He’s a right winger. But he’s not as bad as Sarah Palin, because at least he likes to spread the wealth around, like the president.
It’s astounding (or should be) that Yglesias actually gets paid for such lunacy.
[Update a couple minutes later]
This seems relevant, somehow: the left’s romance with Islamism.
[Another quick update]
Obama and the media misinterpret the Middle Eastern elections:
Thomas Friedman at the New York Times quoted Paul Salem, the starry-eyed analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “People in this region have become so jaded,” Salem explained. “And then here came this man [Obama], who came to them with respect, speaking these deep values about their identity and dignity … and this person indicated that this little prison that people are living in here was not the whole world. That change was possible.”
These misperceptions about Lebanon recall an old Arab proverb: “When shooting an arrow of truth, dip its point in honey.” Leg-tingling about the president aside, Hezbollah lost the election in Lebanon for several reasons; chief not among them was Obama’s amoral speechifying in Egypt.
But the leg tingling continues.
[Wednesday morning update]
More thoughts from Lileks:
Note how “cultural conservative” becomes conceptually elongated, so “right-wingers” who may, for example, not wish to redefine marriage become bunkmates with someone who denies the existence of homosexuals, and whose regime hangs them from lampposts. Well, we know the right-wingers here would, if they could, right? It’s only the possibility of bad PR that keeps Dick Cheney from setting his daughter on fire. As for demagogic nationalism, one suspects that Yglesias finds demagogy in anyone who talks about love of country and the great things America has done without landing with both feet on a big wet BUT, and then goes on read the syllabus from a Howard Zinn course.
I didn’t love America any less in the Clinton years than I did in the Bush years, or vice versa; I don’t conflate my opinions about transitory leaders with my opinion about the nation’s role in history and its exceptional, if occasionally improvised, conflicted, and compromised struggle to do the right thing. I mean, go back in history and find another one of us. (Note: small ethnically coherent Nordic states that can’t project power six feet over the border really don’t count.) But unqualified love of country unnerves some people, as though the lack of qualifications means you don’t recognize qualifying factors. Me, I think they’re obvious; we’re made of humans, after all, and every house we build has beams of crooked timber. But I don’t recall a lot of FDR speeches laying out a litany of American sins in order to bolster the case for why America should fight Hitler, despite all those troubling similarities. After all, we lynched Jews, too, ergo we must face our own demons as well as those abroad. And so on.
It’s interesting how he mentions Ahmadinejad’s demogogy, his “language of class resentment, painting his more pragmatic and reformist opponents as decadent elites out of touch with ordinary people,” and his populist use of oil revenues, and Sarah Palin comes to mind instead of Chavez – who, after all, called Ahamdi to tender a warm congrats. I swear, it’s the heels. They just make some men feel so small. In any case, when she gives a speech at the UN and later describes how she felt herself enveloped in a godly glow, give me a call.
It’s interesting that when it comes to fascism and communism, leftists can see only the difference, but when it comes to “conservatives,” they can see only similarities (and often imagined similarities).
[Bumped]
[Update a few minutes later]
Yglesias has a tingle up his leg: “Ahmadinejad has a pretty sweet hipster style.”
the left’s romance with Islamism
It’s all the more ironic because the whole “why do they hate us” thing probably has a lot more to do with how we live than the effects our government’s foreign policy may have on them. What if America were a whole lot LESS liberal (in the modern sense of the word) and a whole lot MORE conservative. Imagine if the vast majority of Americans lived like Quakers and Puritans. Would the Islamists hate us more or less?
Here in Atlanta the dopey Atlanta JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION’s front page story had the headline that the “conservative” win in Iran meant big problems for the US. It reminded me of how, during the Cold War, NATIONAL REVIEW made fun of a story in the New York TIMES that dwelt on “conservatives” in the Kremlin. A closer reading revealed that the “conservatives” is what the TIMES was calling the Stalinists. Commented NR: “Hey, we’re conservative–but not THAT conservative!”
So what’s the problem with Yglesias’s argument? He doesn’t say that Ahmedinejad is better than Palin, just that his position in the politics of his country is reminiscent of her position in the politics of ours. Who, in U.S. politics, do you think would better exemplify Ahmedinejad’s militant nationalism, cultural conservatism, and know-nothing resentment of elites?
It’s astounding (or should be) that Yglesias actually gets paid for such lunacy.
It’s astounding that you think there is any relationship between a pundit’s wisdom and his financial compensation.
Ahmedinejad’s militant nationalism
You mean like taking over the banks and car companies, or do you mean sociali… oops nationaliz…. oops all about taking over the oil companies and running them. So either Barack Obama or Maxine Waters.
cultural conservatism
Like all those Democratic voters in California that voted for Barack Obama and for proposition 8? Or do you mean Reverend Wright?
know-nothing resentment of elites
You mean like when Barack Obama talks about taking money from the rich and spreading the wealth. Rich being $250,000, err I mean $200,000, err I mean rich is having a company cellphone.
Leland got the other points but this stuck out
Rand: It’s astounding (or should be) that Yglesias actually gets paid for such lunacy.
Jim: It’s astounding that you think there is any relationship between a pundit’s wisdom and his financial compensation.
Hey, let’s be amazed at the idea that when people purchase a product or service some third party can be amazed at the poor quality of the product or service.
One wonders how Jim handles Amazon.com reviews or movie critics.
Movie critic: It’s astounding (or should be) that Tom Cruise actually gets paid for such lunacy.
Jim: It’s astounding that you think there is any relationship between an actor’s skill and his financial compensation!
I begin to see now why Jim is content to subtract value in his comments here.
Ahmedinejad’s militant nationalism
You mean like taking over the banks and car companies
Leland, I have to refer you to your dictionary again. Nationalism has nothing to do with nationalization.
cultural conservatism
Like all those Democratic voters in California that voted for Barack Obama and for proposition 8?
So you think Barack Obama is more culturally conservative than Sarah Palin? Really?
know-nothing resentment of elites
You mean like when Barack Obama talks about taking money from the rich and spreading the wealth.
No, like when Sarah Palin quotes Westbrook Pegler on the subject of the “good people” in small towns in her convention speech. Or when she points out that she is not “a member in good standing of the Washington elite.” Or when she emphasizes how she — with her state college degree, snow machine-racing husband, kid in the Army — is more like the average American than someone like Barack Obama.
Saying that what Ahmedinejad is to Iranian politics is reminiscent of what Palin is to American politics is just critical thinking — it isn’t a value judgement, much less an argument that Palin is as bad as Ahmedinejad.
Jack:
Tom Cruise gets paid at least 20 times as much to act in a movie as Paul Giamatti (or dozens of other fine actors you could name). Do you think he’s a 20 times better actor? Keith Olbermann gets paid many times as much as, say, Jim Fallows; do you think Oblermann is a dramatically better journalist or pundit than Fallows?
It’s folly to be surprised when compensation does not reflect the quality of the work.