Good Lileks rant, in which he invents a lovely new term, "holy ninnyism":
Vokdapundit projected how the Senate would vote on a resolution to strike against Iraq, and he said both members of the Minnesota delegation would say nay. I think he’s right. Paul Wellstone - or Wellstone! as his bumperstickers! say! - would surprise me if he voted yes. But it would be a principled vote. That’s who he is. I find myself arguing with nearly everything he says and does and thinks and believes, but he’s not one of those angry nullities animated by hate and contempt. He’s a decent man. Wrong, but decent. I’ve met him twice - once at some whomping Press / Congress clusterfarg at the Sheraton Woodley; he was a new Senator, friendless and clueless, and we had a nice chat about home. Met him again last year, I think, on a TV show, and we had a nice chat about DC - which was now home for him. I wouldn’t vote for him if you held a bandsaw to my carotid artery, but if it was a choice between Wellstone and Trent Lott to watch my house while I was on vacation, I’d chose Paul; Trent would be likely to express the need to work together with the burglars and move the process forward in a collegial way.
Dayton is likewise decent; Minnesota turns out these guys by the hundreds. (Jesse Ventura being a strange exception; in retrospect he seems like a boil we had to lance.)
Man, “Trampled Underfoot” kicks ass, and in particular Peter Grant’s ass, and if you’ve ever seen it you know that takes some doing. Where’s my Bic lighter?
Anyway. Dayton is an heir to a department store fortune, one of those millionaires who wants to raise the taxes of people who make $130,000. (Hey, if he can take it, they can take it.) Also a nice guy. Not a jot of artifice. He wrote a piece for Thursday’s Strib op-ed page. I’d like to excerpt this portion:
For the past 50 years, American leaders have faced dangerous men in other countries, who also possessed weapons of mass destruction. They successfully protected our country and preserved our planet by preventing war, not by starting one. What compels a different response now?
What a flexible mind we see at work here. We never started a shooting war with the Soviets, therefore the entire concept of preemptive attacks are off the table. For good.
In just 18 months, this administration has made drastic changes in the United States' approach to preserving world peace. They denounced and discarded the ABM Treaty, the no-first-use doctrine and several international accords. The first two were linchpins of international stability in the nuclear age. The last were imperfect, but important, products of nations working together to create a better world.
Linchpins of stability. Snort. Let’s assume that the US had completely, utterly, unilaterally disarmed in the 70s and 80s, while holding on to the ABM treaty and the no-first-use doctrine. There would be red flags over Paris. Well, more than usual. Without a credible deterrent, those “linchpins” were cardboard shields. As for the “several international accords” Dayton mentions, his priorities are revealed: “important” trumps “imperfect.” The tangible effect on US security and strength matters less than the shiny-eyed groping towards “a better world.” Whether a "better world" might result from a planet rid of the Taliban, the Tikrit mafia, and any other changes the coming war will force on the Middle eastern satrapies isn't even considered, because they did not originate in a position paper penned by a UN diplomat who has lunch with his Syrian counterpart and tears up his parking ticket when he returns to his double-parked limo.
As replacements, President Bush chose a major buildup of U.S. military power and additional weapons of mass destruction.
Bush = Saddam. Noted. This is from a man whose fortune rests on the ability of his forebearers to forge a distinction between their department store and the one across the street.
He proclaimed a new U.S. policy of launching preemptive attacks against threatening enemies. And he stated that the United States would take military action with or without other nations' support.
It’s a given in Daytonland that “other nations’ support” is the sole factor to determine the legitimacy of self-defense. If Syria’s on board, we can invade Saudi Arabia. Right?
It has been said that we judge ourselves by our intentions; others judge us by our actions. We believe in our country's goodness and greatness; we cannot understand how others could view us differently. However, they do.
I cannot think of another time in American history when our Senators were so damned worried about the opinions of French bureaucrats, English editorialists, German soccer enthusiasts, and Lebanese hummus wholesalers. Once upon a time this nation had Senators who railed against the government from dusk to dawn, but when told that the Germans agreed with him, hissed “piss off, Fritz.” Now it’s different. It’s as if people of Dayton’s ilk believe they’re really Senators in some transnational body that represents the world, not a weirdly-shaped state with its head jammed up against the broad flat butt of Canada. I’m starting to think they’re all Senators from the United Federation of Planets, and soon the Temporal Police will show up and take them back to the future. (Note: the UFP is the body that reduced Kirk in rank for doing the right thing. Politicians: always the same.)
These new policies and pronouncements have damaged our standing with allies and other countries.
Russia issued one (1) peep over the ABM treaty, and that was it. As for the other unspecified acts of unilateral high-handedness, are we to assume that the point of one’s foreign policy should be to bend to the wishes of allies? Did we get the approval of Mexico and the Philippines before going to Bosnia? Note that Dayton makes the distinction between allies and other countries, and worries that our actiosn damage our standing with the latter - by definition, non-allies who are dispositionally inclined to disapprove of our existence, no matter how it manifests itself.
But I know what he means: by acting in our own interest, we impede the goal of creating a world where no nation acts in its own interest, but acts according to the Good of the Planet. We have to set an example for the rest of the kids. Granted, Iraq kicked out the inspectors, attempted to assassinate Bush 41, shoots at the planes in the no-fly zone, is proceeding lickety-split with its nuclear program, funds Palestinian suicide bombers and quite possibly has its fingerprints over the 93 WTC attack and the OKC bombing, but if we let Saddam stay in power, China might take its knee off Tibet’s neck in 2043.
They have reduced our national security, as they have increased international insecurity. Effective world leadership calls for us to develop better international relationships and to use our enormous resources to improve world conditions. Successful world leaders do not lead the world to war.
The paragraph is remarkable for its gassy banality, but let us just marvel at the folly of that last line. Here’s a Senator who doesn’t grasp a fundamental fact of 2002: the world is already at war. As much as it pains us to point out the obvious to a Senator: Successful world leaders lead their side to victory.
Anyway, read the piece, and see for yourself what Dayton seems to have forgotten. There’s one thing missing from his editorial: any mention, recognition, recollection, acknowledgment, or reference to a little thing that happened once upon a time.
September 11. Not a mention. Not a nod.
God, I am tired of these people. Not of the dissenters - by all means, pile on, argue, have it out, kvetch, cavil, carp and screed away; that’s our way. I welcome the Robust Debate. I’m just tired of this holy ninnyism, these tired appeals to an transnational ideal that has no relation to the fragile, fractured world we actually inhabit. The other day someone came around to my door on behalf of some cause - I can’t remember which - and while I was kind in my dismissal, I was firm and quick. There are lots of causes I used to have. Things I wanted to see happen. The abolition of the NEA, for example. I happen to support state-funded arts, in the form of block grants to localities to prop up a theater or an orchestra. I know, I know. I shouldn’t. It’s pork, it’s a deviation from the dictates of the market, it’s confiscation of property to fund something, etc. I know. But it’s one of those small things that could keep the pilot light of civilization burning, and if there was greater local control it might wrest the power from the ossified permanent revolutionary party of art commissars who use the NEA to fund specious crap no one wants - aside from a snarky coterie of disaffected theorists. Less bisected cow-carcass art exhibits, more Pryce-Jones. I can dream, eh?
Well, I dream no more. I have a dozen little causes like this. None of them matter right now. You can have your NEA, your light rail, your death-to-vouchers, and any number of issues over which reasonable people can reasonably, and honorably, disagree. We’ll get to that later. Right now we have a little problem with a thing called Militant Religious Fascism, and I want to see its teeth kicked down its throat so hard that shattered molars shoot out the end when it dies. I almost wanted to say to the bliss-faced doorknocker: I don’t have time for my causes. Don’t expect me to have time for yours.
iTunes just kicked up “When the Levee Breaks.” Sen. Dayton might regard the title as alarmist; as the water reached his neck, he even might ask us to consider why the river hated us, and whether we were responsible for unseasonable rainfall. It’s one thing to volunteer to be a useful fool. But if that’s your role, don’t meet it halfway. At least try to be useful.
(Vodkapundit link here. vodkapundit.com Scroll down. Too late at night to do the post-link thing. Apologies. I just didn't want you running away in mid-rant.)
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