We Are All Clintonists Now
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
6 September 1999
[Enter a "conservative" "intellectual" stage right, soliloquizing:]
It can seem so terribly unfair. Newt Gingrich led the Republicans to
their first majority in the House of Representatives since 1955, and
then to two successive majorities for the first time since the 1920s. He
forced welfare reform and a balanced budget onto President Clinton. His
reward for this record of accomplishment? Spurious ethics charges,
anonymous quotes in the Washington Post from Republican congressmen
about how much better things have worked since he quit the speakership,
and a Republican front-runner for the presidential nomination that
Gingrich coveted whose rhetoric is very largely intended to separate
himself as widely as possible from the once all-conquering Newt. (...)
Gingrich dutifully acknowledges that it was the errors of the Clinton
administration–the health care plan, the tax increases, and gays in the
military–that toppled the Democratic Congress in 1994, but he does not
really believe it. After the perfunctory acknowledgment, he devotes most
of his airtime to talking about what he imagines really did the trick:
the discrediting of the Democratic leadership through scandals like
Wright's. There may be some truth to this, although one wonders whether
ethics charges could really produce the 10 million vote shift of 1994.
Believing in the truth of it had, however, immense consequences for the
Gingrich-led conservative movement. In trying to upend the congressional
Democrats through procedural victories in Congress, Gingrich directed
the reforming zeal of conservatives toward the procedures of Congress.
Instead of tax cuts, the building of a post-Communist world order, equal
justice under law regardless of race, the cultural and linguistic unity
of the United States, or any of the dozen other powerful potential
issues available to them in the mid-1990s, conservatives found
themselves talking about term limits, a balanced budget amendment, House
members' bank, the line-item veto, and a series of other issues equally
remote from Americans' everyday concerns. The logical culmination of
this way of thinking was the Contract With America, which spent the
energies of the biggest Republican congressional swing since 1894 on six
months of votes on the internal governance of the House of
Representatives. (...)
Clinton had a big idea about Medicare; Gingrich never did. It was the
Reagan-Carter fight in reverse–principle vs. technicalities. To this
day, conservatives have not recovered from Gingrich's downgrading of
thematics. In 1999, for the first time since the 1940s, there is no
generally accepted conservative agenda. (...)
Because Gingrich lacked a unifying political vision of his own, he was
susceptible to the sort of populism that postulates some
hypothetical–will of the people– that politicians must detect and serve.
This susceptibility explains why Gingrich got so caught up in fads and
trends: he felt that if he squinted hard enough at them, he could detect
the people’s wishes. [Clintonism in a nutshell] (...)
In truth, nothing in politics happens spontaneously. [American Whiggery
in a nutshell] (...)
---
Well, there's the USA rightists' great 1990's fiasco, rather well
formulated by Mr. David Frumm for the New Standard Criterion of the Week
(13 Sep 1999 nominally denoting the week in question). Frumm's scribble
is called "Newt's Legacy."
<< http://www.weeklystandard.com/ >>
Legacy-distressed elephant people have to look no farther than _loc.
cit._, fortunately, to find the 2000's cure for gingrichoma mutilans, a
prescription for post-Newt recovery (and also eternal life, youth and
beauty in American politics) recently discovered and here revealed by
Mr. David Brooks under the rubric "How George W. Bush and John
McCain—without quite realizing it—are creating a new Republican Party."
It goes, in short excerpts from a long screed, like this:
... The candidates themselves don’t seem fully aware of the
implications of what they are saying, but together, Bush’s Compassionate
Conservatism and McCain’s New Patriotic Challenge are steps toward a
fresh vision for the Republican party. Indeed, if you meld the core
messages of the two campaigns, you get a coherent governing philosophy
for the post-Clinton age. (...)
Both Bush and McCain criticize the excessive anti-government zeal of
the 1995 congressional Republicans. George W. Bush recently attacked
"the destructive mindset: the idea that if government would only get out
of our way, all our problems would be solved. An approach with no higher
goal, no nobler purpose than 'Leave us Alone.'" That phrase—that
government should "Leave Us Alone"—was the rallying cry of the Gingrich
revolutionaries. Meanwhile, John McCain notes that a "healthy
skepticism" about government has turned into "widespread cynicism
bordering on alienation." Instead of telling people that government is
evil, McCain reminds them that public service is "the highest calling."
(...)
"Government must be carefully limited, but strong and active," Bush
says. The two candidates, however, emphasize activism in different
spheres. George W. Bush seeks to restore the power of local and intimate
authority—the authority of parents, neighborhood, charity, and local
government. Bush says the next task of welfare reform is to build up the
religious and community institutions that can touch people on the
profoundest level. (...)
In other words, the promise of a fully realized Compassionate
Conservatism is not merely that Faith Based Foundation X has a higher
success rate than Public Welfare Agency Y. It is that working for the
general good through voluntary organizations—instead of leaving such
functions to professional state agencies—gives people the opportunity to
govern themselves. [This particular ingenuity is so Clintonic, I'm
amazed Himself never actually thought of it!] (...)
A person running for the presidency of the United States of America
can’t be content to be alderman or even governor to the nation. He has
to possess a governing philosophy that connects citizens to higher
national aims and that organizes American behavior around the world.
This is where John McCain’s campaign makes its contribution. If the
Bush campaign promotes limited but energetic government on the local
level, the McCain campaign has articulated a philosophy of limited but
energetic government on the national and global level. (...)
"The threat that concerns me is the pervasive public cynicism that is
debilitating our democracy," McCain declared. Skepticism about
government, he continued, has turned into a biting contempt for public
life. And this cynicism doesn't lead people to want to scale back
government, as many Republicans used to believe. Instead, it just causes
them to detach themselves from public life and active citizenship. (...)
McCain embraces American might, believing that it gives us the
opportunity to better promote our interests, roll back rogue nations,
preserve international order, and advance the cause of democratic
self-government around the world. As he demonstrated during the Kosovo
crisis, McCain, more than any of the other Republican presidential
candidates, believes in using American military might to advance
America’s democratic ideals and punish outrageous dictators who threaten
peace. [Yoohoo! Madeleine! they're plagiarizing your tune.] (...)
Both defend politics and civic activity from the tide of anti-political
fervor that is sweeping the country. Together, they make a coherent
vision, which might be called One Nation Conservatism. (...)
We are united by the Declaration and the Constitution of the American
Founders. We are united by the system of government they established and
the ideals it embodies—so how can we love our country if we hate its
government? McCain hopes to restore confidence in that system of
government, both at home and abroad.
If you follow these two campaigns to their logical conclusion, you
arrive at a One Nation Conservatism that marries community goodness with
national greatness. [My word! the GOP has caught up with Jimmy Carter!
What next?] (...)
[Drums. Trumpets. Mr. Brooks perorates:]
No party is worth supporting if its goals are wholly negative, just
cutting and dismantling institutions. No party is worth supporting if it
cannot distinguish the parts of the state that foster self-government
from those that crush it. And no party is worth supporting if it is
wholly materialistic; if it seems to be interested in nothing more than
building up its supportersí bank accounts. The Republican party may be
learning this. It may be on the verge of absorbing the lessons of its
recent mistakes. Out of the present quiet and seemingly nonideological
presidential campaign, there may emerge a vigorous One Nation
Conservatism that will connect a revived sense of citizenship with the
long-standing national greatness Americans hold dear.
---
Talk about "don’t seem fully aware of the implications"!
Imitation is the sincerest form. 'Nuff said.
== Yours, J. H. McCloskey == ... sobie spiewam a Muzom ... ==
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
John T. Kennedy
We ain't.
--
John T. Kennedy
The Wild Shall Wild Remain!
http://members.xoom.com/rational1/wild/
--
"(BTW, I do have an MA from Johns Hopkins, and a Ph.D. from the University
of Minnesota. Last I heard, Beck was a roadie. Hmmmmmm...who is a fraud?
Readers can decide.)"
- Scott Erb 2/20/98
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
I don't begin to know how to have a clue exactly what a "roadie" is.
(Motorcycles? Black helicopters? Von Hayek? Miss Rand? Plotinus? Waco?
Clarabelle the Clown?)
Your infimal Beck nevertheless speaks for himself very clearly, very
unmistakably, very carnivorously. I've accumulated a long, long list of
political philosophy nits to pick with Citizen Mister Professor Doctor
Scott Erb of the University of Maine at Farmington, but with him they
are, or at least ought to be, pickable nits. If CMPD S. Erb of UMF
seriously believes in unpickable nits, the state of Maine damn well
ought to fire Erb and hire somebody else who can actually do the
educationizing job right. But that is just hypothetical nonsense. CMPD
SE of UMF is in fact a good guy. An extraordinarily good guy, all
things considered. He leans over backwards to try to be fair. Sort
of. He leans over backward in his spare time to try to be fair to the
self-identified thug Beck and to JTK and "johnz" and the Celtic
Screwdriver Person and the Wandering Diacritic Person. Sort of fair, at
least.
You folks who actually know all about "roadies" really ought to wonder
what CMPD/SE/UMF is ultimately up to. Maybe he knows something you
don't. Or maybe you know something he doesn't.
On the other hand, maybe HE doesn't and/or you don't know what it's
ultimately all about.
Cheapjack top-down social-scientizers like Amitai Etzioni know all
about everthing, do they not? I was encouraged in my own personal quest
to note that the authorized Amitai-Etzionian pretentiousnesses did not
altogether deceive "johnz." He called the Etzioni quotation I recently
posted "drivel" and supposed, quite correctly, that I agreed with his
own casual estimate of its value. But I don't quite understand at all
why "johnz" thinks I shouldn't have posted the Etzionian drivel I posted
just because I utterly disagree with it. Is this not a news group? Is
my disagreeing with Herr Etzioni about privacy in America not "news"
that ought to concern our group quite as much as the 24,904th
reiteration by **** of exactly why St. Bill Clinton is a Chicom
treasonous rapist ratfink?
I don't complain, understand you. "johnz" has caught me out on that
point once, and I admit that I was caught out. But there's the rub: the
NG is full of people who won't ever, under any circumstances, admit that
they were ever caught out.
Everybody is infallible, it sometimes seems, except me. An easy
reflection indeed, and one that leads straight towards a cheap elitism
that makes fallibility a sign of election. If you don't understand the
religionist terminology here, you have egregiously failed to notice that
the USA remains even now a very white-skinned and Protestant-theologized
country. Disbelief in infallibility goes along "naturally" even in
September 1999 with white skin and ancestral Protestantism and
liberalism and progress and "civilization" and all good things
generally, don't you know? (No, you probably don't know anything about
all that, though you &*^% well ought to. A shame to think that Kevin
Phillips has scribbled at such length altogether in vain!)
But seriously, I must allow that "We are all Clintonists now" is a
summary expression and a historical allusion and not a net that I ever
meant to snare JTK in. People who explicitly (not to say
"ferociously", in the JTK or infimal Beck instance) disbelieve in "we"
are of course not quite altogether part of any "we" that they don't
actually carry a party card from. They are as "free" for all practical
purposes as Henry David Thoreau or Jedediah Purdy or even Simon Stylites
himself. Their sort of "freedom" is not to be measured by low secular
standards. Their sort of "freedom" is a blessed and mysterious
and infallible Thing-in-Itself that all non-co-religionists are
eternally disqualified from any evaluation of.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, "We are all Clintonists now."
John T. Kennedy
>In article <xcjTN61ccKcHa0...@4ax.com>,
> kenne...@DODGE.THIS.hotmail.com wrote:
>> No.
>>
>> We ain't.
>>
>> --
>>
>> John T. Kennedy
>> The Wild Shall Wild Remain!
>> http://members.xoom.com/rational1/wild/
>> --
>>
>> "(BTW, I do have an MA from Johns Hopkins, and a Ph.D. from the
>University
>> of Minnesota. Last I heard, Beck was a roadie. Hmmmmmm...who is a
>fraud?
>> Readers can decide.)"
>>
>> - Scott Erb 2/20/98
>>>>>
> I've already pretty much decided about your infimal Beck, even though
>I don't begin to know how to have a clue exactly what a "roadie" is.
>(Motorcycles? Black helicopters? Von Hayek? Miss Rand? Plotinus? Waco?
>Clarabelle the Clown?)
> Your infimal Beck nevertheless speaks for himself very clearly, very
>unmistakably, very carnivorously.
How many times are you going to say infimal in this post?
> I've accumulated a long, long list of
>political philosophy nits to pick with Citizen Mister Professor Doctor
>Scott Erb of the University of Maine at Farmington, but with him they
>are, or at least ought to be, pickable nits.
By all means you two should have lunch on each other.
See, you don't know your limits after all.
Kipawa Condor
> In article <xcjTN61ccKcHa0...@4ax.com>,
> kenne...@DODGE.THIS.hotmail.com wrote:
> > No.
> >
> > We ain't.
> >
> > --
> >
> > John T. Kennedy
> > The Wild Shall Wild Remain!
> > http://members.xoom.com/rational1/wild/
> > --
> >
> > "(BTW, I do have an MA from Johns Hopkins, and a Ph.D. from the
> University
> > of Minnesota. Last I heard, Beck was a roadie. Hmmmmmm...who is a
> fraud?
> > Readers can decide.)"
> >
> > - Scott Erb 2/20/98
> >>>>
[feigned ignorance snipped]
>
> Your infimal Beck nevertheless speaks for himself very clearly, very
> unmistakably, very carnivorously. I've accumulated a long, long list of
> political philosophy nits to pick with Citizen Mister Professor Doctor
> Scott Erb of the University of Maine at Farmington, but with him they
> are, or at least ought to be, pickable nits. If CMPD S. Erb of UMF
> seriously believes in unpickable nits, the state of Maine damn well
> ought to fire Erb and hire somebody else who can actually do the
> educationizing job right. But that is just hypothetical nonsense. CMPD
> SE of UMF is in fact a good guy. An extraordinarily good guy, all
> things considered. He leans over backwards to try to be fair. Sort
> of.
No, he doesn't. He leans over backward to annoy his betters with smarmy
pastiches of reasonableness that both he and they know are insincere, but
with which he hopes to dupe those inlookers who missed the early Erb
history. You know how to use the archives, McCloskey, you could check it
out. Or if you'd rather not take the effort, you could ask me (or even
better, Robertson or johnz, although you'll likely have trouble convincing
the latter that your request is in good faith) to dig up some classic Erb.
By any standard I can imagine Beck is more "fair" than Erb. His
motivations, beliefs and purposes are all up front, and he'll always let you
know where you stand. Among those on the dark side, I would judge
insanityfactory to be in a similar class to Beck's, but Erb is just a
duplicitous weenie who looks to score points with the credulous.
> He leans over backward in his spare time to try to be fair to the
> self-identified thug Beck and to JTK and "johnz" and the Celtic
> Screwdriver Person and the Wandering Diacritic Person. Sort of fair, at
> least.
I think you gotta cite Beck's "self-identification" as a thug. Be sure
you understand what you're quoting before you post it.
The Wandering Diacritic is Schneider, but Celtic Screwdriver escapes
me...
>
> You folks who actually know all about "roadies" really ought to wonder
> what CMPD/SE/UMF is ultimately up to.
What he's up to is exactly this: he gets off on hearing himself yap, and
on seeing his name propagated about usenet as much as possible. All that
"stateless socialism" jazz is just a vehicle - could just as easily have
been export-less mercantilism, if that would've drummed up as much
opposition for him to feed on.
[snip ephemeral rambling]
> But seriously, I must allow that "We are all Clintonists now" is a
> summary expression and a historical allusion and not a net that I ever
> meant to snare JTK in. People who explicitly (not to say
> "ferociously", in the JTK or infimal Beck instance) disbelieve in "we"
> are of course not quite altogether part of any "we" that they don't
> actually carry a party card from. They are as "free" for all practical
> purposes as Henry David Thoreau or Jedediah Purdy or even Simon Stylites
> himself. Their sort of "freedom" is not to be measured by low secular
> standards. Their sort of "freedom" is a blessed and mysterious
> and infallible Thing-in-Itself that all non-co-religionists are
> eternally disqualified from any evaluation of.
>
Aside from the pejorative connotation, this is pretty accurate, just as
it may be accurate to describe McCloskey's side with the same paragraph,
substituting "security" (or "equality-of-condition", or "conformity", or
"order") for "freedom".
Whatever standard you use to judge the good is either axiomatic or
meaningless, and as far as accusations of "religiosity" go, I'll just say
this: the Truest Believers I ever met have all been atheists.
>
> Meanwhile, back in the real world, "We are all Clintonists now."
>
> Nuff said.
>
Well, you got that last bit right, anyway.
KC
Gary Cruse
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> I've already pretty much decided about your infimal Beck, even though
>I don't begin to know how to have a clue exactly what a "roadie" is.
And I don't know what "infimal" is. Roadie is in my
dictionary, though. Are you pontificating without
a net again, McFop?
--
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/6305/index.html
Terrorist explosive bombs assassinate ANFO Teletubbies.
And the first one said to the second one there,
"I hope you're having fun."
John T. Kennedy
I would've figured it was me if I hadn't already appeared in this
over-production. But I can't buy a nickname.
Kipawa Condor
> On Mon, 06 Sep 1999 17:13:48 -0400, Kipawa Condor
> <raynam@*dlrow*net.att.net> wrote:
>
> >jhmcclo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
[trim]
>
> >
> >> He leans over backward in his spare time to try to be fair to the
> >> self-identified thug Beck and to JTK and "johnz" and the Celtic
> >> Screwdriver Person and the Wandering Diacritic Person. Sort of fair, at
> >> least.
> >
> > I think you gotta cite Beck's "self-identification" as a thug. Be sure
> >you understand what you're quoting before you post it.
> >
> > The Wandering Diacritic is Schneider, but Celtic Screwdriver escapes
> >me...
>
> I would've figured it was me if I hadn't already appeared in this
> over-production. But I can't buy a nickname.
>
Oh yeah, of course - it's McPhillips.
Mike J Schźeďder
> In alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater,
> jhmcclo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > I've already pretty much decided about your infimal Beck, even though
> >I don't begin to know how to have a clue exactly what a "roadie" is.
>
> And I don't know what "infimal" is. Roadie is in my
> dictionary, though. Are you pontificating without
> a net again, McFop?
"Infimal" is a mathematical term so obscure that ten minutes spent
browsing the net could not reveal a plain-enlish definition of the
stand-alone word (it is invariably encountered in the phrase "infimal
convolution"). I suspect that laymen such as McCloskey are mistakenly
using it as shorthand for "infinitesimal".
Mike Schneider, VRWC Sentinel Outpost. "Autoguns, on-line!" +--+--+--+
Reply to mike1@@@winternet.com sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.
See where NATO General Wesley Clark, the "Butcher of Bosnia", practiced the deliberate, pre-meditated extermination of civilians before the main-event:
bre...@no-spam.com
>In alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater,
>jhmcclo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> I've already pretty much decided about your infimal Beck, even though
>>I don't begin to know how to have a clue exactly what a "roadie" is.
>
> And I don't know what "infimal" is. Roadie is in my
> dictionary, though.
Unlisted insults, finest kind.
Cheers,
Bredon
**********************************************
The Eight Classic Moral Principles:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/4809/
-----------------------------------------------
Posters who say Starr was covering up for Clinton:
Bill Kasper, Mike Schneider, "Mark" <draf...@deltastar.com>
------------------------------------------
Rough draft, additions and corrections invited:
LEGIT, AUTHORITATIVE NEWS MEDIA:
Washington Post, New York Times, L.A. Times, Newsweek,
Boston Globe
LEGIT LIGHTWEIGHT SECOND-RATE -- LOCAL, SPORTS, ETC:
Boston Herald, SF Examiner
NUTTY PAPERS:
London Telegraph, New York Post, SF Chronicle
RIGHT-WING/RELIGIOUS BUT SERIOUS / RESPECTABLE
Weekly Standard, London Times,
NOT REALLY PAPERS:
WorldNetDaily, NSNews (Nalty's website), Newsmax,
Washington Weekly, Capitol Hill Blue
nandotimes.com
PAPERS WITH NUTTY EDITORIALS/OWNERS:
Pittsburgh Tribune/Review (Scaife)
???Investor's Business Daily??? (Scaife?)
OTHER DUBIOUS SOURCES:
Stratfor.com, FreeRepublic.com
The Spotlight
MISCELLANEOUS TO DOUBT:
PRNewswire.com if cited by YabbaDoo. PRNewswire links to
Rep Natl Committee, Dem Natl Committee, & other partisan sites.
YD falsely credits the RNC flyer to PRNewswire.
Rightgrrl -- This is some rightwing Net thing.
LEFTWING, SPOTTY: SERIOUS, LOTS OF GOOD STUFF, SOME NUTTY:
The Nation, Slate, Salon, American Political Review, Michaelmoore.com, Liberal Opinion, Sentient
Times.
**********************************************
bre...@no-spam.com
> In other words, the promise of a fully realized Compassionate
>Conservatism is not merely that Faith Based Foundation X has a higher
>success rate than Public Welfare Agency Y. It is that working for the
>general good through voluntary organizations—instead of leaving such
>functions to professional state agencies—gives people the opportunity to
>govern themselves. [This particular ingenuity is so Clintonic, I'm
>amazed Himself never actually thought of it!] (...)
Hm? What do you mean by Clintonic here? Do you think the paragraph is
double-talk and are you adopting the use of Clinton* for doubletalk?
Or do you mean it's a sensible idea that Clinton should have thought
of?
/snip/
>
>Imitation is the sincerest form. 'Nuff said.
Steal Clinton's ideas and smear his name. Success leads to popularity
leads to jealously leads to assassination. Old story.
Billy Beck
(about to rack-out, this ...thing... caught my eye in my last
cruise through the group)
Kipawa Condor <raynam@*dlrow*net.att.net> wrote:
>jhmcclo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> He leans over backward in his spare time to try to be fair to the
>> self-identified thug Beck and to JTK and "johnz" and the Celtic
>> Screwdriver Person and the Wandering Diacritic Person. Sort of fair, at
>> least.
>
> I think you gotta cite Beck's "self-identification" as a thug. Be sure
>you understand what you're quoting before you post it.
*That'll* be a blank-out and a half. Watch.
The "and a half" part will soak up 50 lines, easy.
Billy
VRWC Fronteer
http://www.mindspring.com/~wjb3/promise.html
John T. Kennedy
<raynam@*dlrow*net.att.net> wrote:
>"John T. Kennedy" wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 06 Sep 1999 17:13:48 -0400, Kipawa Condor
>> <raynam@*dlrow*net.att.net> wrote:
>>
>> >jhmcclo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>
>
>[trim]
>
>
>>
>> >
>> >> He leans over backward in his spare time to try to be fair to the
>> >> self-identified thug Beck and to JTK and "johnz" and the Celtic
>> >> Screwdriver Person and the Wandering Diacritic Person. Sort of fair, at
>> >> least.
>> >
>> > I think you gotta cite Beck's "self-identification" as a thug. Be sure
>> >you understand what you're quoting before you post it.
>> >
>> > The Wandering Diacritic is Schneider, but Celtic Screwdriver escapes
>> >me...
>>
>> I would've figured it was me if I hadn't already appeared in this
>> over-production. But I can't buy a nickname.
>>
>
> Oh yeah, of course - it's McPhillips.
Ah yes.
He doees put the screws to them like nobody's business.
It's not as good as Wandering Diacritic though.
John T. Kennedy
Schźeďder) wrote:
>In article <37da497b...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, gcr...@att.net wrote:
>
>> In alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater,
>> jhmcclo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>
>> > I've already pretty much decided about your infimal Beck, even though
>> >I don't begin to know how to have a clue exactly what a "roadie" is.
>>
>> And I don't know what "infimal" is. Roadie is in my
>> dictionary, though. Are you pontificating without
>> a net again, McFop?
>
>
> "Infimal" is a mathematical term so obscure that ten minutes spent
>browsing the net could not reveal a plain-enlish definition of the
>stand-alone word (it is invariably encountered in the phrase "infimal
>convolution"). I suspect that laymen such as McCloskey are mistakenly
>using it as shorthand for "infinitesimal".
Infimum means greatest lower bound which seems to be the intent.
Obviously convolution was also the intent.
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
Trickling down from the Shining Heights of Intellectual Reaction, Mr.
David Brooks's recent invention (or discovery, or hallucination) of
Bush-McCainism, of "one nation conservatism," has in due course come to
the attention of Mr. Tod Lindberg at the LUNA POST.
<< http://www.washtimes.com/opinion/lindberg.html >>
Mr. Lindberg does not quite get it right, but his polemical use of the
material is able enough. Here is a slice from the top of today's op-ed
piece and then the two concluding paragraphs in full:
... Mr. Brooks detects the birth of what he calls "one nation
conservatism." This GOP political program abandons the libertarian
rhetoric of getting government off your back and instead supports a
limited but activist government pursuing a conservative reform agenda
that will benefit all Americans, especially the poor.
Yes, especially the poor. We have reached an interesting point in
American politics. At the level of presidential politics, Republicans
have more to say about the poor than Democrats do.
(...)
George W. Bush gave a major speech on education policy last week, the
first such speech of his campaign. At its center were these three
proposals: federal funding only for programs that can be shown to work,
as measured by student performance; an expansion of Head Start from
primarily a "day-care, health and nutrition program" into a full-blown
"reading and school-readiness" program; and results-based reform of
Title 1, the biggest federal program aimed at poor children, which would
result in grants to parents of children in nonfunctioning schools of
$1,500 a child "for tutoring, for a charter school, for a working public
school in a different district, for a private school." This is not voice
of the plutocratic party. It's also of a piece with the campaign kickoff
speech Mr. Bush gave, in which he outlined his "compassionate
conservatism" in terms along these lines: "It is conservative to
confront illegitimacy. It is compassionate to offer practical help to
women and children in crisis."
As things stand -- and they may, of course, change -- Mr. Gore, the
Democrat, is running a campaign mainly pitched to the anxieties of
affluent suburbanites, and Mr. Bush, the Republican, has cast his
campaign mainly in terms of what his party can do for the poor.
---
I've left out the anti-Gore part, but presumably you know the sort of
thing Lindberg has in mind, "sprawl" and all that.
The problems with this version of Bush-McCainism are many. The
biggest can be seen, I think, if you try to imagine the Governor of
Texas actually saying something like "In this campaign our party must
concentrate above all on what we can do for the poor." Mr. Gore might
say that (even if he doesn't mean to do anything in particular), but Mr.
Bush surely will not. It is theoretically possible, of course, that the
symmetry is complete, that the Democrats will talk but not perform, and
the GOP perform but not talk. But surely it is incredible that American
pols of any sort will ever perform without grabbing credit?
Lindberg doesn't claim GWB has said anything of the sort. He says he
has "cast his campaign mainly in [those] terms," which need not mean
more than that Lindberg agrees with Brooks, whose terms they originally
are. But how much campaign-casting has there actually been so far?
"Compassionate conservatism" is just a buzzing in the air. As far as I
know, GWB has made only two (2) substantive speeches, the recent one on
education summarized above and the Indianapolis one on faith-based pork.
That's it. Is this slender corpus enough to establish His Texcellency
as an outstanding protector of the poor?
Both these speeches do, to be sure, imply certain benefits for the
poor. But in neither case are the poor the primary beneficiaries. The
real purpose of faith-based pork (FBP) is to hand our religionists a
little tinsel star of approval from Uncle Sam. Separation of church and
state makes it hard to steady their wobbly self-esteem in a more direct
fashion, but taxpayer funding of their social service efforts may
possibly turn out not to be unconstitutional. As a general policy FBP
makes no sense at all, since there simply are not enough religionist
relief organizations to take over more than a small share of federal
welfare expenditures. Gov. Bush proposes to spend eight billion dollars
in this way: were he to be elected, he might find it impossible to meet
this expenditure quota simply for lack of plausible recipients. The
eight billion is, as I recall, intended to be 10% of somebody's number
for current direct government spending in this area. 90% would remain
with Beltway City, even if FBP meets these campaign-speech expectations.
In addition, a good deal of what could plausibly be spent would not be
for the poor specifically. Programs against alcohol or drug abuse, for
instance, are not means-tested, and it is hard to imagine that Congress
would insist they become so.
This brings us to education; it, too, can hardly be considered as
primarily an anti-poverty program. GWB's proposed modification of
Head Start would seem intended precisely to make that less of an
anti-poverty program and more of an educationalist one. Not rewarding
"poor schools" has nothing but a reverse verbal connection to assisting
"the poor." As to vouchers, the real situation is rather like that
with faith-based pork: there are only so many private schools around,
nowhere near enough to accommodate a major degradation of public
education. Though Bush's proposal would have more than merely symbolic
impact, it is hardly a panacea, and the symbolic side of it remains
quite important. It is clear that bad-mouthing "government schools" has
become an orthodoxy with the GOP, and gratifying that generous
conservative sentiment is at least as important as fighting poverty.
And here again, it is plain enough that voucher schemes have a tendency
to pat religionism on the back. I'd guess that churchliness is at the
bottom of both these Bushisms, that "elitist mainstream liberalism"
offends the elephant people vastly more because of its secularism and
"individualism" than because it has not been a true friend to the poor.
The idea of their raising that last objection borders on the laughable.
However, all this is beside the point in a way. More important than
casting doubt on the Governor's motives is noticing that there is very
little in either of his lone two policy speeches that couldn't equally
well appear in one of Mr. Gore's many. Faith-based pork actually does
so appear. Not a dime's worth of difference, as far as that goes. On
education, there are two big reasons why Gore can not simply swipe GWB's
platform: (1) the secularism question just mentioned, a real worry about
separation of church and state, and (2) the National Education
Association. Though it will be obvious which party I prefer,
nevertheless, I think Democrats would do well to stop worrying so much
about both of these obstacles to vouchers. I admit that the two parties
are distinguishable here, but I wish they were not. In any case, such
difference as does exist has nothing to do with anti-poverty measures.
Thus I recommend that you understand Mr. Brooks's Bush-McCainism my
way rather than Mr. Lindberg's. It is imperceptive (or manipulative) to
allege that the GOP has now specially taken up the cause of the poor.
All that has happened is that our two parties have, once again, attained
near-complete convergence. This 199O's convergence involves the
Democrats de-emphasizing poverty, not the Republicans discovering the
issue. "We are all Clintonists now."
Mike J Schźeider
kenne...@DODGE.THIS.hotmail.com wrote:
> >> >> He leans over backward in his spare time to try to be fair to the
> >> >> self-identified thug Beck and to JTK and "johnz" and the Celtic
> >> >> Screwdriver Person and the Wandering Diacritic Person. Sort of fair, at
> >> >> least.
> >> >
> >> > The Wandering Diacritic is Schneider, but Celtic Screwdriver escapes
> >> >me...
> >>
> > Oh yeah, of course - it's McPhillips.
>
> Ah yes.
> He doees put the screws to them like nobody's business.
> It's not as good as Wandering Diacritic though.
Now I really *do* like that nickname.
What a neat little double entendre!
http://www.m-w.com/mw/table/diacriti.htm
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary (enter "diacritical")
Kennedy? Are you by any chance from Germany...or maybe just like Wagner?
"Blustering Teutonic Ranter" is up fer grabs.
-- The Wandering Diacritic
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
Again we stumble over Mr. David Brooks, upscale doctrinaire for the
New Weekly Standard Criterion, who is prominently obtruded today in the
_infra dig_ LUNA POST
<< http://www.washtimes.com/politics/toppolitical.html >>.
This news story reports a neo-reactionary confabulation that discussed,
among other things, Mr. Buchanan's perhaps transcending the GOP in his
bimillennial presidential quest. The price of a generality like "We Are
All Clintonists Now" is, obviously enough, that some of us cannot
altogether be counted as "we," and such pronominal exclusion seems to be
Mr. Brooks's view of Mad Pat's deserts:
During a panel discussion on "compassionate conservatism," David
Brooks, a senior editor at the Weekly Standard, remarked that Mr.
Buchanan's food and entertainment tent stood out at the Iowa GOP
presidential nomination straw poll last month.
"There were trucks parked there," Mr. Brooks said. "There were these
guys in bikers' beards, there were tattoos, they had the
red-white-and-blue bandannas. They were not Republicans. They had no
interest in Republicanism. They were freaked out by the idea. But they
loved Pat."
Mr. Brooks said he "came away thinking that, indeed, the Republican
Party will never not be a globalist party and the paleo-conservatives
will leave the Republican Party, and Buchanan would be smart to leave
it."
He predicted that the GOP "will try to buy him off," but ultimately
there is "no way to paper over" the fundamentally incompatible views of
Mr. Buchanan and the GOP on the global economy.
---
The idea of "paleo-conservatives" being read out of the party of
President Taft and President Hoover and Mark Hanna and Barry Goldwater
certainly has a sort of crazy charm. As does the idea that these
fundamentally incompatible PC's run to tattoos and bandannas and Pat
Buchanan (and, not impossibly, the very LUNA POST).
It looks like the Great Church of Bush-McCainism is rather a narrower
sect than I had originally concluded from Mr. Brooks's toney scribble, a
thinkpiece which did not mention many proper names at all, and certainly
not Mr. Buchanan's. Yet if Brooks's "we all" is smaller quantitatively
than I thought, let me point out that the qualitative Clintonism of
those he deems fundamentally orthodox is only strengthened by such
judicious excommunications. Certainly Clintonism will never not be a
globalist ideology. No doubt about that. To disagree with NAFTA
("nearly absolute free trade always" or however it goes) is, of course,
to be merely a dog howling in the political wilderness nowadays.
As the full story remarks, Brooks's exclusive Bush-McCain Clintonism,
or rather Buchanan's likely reaction to it, might conceivably cause the
Republicans to miss the Presidency yet again. (One crosses one's
fingers.) Mr. Chris Matthews, who spoke at this vrookfest, is quoted as
saying "that if Mr. Buchanan runs on the Reform ticket, he will get 15
percent of the total vote, and Mr. Gore 'could squeak in' with anywhere
from 43 to 45 percent of the vote." Mr. Brooks's response to this bit
of elementary political arithmetic is not indicated, but one may
speculate that he would in extremity prefer even Gore-Rodham Clintonism
to no Clintonism at all, even to Bush-McCain Clintonism significantly
diluted by concessions to the PC Motorcycle Menace.
Ideologues are notoriously like that. "Papering over" always annoys
them dreadfully. However, when the ideology involved is Universal
Clintonism (a.k.a. "One Nation Conservatism"), subtle dialectical
problems emerge, since it is very arguable--to put the point rather
mildly--that "papering over" is radically part of the UC/ONC ideology
itself. Though Mr. Brooks's antics are great fun to track, probably the
less theoretical doings of the Governor of Texas and the Arizona Senator
themselves will be a better guide to the authentic suchness of
Bush-McCain Clintonism. We may congratulate Mr. Brooks for having
arrived at the insight that such a thing as Universal Clintonism exists
without endorsing his entire account of what it is like or of what it
ought to be like.
John T. Kennedy
Schźeider) wrote:
>In article <POfUNxGpgNIkqM...@4ax.com>,
>kenne...@DODGE.THIS.hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> >> >> He leans over backward in his spare time to try to be fair to the
>> >> >> self-identified thug Beck and to JTK and "johnz" and the Celtic
>> >> >> Screwdriver Person and the Wandering Diacritic Person. Sort of fair, at
>> >> >> least.
>> >> >
>> >> > The Wandering Diacritic is Schneider, but Celtic Screwdriver escapes
>> >> >me...
>> >>
>> > Oh yeah, of course - it's McPhillips.
>>
>> Ah yes.
>> He doees put the screws to them like nobody's business.
>> It's not as good as Wandering Diacritic though.
>
>
> Now I really *do* like that nickname.
> What a neat little double entendre!
>
> http://www.m-w.com/mw/table/diacriti.htm
> http://www.m-w.com/dictionary (enter "diacritical")
>
> Kennedy? Are you by any chance from Germany...or maybe just like Wagner?
>
> "Blustering Teutonic Ranter" is up fer grabs.
I have a little german blood, but it doesn't work for me. Too
confusing.
How about the Ace of Hearts?
No?
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
When it comes to diagnosing Universal Clintonism, it now appears that
my own views are rather moderate. I should never venture, for instance,
to claim that Speaker Gingrich has joined "us all." It takes a
thoroughly rightist dingaling to go that far:
<<
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_dougherty_com/19990908_xcjod_police
_act.shtml >>
"Newt's groveling excuses"
There are still those who claim that Newt Gingrich was the greatest
conservative leader in recent years, though the more he talks since he's
left office, the less likely that claim seems genuine. Newt -- excuse
thyself no more. I'm tired of hearing it.
A recent C-SPAN interview series caught our (former) conservative
"hero" talking about how he and Clinton used to commiserate about each
other's ethics problems, about how Clinton -- a "talented man" -- will
have all the "good" his presidency could have done overshadowed by
scandal, and about how "nobody is a saint," so Americans should stop
prying into the private lives of politicians.
Newt, you co-opted coward, you. You make me sick.
If you're not being hypocritical for criticizing Clinton's dalliances
while you conduct one of your own, you dare to suggest that Americans
have no right to know about the personal behavior of those we elect to
lead us? What happened to all your hype about how character is supposed
to count? What happened to all of your self-righteous proclamations
about morality in leadership?
There are those of us who have always believed in these principles,
Newt -- even before you "proclaimed" them. And we still believe in them,
though you obviously don't.
Good riddance to you, Mr. Gingrich. America needs brave conservative
traditionalists as leaders of this country, not mealy-mouthed vindictive
miscreants who seek to blame others for their own failures.
Jon E. Dougherty is a contributing editor to WorldNetDaily.
---
I mentally picture this J.E.D. creature with humongous motorcycle,
red-white-and-blue bandanna, Pat Buchanan button, and all the rest of
the standard palaeo-conservative apparatus....
Mike J Schźeider
> We Are All Clintonists Now
> 8 September 1999 (#3)
>
> Again we stumble over Mr. David Brooks, upscale doctrinaire for the
> New Weekly Standard Criterion, who is prominently obtruded today in the
> _infra dig_ LUNA POST
>
> << http://www.washtimes.com/politics/toppolitical.html >>.
>
> This news story reports a neo-reactionary confabulation that discussed,
> among other things, Mr. Buchanan's perhaps transcending the GOP in his
> bimillennial presidential quest.
<snicker> How? By joining the Socialist Party without changing a
single policy proposal -- and fitting right in?
Mike Schneider, VRWC Sentinel Outpost. "Autoguns, on-line!" +--+--+--+
Reply to mike1@@@winternet.com sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.
Goat-like creatures other than Robert Bork ("Win Ben Stein's Money" category)
See where NATO General Wesley Clark, the "Butcher of Bosnia", practiced the deliberate, pre-meditated extermination of civilians before the main-event:
Mike J Schźeider
kenne...@DODGE.THIS.hotmail.com wrote:
> >> It's not as good as Wandering Diacritic though.
> >
> > Now I really *do* like that nickname.
snip
> > "Blustering Teutonic Ranter" is up fer grabs.
>
> I have a little german blood, but it doesn't work for me. Too
> confusing.
>
> How about the Ace of Hearts?
Hmm.... Nah. It doesn't immediately identify you.
Mike Schneider, VRWC Sentinel Outpost. "Autoguns, on-line!" +--+--+--+
Reply to mike1@@@winternet.com sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.
Goat-like creatures other than Robert Bork ("Win Ben Stein's Money" category)
See where NATO General Wesley Clark, the "Butcher of Bosnia", practiced the deliberate, pre-meditated extermination of civilians before the main-event:
John T. Kennedy
Schźeider) wrote:
>In article <tj=WN3WkTpHU8hw...@4ax.com>,
>kenne...@DODGE.THIS.hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> >> It's not as good as Wandering Diacritic though.
>> >
>> > Now I really *do* like that nickname.
>snip
>> > "Blustering Teutonic Ranter" is up fer grabs.
>>
>> I have a little german blood, but it doesn't work for me. Too
>> confusing.
>>
>> How about the Ace of Hearts?
>
>
> Hmm.... Nah. It doesn't immediately identify you.
Hey come on! Chicks dig invective! But look who I'm telling...
Okay, okay, how about Jack of Clubs then?
-
John Kennedy
bre...@no-spam.com
Let's see, the current moon cycle started with the new moon on Aug 11,
so this would be about day 27.
Cheers,
Bredon
----
On Tue, 07 Sep 1999 08:22:41 GMT, wj...@mindspring.com (Billy Beck)
wrote:
>
> (about to rack-out, this ...thing... caught my eye in my last
>cruise through the group)
>
>Kipawa Condor <raynam@*dlrow*net.att.net> wrote:
>
>>jhmcclo...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>>> He leans over backward in his spare time to try to be fair to the
>>> self-identified thug Beck and to JTK and "johnz" and the Celtic
>>> Screwdriver Person and the Wandering Diacritic Person. Sort of fair, at
>>> least.
>>
>> I think you gotta cite Beck's "self-identification" as a thug. Be sure
>>you understand what you're quoting before you post it.
>
> *That'll* be a blank-out and a half. Watch.
>
> The "and a half" part will soak up 50 lines, easy.
>
>
>Billy
>
>VRWC Fronteer
>http://www.mindspring.com/~wjb3/promise.html
**********************************************
The Eight Classic Moral Principles:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/4809/
********************************************
Good info on "tax cut": http://www.cbpp.org/7-29-99tax2.htm
Mike J Schźeider
kenne...@DODGE.THIS.hotmail.com wrote:
> >> How about the Ace of Hearts?
> >
> > Hmm.... Nah. It doesn't immediately identify you.
>
> Hey come on! Chicks dig invective! But look who I'm telling...
> Okay, okay, how about Jack of Clubs then?
Why not Blackbeard?
Mike Schneider, VRWC Sentinel Outpost. "Autoguns, on-line!" +--+--+--+
Reply to mike1@@@winternet.com sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.
Goat-like creatures other than Robert Bork ("Win Ben Stein's Money" category)
See where NATO General Wesley Clark, the "Butcher of Bosnia", practiced the deliberate, pre-meditated extermination of civilians before the main-event:
John T. Kennedy
Schźeider) wrote:
>In article <sfzWN9ayiDou=FyUoz06...@4ax.com>,
>kenne...@DODGE.THIS.hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> >> How about the Ace of Hearts?
>> >
>> > Hmm.... Nah. It doesn't immediately identify you.
>>
>> Hey come on! Chicks dig invective! But look who I'm telling...
>> Okay, okay, how about Jack of Clubs then?
>
>
> Why not Blackbeard?
I like it a lot, but it's no longer literal. Mostly closer to white
now.
Glenworthy@xteleport.com Henry Glenworthy
"Al Gore proposed a startling plan today that he will
introduce to Congress if elected President in an interview
with Cleveland Plaindealer reporter Wanda Berghof. 'I think
television depicts too much senseless violence to our
nation's youth,' Gore said, 'if elected President I will
propose a TV buy-back program like the successful
gun buy-back programs which have taken so many
deadly weapons off of our streets.' Gore went on to
say, 'This might seem like a radical idea, but obviously
children are getting the wrong message from watching
TV shows which glorify guns and killing and this has
resulted in the mass murders in some of our nation's
schools." Asked whether his plan might contradict
his information superhighway program, Gore replied,
'I'm not talking about computer monitors, but TVs
which can get hundreds of channels.' He also said,
'This will only apply to TVs without the V-chip.'"
--------------------------------------
The OldTimer
Henry Glenworthy > wrote in message ...
I can imagine what all the lizards are gonna' say about this one. I have
this funny feeling that there is soon to be a Clinton house buy back too!
X-No-Archive: Yes
By God, he worked his ass off for it
and I don't care what anybody says,
it belongs to me!
The GIMMIECRAT creed.
The OldTimer
Charles L Roche
Michael Zarlenga
He should do it BEFORE he spends more time on TV looking
like a total spaz.
TV is AL Gore's worst enemy, after himself.
--
-- Mike Zarlenga
Gun Control is OSHA for criminals.
Hippster
>I can imagine what all the lizards are gonna' say about this one. I have
>this funny feeling that there is soon to be a Clinton house buy back too!
>
>X-No-Archive: Yes
>
>By God, he worked his ass off for it
>and I don't care what anybody says,
>it belongs to me!
>
>The GIMMIECRAT creed.
>
>The OldTimer
>
>
algore is forgetting that millions of Americans are kept ignorant because of the
nightly news that cover up for him and his socialist buddies on a daily basis -
via network news - via the television !!!! Gosh, what an idiot !!!
Hippster
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always
depend upon the support of Paul."
-- George Bernard Shaw
ez99NO...@webtv.net
* Sent from RemarQ