Obama's 100 Days Pt 1
Jonah Goldberg
The Corner
My column on the arrogance marking Obama's first 100 days is angering some liberal readers. This is from a longtime liberal reader, quoted many times in the Corner:
<< Your column is the closest thing to demagoguery that I've ever read from you.
"Preening," "arrogant," "hubris," etc. — that's columnist's license to which you're entitled. But the idea that NR's circulation and Fox News' viewership is skyrocketing? Pardon my demagoguery, but when the National Alliance goes from four members to twelve I won't say that American extremism has tripled in strength. It would be far more accurate to say that America's steadily aging and declining religious and social right has sought increasing comfort and affirmation in the Limbaugh/Hannity echo chamber. Maddow lovers find it harder and harder to catch her show when we're turning workout documents at 9 p.m. in the office instead of slouching on our sofas at home.
And your reference to the Civil War? Come on.
The hard right Schumer referred to isn't dead, but it's shrinking. Nobody gives a hoo-hah about gay marriage when they're worried about their job, and it's starting to feel like nobody gives a hoo-hah about gay marriage, period. And when William F. Buckley can countenance the removal of a respirator from his wife, one gets a sense of what the issue of choice means to the didactic right when that issue comes home.
But that's another debate. I find the real arrogance is on the right, where conservatives arbitrarily posit that we're all (right up to POTUS) not scared sh*tless about running up a huge debt — the end result of 30 years of living beyond our means, itself the end result of the wealth in this country being cleverly diverted into the pockets of the top 1%. >>>
There are so just many problems with this, but I think the assumptions sort of speak for themselves. Oh, those poor, noble, proletarian Rachel Maddow voters not being able to catch her show because of their crushing workloads, not like those bitter malefactors of great wealth watching Hannity at the same time. There's also a lot of Pauline Kaelism here — "nobody" cares about gay marriage and all that (why are gays fighting for it and opponents still fighting against then? Don't gays have jobs? Are opponents merely the idle wealthy?).
But in response to this reader's basic complaints, echoed by many others, I would simply say this: Of course things are bleak for conservatives right now, I even said so in the column. But it was silly for conservatives to cheer — and for liberals to lament — a new 30-year realignment of American politics eight years ago, and it's silly for this reader, Chuck Schumer, and others to assume that the laws of politics have been suspended simply because Barack Obama is doing well in the polls right now. As I've said before, conservatives voiced too little opposition to compassionate conservatism (or, if you prefer his cocky "strong government" stuff) when Bush's poll numbers were high. Principled liberals are making a similar mistake in response to Obama's obvious overreach. The economic and political bills are still down the road, but they're coming.
As for those offended by me calling Obama arrogant. Get over it. Of course he's arrogant. He's a guy who brags about how good a president he is. He once defined "sin" as being "out of alignment with my values." For Pete's sake.
People keep asking me, "if he's so arrogant, why is he so popular?" What does one thing have to do with the other? Being arrogant doesn't mean necessarily mean he's not likeable or a good man or anything like that. Lots of people are arrogant and popular (think of actors, sports stars, conductors, etc). But I'm not even really talking about his personality, I'm talking about his governing style and his political philosophy. How you can watch what he's been doing and not see it as the greatest manifestation of the arrogance of intellect, of progressive hubris, and ultimately the fatal conceit, in our lifetimes is beyond me.
corner.nationalreview.com |
