The Founding Fanatics
The Ghost of Mary Dyer
by DAVID MACARAY
Although we regularly hear people (commentators, politicians, citizens) refer with pride to our Founding Fathers, it’s unclear whether they’re familiar with the relevant dates. Because if they had done the arithmetic, they surely would’ve noticed that every one of these illustrious “founders” had been born more than a century after this country was already formed.
Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, was established in 1607, and Plymouth, the second settlement, was established in 1620. By contrast, George Washington was born in 1732, John Adams in 1735, Thomas Jefferson in 1743, and James Madison in 1751.
Technically, these men didn’t “found” us. What they did was engineer our independence from England and invent our federal government, two magnificent achievements that set us on the successful course we’ve followed ever since. But let’s be clear: This country’s ethos—its customs, social rituals, religious beliefs, rural economy, national character—had been in place for a 150 years (that’s six generations) before Jefferson, Madison, et al, ever hung out their shingles.
We were taught in school that the pilgrims came to America in order to practice “religious freedom.” While that statement is more or less accurate, what they fail to mention is that the Puritans were 17th century England’s version of the Taliban. These religious zealots wanted to “purify” Christianity (hence “Puritans”) in much the same way that the Taliban wants to purify Islam.
Indeed, if we wished to be brutally honest, we could say that America was founded by a bunch of religious fanatics, and that it was the framers of the Constitution (educated products of the Enlightenment) who, bless their hearts, saved us from them.
How fanatical were they? Fanatical enough, in 1660, to execute the first female in the colonies. Her name was Mary Dyer. She, along with three male associates, were hanged by Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities for the crime of being Quakers. Dyer and the men had repeatedly ignored warnings not to set foot in Massachusetts, where Quakerism was outlawed, and when the warnings went unheeded, the Colony hanged them.
One can think of many religious people who deserve to be hanged, but Quakers aren’t among them. In fact, Quakerism, with its pacifism and equality for women, seems like one of the more enlightened, dignified religions. But in 1660, the good citizens of Massachusetts chose to kill a group of settlers whose only crime was belonging to another faith. And they killed them in the name of Jesus Christ.
As far as theology goes, our neighbors to the north are, by all accounts, nowhere near as demonstrably religious as we are. A few years ago, I saw Kim Campbell (former Prime Minister of Canada) on Bill Maher’s HBO television show. The panel was discussing the comparative role that religion played in the politics of Canada and America.
Reminded of the fact that George W. Bush had declared, after announcing his candidacy, that he believed God wanted him to run for president, Campbell observed that if a Canadian politician had said the same thing, people would think he was “mentally ill.” And as many will recall, during the 2008 Republican primary, three candidates (Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee) proudly admitted that they didn’t believe in evolution.
Our history is filled with paradoxes. We embrace founders who didn’t actually “found” us, we applaud the pilgrims for seeking religious freedom when, in fact, they were vehemently intolerant, and we assume we were established as a reverently Christian, God-fearing nation even though the framers took careful steps to ensure that we would never become a theocracy.
In this post-New Deal, post-industrial milieu we find ourselves, we have both kinds of voters: the kind who vote for candidates on the basis of their positions on specific issues (health care, tax reform, trade policy, etc.), and the kind who ignore the boring nuts-and-bolts stuff and simply vote for the candidate they regard as the “most religious.”
And when the Tea Party says that they “want their country back,” and evangelicals say that we will never again be the nation we once were until “we put Jesus Christ back into our lives,” we’re reminded of not only how polarized we are, but of how the ghost of Mary Dyer—the first woman in Colonial America to be executed—still haunts us.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/18 ... mary-dyer/
The Founding Fanatics
The Founding Fanatics
Last edited by zero_hero on December 13th, 2020, 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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stilltrucking
- Posts: 20607
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Re: The Founding Fanatics
I think I finally figured out what Neo-Liberalism is.
Under the Cloak of Liberalism
America on the Cusp of Fascism
Under the Cloak of Liberalism
America on the Cusp of Fascism
by NORMAN POLLACK
I use “fascism” here not as a cliché, but as an historical-structural formation principally rooted in the mature stage of capitalism, in which business-government interpenetration (what the Japanese political scientist Masao Maryuma called the “close-embrace” system) has created hierarchical social classes of wide differences in wealth and power, the militarization of social values and geopolitical strategy, and a faux ideology of classlessness to instill loyalty for the social order among working people. In fact, each of these factors is already present to a high degree in America–superbly disguised however by the rhetoric of liberalism, as in Mr. Obama’s presidency.
This said, my provocative hypothesis (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) is that in the coming election Romney is preferable to Obama. Why? In broad terms, we see varying degrees of sophistication in the mad dash across the finish line (i.e., fascism proper, midway between nascent and full-blown), with Romney and Republicans representing plebeian fascism, and Obama and Democrats a sophisticated corporatist form. Everything charged against Romney may be true, from Social Darwinist beliefs and gut-militarism to cultural intolerance and xenophobia, and perhaps even more so for the party as a whole, though that is a moot point–an overt negation, on all grounds,of what we mean by democracy. (Not that America has honored or achieved that state of political-economic development through most of its history!) To pursue the candidacy of Romney involves one in a societal nightmare of unrestrained wealth (and the perks that go with it, from horribly skewed taxation policy to categorical setbacks to unions, wage rates, and an antilabor climate) and severe cuts in the social safety net. All this is known, predictable, transparent–part of my argument for viewing Romney as preferable to Obama. Clearly, Trotsky in popularized form is in the back of my mind.
By contrast, Obama is unassailable, enjoying the protective cloak of the state secrets doctrine (which, also as the National Security State, he invokes constantly), the liberal glossing on all policy matters, thanks to the extremely able spinmeisters Axelrod and Rhodes, and an adoring, submissive, uncritical base, in deep denial and for whatever reasons unwilling to examine the administration’s record. That record confirms the long-term political, economic, and moral bankruptcy of the Democratic party, whose differentiating character setting it apart from the Republicans lies in the magnitude of skilled evasion and/or deception surrounding policies which themselves replicate the central elements in those of their opponents.
Republicans sincerely criticize Obama because they are too ignorant to recognize, in their rush to antigovernment rhetoric, that he takes the same position as they smoothed out to please a base at best composed of pretend-radicalism and, equally, to ward off criticism from those who desperately want to believe his earlier promises. This comes down to political theater at its cruelest.
The list of actual betrayal is long and virtually covering his public policy without exception. (A good start can be found in the critical essays in Hopeless, a true icebreaker for the uninformed prepared to listen.) Let me select several obvious examples. 1) Health care, in which Obama savaged the single-payer system, thus preparing the way for the same on the public option, meanwhile silencing, or rather, delegitimating all dissident voices, at the same time as exempting health insurers from antitrust prosecution and favoring Big Pharma; 2) Civil liberties, a good litmus test of democratic governance, in which Obama’s Department of Justice argued against granting habeas corpus rights to detainees, invoked the Espionage Act against whistleblowers, carried surveillance beyond that of previous administrations, with the National Security Agency one of the culprits practicing the black magic of eavesdropping, while renditions and “black holes” continue and even agencies like FDA spy on its employees; 3) militarism, from which foreign policy, including trade policy, cannot be excluded, in which the drone–as Obama’s signature weapon–terrorizes whole populations reeking destruction from the skies, naval power displayed from the South China Sea to the Mediterranean, a whole new generation of nuclear weapons in the pipeline (exempt from potential budgetary sequestration), a military budget itself second to none, and what appears to be a permanent state of war; 4) the omissions, which by their absence speak volumes about the purposes and policies of his administration, in which job creation and foreclosures have not been addressed, climate change, wholly disappeared, gun control, nonexistent, poverty never, never mentioned, and business and banking regulation the compounding of phoniness on phoniness, not unexpected considering Obama’s belief in deregulation and bringing in the Clinton-Rubin crowd of free marketeers.
How much more or worse damage can Romney and the Republicans do? They might fuss about same-sex marriage and contraception, while Obama, in his Pacific-first geopolitical vision and concrete strategy, wants to encircle China, and press for an economic agenda promoting further corporate-wealth concentration.
If Republicans come across as Taliban on cultural issues, Democrats almost surreptitiously advance the financialization of the total economy, with the consequent distortions introduced–loss of manufacturing, increasing wealth concentration, and capitalism’s Achilles heel, underconsumption. Why Romney? Because his transparency as a Neanderthal may, just may, bring people into the streets, while under Obama passivity and false consciousness appear almost irreversible. I for one will stay home. The lesser-of-two-evils argument is morally obtuse, and dangerous, the first, because it means complicity with policies ultimately destructive, the second, because it induces an undeserved self-righteousness which next time around would yield further compromise. If the people are gulled and lulled into the acceptance of mock-democracy, courtesy of Goldman Sachs and waterboarding apologist Brennan, with Obama presiding over the bread-and-circuses routine, heaven help us.
[url=Under the Cloak of Liberalism
America on the Cusp of Fascism
by NORMAN POLLACK
I use “fascism” here not as a cliché, but as an historical-structural formation principally rooted in the mature stage of capitalism, in which business-government interpenetration (what the Japanese political scientist Masao Maryuma called the “close-embrace” system) has created hierarchical social classes of wide differences in wealth and power, the militarization of social values and geopolitical strategy, and a faux ideology of classlessness to instill loyalty for the social order among working people. In fact, each of these factors is already present to a high degree in America–superbly disguised however by the rhetoric of liberalism, as in Mr. Obama’s presidency.
This said, my provocative hypothesis (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) is that in the coming election Romney is preferable to Obama. Why? In broad terms, we see varying degrees of sophistication in the mad dash across the finish line (i.e., fascism proper, midway between nascent and full-blown), with Romney and Republicans representing plebeian fascism, and Obama and Democrats a sophisticated corporatist form. Everything charged against Romney may be true, from Social Darwinist beliefs and gut-militarism to cultural intolerance and xenophobia, and perhaps even more so for the party as a whole, though that is a moot point–an overt negation, on all grounds,of what we mean by democracy. (Not that America has honored or achieved that state of political-economic development through most of its history!) To pursue the candidacy of Romney involves one in a societal nightmare of unrestrained wealth (and the perks that go with it, from horribly skewed taxation policy to categorical setbacks to unions, wage rates, and an antilabor climate) and severe cuts in the social safety net. All this is known, predictable, transparent–part of my argument for viewing Romney as preferable to Obama. Clearly, Trotsky in popularized form is in the back of my mind.
By contrast, Obama is unassailable, enjoying the protective cloak of the state secrets doctrine (which, also as the National Security State, he invokes constantly), the liberal glossing on all policy matters, thanks to the extremely able spinmeisters Axelrod and Rhodes, and an adoring, submissive, uncritical base, in deep denial and for whatever reasons unwilling to examine the administration’s record. That record confirms the long-term political, economic, and moral bankruptcy of the Democratic party, whose differentiating character setting it apart from the Republicans lies in the magnitude of skilled evasion and/or deception surrounding policies which themselves replicate the central elements in those of their opponents.
Republicans sincerely criticize Obama because they are too ignorant to recognize, in their rush to antigovernment rhetoric, that he takes the same position as they smoothed out to please a base at best composed of pretend-radicalism and, equally, to ward off criticism from those who desperately want to believe his earlier promises. This comes down to political theater at its cruelest.
The list of actual betrayal is long and virtually covering his public policy without exception. (A good start can be found in the critical essays in Hopeless, a true icebreaker for the uninformed prepared to listen.) Let me select several obvious examples. 1) Health care, in which Obama savaged the single-payer system, thus preparing the way for the same on the public option, meanwhile silencing, or rather, delegitimating all dissident voices, at the same time as exempting health insurers from antitrust prosecution and favoring Big Pharma; 2) Civil liberties, a good litmus test of democratic governance, in which Obama’s Department of Justice argued against granting habeas corpus rights to detainees, invoked the Espionage Act against whistleblowers, carried surveillance beyond that of previous administrations, with the National Security Agency one of the culprits practicing the black magic of eavesdropping, while renditions and “black holes” continue and even agencies like FDA spy on its employees; 3) militarism, from which foreign policy, including trade policy, cannot be excluded, in which the drone–as Obama’s signature weapon–terrorizes whole populations reeking destruction from the skies, naval power displayed from the South China Sea to the Mediterranean, a whole new generation of nuclear weapons in the pipeline (exempt from potential budgetary sequestration), a military budget itself second to none, and what appears to be a permanent state of war; 4) the omissions, which by their absence speak volumes about the purposes and policies of his administration, in which job creation and foreclosures have not been addressed, climate change, wholly disappeared, gun control, nonexistent, poverty never, never mentioned, and business and banking regulation the compounding of phoniness on phoniness, not unexpected considering Obama’s belief in deregulation and bringing in the Clinton-Rubin crowd of free marketeers.
How much more or worse damage can Romney and the Republicans do? They might fuss about same-sex marriage and contraception, while Obama, in his Pacific-first geopolitical vision and concrete strategy, wants to encircle China, and press for an economic agenda promoting further corporate-wealth concentration.
If Republicans come across as Taliban on cultural issues, Democrats almost surreptitiously advance the financialization of the total economy, with the consequent distortions introduced–loss of manufacturing, increasing wealth concentration, and capitalism’s Achilles heel, underconsumption. Why Romney? Because his transparency as a Neanderthal may, just may, bring people into the streets, while under Obama passivity and false consciousness appear almost irreversible. I for one will stay home. The lesser-of-two-evils argument is morally obtuse, and dangerous, the first, because it means complicity with policies ultimately destructive, the second, because it induces an undeserved self-righteousness which next time around would yield further compromise. If the people are gulled and lulled into the acceptance of mock-democracy, courtesy of Goldman Sachs and waterboarding apologist Brennan, with Obama presiding over the bread-and-circuses routine, heaven help us.
Counter Punch
Under the Cloak of Liberalism
America on the Cusp of Fascism
Under the Cloak of Liberalism
America on the Cusp of Fascism
by NORMAN POLLACK
I use “fascism” here not as a cliché, but as an historical-structural formation principally rooted in the mature stage of capitalism, in which business-government interpenetration (what the Japanese political scientist Masao Maryuma called the “close-embrace” system) has created hierarchical social classes of wide differences in wealth and power, the militarization of social values and geopolitical strategy, and a faux ideology of classlessness to instill loyalty for the social order among working people. In fact, each of these factors is already present to a high degree in America–superbly disguised however by the rhetoric of liberalism, as in Mr. Obama’s presidency.
This said, my provocative hypothesis (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) is that in the coming election Romney is preferable to Obama. Why? In broad terms, we see varying degrees of sophistication in the mad dash across the finish line (i.e., fascism proper, midway between nascent and full-blown), with Romney and Republicans representing plebeian fascism, and Obama and Democrats a sophisticated corporatist form. Everything charged against Romney may be true, from Social Darwinist beliefs and gut-militarism to cultural intolerance and xenophobia, and perhaps even more so for the party as a whole, though that is a moot point–an overt negation, on all grounds,of what we mean by democracy. (Not that America has honored or achieved that state of political-economic development through most of its history!) To pursue the candidacy of Romney involves one in a societal nightmare of unrestrained wealth (and the perks that go with it, from horribly skewed taxation policy to categorical setbacks to unions, wage rates, and an antilabor climate) and severe cuts in the social safety net. All this is known, predictable, transparent–part of my argument for viewing Romney as preferable to Obama. Clearly, Trotsky in popularized form is in the back of my mind.
By contrast, Obama is unassailable, enjoying the protective cloak of the state secrets doctrine (which, also as the National Security State, he invokes constantly), the liberal glossing on all policy matters, thanks to the extremely able spinmeisters Axelrod and Rhodes, and an adoring, submissive, uncritical base, in deep denial and for whatever reasons unwilling to examine the administration’s record. That record confirms the long-term political, economic, and moral bankruptcy of the Democratic party, whose differentiating character setting it apart from the Republicans lies in the magnitude of skilled evasion and/or deception surrounding policies which themselves replicate the central elements in those of their opponents.
Republicans sincerely criticize Obama because they are too ignorant to recognize, in their rush to antigovernment rhetoric, that he takes the same position as they smoothed out to please a base at best composed of pretend-radicalism and, equally, to ward off criticism from those who desperately want to believe his earlier promises. This comes down to political theater at its cruelest.
The list of actual betrayal is long and virtually covering his public policy without exception. (A good start can be found in the critical essays in Hopeless, a true icebreaker for the uninformed prepared to listen.) Let me select several obvious examples. 1) Health care, in which Obama savaged the single-payer system, thus preparing the way for the same on the public option, meanwhile silencing, or rather, delegitimating all dissident voices, at the same time as exempting health insurers from antitrust prosecution and favoring Big Pharma; 2) Civil liberties, a good litmus test of democratic governance, in which Obama’s Department of Justice argued against granting habeas corpus rights to detainees, invoked the Espionage Act against whistleblowers, carried surveillance beyond that of previous administrations, with the National Security Agency one of the culprits practicing the black magic of eavesdropping, while renditions and “black holes” continue and even agencies like FDA spy on its employees; 3) militarism, from which foreign policy, including trade policy, cannot be excluded, in which the drone–as Obama’s signature weapon–terrorizes whole populations reeking destruction from the skies, naval power displayed from the South China Sea to the Mediterranean, a whole new generation of nuclear weapons in the pipeline (exempt from potential budgetary sequestration), a military budget itself second to none, and what appears to be a permanent state of war; 4) the omissions, which by their absence speak volumes about the purposes and policies of his administration, in which job creation and foreclosures have not been addressed, climate change, wholly disappeared, gun control, nonexistent, poverty never, never mentioned, and business and banking regulation the compounding of phoniness on phoniness, not unexpected considering Obama’s belief in deregulation and bringing in the Clinton-Rubin crowd of free marketeers.
How much more or worse damage can Romney and the Republicans do? They might fuss about same-sex marriage and contraception, while Obama, in his Pacific-first geopolitical vision and concrete strategy, wants to encircle China, and press for an economic agenda promoting further corporate-wealth concentration.
If Republicans come across as Taliban on cultural issues, Democrats almost surreptitiously advance the financialization of the total economy, with the consequent distortions introduced–loss of manufacturing, increasing wealth concentration, and capitalism’s Achilles heel, underconsumption. Why Romney? Because his transparency as a Neanderthal may, just may, bring people into the streets, while under Obama passivity and false consciousness appear almost irreversible. I for one will stay home. The lesser-of-two-evils argument is morally obtuse, and dangerous, the first, because it means complicity with policies ultimately destructive, the second, because it induces an undeserved self-righteousness which next time around would yield further compromise. If the people are gulled and lulled into the acceptance of mock-democracy, courtesy of Goldman Sachs and waterboarding apologist Brennan, with Obama presiding over the bread-and-circuses routine, heaven help us.
[url=Under the Cloak of Liberalism
America on the Cusp of Fascism
by NORMAN POLLACK
I use “fascism” here not as a cliché, but as an historical-structural formation principally rooted in the mature stage of capitalism, in which business-government interpenetration (what the Japanese political scientist Masao Maryuma called the “close-embrace” system) has created hierarchical social classes of wide differences in wealth and power, the militarization of social values and geopolitical strategy, and a faux ideology of classlessness to instill loyalty for the social order among working people. In fact, each of these factors is already present to a high degree in America–superbly disguised however by the rhetoric of liberalism, as in Mr. Obama’s presidency.
This said, my provocative hypothesis (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) is that in the coming election Romney is preferable to Obama. Why? In broad terms, we see varying degrees of sophistication in the mad dash across the finish line (i.e., fascism proper, midway between nascent and full-blown), with Romney and Republicans representing plebeian fascism, and Obama and Democrats a sophisticated corporatist form. Everything charged against Romney may be true, from Social Darwinist beliefs and gut-militarism to cultural intolerance and xenophobia, and perhaps even more so for the party as a whole, though that is a moot point–an overt negation, on all grounds,of what we mean by democracy. (Not that America has honored or achieved that state of political-economic development through most of its history!) To pursue the candidacy of Romney involves one in a societal nightmare of unrestrained wealth (and the perks that go with it, from horribly skewed taxation policy to categorical setbacks to unions, wage rates, and an antilabor climate) and severe cuts in the social safety net. All this is known, predictable, transparent–part of my argument for viewing Romney as preferable to Obama. Clearly, Trotsky in popularized form is in the back of my mind.
By contrast, Obama is unassailable, enjoying the protective cloak of the state secrets doctrine (which, also as the National Security State, he invokes constantly), the liberal glossing on all policy matters, thanks to the extremely able spinmeisters Axelrod and Rhodes, and an adoring, submissive, uncritical base, in deep denial and for whatever reasons unwilling to examine the administration’s record. That record confirms the long-term political, economic, and moral bankruptcy of the Democratic party, whose differentiating character setting it apart from the Republicans lies in the magnitude of skilled evasion and/or deception surrounding policies which themselves replicate the central elements in those of their opponents.
Republicans sincerely criticize Obama because they are too ignorant to recognize, in their rush to antigovernment rhetoric, that he takes the same position as they smoothed out to please a base at best composed of pretend-radicalism and, equally, to ward off criticism from those who desperately want to believe his earlier promises. This comes down to political theater at its cruelest.
The list of actual betrayal is long and virtually covering his public policy without exception. (A good start can be found in the critical essays in Hopeless, a true icebreaker for the uninformed prepared to listen.) Let me select several obvious examples. 1) Health care, in which Obama savaged the single-payer system, thus preparing the way for the same on the public option, meanwhile silencing, or rather, delegitimating all dissident voices, at the same time as exempting health insurers from antitrust prosecution and favoring Big Pharma; 2) Civil liberties, a good litmus test of democratic governance, in which Obama’s Department of Justice argued against granting habeas corpus rights to detainees, invoked the Espionage Act against whistleblowers, carried surveillance beyond that of previous administrations, with the National Security Agency one of the culprits practicing the black magic of eavesdropping, while renditions and “black holes” continue and even agencies like FDA spy on its employees; 3) militarism, from which foreign policy, including trade policy, cannot be excluded, in which the drone–as Obama’s signature weapon–terrorizes whole populations reeking destruction from the skies, naval power displayed from the South China Sea to the Mediterranean, a whole new generation of nuclear weapons in the pipeline (exempt from potential budgetary sequestration), a military budget itself second to none, and what appears to be a permanent state of war; 4) the omissions, which by their absence speak volumes about the purposes and policies of his administration, in which job creation and foreclosures have not been addressed, climate change, wholly disappeared, gun control, nonexistent, poverty never, never mentioned, and business and banking regulation the compounding of phoniness on phoniness, not unexpected considering Obama’s belief in deregulation and bringing in the Clinton-Rubin crowd of free marketeers.
How much more or worse damage can Romney and the Republicans do? They might fuss about same-sex marriage and contraception, while Obama, in his Pacific-first geopolitical vision and concrete strategy, wants to encircle China, and press for an economic agenda promoting further corporate-wealth concentration.
If Republicans come across as Taliban on cultural issues, Democrats almost surreptitiously advance the financialization of the total economy, with the consequent distortions introduced–loss of manufacturing, increasing wealth concentration, and capitalism’s Achilles heel, underconsumption. Why Romney? Because his transparency as a Neanderthal may, just may, bring people into the streets, while under Obama passivity and false consciousness appear almost irreversible. I for one will stay home. The lesser-of-two-evils argument is morally obtuse, and dangerous, the first, because it means complicity with policies ultimately destructive, the second, because it induces an undeserved self-righteousness which next time around would yield further compromise. If the people are gulled and lulled into the acceptance of mock-democracy, courtesy of Goldman Sachs and waterboarding apologist Brennan, with Obama presiding over the bread-and-circuses routine, heaven help us.
Counter Punch
Last edited by stilltrucking on October 16th, 2012, 1:29 am, edited 3 times in total.
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stilltrucking
- Posts: 20607
- Joined: October 24th, 2004, 12:29 pm
- Location: Oz or somepLace like Kansas
Re: The Founding Fanatics
The Man Who Would Be Ex-President
Maybe he really is a secret Muslim terrorist from Kenya.
By Kevin Baker
I mean, think about it. He runs for president as a populist, soaking up all the liberal energy for change in the country. Once in power, he surrounds himself with failed conservative advisers, and squanders most of his mandate. Then, just as it looks as if he will still be able to defeat his clueless Republican opponent, he turns in the worst performance any presidential candidate has ever given in a general-election debate, tanking the race and turning the country over to a party of fanatical Ayn Rand acolytes and warmongers.
Homeland’s Abu Nazir never dreamed up anything this diabolical.
I know, it’s not very funny. Neither was Barack Obama’s noneffort last night. Nor am I joking about his performance being the worst in the history of presidential debates. In fact, it was the worst debate by any candidate in either the presidential or the vice-presidential debates. And I include Dan Quayle’s performance in 1988, and that poor, befuddled admiral who was running with Ross Perot.
Who would have thought that Barack Obama would come off as the candidate with a hollow core?
Yet there he was, giving a presentation devoid of substance, vision, principle, or even basic coherence. He didn’t show a spark of anger, even when Romney slyly found a way to call him a boy, comparing Obama’s statements to the sorts of childish lies his “five boys” used to tell.
How the right’s hard-core racists must have howled at that! Mitt, at long last, has secured his base.
The president seemed unable to concentrate or focus throughout the debate, mouthing occasional numbers and assorted caveats to points he could never really complete. When it came to the issues, he offhandedly conceded much of the Republican worldview, something he is now apt to do at anytime, without warning.
What caused the financial crisis? Well, it had something to do with the banks. But Obama also had to admit it was poor people “who took out home mortgages they couldn’t afford.”
Physically, he looked shamefaced, even guilty. Whenever Romney made some point, he would drop his head, purse his lips, and nod, like a prisoner in the dock admitting to some shabby crime.
There is no reasonable explanation—no acceptable explanation—for such a performance.
We will get one, of course. We always do. Michael Dukakis had a cold for his big debate, and besides he was afraid that his wife couldn’t stand the mental strain of being First Lady. Al Gore never really wanted the political career that his father pressured him into. Etc., etc., etc. Barack Obama has repeatedly informed us that he hates living in the White House and can’t wait to be an ex-president.
Yet all of these personalized, psychological apologetics merely underscore the essential disconnect between the leadership of the Democratic party and its base. The leadership is now filled almost exclusively with careerists, who have no real goals they want to accomplish beyond their own advancement, and who actively don’t want to pursue any of the liberal ideas they pretend to support.
They don’t sound like they believe what they’re saying . . . because they don’t believe what they’re saying.
Neither does Mitt Romney, but he was able to put on a convincing act last night, visibly gaining confidence and command with each sally. By the end of the night, he seemed to have channeled not only Ronald Reagan’s genial manner and poise but even his voice.
Romney and his advisers displayed a sleight-of-hand beyond anything I thought them capable of. In Romney’s reach back toward the center in the debate, he had to lie almost incessantly, breezily denying most of the things he has been advocating in almost two years of campaigning. And it didn’t help Obama that Jim Lehrer looked as if he was up well past his bedtime, barely able to keep track of the debate much less effectively monitor it.
Obama had a perfect opportunity to impose his own agenda on last night’s debate. He could and should have made the entire evening a debate on Romney’s shocking contention that nearly half the country is made up of “victims and dependents,” mooching off the rest of us simply because they are not currently paying federal income taxes.
Romney did not want this made public, but he has not denied that he believes it, admitting only that he expressed himself badly. Could there possibly be any better setup? Obama could have turned the whole evening into a seminar on just how radical and bizarre Republican thinking has become. All of Romney’s attempts to obfuscate and lie about the figures of his fantastical schemes for balancing the budget could have been easily bulldozed.
A real president, a president of the professional ability that Democrats used to elect routinely, could have managed such a feat while simultaneously threatening the mullahs of Tehran into submission and making a condolence call to a sick child.
Instead, Obama signaled that he wants out. His diehard supporters are already trying to wave away this weirdly awful, unengaged performance as just his latest turn of Zen mastery, but that dog won’t hunt. They should steel themselves for more shocking displays of indifference over the next month on the part of this strangely diffident individual. It’s quite possible that he means what he says, and he really can’t wait to become an ex-president.
For all of his fumblings, Mitt Romney by contrast very much wants to be president, and if Barack Obama has decided to open the door to the White House, Romney will stroll on through. It will be “morning in America” again—and this time, the stakes will be higher than ever.
Make no mistake about it. Once ensconced in the Oval Office, Romney will do exactly what he says he will. He really will launch an air strike and probably an invasion of Iran. He really will extract every last ounce of the fossil fuels he and his party love so much, no matter what that does to the climate. He really will privatize as much of the country as he can—our education system, our municipal services, everything. And he really will convert your Social Security, your Medicare, and your Medicaid into vouchers.
Mitt Romney could very easily become our next Ronald Reagan, a president who cobbles together an immediate recovery while inflicting incalculable, long-term damage on us all. And that’s why the performance President Obama handed in last night was unforgivable. He was not just representing himself. He was supposed to be out there for all of us, especially for those of us who desperately need things like a monthly check to live on when we’re too old to work anymore and a hospital bed to lie down in.
He was supposed to be a president.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2012/10/hbc-90008926
Maybe he really is a secret Muslim terrorist from Kenya.
By Kevin Baker
I mean, think about it. He runs for president as a populist, soaking up all the liberal energy for change in the country. Once in power, he surrounds himself with failed conservative advisers, and squanders most of his mandate. Then, just as it looks as if he will still be able to defeat his clueless Republican opponent, he turns in the worst performance any presidential candidate has ever given in a general-election debate, tanking the race and turning the country over to a party of fanatical Ayn Rand acolytes and warmongers.
Homeland’s Abu Nazir never dreamed up anything this diabolical.
I know, it’s not very funny. Neither was Barack Obama’s noneffort last night. Nor am I joking about his performance being the worst in the history of presidential debates. In fact, it was the worst debate by any candidate in either the presidential or the vice-presidential debates. And I include Dan Quayle’s performance in 1988, and that poor, befuddled admiral who was running with Ross Perot.
Who would have thought that Barack Obama would come off as the candidate with a hollow core?
Yet there he was, giving a presentation devoid of substance, vision, principle, or even basic coherence. He didn’t show a spark of anger, even when Romney slyly found a way to call him a boy, comparing Obama’s statements to the sorts of childish lies his “five boys” used to tell.
How the right’s hard-core racists must have howled at that! Mitt, at long last, has secured his base.
The president seemed unable to concentrate or focus throughout the debate, mouthing occasional numbers and assorted caveats to points he could never really complete. When it came to the issues, he offhandedly conceded much of the Republican worldview, something he is now apt to do at anytime, without warning.
What caused the financial crisis? Well, it had something to do with the banks. But Obama also had to admit it was poor people “who took out home mortgages they couldn’t afford.”
Physically, he looked shamefaced, even guilty. Whenever Romney made some point, he would drop his head, purse his lips, and nod, like a prisoner in the dock admitting to some shabby crime.
There is no reasonable explanation—no acceptable explanation—for such a performance.
We will get one, of course. We always do. Michael Dukakis had a cold for his big debate, and besides he was afraid that his wife couldn’t stand the mental strain of being First Lady. Al Gore never really wanted the political career that his father pressured him into. Etc., etc., etc. Barack Obama has repeatedly informed us that he hates living in the White House and can’t wait to be an ex-president.
Yet all of these personalized, psychological apologetics merely underscore the essential disconnect between the leadership of the Democratic party and its base. The leadership is now filled almost exclusively with careerists, who have no real goals they want to accomplish beyond their own advancement, and who actively don’t want to pursue any of the liberal ideas they pretend to support.
They don’t sound like they believe what they’re saying . . . because they don’t believe what they’re saying.
Neither does Mitt Romney, but he was able to put on a convincing act last night, visibly gaining confidence and command with each sally. By the end of the night, he seemed to have channeled not only Ronald Reagan’s genial manner and poise but even his voice.
Romney and his advisers displayed a sleight-of-hand beyond anything I thought them capable of. In Romney’s reach back toward the center in the debate, he had to lie almost incessantly, breezily denying most of the things he has been advocating in almost two years of campaigning. And it didn’t help Obama that Jim Lehrer looked as if he was up well past his bedtime, barely able to keep track of the debate much less effectively monitor it.
Obama had a perfect opportunity to impose his own agenda on last night’s debate. He could and should have made the entire evening a debate on Romney’s shocking contention that nearly half the country is made up of “victims and dependents,” mooching off the rest of us simply because they are not currently paying federal income taxes.
Romney did not want this made public, but he has not denied that he believes it, admitting only that he expressed himself badly. Could there possibly be any better setup? Obama could have turned the whole evening into a seminar on just how radical and bizarre Republican thinking has become. All of Romney’s attempts to obfuscate and lie about the figures of his fantastical schemes for balancing the budget could have been easily bulldozed.
A real president, a president of the professional ability that Democrats used to elect routinely, could have managed such a feat while simultaneously threatening the mullahs of Tehran into submission and making a condolence call to a sick child.
Instead, Obama signaled that he wants out. His diehard supporters are already trying to wave away this weirdly awful, unengaged performance as just his latest turn of Zen mastery, but that dog won’t hunt. They should steel themselves for more shocking displays of indifference over the next month on the part of this strangely diffident individual. It’s quite possible that he means what he says, and he really can’t wait to become an ex-president.
For all of his fumblings, Mitt Romney by contrast very much wants to be president, and if Barack Obama has decided to open the door to the White House, Romney will stroll on through. It will be “morning in America” again—and this time, the stakes will be higher than ever.
Make no mistake about it. Once ensconced in the Oval Office, Romney will do exactly what he says he will. He really will launch an air strike and probably an invasion of Iran. He really will extract every last ounce of the fossil fuels he and his party love so much, no matter what that does to the climate. He really will privatize as much of the country as he can—our education system, our municipal services, everything. And he really will convert your Social Security, your Medicare, and your Medicaid into vouchers.
Mitt Romney could very easily become our next Ronald Reagan, a president who cobbles together an immediate recovery while inflicting incalculable, long-term damage on us all. And that’s why the performance President Obama handed in last night was unforgivable. He was not just representing himself. He was supposed to be out there for all of us, especially for those of us who desperately need things like a monthly check to live on when we’re too old to work anymore and a hospital bed to lie down in.
He was supposed to be a president.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2012/10/hbc-90008926
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