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Writing for Macleans in Canada, Mark Steyn considers the racism charge leveled against ObamaCare opponents.
… After being interviewed on TV about my own antipathy to the Democrats’ reforms, I received an email from a (white) lady in New York who said that, if only I were to agree to a course of treatment, I’d soon realize that my opposition to Obamacare stemmed from submerged racial paranoia rooted in “fear of the Other.” Actually, I’ve been opposed to government health care my entire adult life, and wherever I’ve been on the receiving end of it: in Canada, medicare was introduced by a bunch of pasty white guys; in Britain, by a bunch of pasty white blokes; in Bulgaria (where I had the misfortune to be treated for a torn ligament), by a bunch of Commie monobrowed Slavs. Okay, that last one is racist. But you get my point: no black males were involved in my deep-seated racial paranoia about government health care.
As to “fear of the Other,” once upon a time “the Other” was a relatively sophisticated Hegelian concept. Now it’s the feeblest trope from Social Psychology For Dummies. “Fear of the Other” can be hung around the neck of anyone who disagrees with you—because they don’t really “disagree” with you, do they? They just have a kind of mental illness, so you don’t have to bother responding to their arguments about cancer survival rates in Scotland or elective surgery cuts in British Columbia. Indeed, under Obamacare, you’ll soon be able to be treated for your fear of the Other: just lie down on this gurney, one quick jab, you won’t feel a thing.
The surest sign you’re suffering from “fear of the Other” is the reflexive urge to attribute it to anyone who disagrees with you: indeed, the people who most seem to fear “the Other” are those ever more fevered in their insistence that opposition to Democrat policies is nothing to do with the policies. The tea party protesters are not merely “racists” and “Nazis” but also “teabaggers,” a designation applied to them by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the voice of the people and Gloria Vanderbilt’s son. “Teabagging” is apparently a sexual term for dunking the scrotum hither and yon as if it were a sachet of Lapsang Souchong. Not being as expert in this field of study as CNN anchormen, I am unclear as to whether the teabagger is the chap dangling the scrotal sac or the lucky recipient. But, in considering the ease with which its political application spread through the media, one is struck by the strangely fierce need of Mr. Cooper and his fellow journalists not merely to report on the protesters but to sneer at them.
For the record, I have no irrational “fear of the Other.” Rather, I have a deep-rooted fear of the Same. There is nothing new about what the Democrats are doing. These policies are the same old same old that the Euro-Canadian social democratic state has lived with for two generations. I’m in the mood for something new, but, alas, the Obama administration seems to recoil from the Other. I’d say that, in his enthusiasm for the cobwebbed pieties of postwar Euro-statism, Barack Obama seems more like the first Scandinavian in the White House. But no doubt that’s racist, too.
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist says the way in Afghanistan might be learned from W.
Three years ago, the war in Iraq seemed lost.
There was little disagreement that the Bush administration, having toppled Saddam Hussein with relative ease, had badly bungled the aftermath. Tank units led by Gen. Tommy Franks had led U.S. forces triumphantly into Baghdad. There had been a ceremonial toppling of Hussein’s statue, and the presidential “Mission Accomplished” news conference . . . and then the real war started.
It was a mistake seemingly made in every war in human history; commanders enter superbly prepared to fight the last war, not the one they are in. It turned out that the war in Iraq was not about seizing territory but battling a stubborn, murderous, and determined insurgency embedded in the Iraqi population.
President Bush made a courageous decision in the summer of 2006 to reverse direction, but not the reversal sought by Congress (including then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden), the American public, the overwhelming majority of the press (including this newspaper), and even most of his own military advisers. Instead of cutting our losses and pulling out of Iraq, as we did in Vietnam, Bush doubled down. He invested more troops and, more important, embraced an entirely new strategy.
And Bush was right. …
Howard Fineman! Yes, Howard Fineman tells us what’s wrong with the president. It’s like he’s been reading Pickings.
… The president’s problem isn’t that he is too visible; it’s the lack of content in what he says when he keeps showing up on the tube. Obama can seem a mite too impressed with his own aura, as if his presence on the stage is the Answer. There is, at times, a self-referential (even self-reverential) tone in his big speeches. They are heavily salted with the words “I” and “my.” (He used the former 11 times in the first few paragraphs of his address to the U.N. last week.) Obama is a historic figure, but that is the beginning, not the end, of the story. //
There is only so much political mileage that can still be had by his reminding the world that he is not George W. Bush. It was the winning theme of the 2008 campaign, but that race ended nearly a year ago. The ex-president is now more ex than ever, yet the current president, who vowed to look forward, is still reaching back to Bush as bogeyman.
He did it again in that U.N. speech. The delegates wanted to know what the president was going to do about Israel and the Palestinian territories. He answered by telling them what his predecessor had failed to do. This was effective for his first month or two. Now it is starting to sound more like an excuse than an explanation.
Members of Obama’s own party know who Obama is not; they still sometimes wonder who he really is. In Washington, the appearance of uncertainty is taken as weakness—especially on Capitol Hill, where a president is only as revered as he is feared. Being the cool, convivial late-night-guest in chief won’t cut it with Congress, an institution impervious to charm (especially the charm of a president with wavering poll numbers). Members of both parties are taking Obama’s measure with their defiant and sometimes hostile response to his desires on health care. Never much of a legislator (and not long a -senator), Obama underestimated the complexity of enacting a major “reform” bill. Letting Congress try to write it on its own was an awful idea. As a balkanized land of microfiefdoms, each loyal to its own lobbyists and consultants, Congress is incapable of being led by its “leadership.” It’s not like Chicago, where you call a guy who calls a guy who calls Daley, who makes the call. The president himself must make his wishes clear—along with the consequences for those who fail to grant them. …
Pickings on November 5th last year upon the election of Barack Obama opened up with this;
Americans have much to be proud of today. The election of an African-American to the highest office in the land is an outstanding achievement. A testament to the open-minded tolerance of this country’s citizens; at least, the majority of them.
Do you think the press and the rest of the world will stop telling us how racist we are? Maybe now they’ll notice that the American people had already moved on.
Nineteen years ago Virginia elected the first black governor in the country Then, Pickerhead was proud to vote for the Democrat Doug Wilder over the hapless Marshall Coleman. This time however, it is discouraging to see a doctrinaire leftist selected by the voters. Nothing but trouble, follows in the wake of officials who use the state’s power to compel and direct behavior.
And, this is second time the Dems have given us a president who throws a baseball like a girl. What’s with that? …
Now Doug Wilder has shown his good form again by refusing to support the Dem in this year’s race for Virginia governor. Michael Gerson has the story in his WaPo blog.
Democrats have recently won statewide office in Virginia with a distinctive blend of political approaches. Politicians such as Mark Warner and Tim Kaine have been seen — and have taken great pains to be seen — as non-ideological, pro-business, modern, technocratic and racially progressive. They successfully and simultaneously appealed to three groups: suburbanites interested in public services such as education and highways, moderates who lean Democratic but won’t support liberal culture warriors, and minorities uncomfortable with the Virginia Democratic Party’s rural, stars-and-bars past.
But Deeds has been unable to follow this script. His rural, gun-culture roots reinforce minority skepticism — or at least cool minority enthusiasm. Wilder, in his statement, specifically criticized Deeds’s opposition to gun control. Sheila Johnson — the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television and a prominent African-American entrepreneur in Virginia — actually endorsed Bob McDonnell. One Virginia political observer described Deeds’s African-American outreach efforts to me as “pathetic.” Not even President Obama’s direct intervention could bring Wilder on board. …
Kathleen Parker is channeling Glenn Beck.
While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they’ve hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they’ve never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation’s largest unions.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Service Employees International Union are as tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans.
You don’t think about one without the other.
You also don’t talk about either organization without mention of Wade Rathke, co-founder of ACORN and founder of SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans. Rathke, who resigned from ACORN last year as “chief organizer” after it became known that his brother embezzled almost $1 million from the association, continues to run Local 100, as well as ACORN International, recently renamed Community Organizations International. …
Robert Samuelson with an interesting take on motives of Washington’s players.
What’s driving the great health debate of 2009 is not a popular clamor for universal insurance. “Many Americans are balking again at the prospect of health care reform,” writes pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. A new Wall Street Journal poll found 41 percent of respondents opposed to President Obama’s proposals and 39 percent in favor (the rest were undecided). The underlying driver is politicians’ psychological quest for glory.
“My colleagues, this is our opportunity to make history,” implored Chairman Max Baucus as the Senate Finance Committee last week opened consideration of his bill. Politicians, in their most self-important moments, see themselves as instruments of national destiny. They yearn to be remembered as the architects and agents of great social and economic transformations. They want to be at the signing ceremony; they want a pen.
Ordinary Americans are rightly suspicious of this exercise in collective ego gratification, which has gripped Obama and many of his congressional allies. Even when the goals are worthy — as they are here — the temptation to exaggerate, simplify and sugarcoat often proves irresistible. Baucus’ promotion of his handiwork is a case in point.
The White House gives CNN the FOX treatment according to Don Surber.
… Meanwhile, Jay Leno did a joke off an item in the book: “They said this one blonde was especially suggestive and kept rubbing up against the president. Finally, Michelle said, ‘Look, Chris Matthews, get away from my husband’.” …