The Other McCain

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

20 August 2012: ‘Prime Minister’ Obama Should Pay Attention To Detail

Posted on | August 24, 2012 | 6 Comments

by Smitty  (via KSDK)

For context, there was the ‘Dishonorable Disclosures‘ video, where a cadre of non-active Spec Ops folks called out the administration for politicizing and jeopardizing warfighters in the effort to capitalize on the demise of bin Laden. The video has north of 3 million hits on YouTube. One might say a nerve has been struck.

And so #OccupyResoluteDesk further beclowned himself in St. Louis:


Emphasis mine below:

Washington (CNN) – President Obama says he’s not worried about the impact of a film and ad campaign produced by a group of retired Special Ops soldiers.
The 22-minute-long film is called “Dishonorable Disclosures.”
It criticizes the Obama administration for releasing too many details about last year’s Osama bin Laden raid and killing.
The president says, when watching a film like this, viewers should consider the source.
“I won’t take this film to seriously, I gather that one of the producers is a birther who still doesn’t think I was born in this country. You got ah, one who was a Republican candidate for office and a proud card carrying member of the Tea Party. So ah, yeah this is obviously a partisan film. I’d advise that you talk to General McRaven who is in charge of our Special Ops. I think he has a point of view in terms of how deeply I care about what these folks do each and every day to protect our freedom,” said Obama.
President Obama has regularly cited the killing of bin Laden as a campaign promise he fulfilled, and the head of special operations, Admiral William McRaven, recently said Mister Obama deserved credit.
The Op Sec Education Fund raised about a million dollars to produce the film.

It really is a bad thing, ‘Senator’ Obama, when you underscore the criticism of you as being inept, disconnected, and contemptuous of the corps of men and women who serve this country. Especially when you’ve been touted as some kind of a superior intellect, ‘Judge’.

via Riehl World News

Category: Barack Obama

Tampa, Here I Come

Posted on | August 24, 2012 | 67 Comments

Driving to Tampa today, after a restless night haunted by the helpless feeling tbat we are doomed beyond all hope of redemption.

Todd Akin had the chance to do the right thing Tuesday, and selfishly refused. Now, with the encouragement and support of Mike Huckabee, Akin is digging deeper the grave in which the Democrat-Media Complex are planning to bury the Republican Party.

The problem is not merely that Claire McCaskill is cackling with glee — suddenly leading by 10 points in Missouri — over the Senate seat that Akin foolishly fumbled away. Rather, Akin will now become the most famous name at the Republican National Convention:

The Republicans’ convention messaging will be thrown off, Baker said, “If Joe Biden goes to Tampa and says, ‘Where’s Todd Akin?’”

Todd Akin has made himself the Willie Horton of 2012.

All the work every Republican has done this year, every dollar the Republican Party has raised, will be wasted because of one selfish fool.

This is what I see — the Neutral Objective Facts of the situation — and I can’t shake it. Friends have tried to console me. They’ve told me that my overwhelming sense of despair is irrational.

“Look at the polls!” they say. “Good news!”

OK, fine: I know nothing about politics. All my years of experience and observation count for nothing, and so my gut-hunch is not to be trusted.

Never mind. I’ll drive to Tampa with Ali Akbar. I will spend the next several days listening to Republicans describing their plans for victory, and I will try to recover some sense of hope.

Maybe something will happen to change the trajectory.

Maybe Todd Akin will make the mistake of attending the convention in Tampa and accidentally bump into Mitt Romney, who will then attempt to strangle Akin with his bare hands. Mitt will be booked into the Hillsborough County Jail, while the convention will be thrown into confusion. The delegates will make Paul Ryan their presidential nominee, with Marco Rubio as his running mate. This shocking turn of events will create a surge of momentum the GOP will ride to victory Nov. 6.

OK, that probably won’t happen, but it could happen — and it’s a scenario at least as realistic as Todd Akin getting elected to the Senate.

Don’t try to talk me out of a dark mood like this. That just makes it worse, increasing my sense of emotional isolation.

There’s only one known cure: Hit the freaking tip jar.

 





Category: Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption, Election 2012, Fear and Loathing at the Republican National Convention

Bouie In: ‘Off-Beat Tales Of Racism And The Master Baiter; Wax On, Wax Oft’

Posted on | August 24, 2012 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Via Jim Treacher’s Twitter feed, we have Jamelle Bouie Racism Plays a Big Part in our Politics. Period. This piece is so wretched that I won’t link it directly; you’ll have to swing through Google. And why might that be? Let me help: the Raaaaacism Industrial Complex (RIC) derives too much power from the status quo, that’s why. This is not to say that there wasn’t:

  • A massive historical example of racism known as slavery.
  • A 1787 Constitution that horribly enshrined the evil of slavery.
  • A bloody Civil War fought to correct the injustice of slavery.
  • A Civil Rights movement, led by Republicans like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., leading to a Civil Rights Act championed by Republicans like Donald Rumsfeld.

Now, I’m not going to contend that you can’t find some Nazi-tattooed jackwagon in a compound somewhere ranting on about our precious bodily fluids. But the RIC is so far out there, I would be unsurprised to discover that the RIC supports the neo-AZI swine. Because if integrity is just another abstraction, anything is possible. However, as a veteran who has served with the entire rainbow spectrum of Americans, across the country and around the world, I’d like to share six letters:

ENOUGH

A sampling of Racism Plays a Big Part in our Politics. Period.:

Bouie Smitty
The power and symbolism of Obama’s election is compromised by the extent to which his presidency has been shaped by white expectations and white racism. Obama can’t show anger, he can’t propose policies tailored to African Americans and he can’t talk about race. In other words, he can’t remind white Americans that their president is a black man as much as anything else. On what basis, other than your pointed finger, do you base ‘white racism’? Are Thomas Sowell and Allen West racists? Both have criticized BHO. But if Obama had the wisdom of the former and the raw American courage of the latter, Barack would be giving any comer the Mondale treatment in November. Barack probably also wouldn’t govern like a miserable Commie.
Barack can show all the anger he wants, if he first puts forward something like an adult idea. When budget proposals earn zero (0) votes in Congress, one is tempted to question: should budgets be written in the political equivalent of crayon? (Aside: is Jim Clyburn a racist for failing to support BHO?)
Barack needs to convince Americans he is a sober adult. Then we can throw on some Ray Charles, or whatever, with the fellow.
At the risk of sounding cynical, I expect that Coates will inspire howls of unfairness from the Right. It’s almost forbidden to discuss the role racism has played in shaping opposition to Obama. Conservatives dismiss such concerns as “playing the race card”—and use it as an opportunity to accuse liberals of racism—while more neutral commentators note that Bill Clinton also faced a rabid conservative opposition. But as Coates points out, no one called Clinton a “food stamp president” or attacked his health care plan as “reparations.” Local lawmakers didn’t circulate racist jokes about the former Arkansas governor, and right-wing provocateurs didn’t accuse Clinton of fomenting an anti-white race war. I am not howling that this piece is ‘unfair’. Fa(ir|re) is what you pay to ride a bus; and no amount of racist Affirmative Action is going to create enough racial feng shui to retire the Racism Industrial Complex.
Indeed, it is a fantastic thing that this tired trope’s trotted out. So that the false charge of racism can be crushed.
The unrepentant Bill Clinton faces opposition from honorable men who cannot abide philandering scum. When Bill brings forth fruit meet for repentance, he’ll merit being given the time of day.
Clinton may not have been called a “food stamp president” because his welfare reform was one aspect of his administration that did not involve suction. Obama, however, blows that.
And fomenting a race war? How about we ask George Zimmerman just who is fomenting what, m’kay? Jamelle, you’re either obliviously ignorant, or a hack’s hack, and a tool for hacking forth more hacks from the hack stash, if you refuse to recognize what this administration has done in its effort to squeeze another swipe from the race card.

You can track down the source and read the entire, despicable thing if you want. I’ve got enough. . .matter stuck to my shoe for the nonce. As a palate cleanser, here is that chestnut from, of all people, Jon Stewart:

Here me, you Lefty jackwagons: false claims of racism have the merit of an Elizabeth Warren genealogy claim. Bring forward a specific case of purely DNA-based decision making (i.e. racism) and I’ll cheerfully call it like it is. By the same token: Stuff. Your. False. Generalizations. I’m calling out dishonest arguments wherever, whenever I see them.

The good nature of honest Americans has been thoroughly abused by academics and politicians in the RIC. But the Jamelle Bouies of the world have cried wolf too many times: Blitzer has reached the saturation point, CNN’s ratings are parked in the toilet, and sincere Americans are pushing back against the lies of the RIC.

By the way, Jamelle: you’re not a bad writer, style-wise. Now, please quit perverting your talent with this RIC filth. Let me double down: come on down to CPAC 2013 for some Road to Damascus action. Find out what conservatives are really about. Meet some genuinely great women and men like Alfonzo Rachel:
The only loser here is the Raaaaacism Industrial Complex. If you hate racism, take time to grab another paragraph from Jamelle’s lame exercise in finger pointing, laugh at it, and send me the link. Racism and the RIC have got to go.

Update: great follow-up post at The Camp of the Saints.

Update II: thanks, Hogewash!

Category: Barack Obama, Racism

LIVE AT FIVESIX: 08.24.12

Posted on | August 24, 2012 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Mitt Romney Prepares For The Hard Sell

Mitt Romney

Reveals more of his personal side, but not interested in becoming celebrity

Prosecutors: Aurora Shooter Angry Over Poor Performance
DA demands school records



Assad’s Backers In Aleppo Defect To Rebels
Support, cash now flowing to al-Tawheed Brigades



POLITICS
Protesters Begin To Arrive In Tampa For GOP Convention

Tropical Storm Isaac

Officials say up to 15,000 protesters expected despite possibility of storm

Missouri Conservatives Rally To Akin, Blast GOP Establishment




Former Ambassador Ryan Crocker Busted For DUI

Ex-SEAL In Legal Jeopardy Over Obama Raid Book

ICE Agents Sue To Stop Obama’s Non-Deportation Orders

Ryan Speaks Out Against Defense Cuts

Gallup/USA Today Poll: Americans Souring On Presidential Candidates, Parties

Romney: Bernanke Is Finished As Fed Chairman



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Falls On Doubts About US Growth: NYMEX $95.64, Brent $114.55
Euro Falls For First Time In Five Days As Samaras Prepares To Meet Germans, French
Weekly Jobless Claims Unexpectedly (sic!) Rise
Dow Falls For Fourth Day As Traders Watch Fed
Asian Markets Fall On Weak Economic Data From Pretty Much Everywhere
HP Posts $9 Billion Quarterly Loss
Fed Earns $17.7 Billion Profit On AIG Bailout As Last Assets Sold
ROK Court Holds Apple, Samsung Guilty Of Mutual Patent Violations, Awards Token Damages, Bans Sales Of Offending Products
Microsoft’s Logo Gets A Makeover
Consumer Watchdog Wants FCC To Police 4G Marketing
Amazon Set To Introduce New Kindles At September 6 Event
Almost half Of Consumers Uninterested in 4G
Dish Network Sued By FTC Over Do Not Call Violations



SPORTS
Red Sox Lose Wild Slugfest To Angels

Alfredo Aceves stares in disbelief as Morales belts another homer

After shameful lack of attendance at Pesky’s funeral, Red Sox beaten by Angels 14-13

Lance Armstrong Refuses To Participate In “Witch Hunt”; To Be Stripped Of Tour De France Titles & Banned For Life

Zito, Giants Roll To Fourth Straight Win, Beat Braves 5-2

A’s Ross Sent Down After Shaky Start, 5-0 Loss Against Rays

Phillies Offense Comes Alive Late, Saves Leaky Defense In 4-3 Win Over Reds

The Cup Is Ours: A Manifesto

Tigers Slip Past Jays In 11th

Diamond, Gardenhire Ejected, Twins Lose To Rangers 10-6



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Katy Perry, John Mayer Split

Katy Perry & some sleazy musician type

Guess it wasn’t a real connection after all

Britney Tells Judge She’s Ready For End To Conservatorship

Sheepish Prince Hal Meets With Queen, Prince Charles After Naked Photo Flap

First Look At The “Carrie” Remake



Kathie Lee Confirms It: Taylor Swift Crashed The Wedding

Madonna Forgives Elton John – Or Does She?

Everyone Is Making Up Lies About Lindsay Lohan. Again.

Not Only Did He Get Beaten Down By A Rapper, He’s Facing Life In Prison



FOREIGNERS
Environmentalist Wackos Storm Russian Arctic Oil Rig
Norwegian Mass Murderer Found Sane, Sent To Jail
Politician Hijacks Miners’ Funeral, Accuses South African Government Of Complicity In Their Deaths
Nationalism Fuels Senkaku Island Dispute Between Japan, PRC
Indian Opposition Sticks To Demand For PM Singh’s Resignation, Parliament Adjourned
Japan Turns Up Heat In ROK Row – Debt Plan, Forex Deal On The Line
Syrian Civil War Loosening Ties Between Damascus, Beirut
Hong Kong Activists Combine Pro-China, Anti-Beijing Stances
US Discussing More BMD In Asia, Says It’s Against Nork Threat
Egyptians Unimpressed By Threatened US Aid Cuts



BLOGS & STUFF
Power Line: Huckabee Doubles Down On Akin
Gateway Pundit: Akin Trails McCaskill By Ten Points
Betsy Woodruff: Reid’s Glass House
Kevin Williamson: Gawker, Bain, And The Caymans
Lance Armstrong: “Enough Is Enough”
Micheal Brown: An Open Letter To Mark Potok
Riehl World News: Romney Calls For Giving States Control Over Drilling On Federal Lands
Ulsterman Report: How Romney Used Obama’s Own Ad Campaign To Win Voters
Allahpundit: Fox Poll Of Likely Voters – Romney 45/Obama 44
Belmont Club: Where No Man Has Gone Before
Shark Tank: Wasserman-Schultz Called Out As Extremist
Legal Insurrection: Democrats Would Rather Be Seen As Celebrating Death Than Talk About The Economy
Andrew Malcolm: Barack Obama Actually Said This

Category: Live at Five

Sean Bielat: On A MA-4 Mission

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

Sean Bielat is running for the Republican nomination for Congress for the 4th District in Massachusetts and will be running against Joe Kennedy III, who, other than looking like he fell out of an LL Bean catalog, has precious little to recommend him.

Bielat ran an insurgent campaign in 2010 against the risible Barney Frank, who, faced with a serious challenge, had his stuff packed, and retired.
Sean campaigns on three major points:

  • The economy
  • Fiscal responsibility
  • The role of government

He backs up his arguments with significant private sector and academic credentials. In other words, he’s not running on his last name, as though from some ersatz noble family with a hereditary claim to public office. JoeK has exhibited reclusive tendencies thus far, communicating at scripted media events,  or though his communications director. Perhaps this is because he has an enviable war chest.

Bielat’s latest campaign video:

Highlights from a 23 August blogger conference call:

Thoughts on the Paul Ryan plan:
It is a fantastic tool for focusing debate. It triggered a firestorm of criticism, followed by a vacuum. Oddly, there has been no opposing plan. The plan is in its third iteration. Overall, Sean likes the thrust of Ryan’s effort, overall.

The prospect of debates, after the GOP primary on 06 September:
Joe Kennedy doesn’t appear eager to engage. One student-led debate has apparently been accepted by the Kennedy campaign. But Joe is no fan of unscripted appearances.

With respect to the 2010 gerrymandering, how did the newly-formed MA-4 district break for McCain in 2008?
The district did really well against the Mass. average for John McCain.

Elizabeth Warren has tried to tie Scott Brown to Todd Akin. Has there been any tricke-down?
Social issues are a largely a distraction from economic issues. Maybe 3 towns in the district raise social issue questions, and those are in the north end. The Scott Brown campaign will not be doing endorsements until later, post primary.

What drives you, Sean?
Sean got into politics in 2010. He looked around, and saw no on running against Barney Frank. He thought he could do better. He thought he could focus on core economic issues, a Constitutional view of government restraint. He wants a better future for his two children. He does not want to see the U.S. become Greece. He’s not a careerist, and is willing to take the tough votes and the consequences.

Sean Bielat for Congress

Mass. needs another Kennedy victory about as badly as a lift from Joe.

Update: Ace of Spades had Slublog on the call, as well.

Update II: I guess Soopermexican didn’t buy off on my LL Bean gag.

Update III: Linked at Da Tech Guy’s place. When’s the interview, Pete?

Category: Massachusetts, Sean Bielat

We Are Once Again Reminded Why You Can’t Spell ‘Huckabee’ Without an ‘F’

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 37 Comments

Going back to 2007, at least, I’ve borne a grudge against Mike Huckabee. When the “Fredhead” phenomenon collapsed — when Fred Thompson proved to be a far weaker presidential candidate than we had hoped — the question became, “Who can stop John McCain?”

No conservative wanted McCain to get the nomination, but Republicans were horribly confused and divided in their search for an alternative.

Some people wanted Rudy Giuliani, but anyone with a lick of common sense could see that Rudy’s pro-choice position made him unacceptable: You can’t beat a “Maverick” with a liberal warhawk, OK? Mitt Romney thus became the consensus alternative — except for the Hucktards, who ruined everything and made possible McCain’s nomination.

Ann Coulter summed up the problem: Mike Huckabee is a pro-life Democrat. Whatever his merits as a Baptist preacher, or even a Fox News host, Huckabee is a wretched excuse for a Republican politician.

His presidential campaign organization included some of the least competent staffers ever employed in American politics. Ask anyone who worked on GOP campaigns in the 2010 cycle: Huck’s endorsement was quite nearly worthless, and the involvement of former Huckabee staffers was usually an omen of impending doom.

Are we in the least bit surprised to see the shadow of this familiar Arkansas albatross circling a certain doomstruck Missouri Republican?

Mike Huckabee: I’m All-In For
This Great Candidate Akin, and
If You’re Not, You’re a RINO

Dear God, why have you done this to us? What dreaded sin has America committed that you would have inflicted this damned fool on us? Why now, at such a crucial moment in our history? I’m driving to Tampa tomorrow. We’ll let Deroy Murdock have the last word for now:

Does Akin want to be the man whom history will recall as guaranteeing McCaskill’s reelection, possibly keeping the U.S. Senate in the hands of hardened liberal Democrat, Harry Reid?
Does Akin hope to be known in perpetuity as the cause of Barack Obama’s reelection, notwithstanding the multifarious merits of the Romney-Ryan ticket?

UPDATE: Allahpundit:

Now here comes the “social conservatives vs. RINO moderates” pitch. From the man who endorsed David Dewhurst in Texas.

See what I mean? Huckabee has an uncanny instinct for backing losers. It’s not a matter of ideology or grassroots, it’s just bad political judgment, and I share Allahpundit’s sense of exasperation:

Why are heavy hitters like [Tony Perkins] and Huckabee ready to fight and die on Magic Uterus Hill when there’s overwhelming bipartisan disgust at Akin for what he said?

My answer: Because we have been cursed by God, that’s why. The Almighty has determined to destroy America, Todd Akin is the weapon by which he means to accomplish this destruction, and Perkins and Huckabee are just following the Divine Command.

Category: Election 2012, Mike Huckabee, Missouri, Senate

President of a Black Fear

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 49 Comments

When I glanced at Memeorandum and saw the headline, it was impossible to suppress my groaning weariness with the worn-out theme:

Fear of a Black President
— Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic Monthly, September 2012

Show of hands: Nearly four years into the Age of Obama, is there anybody — anybody — interested in reading a 9,582-word “What It Means” essay about the racial significance of Obama’s presidency?

Would you be more interested if I told you that Ta-Nehisi Coates uses the Trayvon Martin shooting as the contextual prism through which he seeks this wisdom? Would your interest be whetted if I told you that Coates name-checks a list of right-wing villains — Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc. — en route to a rather nebulous conclusion about the persistence of white racism as the dominant and defining reality of America’s past, present and future?

Admit it, honky: You don’t want to read it.

You “white folks” (yes, he uses that phrase) don’t wish to recline on the psychoanalyst’s couch while Ta-Nehisi Coates explains to you that every reason why you don’t support Obama, when viewed through the lens of history, is irredeemably racist. You “white folks” don’t appreciate your own need for this therapeutic experience.

Why not? Because you’re in denial about your intractable prejudices.

So there you are, with Trayvon Martin’s blood on your hands, rejecting Ta-Nehisi Coates’s generous offer to expiate your sins. Confess your racism, whitey, and let Dr. Coates help you understand your “Fear of a Black President.” Because, you see, somehow the death of Trayvon reflects the hatefulness of those right-wing Republicans and their “strategy of massive resistance” — yes, massive resistance, as if suburban Orlando in 2012 were Mississippi in 1955.

More patient and able polemicists will likely give Coates the thorough fisking he deserves. We can hope that Ace of Spades weighs in with the kind of vicious sarcasm Coates deserves. While awaiting such treatment, however, I’ll force-feed you a few sample sentences.

Before the president spoke, George Zimmerman was arguably the most reviled man in America. After the president spoke, Zimmerman became the patron saint of those who believe that an apt history of racism begins with Tawana Brawley and ends with the Duke lacrosse team.

Coates comes very near to a point here, but misses it, i.e.: In addressing the Trayvon Martin case, the president politicized it, necessarily turning this controversy into a partisan affair.

This is an election year, and it would be impossible for the president seeking re-election to speak out on any controversy without providing his opponents an occasion to criticize him. I’m reminded of how President Bush’s “heckuva job, Brownie” comment about Hurricane Katrina became a club with which Democrats relentlessly pounded him. This is how 21st-century politics works: A politician says something dubious or offensive about a controversial subject, and his partisan foes exploit it to their advantage. Hello, Todd Akin.

Never mind that this is a general rule. In the manner of a crusading district attorney leading an election-year crackdown on drug dealers, Coates is prosecuting the perpetrators:

The moment Obama spoke, the Trayvon case passed out of its mourning phase and into something dark and familiar — racialized political fodder.
And even if white folks could moderate their own penchant for violence, we could not moderate our own. A long-suffering life on the wrong side of the color line had denuded black people of the delicacy necessary to lead the free world.

Damn. Just . . . damn.

What exactly is Coates trying to say here? I’m not sure. He seems fond of eloquent insinuation, so that it is difficult to locate an argument that can be reduced to a syllogism. It’s as if we are being challenged to refute a Rorshach inkblot test. Coates goes off on tangents of irrelevant free-association, flinging around stylish prose that defies counter-argument because what it’s really about is emotional symbolism, and no one can dispute the reality of another’s feelings.

The “racialized political fodder” that Coates calls “dark and familiar” — yes, one way or another, we can all agree that it is familar. But insofar as the racialized fodder becomes political, or the political fodder is racialized, isn’t this unfortunate intersection at least in equal measure the responsibility of the president and his allies? Why must Coates attempt to fix blame exclusively to the president’s opposition?

Democrats have deliberately and shamelessly used Obama’s race as a bludgeon against Republicans, and every time anyone complains about this, their complaint is cited as proof of their racism. It’s a non-falsifiable hypothesis, a Venn diagram with two non-intersecting sets: (A) People who support Obama, and (B) Racists, where AB is a null set and thus the only way to disprove one’s racism is to support Obama.

Given the fact that racial discrimination is a federal crime, and has been since 1964, these provocative insinuations of racism are a type of emotional terrorism, a psychological warfare campaign of political intimidation masquerading as a desire for “social justice.” Cooperate with the Democrats’ political agenda or else you’ll be branded with The Scarlet H — hater! — and targeted for destruction.

Having lit this spark, Coates pours on the gasoline:

What black people are experiencing right now is a kind of privilege previously withheld—seeing our most sacred cultural practices and tropes validated in the world’s highest office. Throughout the whole of American history, this kind of cultural power was wielded solely by whites, and with such ubiquity that it was not even commented upon. The expansion of this cultural power beyond the private province of whites has been a tremendous advance for black America. Conversely, for those who’ve long treasured white exclusivity, the existence of a President Barack Obama is discombobulating, even terrifying. For as surely as the iconic picture of the young black boy reaching out to touch the president’s curly hair sends one message to black America, it sends another to those who have enjoyed the power of whiteness.

This is a familiar trope: Liberalism as a sort of ESP, imparting to the anointed a magical psychic mind-reading ability, so that the inner motives and beliefs of conservatives are always transparent to their liberal critics. It has been this way at least as far back as Theodor Adorno’s The Authoritarian Personality. No matter how often we point out the bogusness of this style of “argument” (which is really just name-calling), liberals keep trotting it out, as if no one could possibly doubt their mystic ability to know the evil motives of their opponents.

Every so often, liberals will proclaim that what they want is a “discussion” or a “dialogue” about race, but any effort to actually have such a discussion is doomed by the liberal’s imagined intellectual and moral superiority — the “dialogue” becomes a monologue and the “discussion” becomes a lecture, because no conservative deserves to be treated with respect, as if his ideas might actually be valid.

Conservatives being manifestly inferior, the liberal is entitled to turn any “discussion” into a sermon on the moral wrongness of conservatives: “They gonna put y’all back in chains!”

Yes, Joe Biden is your moral superior, merely because he is a liberal Democrat and you are not. Your inferiority disqualifies you as a participant in the discussion, and your role as a conservative is to sit there in apologetic shame while you’re scolded. You may not talk back, no matter what provocations Ta-Nehisi Coates may shove at you:

When 9/11 happened, I wanted nothing to do with any kind of patriotism, with the broad national ceremony of mourning. I had no sympathy for the fire­fighters, and something bordering on hatred for the police officers who had died. I lived in a country where my friend — twice as good — could be shot down mere footsteps from his family by agents of the state. God damn America, indeed.

This is the Rorshach motif again: Coates describes his feelings — his emotional association of the 9/11 hijacking with his friend’s death in a mistaken-identity case involving Prince George’s County (Md.) Police Cpl. Carlton Jones — and dares us to argue with his feelings. Coates deliberately appeals to irrational symbolism and expects no one to quarrel with his provocative expression of anti-patriotism, because anyone who does so would be volunteering as a target, branding himself with The Scarlet H and inviting an angry lecture about racism. And in case you missed the extortionist’s threat, Coates gives you another hint:

In a democracy, so the saying goes, the people get the government they deserve. Part of Obama’s genius is a remarkable ability to soothe race consciousness among whites. Any black person who’s worked in the professional world is well acquainted with this trick. But never has it been practiced at such a high level, and never have its limits been so obviously exposed. This need to talk in dulcet tones, to never be angry regardless of the offense, bespeaks a strange and compromised integration indeed, revealing a country so infantile that it can countenance white acceptance of blacks only when they meet an Al Roker standard.

What the hell is this “Al Roker standard”? Never mind.

What Coates is signaling to those “in the professional world” (presumably including his white Atlantic supervisors and co-workers) is that his own courtesy toward them is a careful masquerade, his “dulcet tones” a disguise for the barely controllable rage he feels toward them, his shame at having to seek “white acceptance” by soothing their “racial consciousness” in this “infantile” country.

This kind of self-dramatizing tantrum, of course, is exactly what we have come to expect from liberals. If Coates’s tantrum is more elegantly expressed than the incoherent chants of the Occupy mobs, it is still a tantrum. And he calls us “infantile”!

UPDATE: Figuring that nearly 10,000 words from Coates weren’t enough, Jamelle Bouie at The American Prospect piles on:

Of course there are politicians and political parties that capitalize on racism. Why wouldn’t they? The end of our state-sanctioned racial caste system is a recent event in our history; more recent than Medicare or Medicaid, more recent than the advent of computers, more recent than the interstate highway system, and more recent than Social Security. Taken in the broad terms of a nation’s life, we’re only a few weeks removed from the widespread acceptance of white supremacy.

Right. I’m 52 and was not yet in kindergarten when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law. Is there, “in the broad terms of a nation’s life,” some sort of expiration date on grudge-based politics?

Or are we not supposed to notice that Jamelle Bouie (University of Virginia, Class of ’09) was born during the second term of the Reagan administration and thus is rehearsing grievances that pre-date his birth by more than two decades? It makes as much sense, really, as invoking the Smoot-Hawley tariff or Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech as the basis of our politics. I’m anti-tariff and pro-gold, but these policy preferences have nothing to do with the interest-group politics of my great-grandfather’s era, and anyone would be puzzled if I were to argue as though we were living in the Gilded Age or the Roaring Twenties: “Standard Oil! Monopolies! Temperance! Child labor! Women’s suffrage!” 

Why, then, do most people not object when youngsters (Coates was born in 1975, and was not quite 2 years old when Jimmy Carter was elected president) invoke an increasingly remote oppression as if they themselves had endured it, or as if there were a danger of its return?

The politics of nostalgia is the politics of fools.

 

Category: Barack Obama, Racism

Blackmail: Paradoxical As It Is Raaaaacist

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Blogs written by lawyers tend to be high-quality and thoughtful. And the legal blogs, naturally pose thoughtful legal questions. But now and again you see one that really doesn’t seem so hard.

  1. I am generally perfectly free to publish embarrassing information about you — in fact, I generally have the constitutional right to do so. (The “disclosure of private facts” tort may constrain this in some instances, but the tort has been read quite narrowly, and much revelation of embarrassing secrets is not tortious and constitutionally protected.) Likewise, I am free to keep quiet about such information.
  2. I am generally perfectly free to ask you for money — or to ask you to do something else — in exchange for my doing something (here, keeping quiet) that I have no preexisting legal obligation to do. This distinguishes classic extortion, where I ask you for $10,000 not to burn down your store: Because I have a legal obligation not to burn down your store, it’s easy to explain why extortionate threats to burn down the store would be punishable. I will use “blackmail” to mean just threats to reveal information, not threats to commit illegal violence or property destruction.
  3. But if I ask you for money or a service in exchange for my not revealing embarrassing information about you, then that’s a crime. What’s the explanation? Legal scholars have debated this for decades, and to my knowledge have not come up with a perfectly satisfactory answer.

To be sure, the legal system often happily ignores conundrums such as this.

Two words: ‘seduction’, ‘rape’.

While it may be wildly immoral, there is nothing unethical about swindling people. That is, pushing external information at people in a non-coercive manner to separate the fool from the loot. Conversely, actual or implied violence used to coerce behavior (#2 above) is precisely the kind of Chicago-esque behavior that legitimate government seeks to minimize. Government is supposed to enhance liberty, and holding a monopoly on violence, including blackmail, is part of that whole social contract.

Taking the rest of Volokh’s quiz:

A. Look, if you are behaving at rest stops in ways that could prove embarrassing, recall Ancient Commenter Solomon:

He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.

Now, in the age of George Zimmerman, merely keeping your nose clean may not be enough in all cases. But, for the most part, if your powder stays dry, you’ll do OK.

B. Again, Volokh posits that Person A has engaged in embarrassing Behavior B, and the Blackmailer C is using the information to alter behavior. Repent, A: your misery is based upon your clinging to B. Playing the ‘victim’ card no worky-worky unless you’re clean.

C. Indeed, exposing the behavior of a sloppy manufacturer is worthwhile, but the legal system is supposed to referee all that. So that it doesn’t veer into, you know, blackmail.

D.

. . .the principle that blackmail may be outlawed has not much expanded into areas that may at first seem to be analogous. “This is quite similar to blackmail, and should therefore be treated just like blackmail is” is an argument that courts are pretty cautious about endorsing, precisely because they realize that quite a few things that are quite similar to blackmail must remain legal, and may even be constitutionally protected.

We live in an economy predicated upon consumers remaining sheepish, and enjoying the sheer joy of getting shaved down. Consenting adults, and all that.

Category: Volokh Conspiracy
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