Nixon nostalgia is au courant
It’s a sign of the weariness of our times that Elizabeth Drew reports in the Washington Post on the exceedingly odd fact that many who are sick of Bush seem to be longing for the days of Richard Nixon, whose Presidency is now enveloped in the warm glow of nostalgia about his relatively liberal domestic programs. Drew tries to nip this dangerous feeling in the bud, asking that newfound Nixonphiles place Nixon in the context of the times in which he governed and realize that he hardly had a choice, since he had to deal with one of the most powerfully liberal Congresses of all time.
Since I’m in New York City right now (and the Tony’s are tomorrow night), I’ll mention that some of this Nixonomania is currently reflected on Broadway in the play Frost Nixon (that title could use some work), based on Nixon’s post-Watergate interviews with British television personality David Frost in 1977. The interviews’ claim to fame is that Frost managed to elicit an apology from Nixon about Watergate and, according to this review, playwright Peter Morgan indicates that this was Frost’s real goal in soliciting the series of Nixon interviews.
Ah, apologies from public figures! The Sanity Squad talks about the phenomenon here; I personally think such apologies are vastly overrated; any interest I might have in whether Nixon ever apologized or not is purely psychological rather than political. The play—and the misplaced nostalgia—don’t surprise me, however; the past is often enveloped in its misty glow, and movies and plays are now a huge venue for the “learning” of history.
My memory of Nixon is that he was hated every bit as much as George Bush is now, perhaps even a bit more. Nixon-hatred predated Watergate, as well, just as Bush-hatred predated the war in Iraq. The latter two events merely gave the hatred a greater focus, but the original hatred had to do with a combination of personality and policy, with the former leading the way (remember, that’s “hatred” as distinguished from mere “strong disagreement”).
If you’re interested in a more historically correct (and “nuanced?”) reflection on the play and the genesis of the Nixon apology, as well as Nixon’s character, see this account from Robert Zelnick, a journalism professor and editor of the original Frost/Nixon interviews. In fact, although the play portrays Nixon as trapped by Frost into the dramatic apology, Nixon’s staff had entered the interview arena with the goal of just such an apology, and facilitated and coached Nixon in that direction.
It makes for better drama, I suppose, to bend the truth somewhat to make the camps more oppositional. But the truth was dramatic enough, and somewhat Shakespearean: the fall of the mighty, and the emotions of a man who had lost what he most desired—the good graces of history—through his own paranoia and hubris.
Of course, life is short and history is long. History is probably not through with Richard Nixon. As Zelnick points out, even in the ex-President’s own lifetime, Nixon’s rehabilitation had already begun.
People who are forced to think of other people in one-word summaries—-good, or bad—-are not very bright. Humans are too complex for reduction to one-word descriptions.
Bush-haters and their kind seem to be voluntarily killing off the brain cells of their pre-frontal cortices. And they really did not have the cells to spare. A pity.
For those of us younger than Nixon’s reign, “Tricky Dick” comes across as a caricature more than a villain. History (both school and personal) passed him over completely. He’s a cartoon figure, seen more on Futurama than anywhere else.
Which is odd, because his policies and prgrams had an extremely parge impact on the world. He was a statesman as much as a politician, for good and ill.
Regardles sof Watergate, I don’t think anyone can really understand the changes to the Presidency and the nation and the world withut understanding Nixon.
Water gate was the media’s Six Day War. Except they won and therefore just kept doing the same things.
One driver of latter day reassessment of Nixon may derive from the recent recognition that the media are not at all above slanting stories shamelessly to advance their own political agenda.
Back then we thought Walter Cronkite was the soul of probity, but we now know – thanks in part to the web – that he’s something of a leftwing kook.
We also now know that the media are not above proferring fraudulent evidence to advance their views.
Since everyone alive then knew that the media hated Nixon (and vice versa), one wonders to what extent Nixon was hung out to dry because the media disliked him. If they’d wanted to, the media could’ve made Watergate a non-story, much the way they did Clinton’s outrageous (some would say treasonous) dealings with the Chinese, or of course Monica Lewinsky (or at the end of his Presidency, selling pardons to, e.g., Marc Rich).
Any one of those would have finished his Presidency and/or destroyed his reputation forever, had he been a Republican. By contrast, Nixon’s misdeeds – trying to cover up a bungled burglary that he probably had nothing to do with instigating – were pretty clear consomme.
OB, a certain politician accepting his party’s presidential nomination:
And if the war is not ended when the people choose in November, the choice will be clear. Here it is: For four years this administration has had at its disposal the greatest military and economic advantage that one nation has ever had over another in a war in history. For four years America’s fighting men have set a record for courage and sacrifice unsurpassed in our history. For four years this Administration has had the support of the loyal opposition for the objective of seeking an honorable end to the struggle.
Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively. And if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past. That is what we offer to America.
And I pledge to you tonight that the first priority foreign policy objective of our next Administration will be to bring an honorable end to the war in Vietnam.
For four years America’s fighting men have set a record for courage and sacrifice unsurpassed in our history.
Is the “courage and sacrifice” of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan any greater than those that served on Guadalcanal, Ia Drang, Okinawa, Tarawa, Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Fredricksburg, Cold Harboor, Anzio, Bastogne, Belleau Wood, Midway, Omaha Beach, or Corrigedor? It is just as wrong to “maximize” the courage and sacrifice our soldiers to score cheap political points as it to minimize it. Throughout it’s history, the USA has been blessed with incredibly brave men and women who have chosen to answer the call to defend her. These men and women were no less brave and no less willing to sacrifice than our current forces and no less worthy of our admiration, respect, and gratitude.
alf,
You do realize, I hope, that your reading of the election entrails may be incorrect. There is a considerable body of opinion that does not see it as a mandate for Nasty Pulloutsi and her crew. From the standpoint of standard electoral analysis it was a fairly standard election for the latter part of an incumbent president’s tenure.
Do try “Reading, Reasoning and Reflection” as a substitute for glandular secretions and the MSM. The is a whole world of inferences to be drawn from electoral analysis.
Sounds like you do remember how much Nixon was hated by the Left. By today’s standards, he would be a Democrat, and JFK would be a conservative Republican.
Nixon was an excellent President, but he had an unlikeable personality. But the Left hated him solely because he wasn’t Left enough. Same as Reagan, same as Bush ll.
Having watched every minute of the televised Watergate hearings, and in those days being a radical “Liberal” Dem I hated Nixon as much as any Bush hater does today. Many years later I began to read and understand his many books, and those about him. And, as I got older…and perhaps “wiser”, I came to realize what a good man he ultimately was….flawed, yes, of course, but a hell of a President. Goodness….the passage of time does indeed offer a new viewpoint….and how we all can change as our circumstances alter through the years. I wanted to hang Nixon….now I see him as a great President! Times change…and outlooks. It’s the clarity of ‘age’. 🙂
bird dog,
I must respectfully disagree with you regarding Nixon’s personality and suggest that his FTF persona was much different than his political persona.
I first met RMN after his defeat for governor of California and when he was starting his water carrying for the national GOP and the road back to his eventual nomination and election as president.
You couldn’t ask for a better guy to knock back a couple of drinks with while talking political trash. His command of politics; local, state, national and international was encyclopedic. Couple this with his sense of humor and the fact that he was a great raconteur, and two hours in my in-laws living room before dinner was the equivalent of a semester of a grad seminar in American Politics.
He was the quintessential American political operator of the mid 20th Century. LBJ was a crude, bully. JFK was a suit with charisma, money and great speech writers. Ronald Reagan was able to animate conservatism and live the role while letting other guys do the heavy lifting. But RMN was the do it all, blue collar short order cook; able to juggle a hundred threads and still give you the eggs just right and the steak medium rare.
We always had political differences, after all I was just a young Army dweeb going to grad school on the federal nickle who thought that my wishy washy “Rockefeller Republicanism” was pretty hot stuff. As a result of the “cocktail seminars” I was able to continue political growth much better grounded in reality. I liked the guy and never expected to. But, I was always a sucker for the Socratic Method.
Overgourd,
I think the Iraqi government is going to ask us to pull our troops out of their country within a year, so American domestic politics aren’t really that important any more.
I just thought that part of Nixon’s 1968 nomination acceptance speech on Vietnam was well written and on the money about Iraq as well.
Nixon didn’t start Vietnam.
Bush started his war and blew it.
Don’t insult Nixon by comparing him to Bush…please.
alf,
The political ecosystem that produced Nixon does not exist anymore so comparisons are meaningless.
On the strength of your statement that “domestic politics aren’t really that important anymore”; an appallingly ignorant statement; you are sentenced to six quarters of comparative politics, qualitative methodology, elections, public opinion and voting behavior as well as a research paper in the hopes that you will not embarrass yourself further
Ymarskar, you are absurd. Nixon resigned, as well he should have.
wow! I am happy I am an old lifelong Liberal Democrat. I would have a difficult time believing what people here believe, although, Neo did say Nixon was paranoid.
But doesn’t George Bush have ANYTHING to do with going from 80% popular to under 30 %? Is everything the fault of a few thousand protestors, most of whom don’t hate anyone?
Does becoming a realist neo con of the post 9/11 world mean everything that is true is now false?
There are people in these discussion boards who see antisemitism everywhere, and usually where it doesn’t exist. But Nixon was a true anti-semite. Yes, he was a deeply-flawed man who did tremendous good things even as he either ordered or countenanced criminal acts like burgleries.
Here is a sample of the man Nixon really was, available on tape for anyone of you who think the so-called left invented hatred:
From an article by scholars listening to the tapes:
“[The contemporary White House Tapes Nixon himself recorded] show Nixon talking about selling ambassadorships, railing against Jews and other minorities, complaining about the drinking habits of leading members of Congress, and exchanging conspiracy theories with Kissinger and other top aides.
In many cases, Nixon’s tirades were touched off by news leaks and political setbacks, such as the occasion at the beginning of July 1971 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released figures showing that unemployment was on the upswing. Concerned that news of the joblessness was hurting him in the polls, Nixon demanded the ouster of the director of the bureau, Julius Shiskin, and asked his hatchet man, Charles Colson, to investigate the ethnic background of officials in the agency.
“They are all Jews?” Nixon exclaimed when Colson listed the names.
“Every one of them,” Colson replied. “Well, with a couple of exceptions. . . . You just have to go down the goddamn list and you know they are out to kill us.”
In a later conversation the same day—July 3—Nixon and Haldeman discussed Jewish penetration of the National Security Council staff. “Is Tony Lake Jewish?” Nixon demands, referring to a young Kissinger aide who went on to become national security adviser under President Clinton.
“I’ve always wondered about that,” Haldeman replies.
“He looked it,” says Nixon, without reaching a firm conclusion. [Lake is not Jewish].
When The Washington Post gave front-page coverage in April 1971 to a survey showing 60 percent support for antiwar demonstrations among residents of affluent District neighborhoods, Nixon complained that the results were loaded.
“Bob,” he explained to a receptive Haldeman, “there’s a hell of a lot of Jews in the District, see . . . The gentiles have moved out.”
OverGourd,
I don’t think things have changed that much since Nixon was Prez. Nixon’s 1968 nomination speech could be delivered by any presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, next year with minor changes and be a winner.
And do you really think the U.S. would keep its troops in Iraq after the Iraqi government had asked us to leave?
The left are very good haters. They only hate Nixon less because he’s dead.
Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.
Richard M. Nixon
1. I take issue with the way Occam’s Beard thoughtfully analyzes the media.
I particularly take issue with the assertion that the “media ignored Monica Lewinsky.” Neo had not experienced her total conversion back then, this story broke in February of 1998, but there was quite a bit of coverage of the story and, believe it or not Mr. Beard, Clinton was impeached by the House and tried in the Senate. As I remember, but I am a Liberal so I devote most of my days to pure hate, there were stories about Monica Lewinsky in the papers and on the television stations.
Still, it is a good thing that you discovered the story and brought it to our attention here. You must be skilled in obtaining documents.
I am being sarcastic by the way, but that argument doesn’t pass the “Laugh Test”.
2. Many people, however, in and out of the Media did hate President Nixon. In Oliver Stone’s surprisingly generous film portrait of Nixon, he has the President talk to a photo of JFK in The White House in August of 1974 just as things were getting unbearable for Mr. Nixon.
Nixon tells JFK, “When people see you, they see who they would like to be; when they see me, they see who they are.”
3. Why did people dislike Nixon so much? Nixon was ungracious and made the kind of jokes a husband makes at a party when he loves his wife and she won’t have sex with him: his “jokes” were cries from the heart and bitter; people cringed.
4. President George W. Bush was gushed over for at least the first three years of his presidency, and in the 2004 election. “Who would you rather have a beer with?” He has been done in by at least these things, which have caused people to think he is not someone they like or trust:
a. his inarticulate way of saying the same thing over and over, creating straw men arguments (“Some say Arabs are not capable of democracy, I reject that,” and so many other examples.
b. The fact that he declared “an end to major combat operations” under a “Mission Accomplished” banner two months into a war that is going into its 5th great year, and may break all (American) box office records for longest running war.
and
c. His Katrina impotence and incompetence, which culminated in “Heck of a job Brownie!”
One can defend him on all these weaknesses, for example, “why should a President have to be either articulate, honest, or competent himself?” and “who says an administration should be filled with people who know what they are doing?” and “where is it written that the government should not be treated as a place where you reward loyalty to the party and president first, foremost, and last?”
I don’t think those are good arguments and I have heard and read variations of all of them.
p.s. are YOU being ironic, Occam’s Beard?
dear Ken Hahn
Thank you for reminding me! As a Liberal and therefore full of hate, I sometimes do neglect to keep hating the person after they die. We will try to hate/hate/hate through eternity. After all being a hateful person I shouldn’t confine my hatred to the living.
…now let’s see: grrrr!!!! I hate Nixon more now that he is dead. Whew! Thank you! I feel better now.
Neo can tell you we liberals have nothing but our hate and our stupidity.
tomj,
Operation Nickel Grass was a strategic airlift operation conducted by the United States to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The Military Airlift Command of the U.S. Air Force shipped 22,325 tons of tanks, artillery, ammunition, and supplies in C-141 Starlifter and C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft between October 12 and November 14, 1973. This rapid supply mission was critical to Israel’s ability to recover from early losses in the war, and the operation is sometimes called “the airlift that saved Israel.”
I believe Nixon was U.S. President at the time of Operation Nickel Grass.
tomj: Neo can tell you we liberals have nothing but our hate and our stupidity.
Well, regardless of what neo can tell us, I’d say that for a significant portion of contemporary left-liberalism, while the hatred gets a bit mixed up with a soppy sentimentality, stupidity of one degree or another is an unfortunate fixture. It does have the defensive advantage of making them pretty much immune to argument, which may go some way toward explaining its prevalence.
In my opinion one of the reasons why Nixon is getting a better rap is because what he did wouldn’t even garner a news story today.
As a kid I remember my parents and the other adults talking about Watergate as if it was the worst thing ever, I remember them talking about how it almost destroyed the govt, America, and many many other things. I never really knew what he had done – but it must have been *bad*. From the rhetoric I pictured “Murder” class bad and couldn’t imagine what a president could have done.
I still remember Modern American History in middle school when the teacher told us about it – I remember the sense of confusion. We had gone on about the corruption in Grant, several major wars, and JFK’s affairs (along with a bit of editorializing about him having had Marylin Monroe killed and the Bay of Pigs disaster). At this point we had contract murder, political assignations, mafia involvement, letting thousands upon thousands of troops die for political gain, and massive bribery at the highest level – and yet none of it *still* matched Watergate.
So then – what was Watergate (still called by many on the left end of the spectrum as one of the worst scandal’s in history – only surpassed by Bush)? Some staffers recorded a planning session of the democrats and then say it didn’t happen. Huh? Destroy the govt, most evil president ever, Watergate the worst scandal in history? Uh – OK. Then we moved on to the current president (Reagan) and pretty much the same thing – unprecedented corruption (this was before the Iran-Contra stuff, I shudder to think what that class was like then).
It really takes the steam out of scandals when that occurs.
Bush will eventually get the same treatment – in fact I generally feel he will end up much better. Nixon, at least, *did* do a coverup – so far outside of loony theories (like JFK having Monroe murdered – in the next few history classes we found out that the middle school history teacher was a loon) there isn’t much on Bush that anyone other than a Believer is going to care about even if they aren’t jaded against scandals.
dear alphie
Nixon was a complex man, like most of us, left and right and center. The White House tape system was installed by Nixon and for Nixon. It often taped him spouting anti-semitic threats and complaints.
He was a friend of Israel at the same time, and the action you cite was a good one. It doesn’t mean he didn’t spout anti-semitic language that makes your ears cringe. Speaking for me, I would not want everything I ever said held up and repeated, but even so, Nixon frequently and over the course of many, many years expressed contempt for people because they were Jewish.
I believe all of us are mixtures of greatness, mediocrity, evil, goodness, and habit (among many other qualities). This discussion board illustrates a very American phenomena (if other countries do it, I don’t care: I live here & love this land, I am describing and asking you to consider whether this is true):
it isn’t enough to say “Nixon was not all bad,” the people who thought he was bad must also be monster-robots who couldn’t see that he was all good and their heroes were all bad.
Was in New York several weeks agos and actually saw Frost/Nixon. Thought it was extremely well done, but certainly doctored up to a merrithewell by the libs. Dramatic ending that satisfies all thoseBush haters who now wish for better bygone days.
dear Sally
What you are saying is simply too general, and is the first step to defining your enemies out of existence. You make two points:
1. that a “significant portion” of lefties like me are too hateful and muddled-headed and sentimental to be taken seriously.
and then 2. this “fixture” of bad forces makes us impossible to argue with.
so, we have no thoughts worth hearing and yet dominate and control all discourse?
That doesn’t make sense and I can tell you that it isn’t true. Most lefties are like you, trying to make sense of the world and all the confusing facts that get thrown at us in such profusion that our everyday reality, and I mean by ‘our’ yours and mine and everyone who thinks we are both wrong, is like being dropped into a giant blender of chaotic information: Paris Hilton! IED’s! Albania! Fred Thompson’s Pick up Truck!
we could all use a cafe where ‘everybody knows our name’ and we are valued because we are individuals and imperfect.
dear strcpy
Your account of your education is horrifying. Watergate was based on a crime of the sort that Tony Soprano committed and the cover-up of that crime. Either at Nixon’s direct order or to assist Nixon, at least twice “The White House Plumbers” burgled an office of Nixon’s enemies. Nixon’s enemies, not terrorists or sworn enemies of the United States.
Then when the story began to get out the President ordered the FBI NOT to investigate it. Then when some Republicans (i.e., his allies) refused to carry out his orders to serve his will rather than the Constitution of the United States (which, believe it or not, does NOT allow a president to break the law for his own reasons and use the government to punish his enemies), President Nixon fired them.
You said that your teacher told you that JFK murdered Marilyn Monroe. I suppose that kind of hatred is what we can expect from our liberal teachers and their unions.
to my friends here, and that is not sarcastic
what do you make of this, from a blog calling for a pardon for Mr. Libby:
“we are at war in this country, and our political process is as close to civil war as it’s been in over a century.”
Is that what you think? Will you shoot me when the war breaks out?
Tomjfrombfflo:
At the same time as the Watergate affair, I was taking a class from Joseph Benti, an ABC anchorman in LA and a former White House correspondent. He remarked that Watergate was not so different from several Democratic endeavors that he had witnessed while in DC, and said that he knew a “Democratic bag man” that had delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who had done pretty much the same thing as the “Plumbers”. He went on to say that Nixon’s mistake was allowing the “Plumbers” to get caught…that everybody in politics did the same thing. This only served to reinforce my opinion of our government that I had formed on a trip to DC earlier when I was in middle school…I was so excited to be in the Senate gallery in the morning to see how our wonderful government functioned. Imagine my surprise when I saw about 4 senators in the chamber while one of them forlornly read a resolution about naming the next week “National Chicken Subsidy Week” or some such. Lyndon Johnson, as VP, was president of the senate at the time. His phone was ringing at his desk…but he was asleep. A page had to come up and shake him to wake him.
Yes, I was thoroughly educated in the value of the worthies that we elect to our august governmental bodies, all right. The fact that our society provides lifetime sinecures to the likes of Teddy Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Jesse Helms, and Ted Stevens is a national disgrace.
Growing up in New Mexico, I had a lot of friends from West Texas. When Lyndon Johnson was elected to virtually any of his various public offices, quite a few of the deceased folks in West Texas were only too glad to vote for him, and the “joke” at the time of JFK’s assassination was asking “What was LBJ doing 30 seconds before JFK was shot?” while holding one’s hands over one’s ears.
There’s no one that I fully trust in government, but my experience with Democrats is that they’re the least trustworthy of a mostly criminal bunch.
tomjfrombfflo,
Your survival when the insurrection occurs will depend upon the threat level you pose and the rules of engagement under which troops and militias are operating under. My guess is that you will be safe since you will be one of the unarmed, sullen ones.
Tell us now. Isn’t that what you want to hear? Doesn’t it give you the frisson all leftists want to hear? I have always found it strange that the left fantasist’s envision themselves in the “The Camps” while right fantasists envision themselves fighting in the boonies.
“Watergate was based on a crime of the sort that Tony Soprano committed and the cover-up of that crime. Either at Nixon’s direct order or to assist Nixon, at least twice “The White House Plumbers” burgled an office of Nixon’s enemies. Nixon’s enemies, not terrorists or sworn enemies of the United States.”
So, another one doesn’t get it. For those that do not care you seem to be an extreme hater whether you are or not. The majority of his list of transgressions are something that *every single* politician on the planet does.
So, he had a “dirty tricks” squad that tried to find embarrassing private stuff and make sure people didn’t leak information – nope no one does that, brand new and always horrid.
Had an enemies list – again, who in politics does *this*. We have always been one big happy family.
Had a private fund for a “committee to re-elect the president” – how dare he!!!
Once more,you get this nice “Soprano’s like actions” and expect killing, shakedowns, money laundering, all this nice mobster stuff. You get “The Plumbers” and other mob sounding names and then – silence? Ok, *confused*, why did we stop there?
At some point you finally get details – nice and exciting right? Nope, you get ….. normal everyday politics that has been done for most, if not all, of our history.
So, again, only the True Believers and the uneducated get riled up. At best there was at least a break in, but then there goes that “soprano’s” type thing again – they “stole” the Democrats election strategy. Yea, *REAL* gangster like there. You would get WAY more traction if you just let it speak on it’s own, building it up like that makes it seem SOOO much less once you get all the information (along with making you seem a partisan hack).
I guess, thank you for making my point. You make it sound like the crime of the century and then – bleh. Of course, I’m highly uneducated so what do I know?
dear strcpy
You flit from an assertion for which you offer no evidence, that every administration commits burglaries, to an assertion about the 2000 election, without ever acknowledging the point that Nixon ordered the FBI to stop investigating the Watergate Burglary. Then, Saturday, October 20, 1973, President Nixon asked Republican officials in his administration to take actions that they determined were illegal. When they refused, he fired them. President Nixon brought on his own fall.
The general defense of Nixon’s actions are that he was only doing what other politicians did. That is not only an assertion made with no evidence, but it is also not a real defense in any legal or moral sense. If a person is caught embezzling funds from his employer, he cannot “prove his innocence” by referring to other embezzlers who were NOT caught.
As to the rhetorical aspects of Watergate, a burglary is a tawdry act for anyone, and especially for a President to participate. And he Nixon White House “plumbers” called themselves that. Those are not terms made up by others.
After these events, Chuck Colson admitted that he broke the law, that he deserved a prison sentence because he and his colleagues in Nixon’s administration embarrassed themselves and their party, and they country they loved. The burglary of Daniel Ellsberg’s Psychiatrist and of the Democratic HQ at The Watergate, were break-ins. These actions were not harmless fun, they were crimes.
References to missing “murders” and “the crime of the century” prove nothing. I guess if you want to brag that President Nixon never ordered the murder of his enemies, you should do so. That his felony sheet lacks murder and/or murders does not mean Watergate was trivial.
President Nixon used The FBI to call off an investigation into his administrations crimes, he either ordered or supervised men who ordered burglaries to get information on POLITICAL enemies, and when fellow Republican officials told him that actions he wanted them to carry out violated the United States Constitution, he fired them.
Nixon resigned in disgrace and President Ford pardoned him for all the crimes he committed or may have committed. His life was ultimately a sad tale full of sound and fury. Whether it signified nothing or not depends on your view of human nature. I think his life had great significance and great moments of tragedy and triumph, which my fellow leftie Oliver Stone brought out brilliantly through Anthony Hopkins.
I like to speak here and I speak from my heart. I am not sullen; I am not full of hate; I am not a hack. My arguments are made with great respect for the people I am addressing and they are logical, factual, and based on direct evidence.
I was joking about a Civil War here in the United States because a mainstream blogger on the right made the assertion that we are on the verge of a civil war here in America today, this morning.
That war will not happen, but all this silly talk of lefties being hateful traitors leads naturally to such delusional fantasies. I am not afraid of a fight and I am not a pacifist either.
You cannot define people out of existence by belittling them.
tomj: You cannot define people out of existence by belittling them.
See, tom, with all due respect, that’s just the sort of overwrought self-pity that so often makes left liberals look soppy, to anyone who isn’t one. No one’s “defining” anyone out of existence here — no one’s committing genocide either. It’s just a sad fact of our little moment in history that, for various reasons, a large portion of the left have become hate-filled traitors — meaning people who hate their own country and culture, and say so loudly and frequently. Another, milder portion of the left has allowed itself to be herded by the fanatics in their midst. And some are mere cynics with an eye to power, looking to exploit an increasingly polarized culture for their own gain. Of course you can find types like that anywhere in the political spectrum, and at other times it’s been the right that’s exhibited and embodied a serious cultural and political pathology. But right now, disarmed by its own relativism, self-doubt, and rootless guilt, it’s the left, and it’s just disingenuous to try to ignore that.
dear Sally
Thank you for the direct response. In return I respectfully and vociferously deny that the sentence you copied and pasted fits any of the categories you gave it: it is neither “overwrought” nor an example of “overwrought self-pity”. I think that is true simply on its sound and sense: I did not say, “The RIGHT cannot define people out of existence” I said “You” meaning you and I and everyone. In American English the phrase has the same weight as “One cannot define people out of existence by belittling them.”
That is a fact. People who call President Bush names, people who call Paris Hilton names, people who try to define poor people and rich people and immigrants and those who have been here since the Mayflower or 20,000 years before that with some easy label literally ‘belittle’ the people they are defining. They try to make them less than what they are. They de-individualize them.
And whether left, right, middle, or muddled does such defining, it is wrong. One of my former students is an émigré who came here after years in refugee camps in what is now the Czech Republic because her city was caught up the Civil War in Bosnia. She lost her father and she herself is a bit lost. Loud noises terrify her, she weighs less than 100 pounds, and although married to a loving husband and teaching herself with the degree she earned at a top Graduate School, she has deep depressions.
When the Civil War started in her hometown of Sarajevo, people who loved her and her family for generations turned away from her. They were on one side and she was on the other. They defined her with one word “enemy” and the fact that she was 12 at the time and her grandparents had vacationed with their grandparents made no difference.
It is not overwrought self-pity to oppose such belittling. I have been reasonable and open-minded here. I have tried to tell you what a liberal really thinks. We lefties are no more full of hatred than you are. I say that when someone calls you full of hate simply because you support the policies you support and some who agree with you are full of hate, that a bit of our national soul dies.
You say “No one’s “defining” anyone out of existence here – no one’s committing genocide either.” I never suggested that anyone is committing genocide here, but as to defining and really belittling, on this website, which I think is moderate and literate, Trimegestus wrote “[T]he modern American Left consists of nothing but fanatical hatred.” And you just wrote, “[A] large portion of the left have become hate-filled traitors.”
There is no evidence that people on the left are any more hate-filled than people on the right. We are not traitors and we are not hate-filled, we are Americans just like you.
tomj-something:
“There is no evidence that people on the left are any more hate-filled than people on the right. We are not traitors and we are not hate-filled, we are Americans just like you.”
Im sorry Tom. I think that you are not hate-filled but I think you are the minority. I mean, conservatives didnt like Clinton, and some of them came out with some wild allegations, (i.e. Hillary had Vince Foster murdered, etc), but nothing, absolutely nothing reaches the level of hatred and vitriol against both Bush and conservatism in general, and I have I have had that expressed to me in a very personal manner. The hatred is absolutely astounding. It clouds everything.
You also have this faction that I can say without hyperbole, is un-American and have also had this expressed to me personally as well. I know you have had to have heard them yourself. Im sorry, but I feel it insulting to tell me that they are Americans, “just like me”. They are not.
I feel Trimeimguessing had it right as a general rule when he said that the left runs on nothing but hatred.
michellemalkin.commichellemalkin.comtomj: It is not overwrought self-pity to oppose such belittling.
No, but that wasn’t what I said, was it? It is, on the other hand, both overwrought and self-pitying to equate such belittling with “defining” someone out of existence. You misapply the lesson of your former student from Sarajevo — sometimes finding the right description for a group or a position is simply putting things in their true perspective, however sad or tragic that may be.
I say that when someone calls you full of hate simply because you support the policies you support and some who agree with you are full of hate, that a bit of our national soul dies.
And again, you mischaracterize what’s being said here. It’s not the policies you support or oppose that’s the problem, it’s the frenzied, fanatical, and often deranged expressions used to support them. This goes beyond the Ward Churchill-type nutcakes, and even beyond the Michael Moore crowd, with his adoring Hollywood boosters — take a look at bloggers like the pair hired by the Edwards campaign (and then fired after some bad publicity), or the kind of racist, sexist smears Michelle Malkin documents over and over again, including some truly psychotic specimens. Yes, you can find some bad examples on the right as well, but this kind of sickness is predominantly characteristic of the left at this time, and leftist denial just compounds the problem.
dear Sally and Harry
and by the way, have you met? It would make a good movie.
Sally says, “sometimes finding the right description for a group or a position is simply putting things in their true perspective,” but that is what Emina’s neighbors did to her in Sarajevo. She was no longer “Emina” the girl who they had gone on picnics with, she was the enemy. The people who killed Emina’s father thought that the other side was full of hatred and that their side was right.
When I speak with someone on my side I take more offense to labels than I do speaking with you here on this page, because there is a kool aid quality to your discourse here:
neo says something and then everyone agrees with her and crawls over themselves to be the one who expresses the most contempt on anyone holding any other opinion than neo’s. I know that you are honest and you can see it in her newest pro-Lieberman entry. The next comments are all wild attacks on pacifists, false analogies, conflating democrats with Lee Harvey Oswald, and a basic defining of anyone who holds an opposing view out of existence.
Sally, you ARE saying that the people who hold the views that disagree with you are full of hate or self-pity or overwrought or whatever it is you think they are. I am not surprised you are a fan of Michelle Malkin; she is an excellent polemicist, but she is a polemicist and she (smartly) tries to position arguments so that everyone who reads her will agree with her opinion. There are thousands of polemicists on the web from the delusional to the wise, but positioning arguments is not the same as discussion.
Harry, I return to this fact: I am not full of hate, I read countless essays on the internet from both sides that are not full of hate, and I would tell you that the majority of internet conversation is not full of hate. It is just Americans like you or I talking, sometimes, often really, using sarcasm as the main weapon to make a point. It is not an insult to say you are an American like myself, my wife, or even like Bob Sommersby (of the daily howler) or Eric Alterman or Michelle Malkin.
This is our country and it is not Sarajevo. I would like to keep it that way. On leftie blogs I call people out for characterizing others to make a point. I love the moderate voice blog because he and his other writer’s don’t allow posters to characterize and mis-characterize each other.
I am fascinated by this blog because neo went from thinking everything she once believed was true to thinking it was all false, but I came here first because she was writing about how often people misquoted “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore are’t thou ‘Romeo'”.
It took me two minutes to be attacked here after my first political comment as being anti-semitic, just as it takes seconds to find out that my side is full of evil haters, who paradoxically hurt the President and his supporters feelings by calling him names.
tomsomething:
“neo says something and then everyone agrees with her and crawls over themselves to be the one who expresses the most contempt on anyone holding any other opinion than neo’s. “
Do we do that? Im not seeing that myself. Have I topped Sally on my expression of my contempt for you? I must be loosing my touch. I will not be considered neo’s favorite if I dont out do Sally in my vitriol.
Meanwhile, I notice riots had erupted during the G8 conference and cars torched in France after a recent election. That seems pretty hateful, and though while the US holds more of the calm “tom-like” liberals, conservatives are not known to carry on so with the public displays of disenchantment like you guys tend to enjoy.
Its not just blog comments. Its these more outward manifestations of leftist hatred that convinces me.
“…but this kind of sickness is predominantly characteristic of the left at this time, and leftist denial just compounds the problem.”
See Tom, this is a good example of what you are up against.
Sure, maybe some on The Right exhibit [some undesireable characteristic] a little bit, but they probably have a good reason for doing so.
The Left on the other hand, is DEFINED by it, they have NO OTHER IDEAS, even NO OTHER PURPOSE, and to attempt to argue otherwise just PROVES IT.
This is what Sally refers to as “thinking for yourself.”
I’m pretty sure none of the neo-cons or righties who comment on this blog have ever participated in a “World Naked Bike Ride”…
http://zombietime.com/world_naked_bike_ride_2007/
…and while it’s not particularly “hateful,” it is rather representative of the intellectual leanings of the Left…
tomjfrombfflo: I’m glad you’re fascinated by this blog, but I beg to differ with your characterization of me as someone who “went from thinking everything she once believed was true to thinking it was all false.”
I realize you’re probably just engaging in rhetorical hyperbole, but still, it’s nowhere near the case that I’ve had that global a shift. If you’ve read what I’ve written so far in my “A mind is a difficult thing to change” series, you’ll see, I think, that I certainly look with a more jaundiced eye at the MSM, and I question certain assumptions and assertions and facts, but by no means all. In fact, in many ways, I fit the defintion of someone who says I didn’t really leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me. My values, for example, remain very much the same as they always were (and my interests as well–such as “Romeo and Juliet.”)
I think both political parties have moved away from what would traditionally have been called their “bases”. Certainly no traditional Republican would countenance Ted Stevens’ “Bridge to Nowhere” or Randy Cunningham’s defense kickbacks. And the McCain-Feingold attempt to squash free political speech is anathema to traditional conservatives, as is the atrocious “immigration reform” being thrust upon an unwilling nation.
The sheer number of earmarks in this Congress’ budget (over 36,000) shows that few in government truly want to end the “culture of corruption” that was Speaker Pelosi’s vaunted goal when she took office. (And what about that $180,000 job her son has with good old Vin Gupta’s InfoUSA, that bastion of rectitude?)
’08 is going to be a very depressing year.
Here’s tomj:
Sally, you ARE saying that the people who hold the views that disagree with you are full of hate or self-pity or overwrought or whatever it is you think they are.
But here’s what I actually did say:
It’s not the policies you support or oppose that’s the problem, it’s the frenzied, fanatical, and often deranged expressions used to support them
– the examples of which tom simply ignores. Which, when you think about it, kind of epitomizes the attitude of the soft left toward any sort of “unpleasantness”, doesn’t it?
As for UB, I think he just has a difficult time with the concept of “thinking for yourself” in general.
dear Sally
here is what you said: “[A] large portion of the left have become hate-filled traitors.”
Rhetoric such as labeling people begins a process that is corrosive to the thinker. I read your full posts. I thanked you for speaking to me. As Americans, we have so much more that binds us together than divides us.
To Harry, My posts, an attempt to engage you directly with respect and humor, and the leftie blogs I love such as Eric Alterman and Bob Sommersby (daily howler), as well as the Joe G of the moderate voice and even Captain’s Quarter’s (which I read because I want to see things from the other side of the fence and disagree with but not because he is supposedly full of hate or “an evil right winger”, all have one thing in common with you, with Sally, and with Neo: we all have nothing to do with rioters at the G-8 Summit.
In Blogosphere-istan I would find examples of right wing violence and excess to supposedly “shoot down” this false example you are proposing, but why? Why not leave room for the possibility that characterizing as evil and hateful and violent the individuals of the left is as bad as characterizing the individuals of the right as greedy or war-loving or whatever the flavor of the day insult is?
My favorite thing in life is poetry; the poetry of loving my wife, my only wife whom I have loved exclusively for over 32 years, the poetry of my daughter and my family, the poetry of my friends, the poetry of a great well-made cup of coffee, the poetry of writing, and especially the poetry of Borges and Shakespeare and (my favorites) Rilke/Lorca/Lowell/Keats/Creeley/Kerouac & company. When argument and exchange of ideas take place I love blogs; when denunciations take place, they lose that poetry that I seek when I attend Mass each Sunday, the poetry God sent us here to signify, embody, celebrate.
Perhaps I cannot convince anyone that “[A] large portion of the left have become hate-filled traitors.” But I can tell you that it is wrong, morally wrong to assert such things, and invite you reconsider. And, I don’t even necessarily want you to change your mind about what we should do as a country and why we should do: I love this land and you may be right.
I am listening.
dear Neo
of course you are correct that I was engaging in hyperbole, and I will try to read your essays more carefully.
Your Journey is strange to me and perhaps not as complete a turnaround as I think.
I wish your thoughts were in a book, because it is easier to linger with a book than a screen.
In my young twenties I read War and Peace every year, and every time I was surprised by what happens to Prince Andrei and Natasha (I won’t say more than that in the unliekly event someone reads this and then goes and reads the novel). But online, I could read War and Peace in an afternoon.
stumbley:
“I’m pretty sure none of the neo-cons or righties who comment on this blog have ever participated in a “World Naked Bike Ride”…”
Oh my God! Did you see that? Did you see what they do? What in the world is wrong with these people?
Tomj, you seem to have a bead on these people. Maybe established a report with some of them at one time. An understanding. Perhaps you would be able to explain to us, what the hell is wrong with them.
Hey Stumbley, you wanted some personal info, well you found it! Scroll down and you’ll see me, on the Cannondale, with “Free Tibet” written across my backside! 🙂
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sooner or later, anthony hopkins will have a lifetime achievement award. this guy is great*-;