Via Mark Steyn:
If we view Obama's past political alliances as mere cynical manipulation to advance his career and if we view his election policy proposals as just pandering to the electorate, then we can feel good about voting for him for President because of, ah , oh yes, his character.
The mental contortions one must put oneself through in order to justify voting for Barack Obama are truly amazing. It must be quite painful.
[Early evening update]
Jonah Goldberg expands:
Christopher invokes Oliver Wendell Holmes' famous line that FDR had a "first-class temperament" and so too Obama. Indeed, he suggests that Obama is a man of great character because he's a man of great temperament. Conceding for the sake of argument that Obama's temperament is first rate, are the two really the same thing? I don't think so (indeed, that would be a hard case to make about FDR himself, who could be deceitful, vindictive, petty -- even to his own son -- and adulterous. And let us note that Holmes himself was not a man many of us should be invoking as an authority on political virtue or general decency).
The story Christopher tells of McCain's great character has no real analogue in Obama. He may be in private a deeply honorable man, but his public record is one of accommodation, shortcuts, dishonest equivocations, serious leftwing sympathies and fellow-traveling with some awful people. Obama, let us recall, threw his own grandmother under the rhetorical bus in order to defend his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. That he sounded dignified doing it does not confer dignity on the act itself or the man behind it. That is surely not all there is to say about Obama, many of his friends and fans speak very well of him. But the scales Christopher uses to weigh one man against the other seem awfully rigged to me.
Everything in Barack Obama's public life (other than his campaign speeches and publications) indicate that he's a dedicated leftist (or else a very cynical man with no principles whatsoever). John McCain is, at worst, ideologically confused.
The mental contortions one must put oneself through in order to justify voting for Barack Obama are truly amazing. It must be quite painful.
Of course, the same stands for McCain...
Fortunately there are other candidates on the ballot who don't require abandonment of principle to vote for.
~Jon
No mental contortions needed for McCain, Jon. One need only note that he's not Barack Obama.
I continue to be amazed (and depressed) by how many of my friends and family are not only voting for Obama, but practically cult-like in adoration. These are individuals who I thought had good common sense, who thought rationally and whose views on major issues have always been 180 degrees from what Obama espouses. When questioned about why they support Obama for President, I never get a clear answer, always a lot of double-speak and half-memorized Obama talking points. They're not even capable of engaging in a discussion over the issues, it quickly devolves into straw man arguments, accusations of racism, or the "I don't want to argue about this with you".
With a few people, it's clear that a fixation on Iraq coupled with BDS are the driving force. With others, I'm stumped. My dear mother (a registered Republican for close to 50 years) who back in the day went door-to-door campaigning for Nixon, is going door-to-door for Obama and telling me (these are her exact words and she is being serious): "he's THE ONE".
I feel like someone lost in Bizarro World.
I thought Rand did not care that Chris Buckley endorsed Obama?
Feeling a bit miffed I guess.
By the way, Obama never threw his grandmother under the bus. That was Corner spin.
How long before a Palin rally morphs into a KKK rally? Not long I think. She's already getting the right crowd.
My dear mother (a registered Republican for close to 50 years) who back in the day went door-to-door campaigning for Nixon, is going door-to-door for Obama and telling me (these are her exact words and she is being serious): "he's THE ONE".
well, my take is that people are just sick of stale old white politicians from the Republican Party. No matter what your affiliation, looking over the past few years of well-publicized Republican scandals, combined with the current economic outlook (hey, regardless of fault, it happened on a Republican's watch)...folks are looking for something different.
It doesn't really MATTER who that might be; subconsciously, you know you ought to do your patriotic duty and be for SOMEone, so guess what? People see something different in Obama (well, he's young, and black. That diametric is enough, I suspect, for many), and a different direction (and I'm not sure many people really consider, or even care, about the specific direction we'll take), ANYwhere different, is what people want.
"How long before a Palin rally morphs into a KKK rally?"
Well, both McCain and Obama have served for years and decades in the same organization (U.S. Senate) as a former leader (Robert Byrd) of a terrorist organization (the KKK). So, by association, McCain and Obama are obviously terrorists and unworthy of the Presidency. It's far past time to call off the whole election. Why hasn't the NY Times and the rest of the MSM been investigated this? What are they hiding?
It goes the other way, too, Ryan. A woman I know who's voted Democratic in every election since she turned 18 can't stand listening to Obama. She just gets furious. It's hard to tell why -- she doesn't really pay a lot of attention to the issues -- but she just seems to feel he's a cynical golden-tongued bullshitter with absolutely no conscience, who will say and do anything, betray anyone, to acquire power.
It's as illogical and gut-level, I expect, as your sainted mother's behaviour. No doubt, down deep, there is some psychological reason for all this, but it kinda defies easy explanation.
In any event, I strongly suspect those who are instinctively revolted by Obama significantly outweigh those who are bewitched. By all objective measures, this should be a Democratic blowout, but Obama is currently looking at a pretty narrow victory. That is, people seem to like electing Obama much less than they would like electing some random Democrat.
You might say Obama's actual personality seems to be a powerful negative that almost (but not quite) cancels the powerful positive of his political affiliation.
I'm thinking it's one of these...
mass hypnosis
mass hysteria
demon possession
certainly a psychological disfunction
Someone please reset the matrix!
What gets me is that some Obots almost make some sort of sense...
They almost seem to make sense...
They make sense...
He is the one...
Obey Obama...
Obama...
Ohhhmmm...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH2iufUU1f4
Its too risky to stay on the course we now are on
But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren't going to get us out of this pit we've dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.
This ignores something that has been a central tenet of the American far left since the 1960s: "Things have to get worse before they can get better." While sincerely hoping and intending to improve America (by their standards, at least) in the long term, members of what was once called the New Left are perfectly capable of trying to make things horrible in the short term -- all as an exercise in overcoming the False Consciousness of the deluded masses.
In other words, I think things probably will go to hell in a handbasket under Obama, and he won't mind all that much because it'll be For Our Own Good.
I thought Rand did not care that Chris Buckley endorsed Obama?
I don't. I just thought that I'd point out some rebuttals for those who did, since a commenter obviously, for whatever reason, thought it was important.
How long before a Palin rally morphs into a KKK rally?
Not sure. I'd say that a non-idiot guess would be an order of magnitude larger than the age of the universe.
You know, if Christopher Buckley were forty years younger, I could see him writing this essay as a cynical attempt to schtupp some chick he met at an anti-war demonstration.
It doesn't make much sense, otherwise. His pro-Obama argument boils down to "Yeah, he says he's going to do things that I believe will be bad for the country, and his entire record is consistent with what he's saying, but I'm going to choose to believe that he doesn't really mean it."
Four decades ago a book of essays called Artists and Writers Speak Out on Vietnam was published. All but a couple of those essays sided with North Vietnam and opposed the American war effort. But one essay was by Kingsley Amis, who wrote (approximately), "I oppose Ho Chi-Minh and Mao Tse-Tung because I do them the honor of taking them seriously." Worth remembering.
God Bless John McCain!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hez7W9pAS5k
I think, boiled down to its essence, the essay suggests Buckley is pulling the Obama switch because, first, Obama is a Harvard man, a smart guy, and we know smart guys do smart things. If they seem to be doing and saying really stupid things in the grip of ideology, that's just some weird accident which the following special circumstances will explain away blah blah.
This hardly surprises. He's the offspring of a man who was both very smart (and at times an intellectual snob) and very (and uniquely) principled, but I'm guessing the principled nature of Buckley pere arose from his bracing early experience in the FDR era. Buckley fils has had no such trial by fire, so I expect he inherits from his parent only the intelligence. Not surprising, then, that he hews to the conventional intellectual position.
Indeed, I would, too, had I not had some interesting real-world experiences since my early 30s.
Also, WFB would, as Mike G insightfully observes, take Obama's rhetoric seriously in a way that Chris Buckley cannot. WFB lived through an era when (for example) stout Catholic German middle class voters pulled the switch for the National Socialists in 1933, because clearly Germany needed a strong, brilliant, creative leader, and they figured Hitler's red-meat beer-hall flaming about Jews was just campaign rhetoric, and the reality of governing would force his moderation.
In the end, though, it is sad to observe the scion of one of the 20th century's keepers of the virtues of modesty and character choose his candidate merely because (as he says himself) he seems real smart. God save us from smart people undisciplined by modesty and character. You'd think that the recent explosion on Wall Street -- a direct result of the actions of smart people lacking modesty, moderation and character -- would have soured the nation on blindly trusting clever talkers.
Carl Pham wrote:
...but she just seems to feel he's a cynical golden-tongued bullshitter with absolutely no conscience, who will say and do anything, betray anyone, to acquire power.
Excellent description.
Senator Obama appears to be an empty suit -- a puppet. So, who is / will be the puppet master?
I suspect the write whose mother has gone all Obama comes from a pre-ironic era, where words actually signified something.
The 18 year old who has gone all Nobama has grown up with irony, deconstruction, and all those high-faluting concepts of "humanities" that combine to assert that the only thing that exists is power.
Why, oh why, can't the Democrats nominate someone of demonstrated character? Who might have qualified for that... Dukakis? Mondale?
Why, oh why, can't the Democrats nominate someone of demonstrated character? Who might have qualified for that...
Dukakis? Mondale?
Yecch.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Possibly Bob Kerrey or Bill Bradley.l
..No doubt, down deep, there is some psychological reason for all this, but it kinda defies easy explanation...
Good point, Carl.
God Bless John McCain!
Which god, your preferred imaginary deity? Or one of the numerous other preferred imaginary deities?
Be specific. Imaginary deities are watching you.
You know, I automatically discount attacks on Republicans as stupid, liars or racists. Since every Republican gets called that by the Democrats, even those Republicans who are demonstrably none of those things, I simply tune it out. Well, not quite: I also notch down in my mind the credibility on other matters of the person making such attacks.
The same goes for calling Democrats communists.
None of that is to say that Republicans can't be liars, or Democrats communists. It's just that such a charge laid as bare assertion is meaningless, and it takes a huge amount of evidence before I'll listen.
Hmm. Perhaps Buckley now feels the need to get on somebody's good side, to get a little favorable publicity by cozying up to the Literary Establishment and adopting their political coloration ...
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10022008/news/regionalnews/not_one_buckley_for_you__131780.htm
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> How long before a Palin rally morphs into a KKK rally?
It will happen when enough Dems show up. The KKK was started as the "active" wing of the Dem party and throughout its life, the vast majority of the members have been Dems. Whenever there's a govt official outed as a member, said official is almost always a Dem.
As we speak, "activist" Dems are planning to do the KKK rally thing at Palin and McCain events. They admire the thought and will behind the Reichstag fire.