So true. It's bad enough schools infantilize students, but now leaders are infantilizing adults,
Thanks gobs, George Bush and Karen Hughes. We love ya.
This link has been bookmarked by 3 people . It was first bookmarked on 18 Oct 2008, by Clay Burell.
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20 Oct 08
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18 Oct 08
Clay BurellNo surprise the Wall St. Journal is going to declare McCain more alive than he is, but the clips below are interesting for their insights into what, riffing off George Orwell, we might call:
POLITICS AND THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE: Annotated link http://www.-
Add Sticky NoteMore than ever on the campaign trail, the candidates are dropping their G's. Hardworkin' families are strainin' and tryin'a get ahead. It's not only Sarah Palin but Mr. McCain, too, occasionally Mr. Obama, and, of course, George W. Bush when he darts out like the bird in a cuckoo clock to tell us we are in crisis. All of the candidates say "mom and dad": "our moms and dads who are struggling." This is Mr. Bush's former communications adviser Karen Hughes's contribution to our democratic life, that you cannot speak like an adult in politics now, that's too austere and detached, snobby. No one can say mothers and fathers, it's all now the faux down-home, patronizing—and infantilizing—moms and dads. Do politicians ever remember that in a nation obsessed with politics, our children—sorry, our kids—look to political figures for a model as to how adults sound?
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Add Sticky NoteThere has never been a second's debate among liberals, to use an old-fashioned word that may yet return to vogue, over Mrs. Palin: She was a dope and unqualified from the start. Conservatives and Republicans, on the other hand, continue to battle it out: Was her choice a success or a disaster? And if one holds negative views, should one say so? For conservatives in general, but certainly for writers, the answer is a variation on Edmund Burke: You owe your readers not your industry only but your judgment, and you betray instead of serve them if you sacrifice it to what may or may not be their opinion.
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Love the quote from Burke.
Reminds me of my "EDUBLOGGING WHILE ROME BURNS" post.
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Add Sticky NoteBut we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
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God, McCain and his boss Rick Davis must HATE intellectual conservatives for calling them out like this.
And I call Davis "McCain's boss" because I assume McCain's new label for THINKING conservatives - what does he call them, the "Country Club set"? - is a talking point from Davis. I could be wrong.
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Add Sticky NoteBut it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things.
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Another great zinger of a writer offended by the Palin phenomenon. We should start a wiki somewhere.
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Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand.
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Add Sticky NoteThis is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.
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A really interesting bit of psychologizing.
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Add Sticky NoteNo news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
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To read THIS in the Wall Street Journal, THE voice of American capitalism, is stunning.
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Add Sticky NoteIn the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
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Bravo. You do Orwell proud for pointing it out. William F. Buckley would be proud too.
Conservatives CAN be intellectual, though their numbers are either dwindling or self-censoring.
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I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.
At any rate, come and get me, copper.
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Again, bravo, my intelligent conservative friend.
My question: where are the GOP candidates with the backbone or brains to represent THIS strain of conservatism? We didn't see them in the GOP primary season. Romney, Huckabee, the whole gang seemed shallow. Ron Paul excluded.
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Public Stiky Notes
Thanks gobs, George Bush and Karen Hughes. We love ya.
Reminds me of my "EDUBLOGGING WHILE ROME BURNS" post.
And I call Davis "McCain's boss" because I assume McCain's new label for THINKING conservatives - what does he call them, the "Country Club set"? - is a talking point from Davis. I could be wrong.
Conservatives CAN be intellectual, though their numbers are either dwindling or self-censoring.
My question: where are the GOP candidates with the backbone or brains to represent THIS strain of conservatism? We didn't see them in the GOP primary season. Romney, Huckabee, the whole gang seemed shallow. Ron Paul excluded.
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