I whole-heartedly agree with the New York Times’s new conservative op-ed columnist, David Brooks, who declares in his column today that “we’ve moved from the age of the culture wars to the age of the presidency wars.” (If that link requires registration, try this one instead.) In the presidency wars, bitter hatred and ignorant vitriol — based on a blend of “political disagreement, cultural resentment and personal antipathy” — have replaced actual debate about issues, he says.
Describing today’s quintessential “presidential warrior,” Brooks writes, “He avoids facts that might complicate his hatred. He doesn’t weigh the sins of his friends against the sins of his enemies. But about the president he will believe anything.” Yup. Excerpt:
The fundamental argument in the presidency wars is not that the president is wrong, or is driven by a misguided ideology. That’s so 1980’s. The fundamental argument now is that he is illegitimate. He is so ruthless, dishonest and corrupt, he undermines the very rules of civilized society. Many conservatives believed this about Clinton. Teddy Kennedy obviously believes it about Bush. Howard Dean declares, “What’s at stake in this election is democracy itself.” …
To the warrior, politics is no longer a clash of value systems, each of which is in some way valid. It’s not a competition between basically well-intentioned people who see the world differently. It’s not even a conflict of interests. Instead, it’s the Florida post-election fight over and over, a brutal struggle for office in which each side believes the other is behaving despicably. The culture wars produced some intellectually serious books because there were principles involved. The presidency wars produce mostly terrible ones because the hatreds have left the animating ideas far behind and now romp about on their own.
The warriors have one other feature: ignorance. They have as much firsthand knowledge of their enemies as members of the K.K.K. had of the N.A.A.C.P. In fact, most people in the last two administrations were well-intentioned patriots doing the best they could. The core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it’s the haters themselves.
I particularly respect Brooks for applying this argument to both Bush-haters and Clinton-haters, as is right and proper. The National Review says his column is a direct attack on fellow Times columnist Paul Krugman, and maybe that’s so, but nevertheless his argument is — dare I say it — fair and balanced, and that’s worth something.
Moreover, Brooks even acknowledges that he wishes he had been more vocal in criticizing 1990’s conservatives for the behavior he now takes liberals to task for. Why is this important? Well, I have always believed that a person who has the intellectual honesty to criticize his friends as well as his enemies — and, better still, to criticize himself — needs to be taken seriously when he is criticizing others. And Brooks should definitely be taken seriously here.
If you don’t believe him about the hateful vitriol that the Left is spewing against Bush these days, pick up the Village Voice sometime. I do periodically (because it’s free), and I literally find the political commentary difficult to get through. Even when I agree with the substantive points being made, the level of absolute hatred that the writers obviously feel toward Bush & co. is just downright disturbing. Rather than thinking, “that’s a good point,” I tend to think, “you need help.”
|
Categories: Elections & Politics (U.S.)
|
September 30th, 2003 at 11:15:48 pm
Good show, Brendan! I’m so glad you’ve mentioned that Brooks piece on your blog–I emailed it to about 5 people this morning already, and it’s something worth reading by all would-be and recovering polemicists. Say what you will about the 80’s, at least when Bork was being borked we were talking about things like original intent, the role of government in our lives, and the growing pains of pluralism. With Clarence Thomas v. Anita Hill, we seem to have turned a ‘personality’ corner, and the Clinton haters cemented the change.
p.s. see what happens when the NYT finally hires another conservative? :)
October 1st, 2003 at 12:08:53 am
Umm, you know Conservatives don’t have a monopoly on the moral high ground. I am not going to get into a who started it. This sort of thing has always been around. There have always been people on both sides that could not fathom the other side. I will say that I has gotten progressively worse since the Newt revolution. (As to Bork and Thomas, I think that this nation is best served when you select moderate judges; they are most likely to weigh both sides carefully and not get blinded by ideology (of course Chris knows all about my conflicting ideologies)).
Brooks’ article is indeed insightful and there are certainly accusations to be made on both sides. However, I think he misses some things. Brooks quite often makes quite good arguments on the News Hour on PBS (insert your choice of sarcastic joke here (it irony right get it nudge nudge))
The problem, well both sides I suppose, face is that there are those on each side willing to use hate to fight their battles. And then they feel that there is no way to respond but with more hate, leading to accusations of dirty politics and the use of more hate. I think you get the point without making that statement any more torturous than necessary.
Additional there are those that say they want to “change the tone” in washington, or to “rase the level of debate in this country” or any other of a myriad of synonyms we want to make the culture of hate better. Problem is that those tend to be the same people that turn around play dirty politics, use hate and lower the level of debate.
An exemplar from the Bush administration is declaring anyone that opposes the President’s policies to be unpatriotic (including a highly decorated triple amputee from Vietnam, no I do apologize but I don’t see how serving your country in a war, and then serving your country in government by bring forth your ideas for what is best for the future of the nation is being unpatriotic.) There is politics and there is debate.
In order to have debate in this country you can’t go around calling someone unpatriotic just because they disagree with you, or won’t give you tens of billions of dollars for a war that is not (is so far as they are concerned) necessary.
Also, I think when someone lies, you do have a right to call them on it. Mr. Clinton, you lied about getting a blow job in the oval office. Mr. Bush you lied about about the threat Iraq posed to out national security. And, I suppose that it is a bit subjective as to which is a more serious issue.
And, when you see a failing in the policies of those in charge you also have a right, and a duty to bring that to light and question what lead to it. When a President is handed a report the day he takes office saying that Al Queda poses a serious risk to the nation and that it is important to keep an eye on them and work to limit their ability to function and attempt to assassinate (yes that’s right assasinate) Bin Laden and you ignore that report and plan for nine months (while a highly decorated General is attempting to get you to pay attention to the issue) until something very bad happens we might have some cause for concern about that presidents priorities.
And when there is a political advisor that has a history of dishonest campaign tactics, including “push polls” against a very honest and Honorable Senator from Arizona that asks voters “would you be more or less likely to vote for X if you knew they did really bad (but completely unfounded) thing y.” And then there is a leek giving the away the identity of CIA operative who’s close relation opposed the the administration in some way. And that leek was attributed to “senior administration sources” there might be some questions.
To sum up. It is hard to engage in high minded debate with people who’s only retort is to call you names going for the cheep sound bite. The thing is most of the issue this country faces have a lot of depth and many facets to them. Issues upon which reasonable people can disagree. But if both sides go in with their minds made up that they are going to do one thing or the other and call the other side names until they get there way you are not going to get anywhere and it is no wonder that people get discouraged by politics and politicians. And I think that the current recall in CA is another example of this type of behavior. Both sides slinging mud and doing what ever it takes (including starting a recall) to get their way without having to compromise—and I think the recall is only serving to exacerbate the situation, just as the redistricting in Texas served to exacerbate the situation.
We need to start calling a spade a spade, a lie a lie and asking our politicians to debate and compromise for the good of the nation and yes COMPROMISE their ideology for the pragmatic solution to the problem. If the Democrats or the Republicans have a good solution we should try it. And if something does not work throw it out and try something else. (I’ve already gone on far too long) but I think that is why Clinton was a good president. He took the ideas of the Republicans and the ideas of the Democrats tried different things and found a way to solve problems, lower crime, and so forth. That, I think, is part of the reason that Republican’s hated him so much, he took a bunch of their classical conservative ideas (more IKE and the like rather than Reagan Bush) and implementing them and making them work and managed to move towards a balanced budget (realizing that you can’t cut taxes and increase spending and balance the budget). Problem is, there were those that could not see past the fact that he was a philandering Democrat.
(Okay, now this is really entirely too long so I’m just going to cut it off here so that none of this makes sense, and is just pointless rambling)
October 1st, 2003 at 12:31:51 pm
p.s. see what happens when the NYT finally hires another conservative?
Oh but Chris, who’s the other conservative? William Safire is a great wordsmith and usually an excellent read in the Op-Ed section, but although he clearly leans Republican, he’s not necessarily that conservative. For another example, Thomas Friedman ends up agreeing with conservative/Republican foreign policy just as much as Safire, but he tends to throw in the obligatory Bush-bashing sentences to appease his base.
I tend to divide NYT columnists into two camps: readable, and unreadable. Krugman, Dowd, Herbert all fall into the unreadable category; Brooks, Safire, Friedman, and Kristof are always readable. What’s sad is I don’t have to categorize the Washington Post’s columnists this way; the liberals there–Dionne, Cohen, Kinsley, Broder, et al–are typically digestible even when they’re annoyingly wrong.
October 1st, 2003 at 1:02:00 pm
I agree that WaPo’s liberals are a cut above the bomb-throwers over at the Times, but I must be missing something in Friedman. Maybe I’m catching him on days he has to get in his Bush-bashing quota, but I found perusing his book of post 9/11 columns obnoxious.
Bill Safire was the one I had in mind, and come on now, let’s give a good old Nixon hand a break. He’s a great friend of Israel, was practically an honorary WSJ editorial writer during Whitewater, and can be generally relied upon to support an evolving social policy rather than a revolutionary one. But until they hire that siren of Massapequa, Peggy Noonan, away from the Journal, the NYT Op-Ed page will be lacking.
Oh, you should track down Backward and Upward, the volume Brooks edited. It’s contributors are a veritable who’s who of great commentary.
October 1st, 2003 at 1:32:32 pm
I still think that Bill Safire, like Bob Novak, is better classified as a Republican honk than as a true-blue conservative.
I don’t know what’s going on with Friedman then. I mean, did you catch his piece last week bashing France? Friedman is typically pro-Israel, but in a pro-Labor as opposed to a pro-Likud sort of way. He does not carry the neoconservative view on the Middle East, and he does his best to throw in caveats about how the Israeli occupation needs to end and the Palestinians need their state, etc., but he reliably calls a spade a spade in the Middle East and understands the general crisis of Arab culture.
October 1st, 2003 at 1:59:13 pm
In fact, I’d say Thomas Friedman and Brendan Loy are of a like mind on many issues. ;-)
October 1st, 2003 at 6:57:46 pm
Ah dunno nuffin’ ’bout Honkin’ no Republicans Miz Andrew; but here *I* always thought of Bob Novak as a classic Paleo Conservative. / Perhaps this is merely because of my impression that unlike Old Nixon Hand Bill Safire and Labornik-sort-of-way Thomas Friedman, Novak is not exactly “a great friend of Israel” nor “typically pro-Israel.” Correct me if I dreamed this, but I seem to recall watching his poor heart bleed all over the “Crossfire” set for the sufferings of the downtrodden Palestinian People at the hands of the occupying Zionist tyrants. (In the dream, I thought “Oh, yeah, well this must be tonight’s guy ‘From The Left’…”) Another time I must’ve dreamed that I looked up Bob Novak in the dictionary & by golly there was Pat Buchanan’s picture…OK, so I have strange dreams, so what can I tell ya? :)
Well, whether Novak is a Paleo, a Neo, a Rojo, or a Honker Republico, he seems to be one pissed-off individual at the moment. Interviewed live on Wolf Blizter Reports tonight re his role in this wee little flap over the Outed CIA Agent, Bob nearly came across the table at Wolfie a couple of times there, I thought…really, he loudly & explicitly “Resented” the Questions & Implications, several times…Mad as the proverbial Wet Hen, yessirree.
October 1st, 2003 at 8:30:55 pm
I guess Novak is a paleo-con–he tends to disagree with the Bushies a lot on foreign policy stuff, but he is generally conservative otherwise.
I understand Novak’s anger. This flap is so retarded, precisely for the reasons Novak stated in his column today. As the WSJ notes, there is only one reason the Dems are getting so hot on this, and that’s because some think there’s a chance to nail Karl Rove on this. Everybody knew Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent anyway, as she was no longer undercover and was just another analyst at HQ.
October 1st, 2003 at 8:37:24 pm
Andrew, just repeat those party talking points.
October 2nd, 2003 at 12:06:30 am
*channeling Karl Rove*
Speak to me Karl, what are the marching orders for today?
October 2nd, 2003 at 3:12:16 am
Har har har :)
October 2nd, 2003 at 9:24:37 am
Channeling. . . no no no, you’ve got it all wrong Andrew. . . Democrats channel, Republicans just watch Fox News ;)
October 2nd, 2003 at 12:35:48 pm
No see, this is how it works: Every morning Rove distributes the talking points to the RNC, and then from there they go to Fox News, WSJ and Washington Times, Clear Channel, Weekly Standard and National Review Online. At that point, us minions of the right wing conspiracy gather around our radio, TVs, and newspapers, digest what is being spoon-fed to us, and march out to spew the TPs to the world.
What you don’t understand, Dane, is that you do the exact same thing. The difference is, you don’t have to operate through murky “back channels” and alternative dailies like WSJ or talk radio. No, because the method of thinking you espouse is the dominant mindset among most major media, including most regional dailes (starting most importantly with the NY Times), the Big 3 broadcast news channels and CNN (which has been around far longer than Fox News and reaches far more people around the world), as well as college professors and K-12 teachers. That’s why The Nation and The American Prospect don’t circulate well, because they merely spew out explicitly what CNN, NY Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, and schools, colleges, and universities already communicate implicitly and sometimes explicitly as well.
The difference, Dane, is that us conservatives have always felt our viewpoints under attack and shut out from the dispensers of news and opinion in the media and popular culture. Thus, we rally around so conspicuously things like Fox News and WSJ, because that’s all we have. Whereas you will never know how easy you have it because your viewpoints are so ingrained in the mainstream media that not only do you not have to go outside of what’s near and easy to find like-minded opinions, but it’s only the conspicuous absence of liberal-left views that draws your attention, and quickly thereafter, your ire and condescension.
October 2nd, 2003 at 7:27:21 pm
:)
January 10th, 2004 at 1:49:16 pm
I may be out of place by attempting to write a comment on your blog, but I am going to give this a try. Allow me to point out that you have taken a perfectly engaging and intelligent conversation about the hate in politics (which in my opinion is the greatest threat to our Republic), and turn it into a critism of the ideals and writing styles of others. Then you turned it down a notch and began to argue over the bias of certain mainstream news sources, and then bottomed out with a bit of HATE. Dane (I think you are cool) you did the right thing by letting it go.
May 27th, 2006 at 10:09:47 am
Oh, my world. It is ok