From Lileks:
It’s possible there are bitter people who regard their station in life as a direct result of the current rate of capital gains taxes, but it seems an insufficiently reasoned basis for a national economic policy. Oh, it’s possible; at this very minute one of the country’s innumerable domestic terror cells could be planning a bombing of a Planned Parenthood center, driven to extremism by the very possibility of a Colombian trade pact. But I doubt it.
Not to say economics don’t affect people; I’m not that stupid. But like any adversity, you meet it with a certain amount of psychological capital. The more grounded you are in things that transcend the dollar, the better you can deal with the downturns. Some seem to suspect that the “grounding” is nothing more than a stake in the ground to channel the bolts tossed off by madmen in the pulpits, but those are the people most likely to believe that church services either consist of yelling and snake-handling, or gaseous bromides pumped out over a complacent stack of prim-faced morons and hypocrites who spend the service lusting after young women in the choir. There is no goodness, only the momentary self-delusion accorded by participation in a consensual charade.
I’ve been trying to find the right words for a certain theory, and I can’t quite do it yet. It has to do with how a candidate feels about America – they have to be fundamentally, dispositionally comfortable with it. Not in a way that glosses over or excuses its flaws, but comfortable in the way a long-term married couple is comfortable. That includes not delighting in its flaws, or crowing them at every opportunity as proof of your love. I mean a simple quiet sense of awe and pride, its challenges and flaws and uniqueness and tragedies considered. You don’t win the office by being angry we’re not something else; you win by being enthused we can be something better. You can fake the latter. But people sense the former.
Yup. And a lot of them are the people–the so-called independents and “moderate” Republicans”–whom the Obamamaniacs were hoping that they could con this fall.
[Update a few minutes later]
Mickey has some more thoughts:
Making excuses for autonomous human actors is always a form of condescension, I’d say. But when you make excuses for arguably what many people regard as normal, even laudable behavior, you double down on the disrespect, because you are also challenging your subjects’ moral framework.
He also has some commentary on Microsoft’s brilliant marketing strategy:
It seems like a can’t-lose approach for the Redmond, Wash. firm, as long as a) they continue to cultivate the image of a big, clumsy and greedy organization that’s just stupid enough to kill a product consumers like in order to try to force them to purchase a product the corporate bureaucracy has ploddingly disgorged and b) their new products continue to be awful.
There hasn’t been a breakthrough business plan like this since New Coke. “Suicide marketing.” (Buy this before we do something rash!) …
P.S.: The only fly in the ointment is the slim possibility that Microsoft’s next operating system, due in 2010, will actually be an improvement over Windows XP. But Ballmer & Co. know better than to let that happen.
[Early afternoon update]
John Judis says that “liberal” commentators are whistling past the fall graveyard if they don’t think that Obama’s faux pas (i.e., saying what he really thinks of the rubes) won’t hurt him in the general election.
And Rick Lowry thinks (as I do) that the donkeys, continuing to be out of touch in their liberal cocoon with the aid of the MSM, are setting themselves up for another electoral disaster:
Obama prides himself on his civility, but it has to go much deeper than dulcet rhetoric. A fundamental courtesy of political debate is to meet the other side on its own terms. If someone says he cares about gun rights, it’s rude to insist: “No, you don’t. It’s the minimum wage that you really care about, and you’d know it if you were more self-aware.” But Democrats have an uncontrollable reflex to do just that. Since the McGovernite takeover of their party, they have struggled to work up enthusiasm for Middle American mores. (Since 1980, only Bill Clinton managed it, which is why he was the only Democrat elected president in three decades.)
When the liberal reflex is coupled with a Ivy League-educated candidate who seems personally remote and uncomfortable with everyday American activities, it’s electoral poison. After the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry, Republicans had to be wondering, “Could Democrats possibly nominate yet another candidate easily portrayed as an out-of-touch elitist?” With Obama, Democrats appear to be responding with a resounding “Yes, we can!”
And yes, they will, unless Hillary! can stop them. Not that she has a much better chance of winning, since the blacks and the young people who are energizing the Obama campaign are likely to stay home if it is taken from him.
Eh, the anti-Obama blog-o-sphere continues to spin farther and farther away from Obama’s intended point (which regardless of occasional poor word choice he shall return to with his more usual eloquence).
Some also are accusing Obama of channeling Karl Marx with the aphorism that “religion is the opiate of the people” however the origins of that concept go much further back. Historian Edward Gibbon (in the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire published in 1776) made the same point even as he consciously relied upon a Roman historian (Tacitus IIRC) who said this over 2000 yars ago:
I am a theist (not atheist, but a theist) and yet I believe that politicians often invoke religion for ulterior political purposes. Karl Marx would be correct if he said religion is SOMETIMES used as an opiate (amphetamine – or LSD – may be a better drug metaphor, especially with Islamic suicide bombers) however I would deny that religion is MERELY a tool for magistrates to manipulate the foolish masses and I believe my opinions here are consistent with Obama’s.
Senator Jim Webb has often said that Karl Rove’s genius included the ability to ‘rev up voters based on “God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag” and I believe he is correct.
Who cares if the economy is crashing and the Beltway Bandits are stealing America blind? They have promised to prohibit gay people from getting married! We need to vote for the right priorities!
Hillary Clinton? She (and Mark Penn) desire to use similar dog-whistle themes in her own quest for power and therefore is outraged at Obama’s line of analysis.
But here is the question: Do Americans wish to look behind the curtain and see the Great and Mighty Oz, or not?
1776 was a great year for publishing:
The Declaration of Independence was written;
Gibbon published the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” which released a great many memes that stay with us today even if people are not aware of the origins of those memes;
and
Adam Smith published “On the Wealth of Nations” that being the foundation of modern capitalist theory.
A pretty good year!
Eh, the anti-Obama blog-o-sphere continues to spin farther and farther away from Obama’s intended point (which regardless of occasional poor word choice he shall return to with his more usual eloquence).
We’re not the one’s spinning, Bill. You are. He said what he said. We know what he meant, regardless of all the attempts at backtracking. We’ve heard this kind of thing all too often from the ivory tower to be fooled any more.
Nah. You know how you want to spin what he said.
What matters now is what the voters say and we won’t know the answer to that for a while, yet
I’ve been trying to find the right words for a certain theory, and I can’t quite do it yet. It has to do with how a candidate feels about America – they have to be fundamentally, dispositionally comfortable with it. Not in a way that glosses over or excuses its flaws, but comfortable in the way a long-term married couple is comfortable. That includes not delighting in its flaws, or crowing them at every opportunity as proof of your love. I mean a simple quiet sense of awe and pride, its challenges and flaws and uniqueness and tragedies considered. You don’t win the office by being angry we’re not something else; you win by being enthused we can be something better. You can fake the latter. But people sense the former.
In other words, prepare for an Obama rebranding if he wins the Democrat nomination. I’m not enthusiastic about him primarily because his primary sell, that he’s going to “change” the US is unnecessary. Society and market forces change the US much faster than any government could. In fact, once you take that away, he doesn’t seem to offer much different from either Clinton or McCain, at least at this point in the election. His stance on Iraq seems the biggest distinction. I suppose he’d make the healthiest candidate too.
So Bill, how is taking someone at their word spinning? The words came out of his mouth in the order reported. He thought about them, he sorted them and then he spoke them. If I tell you to go fly a kite in the context of this post, you know exactly what I mean. If I come back later and say, “No, I mean literally, go fly a kite.” You know I’m spinning. BO is spinning so fast he should make an exercise video.
I think the best response to the Obama apologizers was this; “If it is a winning position and comment, nothing to apologize for, then let’s hear Obama say it on the stump.”
Alas, I don’t know if it is winning, since he dropped about 10 points after making the comments.
Obama has dropped ten points?
Eh, not with Gallup. He is up one or two points on HRC since those poorly chosen word were spoken.
Obama vs McCain? Very possibly, but that is more because Hillary Clinton has adopted a Tonya Harding strategy against her Democratic opponent.
So Bill, how is taking someone at their word spinning? The words came out of his mouth in the order reported.
Richard Pryor told a story about his wife catching him in bed with another woman. When he denied it, he said, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
We heard Obama loud and clear. He was saying the same kind of arrogant things we’ve heard democrats say for years. But then, who are we going to believe, him or our lying ears?
Bill,
The national poll won’t do you much good in Pennsylvania. Obama was referring to Pennsylvanian’s, right?
I still say, if you think the comment is a good comment then take it to the stump. Let me know how it works out for you.
And Bill, if Hillary has adopted a Tonya Harding strategy, well… I’m enjoying the popcorn; so please, whine about it some more. Cry your eyes out. I’m not voting for either, because I don’t want government health care. Obama’s recent comments haven’t changed my mind at all.
The people most outraged by Bittergate are people would never haved vote for Obama on the first place.
I have yet to see credible reports of people who were previously undecided or Obama leaning change their commitment to vote Obama because of Bittergate.
People who were opposed to Obama before the kerfluffle? Sure, lots and lots and lots of those people are simply OUTRAGED!
OUTRAGED and APPALLED! Amazing, isn’t it.
Anyway, as for Pennsylvania? Obama was behind between 10 & 15 points well before Bittergate. If he loses by 20 or more points, okay its a problem. Lose by 10 – 15? Expectations met. Lose by less than 10 points? It is game over for Hillary. She has also been losing her super-delegate lead at a steady pace since super-Tuesday.
One outlier poll showed Obama down big but when we aggregate all the polling, Bittergate appears to be a big yawn, even in PA.
Today, Hillary held a rally expecting 100 local mayors to show up to denounce Obama for being out of touch. 19 actually came.
The people most outraged by Bittergate are people would never haved vote for Obama on the first place.
I have yet to see credible reports of people who were previously undecided or Obama leaning change their commitment to vote Obama because of Bittergate.
You just keep whistling past that graveyard, Bill. The denial and cluelessness of Democrats on these issues is the reason that you’ve only had one Democrat president since Carter, and why you haven’t gotten a popular majority since then, either.
There is a group of people called “Reagan Democrats.” Obama might have won them over with his charisma, if they’d ignored what he was actually saying, but that hope is gone, now.
Mr Simberg is spinning Obama’s two sentences, spoken to what was supposed to be a private gathering, for all it’s worth.
My, my, I wonder if someone listened in on the private contemplations of a bunch of Republican fundraisers what that would sound like.
What is significant is that Obama was actually seeking sympathy for small town folks from that elite audience. Maybe on four hours of sleep per night for six months, sometimes you mangle your words a bit when you think you are speaking privately.
Of course none of Mr. Simberg’s crowd would ever speak less than gloriously and in perfectly crafted sentences in private, now would they?
Now for an honest view:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/frankly_whos_patronizing_who.html
My, my, I wonder if someone listened in on the private contemplations of a bunch of Republican fundraisers what that would sound like.
How would I know, Anonymous Moron? I’m not now, and have never been, a Republican.
What is significant is that Obama was actually seeking sympathy for small town folks from that elite audience.
What is even more significant is that those “small town folks” weren’t necessarily looking for sympathy from that elite audience. Maybe they are Americans, interested in standing on their own two feet, with their God and their guns, and they don’t need “elites” to worry about them, or have “sympathy” for them. But that’s a frightening thought to the Obamas of the world, who can’t fathom, or tolerate, the notion of an underclass that doesn’t “need” them (and thus empower them). Which, of course, is why they are so out of touch, and why they are going to get blasted, once again, in the polls in November.
C’mon, admit it, Anonymous Moron, Karl Rove is paying you to come here and write this idiocy to make Democrats look bad, right? It’s OK, you can tell us.
pace Joe place