If you thought conservative columnists were nasty, read the latest from Maureen Dowd. Aside from the very funny lines, she offers some proof that the meme of Barack Obama as elitist appeaser has permeated even the liberal zeitgeist. It is too late for Democrats to rethink. But would they have been better with a plain-wrap, gun-toting middle American figure like Evan Bayh?
And just in case anyone might forget Iran or the war on terror for the day, the Republican Jewish Coalition in a new ad asks three questions of Obama on his visit to a synagogue in Florida:
In an interview, you called for a summit of Muslim nations, including Iran and Syria, but excluding Israel. Why? (Reuters, 1/30/08)
One of your top advisors, Tony McPeak, placed blame on Miami and NY Jews for the failure of the Middle East peace process, yet he remains in this role. Why? (The Oregonian, 3/27/03)
You were a board member of a foundation that funded, during your tenure, the Arab American Action Network, a pro-Palestinian organization. Why? (LA Times, 4/10/08)
So whether from the Right or the Left, the question is the same: what exactly is the New Diplomacy going to look like? And, as Noah Pollak suggests (although I disagree with him about who is winning this argument): what is Obama going to accomplish in all these high-level get-togethers with dictators? The ones we’ve been having at lower levels have been spectacularly unsuccessful.
Peter Wehner helped Bush wreck the economy by imposing ideology over competence when Wehner ran the Office of ‘Strategery’. Bush wrecked the economy and only the opposite of Bush can rescue the economy.
I wish I could recall the context in which Barry told his advisers that their job was to come up with a plan and his job was to sell it. This guy is thoroughly cynical about himself. He belongs in a hip movie about Hollywood. But I don’t think he’s “arrogant” the way some do. I just think he’s a rootless cosmopolitan with some political talent and (so far) a lot of good luck. He’s less sanctimonious than Carter and less grasping than the Clintons. I just don’t know how you turn intellectual detachment into a governing philosophy.
It is a surprisingly un-nuanced approach to government. Surely we need to ask not only whether a program works, but whether it works toward the proper goals? Reducing restrictions to abortion may “work” in the sense of increasing the number of abortions, but that is defining what “works” solely according to a liberal goal. So the most charitable understanding of Obama’s silly statement is this: we all want the same things in the end, a flourishing economy, a strong position in the world, classic American ideals. The question then is not whether the program fulfills the philosophies of the left or right, but whether it works toward the goals we all share.
Still, in practice, it does not make sense. In many respects liberal and conservative goals for our society *are* different. The image of the ideal society from a guy like Bill Ayers will be quite different from that of a Charles Krauthammer. And who is going to judge whether a program works? What are the criteria going to be? Conservatives belief that school choice measures are largely successful, but liberals do not. Extending unemployment benefits may “work” in supporting the unemployed, but it does not “work” in incentivizing returning to gainful employment.
This whole post-partisan bit is wearing thin. Tribal lines exist because people have fundamental differences. Saying that the old arguments “no longer apply” will not make them magically disappear. The “cultural wars” are actually not cultural; they are ethical. Differences on abortion and gay marriage are not simply cultural matters, no matter how much the left would like to portray them as such (as though those uncultured southerners would leave their bigotry behind if they could evolve culturally). They are differences of moral conviction, grounded in very basically and often religiously different ways of seeing the world. Obama cannot dismiss those ethical disagreements with the wave of a hand.
No, a capable American govt makes as few decisions as possible.
It is not the bureaucracy but the country that has to work. At bottom, we are ruled, not from Washington, but from the work place. Our system has our individual jobs and local govt shape our lives. The federal govt’s function is largely subterranean. It should be mainly invisible. It does not have the job of finding jobs for people, any more than apartments or wives, or determining when and under what conditions they retire. Granted, govt has various essential functions, and more during emergencies, but even then, govt must be limited. The Oval Office has no business arranging people’s lives, even with the best of intentions.
Yes, in an economic crisis, as in time of war, Washington needs to rush forward with fiscal and monetary weaponry in the defense of the economy. But it must not permanently mastermind its direction, nor the priorities of regional authorities. Local judgment and trial and error have that job.
Obama’s pragmatism turns on finding out “what’s best for Obama” and then trying to implement it. One tool of implementation is to spread the word directly and through his voluntary staff (the media) that he, having won, is entitled to our 100% obedience.