although he maintains this amiable simpleton persona, is clearly no idiot, carrying water for one of the most powerful and despicable men in a city of powerful, despicable men. Reasonableness, really, isn't writing pseudosociological sketches of far-off red state people in a way that both flatters its largely liberal, bourgeouis audience and convinces them they are insufficiently pious and salt-of the-earthy. Reasonableness, really, is every once in a while, not carrying water for your deeply corrupt party.
A little Mark Shields- David Brooks Crossfire type action about the Plamegate. It was shocking to me the persistence of old rotten disinformation in this debate, particularly from David Brooks, whose reputation has long been that of a reasonable and moderate conservative.
Among empty falsehoods- the old chestnut that Wilson insisted Cheney had sent him. Any careful reading of his NY Times op ed demonstrate this is not true. But most alarming was Brooks' unshaken belief that Iraq had in fact sought Nigerien yellowcake. The basis for this is apparently Sue Schmidt's erroneous assertion in an old column that the Senate investigation had confirmed an attempted purchase from 1998. It should shock Brooks, then, that it was not Saddam who had sought said uranium but rather the Ayatollah Khamenei, as a helpful correction on that Schmidt story tells us.
Karl Rove was wrong. If Cooper's email is typical of Rove's mad dash to mislead, Rove identified Valerie Plame Wilson as the person who had sent Wilson to Niger. We now know that isn't true. She didn't have the authority. Rove wasn't right on any merits. Wilson was right about Saddam's failure to seek, or have any relevant channel to seek, Nigerien uranium. The Iraqis didn't actually have any of these WMD precursors. Iraq didn't have any WMDs. Rove was trying to preempt a critic of a war fought on false premises. Karl Rove has had a long illustrious career of spreading lies and doubt upon people who have opposed his employers. Shields was right, then, to call Brooks' talking point (and there is no question that that is exactly what it was) that Rove was trying to altruistically steer Cooper among others away from Wilsons falsehoods one of the more absurd talking points imaginable.
Brooks of course said that this is just liberals assuming Rove is the devil himself. But when you've been spreading lies about people, setting up dirty tricks, and acting like a machiavellian dickhead for decades, you don't deserve this slack. It's almost sad to see Brooks, who, although he maintains this amiable simpleton persona, is clearly no idiot, carrying water for one of the most powerful and despicable men in a city of powerful, despicable men. Reasonableness, really, isn't writing pseudosociological sketches of far-off red state people in a way that both flatters its largely liberal, bourgeouis audience and convinces them they are insufficiently pious and salt-of the-earthy. Reasonableness, really, is every once in a while, not carrying water for your deeply corrupt party.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Vanity
"No matter what you think of me, you must accept that no small component of this performance is vanity- mine. I suppose some of the people in this room are my fans. Thank you. The presence of fans does little to mitigate the factors of vanity and caprice in this performance here.
"I abandoned my fans and took to seclusion. Worse, for me, at least, I abandoned my bandmates. I did so out of an exagerrated and mistaken notion of my own brilliance and musical prowess. I did so out of an antisocial desire not merely to be the loudest voice in the room, but the only one. To be honest, it was helpful for me.
"I indeed needed a bit of silence, to remember why I had forsaken a potentially lucrative and fulfilling career in medicine for a life of sleeping in vans and on strangers' couches, of smoke and beer stains, of poseurs and record companies, and of that food of the gods, rock & roll.
"As much as I cringe at the vanity of trying to bring all these back after forsaking them, I hold out hope that you will again welcome me into your hearts and ears. And, as they say every corner of this beautiful world, From Helsinki to Capetown, From Seattle to Taipei, Let's Rock!"
-Peter Rios of Owl
"I abandoned my fans and took to seclusion. Worse, for me, at least, I abandoned my bandmates. I did so out of an exagerrated and mistaken notion of my own brilliance and musical prowess. I did so out of an antisocial desire not merely to be the loudest voice in the room, but the only one. To be honest, it was helpful for me.
"I indeed needed a bit of silence, to remember why I had forsaken a potentially lucrative and fulfilling career in medicine for a life of sleeping in vans and on strangers' couches, of smoke and beer stains, of poseurs and record companies, and of that food of the gods, rock & roll.
"As much as I cringe at the vanity of trying to bring all these back after forsaking them, I hold out hope that you will again welcome me into your hearts and ears. And, as they say every corner of this beautiful world, From Helsinki to Capetown, From Seattle to Taipei, Let's Rock!"
-Peter Rios of Owl
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
More Horse
From Eugene Volokh we get a discussion of Horsemilkgate from a more right of center perspective. I agree with much of what Eugene says. I honestly find nothing wrong with Laura's lame jokes, particularly in light of the denunciations launched by some folks at NRO and by Michelle Malkin, who is quoted in Volokh's post.
I do disagree in that I find nothing wrong with a bit of nasty vulgarism. For example, if Whoopi Goldberg's mentioned remarks employing some sort of vulgar puns on the president's name were funny, then great. Since it's Whoopi, it probably wasn't funny. But still- who cares? Nobody was hurt. It wasn't a public event. The manufacture uproar in its wake was another instance of censorious blue-state conservatives making a mountain out of a molehill, which they certainly excel at.
So, back to Michelle Malkin. In addition to the fact that her outrage seems entirely manufactured, and she writes gushingly about some Heritage foundation jerk delivering an address calling for all the wingnuts in the audience to resist coursening the rhetoric of political discourse (I wonder if Ann Coulter, author of Treason, or Michael Savage, author of Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, were in attendence), she lets forth this gem:
Actually, Michelle should not only lighten up, but grow up as well.
But something about what she wrote made me think about that Michelle Maglalang. Her career owes a fair share of its success to her being perceived as attractive and exotic.
Quite a few right wing female pundits, including Ann Coulter and Malkin, owe some of their popularity to the fact that they are photogenic. I don't find them attractive, but much is certainly made of Coulter's long legs and blond hair. Pundits like Malkin can go out taking potshots at "Hollyweird" or insist that they are G-rated, but it seems odd to do that when half of what they're selling is sex.
There's something beautiful in the contradictions presented by figures like Coulter, Malkin, and, say, Dinesh D'Souza. One of the patterns of right-wing punditocracy of my lifetime is a tendency to play against type.
Coulter writes hateful things about feminism and women, Malkin justifies internment camps, D'Souza gives racism a non-white face. It fits into a category of argument the right uses elsewhere. In the place of even-the-female and even-the-ethnic appeals, we have, of course, even-the-liberal or even-the-Democrat appeals.
Figures like Zell Miller, large chunks of The New Republic magazine, and Ed Koch are frequently used to give cover to ugly and thoroughgoingly conservative arguments and policies.
I honestly don't think that this kind of behavior, whether it comes from Ann Coulter or Ed Koch, has its root in some sort of deep-seated self-loathing. But it strikes me as sad that people would debase themselves to an audience of angry Republican white Christian heterosexual men who would regard them as beneath contempt if they were working any job other than attacking Hillary Clinton for a living.
I do disagree in that I find nothing wrong with a bit of nasty vulgarism. For example, if Whoopi Goldberg's mentioned remarks employing some sort of vulgar puns on the president's name were funny, then great. Since it's Whoopi, it probably wasn't funny. But still- who cares? Nobody was hurt. It wasn't a public event. The manufacture uproar in its wake was another instance of censorious blue-state conservatives making a mountain out of a molehill, which they certainly excel at.
So, back to Michelle Malkin. In addition to the fact that her outrage seems entirely manufactured, and she writes gushingly about some Heritage foundation jerk delivering an address calling for all the wingnuts in the audience to resist coursening the rhetoric of political discourse (I wonder if Ann Coulter, author of Treason, or Michael Savage, author of Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, were in attendence), she lets forth this gem:
Lighten up, you say? No thanks. I'd rather be a G-rated conservative who can only make my kids giggle than a South Park/Desperate Housewives conservative whose goal is getting Richard Gere and Jane Fonda to snicker. Giving the Hollyweird Left the last laugh is not my idea of success. . . .
Actually, Michelle should not only lighten up, but grow up as well.
But something about what she wrote made me think about that Michelle Maglalang. Her career owes a fair share of its success to her being perceived as attractive and exotic.
Quite a few right wing female pundits, including Ann Coulter and Malkin, owe some of their popularity to the fact that they are photogenic. I don't find them attractive, but much is certainly made of Coulter's long legs and blond hair. Pundits like Malkin can go out taking potshots at "Hollyweird" or insist that they are G-rated, but it seems odd to do that when half of what they're selling is sex.
There's something beautiful in the contradictions presented by figures like Coulter, Malkin, and, say, Dinesh D'Souza. One of the patterns of right-wing punditocracy of my lifetime is a tendency to play against type.
Coulter writes hateful things about feminism and women, Malkin justifies internment camps, D'Souza gives racism a non-white face. It fits into a category of argument the right uses elsewhere. In the place of even-the-female and even-the-ethnic appeals, we have, of course, even-the-liberal or even-the-Democrat appeals.
Figures like Zell Miller, large chunks of The New Republic magazine, and Ed Koch are frequently used to give cover to ugly and thoroughgoingly conservative arguments and policies.
I honestly don't think that this kind of behavior, whether it comes from Ann Coulter or Ed Koch, has its root in some sort of deep-seated self-loathing. But it strikes me as sad that people would debase themselves to an audience of angry Republican white Christian heterosexual men who would regard them as beneath contempt if they were working any job other than attacking Hillary Clinton for a living.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Horses
Laura Bush tells a joke about the president masturbating a horse at one of those National Press shindigs.
What does the press do?
Well, I saw the execrable Brian Williams try to historicize Laura's raunchiness (she also talked about the Whitehouse gaggle of old broads, Condi, Karn Hughes, Lynne Cheney and herself going out to see Chippendales dancers, and the underlying theme of her routine was that the President was sexually boring) in the most insincere, unconvincing manner possible. Apparently Laura emasculating her husband on television is as significant as Betty Ford's campaign to remove the taboo in discussing and dealing with substance abuse.
The clip they showed on that show cut off the part about Bush "milking" a horse. Heh.
Bush is no longer a popular president. Laura Bush's horse dick jokes are neither so novel they deserve network anchors pretending they mean something, nor are they so funny they deserve this kind of pass. And there's the obvious double standard. If Hillary had joked about Bill jerking off a horse it would've been treated like she performed a satanic rite on stage involving aborted fetuses.
And of course we have the only editorial columnist for the New York Times dumber than David Brooks, John Tierney, explains the whole thing proves liberals are out of touch. (!) Listen, Laura Bush reading shitty jokes about horse schlongs doesn't make me think about her any differently, and it shouldn't. Laura Bush isn't a prim librarian-she's a politician's husband, one that lacks any sort of personality as far as I can tell (I may be wrong about this, she might just be bad on TV, and that's no crime). And Laura Bush talking about Chippendales doesn't mean shit about fictional red country.
Another note about Tierney: I'm tired of pampered conservative columnists who live in New York City talking about how regular folks feel sneered at by "elites." (A) What would Tierney know about it? And (B) What is with the martyr campaign? In the world of the conservative pundit, being a regular ol' red state schmoe makes one a figure of elite ridicule, a victim of Jon Stewart's terrible gaze of disapproval. In the real world, dumbshit conservatives run the country, "liberal" is a dirty word, and Laura Bush's horse dick jokes are some sort of epic accomplishment, like she came on stage and performed heart surgery.
What does the press do?
Well, I saw the execrable Brian Williams try to historicize Laura's raunchiness (she also talked about the Whitehouse gaggle of old broads, Condi, Karn Hughes, Lynne Cheney and herself going out to see Chippendales dancers, and the underlying theme of her routine was that the President was sexually boring) in the most insincere, unconvincing manner possible. Apparently Laura emasculating her husband on television is as significant as Betty Ford's campaign to remove the taboo in discussing and dealing with substance abuse.
The clip they showed on that show cut off the part about Bush "milking" a horse. Heh.
Bush is no longer a popular president. Laura Bush's horse dick jokes are neither so novel they deserve network anchors pretending they mean something, nor are they so funny they deserve this kind of pass. And there's the obvious double standard. If Hillary had joked about Bill jerking off a horse it would've been treated like she performed a satanic rite on stage involving aborted fetuses.
And of course we have the only editorial columnist for the New York Times dumber than David Brooks, John Tierney, explains the whole thing proves liberals are out of touch. (!) Listen, Laura Bush reading shitty jokes about horse schlongs doesn't make me think about her any differently, and it shouldn't. Laura Bush isn't a prim librarian-she's a politician's husband, one that lacks any sort of personality as far as I can tell (I may be wrong about this, she might just be bad on TV, and that's no crime). And Laura Bush talking about Chippendales doesn't mean shit about fictional red country.
Another note about Tierney: I'm tired of pampered conservative columnists who live in New York City talking about how regular folks feel sneered at by "elites." (A) What would Tierney know about it? And (B) What is with the martyr campaign? In the world of the conservative pundit, being a regular ol' red state schmoe makes one a figure of elite ridicule, a victim of Jon Stewart's terrible gaze of disapproval. In the real world, dumbshit conservatives run the country, "liberal" is a dirty word, and Laura Bush's horse dick jokes are some sort of epic accomplishment, like she came on stage and performed heart surgery.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
New Frames
Josh Marshall is absolutely right. Democrats do have to embrace their destiny as the party of grownups.
There was a lot of crowing when Bush came into office on 2000 that "the grownups" were finally in charge. But what has it come to? Blowing trillions of dollars in projected surpluses on tax cuts for the rich and industrial welfare. Saber-rattling jingoism and unnecessary war. Culture war politics. Veiled threats to the judiciary because it isn't in the pocket of the Christian Right. Sleaze from DeLay and company.
And all this time the economy has been running rough- there are just as many jobs today as there were 5 years ago when there were 10 million fewer Americans of working age. Gas prices are exploding. Life is tougher for average Americans today, and the Republican solution is to try to phase out Social Security and cut services for the most vulnerable Americans.
I have not, not do I truly intend to, read the Gospel of George Lakoff. It's clear that Democrats need to shed the ugly, Republican constructed aspects of their image, but one of the primary arguments in his latest book, that Democrats need to recast ourselves as gender-neutral nurturant parents, is absurd. Gender-neutral? Ya kidding?
How about this- Democrats cast as reponsible parents, Republicans as crappy, self-serving, incompetent parents.
Ezra Klein has written some good things along this line, but I think these need to be fleshed out.
Responsible parent doesn't have to mean boring parent. Responsible parents protect their children, they're invested in their children's happiness, they understand boundaries, they treat their kids like human beings.
They don't, for example, booze or gamble away their kids' college money. They don't arbitrarily mete out punishment. They don't live vicariously through their children.
Responsibility confers a certain kind of strength. You can't have faith that the father will protect you when he's left the house chasing after the wrong guy. The responsible parent doesn't do that.
A lot of the imagery built around Republican foreign policy is based in a half-assed pro-democracy idealism. Half-assed because it's symbolism to the degree that it actually relates to the world. We live in a pretty spectacle-hungry society, so that symbolism works on some level. This half-assed idealism has crept into most corners of Republican policy and politics, and I think this is dangerous for the Republicans.
I think, at the current moment, 5 major issues are hurting the Republicans, and I think this Responsible/Irresponsible binary can draw them together.
1. The Social Security debacle
2. Terry Schiavo etc.
3. High gas prices
4. Iraq
5. Tom Delay and attendant scandals.
We have, from the Republican side, respectively: buffoonish pseudoidealism; the feds reaching into our private lives; inaction in the face of a long term problem; adventurism that has resulted in a lot of death and not a lot of progress; and sleaze.
Democrats should demonstrate, likewise: a realism and an attachment to collective financial security; an understanding that the the government ought to respect families; a long-term, sober investment in improved efficiency, {possibly an investment in mass transit}, alternative energy sources, and thus a decreased dependence on foreign oil; and a committment to good, clean government.
It isn't sexy, but i'm not worried about that. One of the good things about a frame based on responsibility, rather than nurturing exactly, is that responsibility becomes a way to cast religious right culture politics as an attachment to divisive trivia. Mature adults can disagree on cultural hot-button issues, but threatening judges, grandstanding, and imposing the federal government in order to try to get your way isn't called for.
i think using maturity and responsibility as frames for the Democrats is probably a good way to ply educated people bothered by religious fanaticism and lower middle class people who are feeling increased financial burdens away from a Republican party increasingly under the reins of religious fanatics and a messianic agenda of decreased capital gains taxes and an eroded safety net.
There was a lot of crowing when Bush came into office on 2000 that "the grownups" were finally in charge. But what has it come to? Blowing trillions of dollars in projected surpluses on tax cuts for the rich and industrial welfare. Saber-rattling jingoism and unnecessary war. Culture war politics. Veiled threats to the judiciary because it isn't in the pocket of the Christian Right. Sleaze from DeLay and company.
And all this time the economy has been running rough- there are just as many jobs today as there were 5 years ago when there were 10 million fewer Americans of working age. Gas prices are exploding. Life is tougher for average Americans today, and the Republican solution is to try to phase out Social Security and cut services for the most vulnerable Americans.
I have not, not do I truly intend to, read the Gospel of George Lakoff. It's clear that Democrats need to shed the ugly, Republican constructed aspects of their image, but one of the primary arguments in his latest book, that Democrats need to recast ourselves as gender-neutral nurturant parents, is absurd. Gender-neutral? Ya kidding?
How about this- Democrats cast as reponsible parents, Republicans as crappy, self-serving, incompetent parents.
Ezra Klein has written some good things along this line, but I think these need to be fleshed out.
Responsible parent doesn't have to mean boring parent. Responsible parents protect their children, they're invested in their children's happiness, they understand boundaries, they treat their kids like human beings.
They don't, for example, booze or gamble away their kids' college money. They don't arbitrarily mete out punishment. They don't live vicariously through their children.
Responsibility confers a certain kind of strength. You can't have faith that the father will protect you when he's left the house chasing after the wrong guy. The responsible parent doesn't do that.
A lot of the imagery built around Republican foreign policy is based in a half-assed pro-democracy idealism. Half-assed because it's symbolism to the degree that it actually relates to the world. We live in a pretty spectacle-hungry society, so that symbolism works on some level. This half-assed idealism has crept into most corners of Republican policy and politics, and I think this is dangerous for the Republicans.
I think, at the current moment, 5 major issues are hurting the Republicans, and I think this Responsible/Irresponsible binary can draw them together.
1. The Social Security debacle
2. Terry Schiavo etc.
3. High gas prices
4. Iraq
5. Tom Delay and attendant scandals.
We have, from the Republican side, respectively: buffoonish pseudoidealism; the feds reaching into our private lives; inaction in the face of a long term problem; adventurism that has resulted in a lot of death and not a lot of progress; and sleaze.
Democrats should demonstrate, likewise: a realism and an attachment to collective financial security; an understanding that the the government ought to respect families; a long-term, sober investment in improved efficiency, {possibly an investment in mass transit}, alternative energy sources, and thus a decreased dependence on foreign oil; and a committment to good, clean government.
It isn't sexy, but i'm not worried about that. One of the good things about a frame based on responsibility, rather than nurturing exactly, is that responsibility becomes a way to cast religious right culture politics as an attachment to divisive trivia. Mature adults can disagree on cultural hot-button issues, but threatening judges, grandstanding, and imposing the federal government in order to try to get your way isn't called for.
i think using maturity and responsibility as frames for the Democrats is probably a good way to ply educated people bothered by religious fanaticism and lower middle class people who are feeling increased financial burdens away from a Republican party increasingly under the reins of religious fanatics and a messianic agenda of decreased capital gains taxes and an eroded safety net.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Music
I'm not a musician, but I'm playing at being one.
I'm trying to record music for my fake band, Owl. It's about as hard a I thought it would be, even though the songs are covers and are being selected for their relative ease of performance. I've always been musically inclined, even if I haven't really performed music since I was in middle school, and it's been a long time desire of mine to make something of it.
I had a grad school critique yesterday and I presented a clip I had recorded yesterday in front of my professors and fellow grad students. A professor told me the music was terrible, that it sounded like experimental art music, and was therefore bad. And this excited me.
Not because he's right or because he's wrong, but because music is far more resistant to evaluative ambiguity. You like a song or you don't. It's not like visual art, where criticism tend to involve complicated discussions that skirt the simple but important thumbs up- thumbs down evaluation.
Art is also less distinctly connected to its audience. Most people don't look at art the way they listen to music. Most people don't look at art.
And the fact that I'm a novice at music adds to all of the above. It didn't hurt my pride to hear the music was bad the way it would if that judgment had been applied to my art. It has spurred me to reevaluate my music process, and I think it will help me grow.
I'm trying to record music for my fake band, Owl. It's about as hard a I thought it would be, even though the songs are covers and are being selected for their relative ease of performance. I've always been musically inclined, even if I haven't really performed music since I was in middle school, and it's been a long time desire of mine to make something of it.
I had a grad school critique yesterday and I presented a clip I had recorded yesterday in front of my professors and fellow grad students. A professor told me the music was terrible, that it sounded like experimental art music, and was therefore bad. And this excited me.
Not because he's right or because he's wrong, but because music is far more resistant to evaluative ambiguity. You like a song or you don't. It's not like visual art, where criticism tend to involve complicated discussions that skirt the simple but important thumbs up- thumbs down evaluation.
Art is also less distinctly connected to its audience. Most people don't look at art the way they listen to music. Most people don't look at art.
And the fact that I'm a novice at music adds to all of the above. It didn't hurt my pride to hear the music was bad the way it would if that judgment had been applied to my art. It has spurred me to reevaluate my music process, and I think it will help me grow.
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