Category Archives: Kulturkampf

Pat Robertson sells out

Either that, or Rudy Giuliani sold out. One or the other. Anyway, you can read all about it here:

While Robertson has been heavily courted by a number of presidential candidates — most notably Mitt Romney — in recent months, he decided to cast his lot with Giuliani in order to counter a movement among some evangelicals to support a third party candidate if the former New York City Mayor becomes the Republican nominee.
"I thought it was important for me to make it clear that Rudy Giuliani is more than acceptable to people of faith," said Robertson. "Given the fractured nature of the process, I thought it was time to solidify around one candidate."
He insisted that while some on the "fringe" of the social conservative movement may see Giuliani as an unacceptable nominee, the "core know better."

You know, the stuff that passes for thought among these really "out there" ideologues never ceases to fill me with wonder.

So, which endorsement of (to me) dubious value means the most to you: Pat Robertson or Bob Jones III?

Hey! Romney! Leave them kids alone!

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One thing I never ask presidential candidates about is education. I’m a big believer in subsidiarity, and I basically hold that K-12 public schools are none of the federal government’s business.

But that doesn’t keep some of these candidates from telling us what they want to do to — uh, I mean, for — our schools. Interestingly, more and more these days, the candidates we hear from most on the subject is the ones who want to position themselves as "conservatives." Of course, these days that usually means they will be pushing something that is in no way conservative, but a classically liberal idea — the diversion of funds from the public schools under the guise of our governor’s cause, "school choice." Just so you can keep it straight, folks: Undermining core institutions — of which public schools would be one of the most fundamental, in this country — is pretty much the opposite of conservatism.

And sure enough, this Mitt Romney release, detailing the proposals he unveiled right here in capital city today, is true to that form. Ironically, the very first thing Mr. Romney — shown above at Columbia’s Edventure this morning — says about schools is this:

Governor Romney Believes Our Education System Works Best When We Have More Local Control Of Our Schools. While there is a proper role for the federal government to play in education, it is not in telling parents, teachers, kids and local authorities what to teach or how to run their schools.

To which I say, OK, so why don’t you butt out? Excuse me, but you are running for president, right — not another term as governor of Massachusetts?

Then, the very first item under the heading, "Governor Romney’s Conservative Strategy To Raise The Bar In Education" is that most anti-public school agenda that we’ve all heard more about than we ever need to hear:

Governor Romney Will Promote School Choice. He believes that when parents and kids are free to choose their school, everyone benefits. That’s because competition and choice in educational opportunities – whether it comes from private schools, charter schools, or home schooling – makes traditional public schools better and improves the quality of education for all of America’s kids. Governor Romney believes that it is especially important that students in failing schools be able to exercise school choice so that they can get access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed.

That said, I’ll give the governor snaps for promoting merit pay for teachers, and for understanding that NCLB is flawed. But the solution to that is to ditch NCLB, not try to "fix" it. And you can ditch the U.S. Department of Education while you’re at it, if you’re so inclined.

But my bottom line for Mr. Romney and anyone else seeking the presidency is this:

Hey! Candidate! Leave them kids alone!

Catholics Fed Up with Partisanship

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At least, that (what my headline says) would probably have been the name of this group if I had been the one to start it. Or perhaps, "Catholics Cracking Heads for Civility."

But Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is kinder and gentler than I am, so they take a more easygoing approach in their approach to promoting our common goals — more civility, more respect for reason in debates, and less mindless partisanship.

I just received a release from the group announcing that "A diverse group of prominent lay Catholics — including 11 former U.S. ambassadors and former chairmen of the Republican and Democratic National Committees — have called for a more civil tone to replace the divisive rhetoric and partisan attacks that define our national political debates." The release provided a link to the document signed by those leaders, "A Catholic Call to Observe Civility in Political Debate." So I went and read it.

You gotta love such statements as this:

As Catholics we must learn to disagree respectfully and without judgment to avoid rudeness in expressing our opinions to those whom we suspect will disagree with us, or in reacting to others’ expressions of opinion.
As Catholics we need to keep in mind the common humanity that we share with those with whom we disagree. We must avoid seeing them as "the enemy" in a life-or-death, winner-take-all political contest.
As Catholics we should never lose faith in the power of reason – a unique gift from God to mankind – and we should always keep ourselves open to a reasoned argument. In this spirit we should defend our views and positions with conviction and patience, but without being obnoxious or bullying.

I’m a little less certain over the signatories’ tiptoeing around the issue of whether the church should act to correct Catholics who clearly do not support the Church’s social teachings, whether it’s Democrats embracing abortion or Republicans dissing various forms of public assistance. Ultimately, I have to applaud the nuanced, soundly Catholic approach that the document takes, including the following elements:

It chides "Catholic politicians who advertise their Catholicism as part of their political appeal, but ignore the Church’s moral teachings in their political life…"
It adds that "we should not enlist the Church’s moral endorsement for our political preferences," and "we should not exhort the Church to condemn our political opponents by
publicly denying them Holy Communion based on public dissent from
Church teachings."
At the same time, it says, as "lay Catholics we should not pass judgment, and should avoid public
statements that undermine the authority of the Church’s leaders.
American Catholics know who their Church leaders are: their Bishops,
Archbishops, and Cardinals." While an "individual’s fitness to receive communion is his or her personal responsibility… it is a bishop’s responsibility to set for his diocese the guidelines for administering communion."
In other words, it’s up to bishops whether they want to deny communion. A very Catholic answer, and I agree with it.

But… the group that’s promoting this laudable call for civility is also one that promotes Catholic Social Teaching, and I wish priests and bishops would speak from the pulpit more about our moral obligations in those regards, and do so without worrying who’s getting their feelings hurt.

It’s one thing to engage in the idiocy of the perpetual struggle for supremacy between the two, equally morally objectionable political parties. Catholics should never engage in the dumbing-down of issues or ad hominem rhetoric that the parties and their auxiliary interest groups promote. All of that is extremely destructive. (And we Catholics should challenge ourselves whenever, in others’ eyes, we are seen as guilty of this.)

But if the Church truly believes in the dignity of all human life, in our obligation to be stewards of the Earth, our duty to the poor, and so forth, then it ought to be no respecter of persons as it speaks out in a bold way that makes these positions crystal-clear. (That would of course include challenging me on my support of military action, which puts me in the position of justifying whether our presence in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else is in keeping with the Just War doctrine, or can be made to be in keeping with it.)

I realize I’m not being terribly clear myself here. OK, go back and read what I wrote about the moral instruction regarding political issues that I heard in a synagogue a couple of weeks back. No individual was trashed or called names; no political party was condemned. But it was made clear that as Jews, you are expected to believe in certain things, and act accordingly in the public sphere.

That ought to go double for Catholics. Jewishness is to some extent tied up with ethnic identity, whatever one chooses to believe. Catholicism is purely a matter of what you believe, and there should be no shyness about pointing out where Catholic teaching begins and ends, and when policy proposals are in keeping with it and when they are not.

If this petition leads to less of the vicious nonsense that I decry constantly on this blog, then praise be to God for the miracle. But I hope it will also encourage bold declarations of what is right and wrong in terms of policy, and whether a given proposal is in keeping with such standards or not.

Don’t take the brown museum!

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My man McCain keeps going on about this proposal Hillary had for a Woodstock museum, and I can’t help that the old dude’s missing the real problem here. I keep thinking: a museum? For Woodstock?

There’s something extremely uncool about that. Museums are where established, older-generation culture is stored and entombed in cold marble, right? It’s where the Man puts his stuff.

Wasn’t Woodstock — to the extent that it was about anything other than being a rip-roarin’, get-high-and-get-nekkid sort of party — sort of about the opposite of that?

Where was Hillary’s head at?

Oh — and in case you’re not digging where my headline is at, here’s a link.

As if the Democrats weren’t bad enough last night…

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Now Mitt Romney has jumped in, along with Edwards and Obama, for a twofer — demagogue the immigration issue, and bash Hillary.

Just got around to reading this e-mail that William Holley of the Romney campaign sent me this morning:

One more for you:
If y’all didn’t catch the Democratic debate last night, Senator Clinton and other Democrats made some troubling remarks in support of a plan in her home state of New York to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
That won’t fly here in South Carolina.
Governor Romney, on the on the other hand, has a clear record of opposing driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.
Here is a “Romney Vision” policy document on the issue: http://mittromney.com/News/Press-Releases/Romney_Vision_Illegal_Immigration

Enjoy.

Urging me to "enjoy" it is being just a tad optimistic there, William.

Lindsey’s ‘hard pander’ on immigration

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A colleague brings my attention to what he refers to as "a hard pander on immigration from Lindsey." Mike goes on to say:

Not
only is it a reasonable bill he would otherwise support, but he also lapses into
cartoonish military-speak about our southern border. "Boots on the ground" …
"force multiplier" … "unmanned aerial vehicles" … "operational
control."

You’d
think these people were surging over the border with assault rifles, instead of
sneaking in to pick our fruit and prepare our chickens.

Pretty
chickenhearted, from a man with $4 million in campaign funds and no known
opponent.

Anyway, here’s the release he was referring to:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:    Contact: Wes Hickman or Kevin Bishop
October 24, 2007

Graham Opposes DREAM Act
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today voted against invoking cloture on the DREAM Act. Sixty votes were necessary to move to consideration of the legislation and the vote in the Senate was 52-44. He made this statement following the vote:
   “First, we must show the American people we are serious about securing our nation’s borders.
   “I have twice introduced and passed legislation through the Senate providing $3 billion for improved border security. There is no doubt we need more boots on the ground, more miles of fencing, better technology which acts as a force multiplier, additional detention beds, and unmanned aerial vehicles at the border. I have and will continue to push for adoption of the Graham Amendment until it is signed into law by President Bush.
   “Regaining operational control of our nation’s borders is a gateway to further reforms of our broken immigration system.
   “I’m sympathetic to the concerns expressed today on the floor of the Senate, but I believe the legislation was poorly drafted and in need of further amending. Additionally, Majority Leader Reid made clear that he was not going to allow any meaningful changes to the DREAM Act, a legislative process I found to be very unfair. Without assurances border security would be addressed, I would not vote to proceed to this matter.
   “There is no reason to abandon our border security efforts at this critical moment in time. We need to be focused on securing our borders to ensure people who come into the country do so legally.”
               #####

I’m with Mike about the chest-thumping in this release. I will say one thing in Lindsey’s defense, though: He and McCain always couched their immigration efforts in terms of "securing our borders." When I asked Sen. McCain why on Earth he wanted to beat himself up with this issue in the midst of a presidential campaign, when the only people who see this as an urgent issue are the ones who will hate him for not being mean enough to the Mexicans, he said he couldn’t see putting off such an important Homeland Security issue. In other words, it’s not the Mexicans he’s worried about keeping out.

All that said — yeah, Lindsey’s going out of his way, once again, to win hearts and minds among our latter-day Know-Nothings.

Damned if you do

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Within minutes of each other, I got this laudatory release from the Christian Coalition…

Washington D.C. — Christian Coalition of America blogger, Jim Backlin, comments about Senator John McCain’s "America is a Christian nation" remarks:
In a Christian Coalition of America blog entry entitled: "McCain’s ‘America is a Christian Nation’ Comments Might Make Him President," Jim Backlin said: “Comments like ‘America was founded on Christian principles’ by Senator John McCain just might make him president. In an interview last Saturday with a Christian-oriented webset called Beliefnet, Senator McCain stated that "I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I would prefer someone who has a grounding in my faith." The fact that the left-wing Muslim groups vociferously reacted against McCain’s remarks, just added validity to his comments, and indeed value for his presidential nomination hopes….

… just minutes after I received this one from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 10/1/07) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on presidential candidate Sen. John McCain to appoint a Muslim campaign advisor and a Muslim White House aide if elected in 2008.
CAIR’s request came following McCain’s remarks that America is a "Christian" nation and that he would not be comfortable with a Muslim in the White House.
In response to a question from Beliefnet.com about the possibility of a Muslim presidential candidate, the Arizona senator said: "I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, that’s a decision the American people would have to make, but personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith."…

Both dealt with John McCain’s statement that we are "a Christian nation."

One of the vagaries of being a newsman who doesn’t watch TV is that I frequently hear about "news" developments (and I put "news" in quotes to denote those items that everybody who watches TV hears about, but those of us who read The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal only see if we look really hard) first from groups that are spinning the developments to suit their aims. It can be weird, not hearing these things straight the first time. But you know, if enough blind men describe the elephant, you might get an idea what it looks like, if you’re the strongly intuitive type.

Anyway, when I hear from B’nai B’rith on the subject, I’ll let you know.

Mike Huckabee on the obligation to govern

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Huckabee1
By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
THERE’S A PRINCIPLE that I long thought was a given in American politics. As long as it held true, it didn’t matter so much if the “wrong” candidate won an election. No matter what sort of nonsense he had spouted on the stump, this stark truth would take him in its unforgiving grip, set him down and moderate him.
Mike Huckabee, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, made reference to this principle when he met with our editorial board Thursday:
“One of the tough jobs of governing is, you actually have to do it.” That may sound so obvious that it’s foolish, like “One thing about water is, it’s wet.” But it can come as a cold shock.
Think of the congressional class of 1994. Newt Gingrich’s bomb-throwers were full of radical notions when they gained power. But once they had it, and used it, however briefly, to shut down the government, they quickly realized that was not what they were elected to do.
Or some of them realized it. More about that in a moment. Back to Mr. Huckabee.
Mr. Huckabee is a conservative — the old-fashioned kind that believes in traditional values, and wants strong, effective institutions in our society to support and promote those values.
Many newfangled “conservatives” seem just as likely to want to tear down as build up.
If Mr. Huckabee was ever that way, being the governor of Arkansas made him less so. “As a governor, I’ve seen a different level of human life, maybe, than the folks who live in the protected bubble of Washington see,” he said. And as a governor who believed he must govern, he was appalled when he saw government fail to do its job. He points to the aftermath of Katrina: “It was one of the more, to me, disgusting moments of American history…. It made my blood boil….”
Perhaps I should pause again now to remind you that Gov. Huckabee is a conservative: “I’m 100 percent pure and orthodox when it comes to the issues that matter to the evangelical or faith voter, if you will,” he says.
“But as a governor, I spent most of my time improving education, rebuilding the highway system, reforming health care in Arkansas” — things that are not inconsistent with conservatism.
“And for that I had the right — had earned the right, if you will — to pass some pro-life legislation, Huckabee2
and strong pro-marriage and pro-family legislation. But I didn’t spend 90 percent of my time pushing that….”
OK, let’s review: As a conservative, he has a certain set of ideals. But he knows that being governor isn’t just about promoting an ideology, whatever it might be. Being governor, if the job is properly understood, is the most pragmatic form of life in our solar system — except for being mayor.
People expect certain things of you, and you’ve got to do them. Successful governors realize that, whether you’re promoting ideals or paving the roads, “The wrong thing to do is to go and to try to stick your fist in the face of the Legislature that you know is not necessarily with you, and create a fight.” (Gov. Huckabee had to deal with a Democratic assembly.)
So what’s the right way?
“You positively share your message, you communicate it… . If you can’t do that, I don’t think you can lead. Just… quite frankly, I don’t think you have a shot at it.”
I know someone who needs to hear that. Remember the class of ’94? The only lesson Mark Sanford learned from shutting down the federal government was that it was worth trying again. So last year, he vetoed the entire state budget when lawmakers failed to hold spending to the artificial limits he had decreed.
Of course, they overrode him. And he knew they would. For him, it was about the gesture, not about governing. It’s about ungoverning. It’s about the agenda of the Club for Growth.
Gov. Huckabee, being conservative fiscally as well as otherwise, has been known to turn down taxes, but that’s an area where pragmatism can outweigh ideals:
“… We had a Supreme Court case where we were forced to deal with both equity and adequacy in education,” said Mr. Huckabee. “There was no way to do that without additional revenue.”
Still, he refused to sign the tax bill Democrats gave him.
“I didn’t think we were getting enough reform for the amount of money. It wasn’t that I didn’t support additional revenue, because I did, so I’ll be honest about that. But… we weren’t pushing for enough efficiency out of the system.” What sort of efficiency?
“I wanted a greater level of school consolidation in order to fund the efficiency, which was a very unpopular thing.”
Our governor has said he’s for school district consolidation (as am I), but he’s never done anything effective to achieve it. That would require building a constructive relationship with the Legislature.
Another time, Gov. Huckabee actually opposed a tax cut. Why? That governing thing again: “Well, I supported the elimination of the grocery tax, but not the timing, and the timing would have meant we literally would have closed nursing homes, had to slash Medicaid. I mean, it’s one thing to trim the fat off the bone, it’s another thing, you know, to start going into the bone itself.”
That wouldn’t worry the Club for Growth, about which Gov. Huckabee says, “They hate me. I call ’em the Club for Greed. That’s part of why they don’t like me… If people don’t have the courage to run for office, they can just give money to them and they’ll do the dirty work for you.”
“I think it’s a sleazy way to do politics.”
The Club for Growth loves Mark Sanford.
I don’t know what sort of president Mike Huckabee would make, but I wonder whether he’d do another stint as governor….

For video, go to http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

Huckabee3

Meanwhile, this just in from the OTHER designated cultural conservative in the race

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Got this via e-mail today from Sam Brownback, and I pass it on since we recently debated something similar in our Legislature:

Brownback Introduces Ultrasound Informed Consent Act
Bill to require ultrasound prior to abortion

Thursday, September 20, 2007

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today introduced the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act, legislation which would require that a doctor perform an ultrasound and then share the results with the woman and allow her to view the images before performing an abortion.

"It is necessary and right to provide a woman seeking an abortion with all the available information so that she may make the most informed decision possible," said Brownback. "The Ultrasound Informed Consent Act would ensure that women have access to important information."

The requirements of the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act are placed solely on the doctor, not the patient. A woman seeking an abortion may refuse to view the images of the ultrasound after the results are made available to her. Several states including South Carolina and Texas have recently pursued similar legislation.

Brownback continued, "I am hopeful that this bill will inform women and will cause a deeper reflection on the humanity of unborn children. It is important to promote a culture that values life in all stages."

Brownback is a member of the Senate Judiciary and Appropriations Committees.

-30-

I suppose this is one advantage a sitting senator has over ex-Gov. Huckabee — he can actually introduce legislation. Not that it’s going to go anywhere in a Democratic Senate.

My own libertarian impulse kicks in

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Regulars will know that I seldom find common ground with libertarian sentiment. I have even asked for guidance in helping me understand the "libertarian impulse," because it seems to be an emotion or drive that I utterly lack — possibly some difference in brain chemistry.

When libertarians fulminate about how "high" their taxes are, or fret about their loss of privacy because the government screens telecommunications for signs of terrorist traffic, I am left cold. I simply do not feel whatever it is that gets these folks worked up.

But finally, I can embrace my libertarian brothers, even though, being the rugged individualists that they are, they aren’t into that sort of thing. Perhaps my libertarian sisters will allow it. I’d prefer that anyway.

Where was I? Ah, yes.

When I read about this in yesterday’s WSJ, I was immediately afire with the violation of our fundamental rights. Under the headline "The Right to Dry:A Green Movement Is Roiling America," was a story that stirred me the way (some) libertarians are stirred by the Patriot Act. An excerpt:

The regulations of the subdivision in which Ms. Taylor lives effectively prohibit outdoor clotheslines. In a move that has torn apart this otherwise tranquil community, the development’s managers have threatened legal action. To the developer and many residents, clotheslines evoke the urban blight they sought to avoid by settling in the Oregon mountains.
"This bombards the senses," interior designer Joan Grundeman says of her neighbor’s clothesline. "It can’t possibly increase property values and make people think this is a nice neighborhood."
Ms. Taylor and her supporters argue that clotheslines are one way to fight climate change, using the sun and wind instead of electricity. "Days like this, I can do multiple loads, and within two hours, it’s done," said Ms. Taylor. "It smells good, and it feels different than when it comes out of the dryer."

Amen I say to you, Ms. Taylor! And what, pray tell, could be the objection of her neighbors? A bit of background:

The clothesline was once a ubiquitous part of the residential landscape. But as postwar Americans embraced labor-saving appliances, clotheslines came to be associated with people who couldn’t afford a dryer. Now they are a rarity, purged from the suburban landscape by legally enforceable development restrictions.

I submit that America was a better country when our moms and grandmas decorated our backyards with a hundred highly individualized freedom flags every Monday.

In my own case, it’s not just moms and grandmas. When our older children were small and my wife was at home with them, she used to hang out their little garments in our backyard, and my memory of coming home from the office at lunch time and finding her out there in the sun and the fresh air is a warm and fond one. It was a statement of where we stood with regard to the Earth — we also used real, cotton diapers — but it was also esthetically pleasing. And no static cling.

Since then, we have wasted many a kilowatt/hour on the dryer. It’s a convenience, but one that I don’t feel good about. And you know, as founder of the Energy Party, I think it’s time that we all ran our BVDs up the clothesline pole, and said "Bring ’em on!" They don’t have to salute our undies, but they’d better not try to lower them. I mean… well, you know what I mean.

Before we join the movement at my house, I’ll have to run home and check with the Executive Committee. But whatever she says, it should be our — uh, her — decision, and not that of some busybodies.

How dare anyone suggest that I don’t have the right to do that in my own yard? And for such petty, ugly reasons as not wanting to look like you live next to someone "who couldn’t afford a dryer." That’s disgusting.

And it warms my heart to be with the libertarians for once on a property-rights issue. Normally, they’d be sticking up for the right of the individual property owner to have a factory hog farm, and I’d be for the right of the neighbors not to live next to such, if that’s their decision. I think the property values of the many outweigh the most-profitable use by the one.

But there’s a world of difference, in terms of "harm" done to the neighbor, between a lagoon of hog waste and the colorful display of jogging shorts. And the good done for the environment is reversed in the two instances.

Yeah, I know that most of these things involve private property owners’ covenants "freely" entered into, but how many of you really scrutinized your neighborhood’s esoteric rules and regs before buying the house you wanted?

Long Tall Fred swaggers to the rescue, but of what?

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
FOR MONTHS NOW, “conservative” Republicans have waited for their hounddog-faced Godot, Fred Thompson, to bring something to the presidential contest that was missing.
So it was that quite a few of us left our cool offices and moseyed down to Doc’s Barbecue Monday with a mind to learning what that something was.
The star of screen, lobby and courtroom swaggered onto the riser in the parking lot and launched into a hickory-smoked litany of what he had been talking about since his previous foray into electoral politics back in the ’90s. His delivery had a poetic — or perhaps “lyrical,” in a country-song-lyrics sense — quality:

… talkin’ about the val-yuh (that’s “value” to you pantywaist Easterners) of being pro-life;
talkin’ about the value of standing strong for the second amendment;
talkin’ about the rule of law;
talkin’ about the value and the rightness of lower taxes;
talkin’ about a market economy; talking about the ingenuity and the inventiveness of the American people and the value of competitiveness and how we would fare well in the international marketplace. We do more things better than anybody in the world, and it works for us….

OK, so maybe it got a trifle less lyrical there for a moment, but he got his rhythm back right quick:

We’re talking about first principles, things this country was founded upon,
the idea that there’s some things in this changing world that don’t change.
Certain things,
certain things such as human nature,
and the wisdom of the Ages that led us to the Declaration of Independence
and led us to the Constitution of the United States,
and they are not outmoded documents to be cast aside….

OK, Fred, all that’s great, but who said they were — documents to be cast aside, I mean? Who’s the bad guy here? Certainly not the men who’ve been running their fannies off seeking the GOP nomination while you were playing Hamlet all these months.
Sure, Rudy Giuliani might have a bit of trouble on the abortion thing, and so might Mitt Romney — depending which Mitt Romney you chose to believe from the assortment available on “YouTube.”
But that other stuff? Come, on, this is boilerplate, par for the course, warming-up exercises, the kind of stuff Republican babies cut their teeth on.
So what sets you apart, aside from the fact that you are obviously way-up-yonder tall? (I would have said “Rocky-Top tall,” but Fred and I are both Memphis State grads — from back when they called it Memphis State — so I can’t hang a U.T. image on him).
One thing, as far as I can see — and it goes back to the predicate in the first sentence of my third paragraph: swaggered.
That ol’ boy’s got more swagger on him than John Wayne in a roomful of Maureen O’Haras. It’s in his voice, and in everything he chooses of his own by-God free will to say with it. It’s in his accent; it’s in those jowls sliding off his face like McMansions on a muddy California hillside. Fred_thompson3
I’d say it was literally in his walk, if I could ever see how he walks, but he always has a crowd around
him, with his craggy head poking up above it.
Those crowds respond to him: The ladies like a man who sounds like he durn-well knows what he’s talking ’bout and don’t mind saying so, and the men can tell right off that he’s one-a them — or what they like to think of themselves as, from the swagger itself right down to that hot-dang wife a-his that smiles so purty when he brags about sirin’ them babies on her.
All of this can disguise the fact that this is a very smart man of rather broad-ranging sophistication (I mentioned he went to Memphis State, right?), but nobody holds that against him.
And so it was that he came a-ridin’ into town on that bus a-his with Johnny Cash boomin’ out of it, ridin’ to the rescue of… of what?
Once again, what was lacking? Who had to be saved from what?
Last month, ol’ Fred told David Broder that he only considered getting into the race because his friend John McCain had stumbled along the way. Before that, “I expected to support John, just as I did in 2000,” he said.
I remember him supporting McCain back then, because he came to see me at the time, and said we were wrong to have endorsed George W. Bush in the S.C. primary. And he was right.
So I found myself puzzled last week, a week in which the biggest political news was the resurgence of John McCain. A few days after a well-reviewed debate performance in New Hampshire, the Arizonan was back in Washington to hear Gen. David Petraeus — who might as well have had a “McCain in ’08” button wedged among those rows of ribbons on his chest — tell the world that the strategy Sen. McCain had advocated for the last four years had succeeded. Suddenly the guy who was supposed to have fallen on his sword over Iraq looked “prescient and courageous on the campaign’s most vital issue,” according to The Associated Press.
Sure, there are those Republicans who are still hot because Sen. McCain isn’t mean enough to Mexicans, whereas ol’ Fred leaves little doubt that he’d kick their Rio-moistened behinds clear back to Juarez.
But while I grant you the man sure can swagger, I still find myself wondering: Why’s he swaggering into town now?

For video and more, go to http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

Sure, and now I’ll be after havin’ the Irish on me case

Why would abortion foes exempt rape?

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Today, I got this e-mail from a reader:

I always enjoy your editorials and read them whenever I see that you are featured in the State (though I normally refer to the "State" as the "Local "since its sports bias is almost always limited to Columbia-area teams).
I enjoyed reading your editorial board interview with Sam Brownback, but am curious about something.
I read some time back that Brownback stated that a woman raped should be forced to carry the child to term. Did this or a similar comment come up in your interview?

Thanks and keep writing…

Which prompted me to break my rule and respond (actually, if I respond and then post it on my blog, it’s not really breaking the rule — since the rule is, after all, designed to get people to comment on the blog instead of via e-mail):

Not that I recall. But why would anyone who opposes abortion make exceptions in the case of rape? I’ve always had trouble understanding that. It seems to be a case of emotion overriding logic.
If we’re talking about a human life, why would it cease to be worth protecting in the case of rape? We don’t have the death penalty for rape, even in the case of the perpetrator. So why would we put the unborn result of the rape to death? It doesn’t make sense.
Yes, it’s horrible for the victim. But everything about rape is horrible. If one is truly opposed to abortion, the fact that a pregnancy resulted from rape should not negate one’s position.
I’m guessing — from your choice of words (specifically, your use of "forced") — that you object to Brownback’s position on abortion. Would you find it LESS objectionable if he said "except in cases of abortion?" If so, why? I ask this less from a pro-life perspective than from one of logical consistency. One of my colleagues who is pro-choice often says she finds pro-life people who don’t make such exceptions more worthy of respect. I think she’s right (narrowly speaking) to take that view.
What do you think?

If this exchange follows the usual pattern (and I hope it won’t), it will spin off into misunderstanding and miscommunication, but I ask once again: If you believe (as do I) that abortion ends a human life, why again would it be OK just because the horrible circumstances of a rape are involved? Logically speaking, of course.

Lindsey Graham, stand-up guy

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Immigration

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
LINDSEY Graham is a stand-up guy.
I just thought somebody should say that before sensible, thoughtful folk completely forget about all the hollering we’ve recently heard about his advocacy of the defunct immigration bill.
The ones doing the hollering won’t forget, or so they say. Remember the Angry White Male, who rose up and swept Newt Gingrich and his cohorts into power in Congress in 1994? Well, that guy is alive and well, and he’s really, really ticked off at Lindsey Graham. And John McCain.
Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment is being broken all over the place, right over Sen. Graham’s skull. Some sample comments from my blog:

“Snake in the grass, closet liberal, supercilious, condescending, I-know-better-than-you-little-people Lindsey Graham. Government is the only business I know of in which the people who run it continually attempt to tell the customers why they’re wrong.”
“Lindsey Graham has betrayed his conservative promises and has voted with the liberal democrats 18 times (from Jan 1st through Jul 1st).”
“‘Buenos Dias! You have reached the office of Senator Lindsey Graham. Press 1 for assistance in Spanish. Otherwise, hang up you racist bigot. Muchas Gracias!”’

And so forth.
Speaking of the blog — I set them off again when I posted a link to an article in National Review that said, “I hope the American people, at least, step back from the obsessive play-by-play pre-season election analysis and reflect on Senator McCain’s actions for what I believe they were: One of the purest examples of political courage seen in Washington in a very, very long time…”
Joelindsey
That was written by Sen. Tom Coburn, who opposed Sens. McCain and Graham on the immigration bill, but had the intellectual honesty to admire the extremely rare fortitude they exhibited in their stance.
But aside from Sen. Jim DeMint going out of his way to be gracious and magnanimous after crushing this initiative by the colleague who usually overshadows him, there is little appreciation for the quality that Sen. Coburn admired. “Lindsey Grahamnesty was not elected to be courageous,” said one of my bloggers. “He was elected to vote on behalf of the people of South Carolina. If he can’t do that, maybe he should go be courageous somewhere else.”
But courage is too rare and precious a commodity in our politics for anyone to dismiss it. How long has it been since you saw somebody from South Carolina take a tough, leading position on a major national issue, without regard to the consequences?
Lindsey Graham is a smart guy, about as smart as they come. Whatever the issue, it is a delight to hear him expound upon it. Does anyone really think he didn’t realize in advance how constituents would react? Even if he didn’t realize the magnitude of this tidal wave of opposition, once it broke over him, did he back off? No.
That’s doing what you believe is right in spite of the cost. Sens. Graham and McCain have repeatedly demonstrated remarkable political courage, on this and other issues — standing up to the Bush administration on torture, reaching out to Democratic moderates to smooth the path for the president’s judicial nominees. Time and time again, they have done what they believed to be right, and explained their actions with intelligence and conviction.
Those of you who are so livid right now can dismiss that all you want, but you are wrong to do so. You’re also being rather foolish. The “Gang of 14” deal is what led to John Roberts and Samuel Alito joining the Supreme Court. And dream all you want, you just rejected the one best chance you had of seeing any substantive action on illegal immigration.
I was dismayed to see the two senators step out on immigration in this way at this time.
After all, the only people who considered illegal immigration to be a front-burner issue were the sort of angry fantasists who believe it’s possible to round up 12 million people who don’t want to be found, and deport them.
I asked John McCain about it: Why this? Why now? He thought it was important to national security. He said “we can’t have 12 million people in the United States of America who we don’t know who they are or where they are and what they’re doing.”
Sen. Graham agreed. And nothing was going to stop them; they were determined “to stand on principle, and try to solve problems,” as the South Carolinian puts it at such times.
I was reminded of how rare principled courage was on this issue (and others) when I called around to local Republicans for comment. I got some good ones — not for attribution.
“There’s no shortage of plain old racism” in this issue, said one of these brave souls. “God forbid you should say it out loud, though. Lindsey said it out loud.”
“Courageous? I think it was stupid,” said another. “I think it was the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard of.”
At the same time, that second tower of strength predicted that the people who keep promising they’ll “never vote for Lindsey Graham again” will do just that, because “nobody worth anything will run against him.”
Possibly. But the 2008 Senate election may answer once and for all whether, in this finger-in-the-wind putative republic of ours, political courage is the one unforgivable sin.

DeMint got THAT part right…

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There was one thing that Jim DeMint said about the demise of the immigration bill today that was absolutely correct:

"The people responded to this issue in a very emotional and just a very
engaged way, which changed the minds of many people here in the Senate."

Very emotional, indeed. And that is something that politicians certainly respond to, even in that most "deliberative" of bodies.

Little Italy column

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Immigration,

individualism

and Italian ices

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

MY ELDEST daughter and her husband returned Sunday from a trip to Italy. Big deal. Her Mom and Dad walked through Little Italy in lower Manhattan over the weekend, which is just as good, and cheaper.
No jet lag. All the authentic Italian eateries you could want, from pasta to espresso to exquisite pastries. Sure, it’s a little touristy, but so is the other Italy.
And if you get tired of it, just walk a little further down Mulberry Street, cross Canal, and bada-bing! You’re in Chinatown. A whole other country, as Forrest Gump would say. Sidewalk tables with old guys
gesticulating and hurling Italian at each other give way to old Chinese guys playing chess at park benches. The sudden shift, the stark cultural, ethnic and linguistic contrast, is stunning to anyone who is accustomed to living in… well, America. No assimilation, no melting pot, no tossed salad, or any of those other metaphors that make me hungry (did I tell you about the pastries?).
But I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is what we came for, the ethnic pageantry. That, and the Italian ices. We went there to experience something we can’t get in West Columbia — unless, of course, we were to enter a Mexican tienda for one of those Cokes that taste better than the ones bottled for sale in this country (or so I’m told).
Which brings me to David Brooks’ column earlier this week, endeavoring to explain all the passion over illegal aliens.
I appreciate that he trashed the notion that this is some sort of simplistic left-vs.-right flashpoint. You can find just as much anxiety among “progressives” who worry about wages and working conditions as among know-nothings who simply don’t like foreigners.
But ultimately, when he tried to explain what the dichotomy was as opposed to what it wasn’t, he got it wrong:

Liberal members of the educated class celebrated the cultural individualism of the 1960s. Conservative members celebrated the economic individualism of the 1980s. But they all celebrated individualism. They all valued diversity and embraced a sense of national identity that rested on openness and global integration.
This cultural offensive created a silent backlash among people who were not so enamored of rampant individualism and who were worried that all this diversity would destroy the ancient ties of community and social solidarity. Members of this class came to feel that America’s identity and culture were under threat from people who did not understand what made America united and distinct.

Mr. Brooks should read the comments on my blog sometime. He’ll discover that the most adamant Goodfellas
individualists — the strident libertarians, who tend to bridle at the very word “society,” much less the idea of paying taxes — are most likely to call our senior senator “Lindsey Grahamnesty.”
What is America’s “identity and culture”? We owe a huge debt of gratitude to those English-speaking white men who drafted our Constitution. But America is also about opportunity for all. It is about bigness, and the ability to absorb. It’s about pizza and hamburgers and chili con carne. We’re not threatened by that stuff, we dig it. Bring it on! Our appetite for the big, messy smorgasbord of cultures sloshing around and swapping juices is our thing; it’s what we grow on.
OK, that sounds kind of like the first group Mr. Brooks described — except for the “individualist” part, which is key. If I can be categorized, it’s as the opposite, a communitarian. My attitudes toward the richness of the American stew arise from the same impulses that Mr. Brooks described when he wrote recently, in a piece headlined “The Human Community,” that Tony Blair’s commitment to Iraq arose from his communitarianism.
I’m surprised at Mr. Brooks.
America doesn’t define “community” in terms of everybody looking, speaking or eating alike. We Pastries
leave that kind of self-defeating smallness to ethnic cleansers in the Balkans, or traditionalist jihadists in the Mideast. We’re selling something else, and it’s so big and rich and free that you can’t stop it. Once you narrowly define a thing and say it’s this and not that, you limit it, and this country is not limited.
It’s an essential part of who we are that you can’t easily pin down who we are.
A place like Little Italy or that tienda on Sunset would seem to run counter to that, to embody ethnic homogeneity and specificity to the point of rejecting essential Americanism. But they don’t.
If we were satisfied with McDonald’s and Pizza Hut and white bread sandwiches from the chain supermarket we’d be who the French think we are, and they’re wrong about us.
We have a place like Little Italy because we can afford it. We’re big enough, and sure enough of who we are, to have it all.
Last Saturday, we continued through Chinatown and walked across the bridge to Brooklyn. On the way Bridge1
over, we kept passing Manhattanites coming back from Brooklyn carrying pizzas. It’s one thing for a tourist to make the trek, but to walk to the next borough and back for a pizza? What was that about?
When we got there, we saw where they were going. The place sat alone on a dreary block right under the bridge. There was a long line outside just for takeout. People from Asia, from Europe, from Africa, all waiting eagerly, and untroubled about the long walk to get there. Apparently, the pizza was just that good.
I still don’t know how to philosophically characterize all the passion over immigration or how to address the very legitimate concerns (beyond the passion) about the many ways our immigration “system” fails to work.
But I know that as long as the pizza is this good in this country, they’re going to keep coming.

Manhattan

Her majesty had it right

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Having been too busy lately to so much as watch a DVD from Netflix (I’ve really been wasting that money), I overindulged over the weekend. My younger son and I went to see "Next," then I went straight home to watch the rental that had come of "The Queen." Brief thoughts:

Next was better than expected, but it had this problem — if a guy can see his own future for two minutes out, how can he change it? If he changes it, that means it doesn’t happen, which means it isn’t actually his future, so how can he see it? What he should be seeing is himself changing it, and what happens instead as a result. But how could he act to change it if he didn’t see it, because it was never going to happen? I could see him winning at cards, because all he has to do is bet differently, knowing what cards are coming, but not changing the cards that are coming. In that case, he would probably see himself winning, because that’s his actual future. But dodging bullets? Preventing his girlfriend from getting blown up? I don’t think so. My son told me that this wasn’t a problem, that if I read more comic books I’d get it, but I don’t know. The whole time paradox was treated better in "The Final Countdown" (although what that title had to do with the actual film, I don’t know). It was very satisfactory right up until the time that — WARNING: PLOT SPOILER — the Nimitz was about to fight off the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, then they got snatched back to 1980. I guess they didn’t have a big enough budget for more than two Mitsubishis, or the writers just got too confused to go on.
The Queen was more or less as good as I had expected, which was quite. I don’t know about you, but I cheered for Her Majesty’s position all the way through. I will never, ever understand the tears and flapdoodle that seemed universal over the death of her ex-daughter-in-law. I understand it no better than I do the appeal of reality TV, or the idiots who bit their fingernails hoping Michael Jackson would be acquited. Of course, it’s all the same thing. Diana was a lovely young woman — graceful, sweet-looking. But give me the I-grew-up-during-the-war, stiff-upper-lip approach every time. Grief should be private, and what business do total strangers have grieving anyway? Lowering a flag at Buckingham, when the queen wasn’t even there, meaning there should be no standard anyway? It was idiocy, and she shouldn’t have been compelled to give in to it. I was much bothered by the way his role made Tony Blair look like a shallow twit through much of the film — the pandering apologist to celebrity-soaked, trashy sentimentalism — but when he got a little backbone and defended his sovereign from first his wife, then his churlish press aide, he seemed more like the Tony I admire so. Elizabeth was bound to lose her battle for a little dignity, of course, especially with her whiny scrub of a son undermining her, but I admire her for holding out as long as she did.

So THAT’S where ‘that little jerk’ was…

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When John McCain was peering into the lights looking for "that little jerk" Lindsey Graham, his friend and ally was still on the way back from Washington.

It seems the White House had asked him to stick around to help at a critical moment in negotiations on an immigration deal. He had hoped to arrive in time to watch the debate, but by the time he got to Columbia, everything was over.

But he was pumped, knowing that the deal was finally done. He went on and on about it, keeping at least one supporter up into the wee hours, way past his bedtime, as he later complained.

McCain had referred during the intense negotiations during the debate, brushing off a suggestion that he was dodging the hot potato, noting that he had been involved in the talks as late as last Friday. He wasn’t in at the end, although his sidekick was.

I asked that same tired, worn-out old associate at lunch today when something would be announced. The news was out by the time we got back to our respective offices:

Bush Hails Deal
on Immigration Reform
WASHINGTON (AP) — Key senators in both parties and the White House announced agreement Thursday on an immigration overhaul that would grant quick legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S. and fortify the border. The plan would create a temporary worker program to bring new arrivals to the U.S and a separate program to cover agricultural workers. Skills and education-level would for the first time be weighted over family connections in deciding whether future immigrants should get permanent legal status. New high-tech employment verification measures also would be instituted to ensure that workers are here legally.

John McCain is wrong about ONE thing…

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John McCain is wrong about one issue that is of any personal importance to me: the Confederate flag. And of course the moderator in last night’s debate asked him, and only him, about it. That’s fitting, since a moderator should probe a candidate’s weak points in trying to get at the truth.

Fortunately for McCain — in terms of my vote, anyway — I don’t consider anyone’s position on that issue to be a qualification for the job of president of the United States. In fact, I’d prefer that presidential candidates stay out of the debate altogether.

Among the Republican candidates, Rudy Giuliani has the right answer — to the extent that any non-South Carolinian could have the "right" answer. He says it’s a matter for South Carolinians to decide.

Indeed it is that and only that. That’s why I disagree so strongly with the NAACP’s approach — trying (without appreciable success, I might add) to get the rest of the world to FORCE the flag down by hurting South Carolina economically. Even if such a strategy worked — which it can’t, believe me — nothing would be accomplished. You’d still be left with a state perceived — and perceiving itself, sullenly, resentfully — as a place that WANTS to fly the flag, but has been forced not to.

I don’t care what happens to a piece of cloth. I live in a state that has profound political barriers to getting its act together and catching up to the rest of the country in terms of health, wealth, educational attainment, public safety, what have you. The attitudes that keep us from working together to address those issues meaningfully are closely related to the attitudes that keep that flag flying.

Only if we come together and say, "That’s not who we are anymore; we’re better than that," will we ever move forward as a people.

Sure, it would make me feel all warm and fuzzy to hear everybody — particularly people I like, such as John McCain — echoing my own personal attitudes on this and every other important issue. But it wouldn’t accomplish anything. In fact, on this issue outside voices can probably only make things worse, not better. That’s because of the xenophobia that is a corollary of the mentality that keeps the flag flying. You’ve seen the bumper stickers: "We don’t CARE how you did it up North."

John McCain’s problem is that he actually wrestled with the issue, and wrestled too hard, ending up here, there, and all over the mat on the issue. It
was an issue he did not and probably never will understand. He
shouldn’t have wrestled with it. It’s none of his business.

I don’t mean that in a "go away and shut up, John" sense. But it has nothing to do with being president of the United States. Whatever opinion
he might have on that South Carolina matter should have no impact either on what we do about the flag, or on
whether he should be nominated and elected to the White House.

On issues that do have a bearing as to whether he should be
president, I find him to be far and away the best — among either
party’s candidates. For now.

I wrote the above thoughts, in somewhat sketchier form, in response to a comment on a previous post. Here’s how one of my more thoughtful correspondents replied:

Brad,

I’m struck by your post above re: McCain and the flag

“McCain’s problem is that he actually wrestled with the issue, and
it was an issue he did not and probably never will understand. He
shouldn’t have wrestled with it. It’s none of his business.”

I find it puzzling that you would use Steve Spurrier’s uninvited
opinion on the flag as the impetus for a barrage of editorials but then
give the presidential candidates a pass on the issue.

Part of the point of primary politics is for voters to obtain a
close look at the candidates and have them take positions on local
issues. It is a very useful way to measure them, regardless of whether
the issue will ever come to them for a decision. Some of the national
issues will likely never come to them for a decision either-for
example, if the next president doesn’t appoint a Supreme Court justice,
it’s unlikely his or her opinion on abortion will have any impact.

You expect a president to have the wherewithal and decisiveness to
respond to another 9/11 attack but don’t feel they can be bothered to
be decisive about one of the most controversial issues in SC. Every
candidate should have a specific opinion (not just “it’s a state
matter”). McCain’s courage faltered in 2000 on this issue.
Unfortunately, it appears to be failing him again; I doubt he
personally believes that the flag should be anywhere on the State House
grounds given how much this issue pricked his conscience 8 years ago.
But he’s playing it safe in 2008, one of the reasons he’s a less
attractive candidate this time around.

Your willingness to accept McCain’s timidity about the flag makes me question your ability to view him objectively.

Posted by: Paul DeMarco | May 16, 2007 1:52:53 PM

As I said, Paul, Sen. McCain is clearly wrong on the issue.

As I also said, I don’t ask any candidate for president for his or her opinion about the flag. It’s irrelevant.

There are things he’s wrong about that ARE relevant — such as his willingness to keep the Bush tax cuts in place. That I have a problem with, as a voter considering who should be the next president. But I have greater problems on such relevant issues with every other candidate.

Spurrier lives in South Carolina, and is someone who — unfortunately, given that I think football is one of the least important things in the world — a lot of people in South Carolina listen to. He, like the 4 million other people in this state, has a right and an obligation to speak out as to what he wants our elected representatives to put on our State House lawn.

His comments were the first from a high-profile South Carolinian on the issue since everybody stopped talking about it in 2000. I mean, other than South Carolinians who are leaders in a NATIONAL organization — an organization which, because it was trying to use the outside world to coerce South Carolina into doing something, is the main obstacle to South Carolinians growing up on their own and putting this issue behind them.

Spurrier provided an opportunity to discuss this in another context. It was, and remains, my great hope that in the coming months, other prominent South Carolinians who are NOT trying to use a national boycott to force something that needs to happen voluntarily. If it doesn’t happen voluntarily, if South Carolina does not evolve to the point that collectively, we WANT to do this voluntarily, then absolutely nothing of value will be achieved.

Comments from Hillary Clinton or Chris Dodd or John McCain are simply not a part of that discussion, but instead a distraction. The only reason they are asked about such things is because journalists on deadline are not a terribly reflective lot. They think, "They’re in South Carolina, and this is a controversial issue in South Carolina." It never occurs to them that it’s not an issue that has anything to do with the presidency. (This is an issue I’ve written about in other contexts — it’s now become a standard mindless ritual in the media to ask the president to comment on everything, from his underwear to the Columbine shootings, when such things have nothing at all to do with the president’s duties or responsibilities.)

As for abortion — well that IS a more relevant presidential issue than the flag, but only because the flag isn’t a presidential issue at all. As you say, Paul, the president’s only involvement with abortion is nominating Supreme Court justices, because of Roe. (If NOT for Roe, it would be a more legitimate political issue, and that is what it should be. The Court should never have removed it from the political branches.)

That said, I will not cast my own vote exclusively according to a candidate’s position on abortion. It will be one of many things I consider in making my decision about a candidate, but the candidate I choose could end up being someone who disagrees with me on that one issue.

I hope at this point to vote for McCain, with whom I happen to agree on the abortion issue, among many other issues.

But among the Republicans, my distant second choice would be Giuliani. Suppose McCain is no longer in the race when the primaries roll around. I could see looking to Giuliani instead. His stance on abortion would not prevent that.

Since THAT, which is more relevant to the job, would not deter me, why would the Confederate flag issue? As I say, I’m more likely to be bothered by the tax cut stance. I don’t feel passionately about taxes the way I do about the flag, but it IS actually relevant.

I would assert that this is the objective way to look at things — reasoning them out, as opposed to going on the basis of mere passion. I could certainly be wrong about that, of course, since an individual is probably the least disinterested judge on the matter of whether he is disinterested.

Would I like it more if McCain were "right" about the flag (and "right" is saying what Giuliani says, which is that it’s a South Carolina matter)? Absolutely. Immensely. But once more, that’s more about how it would FEEL, rather than about the conclusions I reach when I THINK about candidates and try to choose between them.

Civility 2007

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Imus3

A society relearning how to behave

Free speech is enhanced by civility.
            — Tim O’Reilly,
            who recently proposed a
            “Bloggers Code of Conduct”

Here’s what David Brooks of The New York Times, a writer I usually respect highly, had to say in defense of the fact that he, and others I admire, had been an enabler of trash over the years:

“You know, most of us who are pundits are dweebs at some level. And he was the cool bad boy in the back of the room. And so, if you’re mostly doing serious punditry, you’d like to think you can horse around with a guy like Imus.”

Imus Perhaps, having been the sort who sat in the back of the class and created distractions while the dweebs were grinding away trying to get into Harvard, I don’t have that deep-seated need. I got it out of
my system. Some of it, anyway. Enough that I don’t need to match “wits” with anyone who makes a living off suckers who tune in to see how creatively he can trash other people.
But the weakness of Mr. Brooks and others caused media critic Philip Nobile, who once authored something called “Imus Watch” on TomPaine.com, to observe that “Imus had made cowards and hypocrites of some of the best minds in America. I hope they do penance….”
I’m not proposing to add to the already-considerable body of commentary on the downfall of an infamous loudmouth. I’d rather reflect today on a culture that would make such a pathological creature marketable.
I mean a culture that holds its breath to find out which “man” among multiple possibilities fathered the child of a dead former stripper — not whispering about it among the guys at the bar, but treating it Imus5
as mainstream, matter-of-fact fodder for polite conversation in front of the kids.
I’m talking about “reality” shows peopled by sad morons whose every utterance contains something that, even today, gets bleeped — not because the producers are sensitive or think that you are, but because the jarring “bleeps” themselves, audible from any room in the house, make content that would bore a brain-damaged goldfish seem titillating. Ooh, that must have been a good one, we’re supposed to burble.
I’m referring here to a political marketplace in which most participants long ago ceased to listen in order to reach practical consensus with those who disagree, preferring to gather into ideological tribes that huddle in the darkness, patting each other on the back for the rocks they heave at that other tribe, the “enemy” who will always lack legitimacy.
In other words, this is a happy upbeat, “good news” sort of column. I thought you could use that to cheer you up on this fine April morning (disregarding the thunderstorms forecast as I write this.)
Really. There is good news out there. In fact, we may even be seeing a trend. I once worked with a labor-averse assistant metro editor who loved to see news repeat itself to the point that he could say: “That’s twice that’s happened. One more time, and we can call it a trend and send it to ‘Lifestyles’.”
Jerry, this one’s almost ready to go to the Features Department.
A few months back, I boldly asserted in this space that “Standards are making a comeback. We may be able to get a civilization going here after all.” As evidence, I cited the facts that Rupert Murdoch himself had just canceled plans to publish a book by O.J. Simpson giving the details of how he “didn’t” kill his wife; the Michael “Kramer” Richards apology; and a column in The New York Times by a doctor bemoaning the low-cut tops and miniskirts worn by some of her younger colleagues. (Yes, that last one was weak, but I enjoyed the pictures. And it was a legitimate trend, because it was in a feature section.)
Well, the trend continues. The Imus dismissal, although it came decades too late, was yet another positive sign. This jaded society of ours got up on its hind legs once again and said “enough.”
The best, the very choicest thing I saw last week containing the word “Imus” was a column in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, which began, “And so it came to pass in the year 2007 that a little platoon came forth to say unto the world: Enough is enough.” There I read once again about a new phenomenon, known as the “Blogger’s Code of Conduct,” that in draft form begins:

We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility.

Those who read all my hand-wringing last year about the nasty trolls on my blog will know why such a statement, and such a code, would appeal to me. I’m farther along in my quest for civility now. I don’t wring my poor, dry digits so much any more; I just take action. I banned another of my more unruly correspondents on Friday.
You polite souls who stay out of that forum (you who tell me, “I read it, but I don’t leave comments”) for fear of being abused, fear not. I don’t think the bad boys are the least bit cool, and I won’t let them pick on you.
This is all good news — a good trend. Come to thestate.com/168/ and read all about it, before it gets shoved to Lifestyles.

Imus2

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits

Category Archives: Kulturkampf

Pat Robertson sells out

Hey! Romney! Leave them kids alone!

Catholics Fed Up with Partisanship

Don’t take the brown museum!

As if the Democrats weren’t bad enough last night…

Lindsey’s ‘hard pander’ on immigration

Damned if you do

Mike Huckabee on the obligation to govern

Meanwhile, this just in from the OTHER designated cultural conservative in the race

My own libertarian impulse kicks in

Long Tall Fred swaggers to the rescue, but of what?

Sure, and now I’ll be after havin’ the Irish on me case

Why would abortion foes exempt rape?

Lindsey Graham, stand-up guy

DeMint got THAT part right…

Little Italy column

Her majesty had it right

So THAT’S where ‘that little jerk’ was…

John McCain is wrong about ONE thing…

Civility 2007