The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Because I’m Stupid, You See

Posted on | February 7, 2011 | 31 Comments

At what point did youngsters decide that their elders needed history lectures? This is not a moot question, for I find myself being lectured by Conor Friedersdorf:

What’s actually gone on in the United States since the year 2000? For almost eight years, the Bush Administration managed to keep the support of its base, despite pursuing all manner of idiotic policies. And they did so in large part by relying on sycophantic propagandists. Rush Limbaugh himself admitted to carrying water for Republicans during that era despite thinking they were taking the country in the wrong direction. And many pundits, especially on Fox News, behaved even worse. . . .

Friedersdorf then goes on to talk about how “Bill Buckley and George Will helped Ronald Reagan win the presidency” at a time when “The New York Times and the network news ruled the media, and Rush Limbaugh was working as director of promotions for the Kansas City Royals.”

Right. And all this time, Conor Friedersdorf was actively engaged in advancing the conservative cause. He has spent his entire life with his finger on the pulse of the body politic, and is thereby qualified to lecture us about What It Really Means.

Perhaps, as he makes reference to the year 2000, Friedersdorf would care to know what I was doing that year.

Oct. 4, 2000

With ‘no clear winner,’ ‘tie goes to challenger’
By Robert Stacy McCain
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
   George W.  Bush may not have won last night’s presidential debate, but he won a clear victory in the first round of post-debate media spin.
   ”The tie goes to the challenger,” CNN analyst Bill Schneider said, just minutes after the Texas governor concluded his Boston debate with Vice President Al Gore.
   Mr.  Bush “held his own against Al Gore,” said Mr.  Schneider.  “A tight race just got tighter.”
   On ABC, Cokie Roberts declared that Mr.  Bush “said the right things” on the education issue to sway undecided voters, while Sam Donaldson wondered aloud if Mr.  Gore acted like a “bully” in the debate.
   Mr.  Gore’s “demeanor” during the debate seemed “arrogant and abrasive,” an undecided female voter in a Florida focus group told ABC, saying she was “leaning toward Bush” after watching the event.
   On CNN, commentator Robert Novak suggested the vice president’s “giggling and laughing” during the debate might not play well with voters.
   ABC’s Chris Bury reported on “Nightline” that the two candidates sparred on specific issues with “no clear winner emerging.”
   Mr.  Bush produced what was clearly the media’s favorite sound bite, with his charge that Mr.  Gore used “fuzzy math” getting replayed on all the late news broadcasts.
   CNN analyst Jeff Greenfield said “the atmosphere” of the debate “helped Bush,” who “was conversational . . . communicating in language voters can pick up.”
   So-called “flash polls” on both CNN and ABC showed a slight advantage for Mr. Gore – although more voters in the ABC poll indicated the debate had given them a more favorable view of Mr.  Bush.
   Later, while Mr.  Greenfield and Mr.  Schneider both said the vice president “scored more points” in the debate, they agreed Mr.  Bush actually gained more last night.
   ”Bush got a bigger boost,” Mr.  Schneider said, while Mr.  Greenfield said the debate was “not a bad showing for Bush.”
   CNN reporter Candy Crowley remarked that early in the debate “we were in danger of getting hit by flying numbers,” and said that because both candidates “held their own . . . that has to favor Bush.”
   What did voters think?
   ”I was very surprised that Bush is doing much better than I expected him to do,” Chris Tate, a 35-year-old mother of four in Brandon, Fla., told the Associated Press.  “I was a little surprised at Gore’s lack of coolness at
certain points.”
   ”I think Gore always has to get the last word,” Salt Lake City voter Kim Higginson told the AP.  “I think it’s annoying, because I don’t like him.”
   Both candidates got plenty of free — and unsolicited — advice going into the debate.
   Media pundits and commentators filled television screens with talking-head appearances on network news programs, offering help — and hype.
   ”Anticipation is building for the first showdown of the fall campaign,” announced CNN’s Judy Woodruff as she opened a special edition of the cable network’s “Inside Politics.”
   It was a “critical night,” Dan Rather declared on CBS, while ABC’s Peter Jennings admitted he could “hardly wait for it to begin.”
   ”Why is this so important?  Why are the stakes so high?” Mr.  Jennings asked, leading into a feature about undecided voters, who he said are “enormously important” in “crucial battleground states.”
   The debate was the sole topic of discussion yesterday on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” where Mrs.  Woodruff’s questions to one Gore adviser were filled with suggestions for the Democrat.
   ”What Gore really needs to do is prove he has a heart . . . a human side,” Mrs.  Woodruff told Tad Devine, a senior campaign adviser to Mr. Gore.  The CNN anchorwoman said the vice president “has to be careful not to come on too aggressively.”
   Fears of an overly aggressive Mr.  Gore were also aired by CBS correspondent John Roberts, who warned that the vice president “must be careful not to appear the bully.”

* * * * *

 Dec. 8, 2000:

Jane Fonda a big donor to Gore’s recount bid
By Robert Stacy McCain
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
   Actress Jane Fonda is the most famous of the wealthy donors who gave at least $100,000 to fund Democrat Al Gore’s monthlong contest of the presidential election in Florida.
   Internet billionaire Steven T.  Kirsch was the largest donor to the Gore/Lieberman Recount Committee, according to Internal Revenue Service filings made public yesterday.
   Mr.  Kirsch, who founded search engine Web site Infoseek.com, gave $500,000 to bankroll Mr.  Gore’s $3.3 million effort to overturn Republican George W. Bush’s certified victory in Florida.
   Like most of the major donors to the fund, Mr.  Kirsch is a frequent contributor to liberal causes.
   Mr.  Kirsch was also among the donors to Campaign for a Progressive Future, which sponsored telephone calls to voters during Virginia’s Senate campaign that blamed former Republican Gov.  George F.  Allen for “gun violence” in the state.
   Miss Fonda, estranged wife of cable television mogul Ted Turner, made headlines earlier this year when it was reported that she had given $11.5 million to fund an abortion-rights political group called Pro Choice Vote.
   Like the Gore/Lieberman Recount Committee, Pro Choice Vote was organized under Section 527 of the IRS code.
   Other notable donors to the recount fund included:
   * Hollywood screenwriter Stephen L.  Bing, who gave $200,000. He also gave $1 million to the Democratic National Convention’s host committee last summer.
   * Tennessee real-estate developer Franklin Haney, who gave $100,000. Mr. Haney was involved in a Washington real-estate venture called Portals that was the focus of a 1998 House Commerce Committee investigation.
   * Philadelphia investment-banking heir Peter Buttenwieser, who gave $50,000. Mr.  Buttenwieser has contributed more than $6 million to Democrats since 1991.
   * Smith Bagley, heir to the R.J.  Reynolds tobacco fortune, who gave $25,000.
   * Daniel Abraham, developer of Slim-Fast diet foods, who gave $100,000. Mr. Abraham also contributed $1.1 million to Democratic campaigns during the 2000 election season.
   * Sen.-elect Jon S.  Corzine, New Jersey Democrat, who gave $25,000.
   * Democratic strategist James Carville, who gave $1,000.

* * * * *

Just a couple of samples, you see, to demonstrate that I was covering major national political news in 2000 — as a 41-year-old married father of four, my wife then pregnant with son Emerson, now 10 — back when Conor Friedersdorf was still playing grabass with college girls.

Or boys. Doesn’t matter. The point is, I don’t need any lectures about what has happened in American politics the past 10 years, and I sure as hell don’t need some arrogant punk to tell me about what happened in 1979.

Where the hell was Conor in 1979?

On more than one occasion I’ve remarked how an entire generation of young people have had their minds warped by political discourse of the past dozen or so years. From the Lewinsky scandal to the impeachment fight to the 2000 Florida recount to 9/11 to Iraq and so on up until 2008, our nation’s political battles were fought over terrain that had very little to do with the core question of limited government and economic liberty. Instead, it was “Are you for or against blowjobs?” or “Are you for or against kicking Saddam’s ass?”

Very interesting questions, but hardly the sort of propositions that, when debated endlessly in public, are very helpful to a young person’s understanding of the basic differences between conservatism and liberalism. So it is that many Gen Xers and Millennials became profoundly confused about politics.

With the cultural guidance provided by portrayals of George Bush on Saturday Night Live and the snarktastic commentary of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, however, these young people did pick up a clear message: Conservatives are clueless and uncool.

Young people were indoctrinated with that prejudice, and therefore the mere fact that someone hosts a talk-radio program or appears regularly on Fox News is to them proof that this person must be an idiot. And if you don’t join them in their sneering contempt — if you view Rush Limbaugh as anything other than the punchline of a joke — then you must be an idiot, too. This, then, is the sophisticated and enlightened attitude that Friedersdorf conveys.

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”
– William F. Buckley Jr., Up From Liberalism (1959)

Keep it up, Conor. Maybe Arianna will give you some of that $300 million to mow her lawn. And maybe she’ll let you lecture her about “what has actually gone on” the past 10 years.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl has theories about what motivates Friedersdorf, but who needs theories?

Show me where Conor Friedersdorf has ever attacked any liberal the way he attacks Beck, Limbaugh, Levin, etc. You can’t.

To borrow a phrase I once applied to Rod Dreher, Friedersdorf is engaged in the Eternal Quest for Some Other Conservatism: The conservative movement that actually exists, the conservatism that is engaged in meaningful political battles against its natural enemy liberalism, is always too crude, too narrow, too low-brow for these people.

So they go off on a quixotic crusade and return to declare that they have found the Holy Grail of a truly conservative philosophy. Strangely enough, these apostles of Some Other Conservatism can never be bothered to criticize liberals, or to offer an argument that might help defeat the latest Democratic Party policy proposal. No, instead the enlightment bestowed up them by Some Other Conservatism always leads these people to rip into very prominent and successful people — whom the enlightened decry as faux conservatives – who are actually engaged in daily combat against liberals.

When you point out these obtrusive facts, however, they will tell you that it just goes to show how close-minded you are.

Lather, rinse, repeat.


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Category: Conservatism 101, History

Comments

  • http://thatmrgguy.wordpress.com/ Mike

    Now that’s what I would call…”tearing him a new one!” Good job Mr. McCain.

  • Anonymous

    These punks think the world began the day they were born and that everything prior to that date is some sort of fairy-tale fable that they can construe however they wish.

    Notice that Conor Friedersdorf never does anything like straight-up political reporting. No, it’s always, “Let me tell you What It Really Means,” because we’re all too stupid to figure it out for ourselves.

  • The Osprey

    Who the f*** is Conor Frittersdork, and why am I always confusing him with Barrette Brown?

  • Anonymous

    They’re about the same age and attitude. Brown actually has a sense of humor, so that’s how to tell them apart.

  • kansas

    Who is Barret Brown, or Conor Fearsdick?

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    Conor (with one ‘n’) knows a thing or two about being a sycophant filling in for excitable Andi over at the Daily Dish..

  • Anonymous

    Do they write in this country?

  • The Wondering Jew

    Purge, purge, purge. We *do* need a purge of conservatism. From the Friedsersdorfs, The Kristols and all of the others who care more about elite liberal opinion than they do about battling liberalism. They are not going to show mercy to us. We should show none to them.

  • http://twitter.com/theoriginalCL Michael Todd

    I’m older than Friedersdorf. I was cold-calling for Republican candidates while he was still in diapers. I went VIP to the Bush/Clinton debate in Lansing. Attend Tea Parties. In other words, I haven’t been sitting around on the sidelines.

    The conservative movement has changed a lot in my lifetime. A lot. I don’t even recognize it today from what it was 10 years ago. It’s not Beck, Levin, or Limbaugh anymore than it is SNL, John Stewart, or Colbert though.

    Bush/Cheney governed like LBJ and FDR. Hardcore progressives. Nevermind their rhetoric. Look at the legislation. Yet, support among the base for these 2 bozos was at a fevered pitch. Heck, 2 years later, and conservatives till support these Big Government nutjobs. “Miss me yet?”

    The Tea Party shows promise, but we have to get serious about what limited government means, and drop the idea of political “heroes” and “leaders” that got us into this mess along the way.

    Gen Xers and Millennials more than anything, became disillusioned by the fact that conservative rhetoric about limited government doesn’t match up with the track records of the politicians they support. I certainly haven’t seen government shrink during my lifetime. And right there’s the problem … Movement rhetoric isn’t backed-up by the politicians they support. So of course the younger generations shy away. Who can blame them?

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/6LBOTTXLWWGPKRINIBFFLAAQEM Reckless

    I had some liberal punk last week tell me that the recession in the 70s was really six months in 1973! What a moron! I was there and I remember quite well the long lines for a few gallons of gas at incredibly high prices. I remember the food shortages. I remember quite well that the worst years were the Carter years. But these johnny-come-lately kids think they can re-write history. Idiots.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chuck-Coffer/1296650908 Chuck Coffer

    Blame the industry of assholes that has been lying to them their entire lives. I’m just glad I was born in the sixties.

  • Ran / Si Vis Pacem

    “For almost eight years, the Bush Administration managed to keep the support of its base, despite pursuing all manner of idiotic policies.” What colossal Bravo Sierra. There was a constant drain culminating in the Teleprompter Messiah. Is F! not aware that the Tea phenomenon actually have it’s origin during the Bush years? Was he not alive during the debacle of 2006? Did Wee Conor not clue-in that Limbaugh was responding to the drift away from Bush, not leading it? Was he not aware of the criticisms coming from Hannity, Levin, Beck and others? As far as sycophantic propaganda is concerned, it was these very people who, on the Right, were most vocal against the errors of Bush’s “compassionate” “conservatism.”

    Bush didn’t “manage” to hold onto much at all – leaving zero political capital to transfer to your grumpy cousin.

    The Tea phenomenon is as much a reaction to New Age of Obama as a mea culpa for the Error of Bush. It is a counter-reaction to the failures of lightweights such as Rove and Dave Frum and David Brooks who have insisted that the Era of Reagan was o-ver.

  • Theunmccain

    Woah, Stacy! A little resentful and sensitive maybe?

    You sound just like Jonah Goldberg at his whiniest. For whatever reason, both of you feel you were greviously wounded by others and obviously carry deep highly personal resentments about real or imagined slights. Both of you, while talented in your own ways, seem to have astounding insecurities and inferiority complexes, and you just can’t keep them in check . . . not to mention having enormous chips on your shoulders.

    On the merits, Conor whips your butt. If you want to line up with Beck, have at it, but he’s right. But we know, everyone else is wrong and only Stacy sees the truth, so it’s futile to argue with you. . .

    Finally, the two writing samples you cite to show how long you’ve toiled in the conservative vineyards were pretty revealing if that’s the best you’ve got. The Jane Fonda et. al. piece was pretty standard fare for the time (unlike Conor, I’m older than you and remember that period well). Maybe you’re going to argue that you were the first to write about Gore’s recount funders, but I doubt it. Even if you did, the article reads like you’re cribbing from some disclosure document.

    But the article about the Bush/Gore debate is a real gem! Mr. MSM-Couldn’t-Find-It’s-A****le-With-A-Flashlight media critic writes an entire piece for the anti-MSM Washington Times draws ENTIRELY on MSM sources, even using a supporting quote from Dan Friggin’ Rather!

    Seems to me that the 2011 Stacy would be tearing the circa 2000 Stacy a new one for relying on nothing but conventional sources and writing a purely derivitave thumbsucker. But then again, today’s Stacy may use different sources, but they’re no more original.

    And you get worked up over Conor’s obviously sincere — if somewhat niave — efforts to make sense of what’s happening on the conservative end of the field?

  • http://twitter.com/LeatherPenguin TC Lynch

    Conor reminds me of this punk PoliSci 101 TA I encountered back in 1989, when for some godforsaken reason I decided I “needed some schooling” and enrolled at a CUNY campus after a dozen years on Wall Street. First day, first words out of that clown’s mouth: “You all know Ronald Reagan was a liberal, right?” The class all chuckled, and from my seat in the back I bark, “Yeah, the first one who didn’t suck the Soviet cock.”

  • http://twitter.com/JSF1970 Joseph Fein

    Which Republican candidates has Conor walked for/Called voters for? If none, he has no right to define the Conservative movement.

    However, he continues to remain silent on his mentor’s attacks on Palin’s family and his mentor’s hatred of Israel and Jews. His silence means he supports both of these things.

    When Conor actually helps a local candidate, then he can question Rush or Levin’s motives. But untuil he chastises his mentor, Conor would do real good to eat a bowl of STFU.

  • Theunmccain

    Wombo/Kevin:
    You really should watch your sugar.

    My “long-form ranting” isn’t any longer than many I see here, except for my not being part of the amen corner you and Stacy seem intent on maintaining.

    I do thank you for not pointing out for once that I’m spelling-challenged when dashing off a comment in this tiny little disqus box.

  • http://rightnetwork.com Van der Leun

    Someone should tell Friedersdorf to lay off the auto-fellatio when attempting to write.

  • http://rightnetwork.com Van der Leun

    I mean doesn’t persuade anyone and only entertains his master.

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  • Anonymous

    Michael, riddle me this: who passes legislation? It isn’t the President. GWB and Ronald Reagan had this in common: both lacked a conservative supermajority in the Congress, and had a pressing foreign policy issue they couldn’t prosecute single-handedly. Thus Reagan and GWB had to bribe the Copperheads into letting them defend the country against foreign enemies. Reagan had to give in to more domestic spending. DHS wasn’t Bush’s idea, for example. Copperheads insisted on creating this new bureaucracy as the price for responding to 9/11.

    Unless we are prepared to a) elect more conservatives to Congress or b) have the President govern by fiat, there’s not much he can do.

  • Anonymous

    This is why I maintain that it is crucial to finish correcting the House and Senate. Electing a new Ronald Reagan wont lead us out of the quagmire if we don’t get the legislature’s mind right.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Has Friedersdorf ever written anything, taken any position that could be described as “mainstream conservative thinking” without caveats or reservations?

    I know he’s had a few articles published around, but weren’t his main blog outlets The Daily Beast and Sully’s Soapdish? It seems his main function as a “conservative” is to blast other conservatives, setting them up for the inevitable, “See how extreme they are? Why, even a real conservative like Conor admits it!” from his lefty buddies.

  • K~Bob

    Hmmm. Looks like one of our commenters believes the New Media was strong back in 2000. One of the too-young-to-remember defends CF by being too-young-to-remember. FAIL.

    Now Stacy, I have no clue who CF is or what he writes, other than what I read in these digital pages. But “Conservatism” is always under the glass. As it damn well should. It didn’t start with Burke anymore than science started with Aristotle. It will get a pounding as long as there are Libertarians (and libertarian-minded conservatives), Evangelicals, fiscal hawks, Neocons, and others. So I don’t give a rat’s nails if CF is engaged in some eternal quest or not. Conservatism had better be able to stand as an idea, regardless of who presumes to dislodge it. The day the “right” accepts it as dogma would probably be very bad for conservatism as an idea.

    So I’d rather see a fisking of CF’s proposed replacement, and not a criticism of him for questioning the concept. I know time is limiting, but that’s not a convincing argument; especially since I know you have done extensive reading on Conservatism as a philosophy.

    Of course, you won’t see me do it, since I have less time than you! I suppose I’ll have to hit the tip jar.

  • Vile Christianist

    really i’d take Friedersdorf-type “I’m a conservative BUT” writers more seriously if they just said “yeah, this is a liberal position, but i happen to agree with it and think the GOP should adopt it” and left it at that. instead everything has to be about how X liberal policy has secret conservative effects, and the so-called “conservatives” against it are really racists/reactionaries or whatnot.

    that Some Other Conservatism really gets to the heart of it. if it was just “hi my name is Conor Friedersdorf and i hold some conservative and liberal positions” then fine. instead it’s always about how such-and-such position is the “true conservative” position and conservatism’s redefined into some generic personality trait (i.e. Obama’s policies are liberal but he’s “tempermentally conservative,” as if that fixes everything) that Sullivan & co. can bend around whatever policies they personally like. the arrogance of it all is pretty gobsmacking if i do say so myself

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Obviously, Theunmccain has a problem understanding gonzo humor. I’m not surprised since, for him, the height of debating is to call someone ‘Bevelhead’.

    Three cheers for Wombat!

  • Trogrle

    Stacy gets touchy about a young blogger he disagrees with. Maybe he is getting cranky too. Also.

  • Trogle

    And for your ilk, the height of debating is to call the opponent a ‘troll’!

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    I know you are but what am I?!?

    Good Morning, unmccain.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    I have an ilk! I have an ilk!

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    I feel no more compelled to respond to every flaky fake like Friedersdorf than I, when driving in the countryside and spying a jackass, feel the need to get out of the car and bray.

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