October
22, 2002 9:00 a.m. The
ghost of ol’ Joe, art for Atta’s sake, us “Taliban Republicans,”
and more.
ou may have read the story about the Democratic Socialists of America:
The DSA has called the reelection of Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone
its top electoral priority (guess Bernie Sanders is safe in Vermont).
The group said that, to win, Wellstone would “need a high percentage
of young people to register and vote for him.” As luck would have
it, “Minnesota is one of the few states that allow same-day voter
registration,” the DSA noted. So they planned to bus in some socialist
young’uns to boost the senator’s cause.
To which certain
people objected — causing the DSA to charge, as the Wall Street
Journal recorded, “red-baiting.” Yes, red-baiting, always!
They — you know: they — have done this from time immemorial,
or at least all of my life. It is one of the great argument-cutters-off
ever. Say “Red-baiting!” and the other side has to slink away
in shame.
This is a good reason
to damn Joe McCarthy: what he did to discredit anti-Communism. I know,
I know: He identified a lot of true Reds, and pointed to a true problem.
But he did so in such a way as to set back the cause. By a lot.
I
noticed something interesting in Alan Cowell’s New York Times
story on the Irish referendum. He began, “With the collapse of the
Soviet empire [did the Times ever admit there was a Soviet empire?],
the end of the cold war conjured heady dreams among Central and Eastern
Europe’s peoples that they might aspire to the kind of Western freedoms
and riches once glimpsed through the chain mail of the Iron Curtain.”
My point (again):
Did the Timesever admit that the line between the East
and the West constituted something like chain mail? Indeed, did they ever
concede that the West featured “freedoms and riches”?
Ah, but we’re
all anti-Communists now, aren’t we — though not of the “McCarthyite”
kind. (Are there as many anti-Communists among Western elites now as there
were Resistance fighters in France — after 1945?)
As
you’ve undoubtedly heard by now — I’m writing this on Sunday
— some avant-garde-ists in Germany are holding an art exhibition
in Mohamed Atta’s old apartment. Terror chic: It has long been with
us.
To
switch to language and politics: It is increasingly bothersome that Republicans
have declared certain words verboten, resorting to euphemisms. The GOP
— especially the George W. Bush-led GOP — should be much more
direct, and less Clintonian. We’re not supposed to say “vouchers.”
Screw that: Say “vouchers” and explain to the people why they’re
a good and logical and noble idea. We’re not supposed to say “privatization”
either. Screw that, too: Explain to people why the privatization —
or at least the partial privatization — of Social Security is right,
and necessary. We’re not so socialist-minded, I wouldn’t think,
that “private” is a dirty word.
Bill Clinton scored
a coup when he stopped saying “spending” and started saying
“investing.” He wasn’t spending tax money, he was
“investing” it, in education, in the old, the young, the blind,
the halt, etc.
Admirable politics,
I say — echoing Orwell — should start with clear, honest language.
They’re
calling us “Talibanic,” a lot. “They” is . . . you
know, they, and “us” is conservative Republicans. I remember
back in the 1980s, when Sam Donaldson discovered Hezbollah, the terrorist
group in Lebanon. He immediately began to refer to “the Hezbollah
wing of the Republican party” — meaning, Reaganites, the vast
majority. He thought it was so cute. And now the Left has switched to
the Taliban. (Who drove the Taliban out of power and into the ground,
by the way? Bunch of “Taliban Republicans,” wasn’t it?)
Caught Bill Bennett
on television the other night, and he said something interesting, as always.
He was on a panel in Colorado, with Karen Hughes, and the professors there
— this was at a college — were calling the two Republicans “Talibanic”
and “despicable.” The Left always does this, Bennett pointed
out.
At which point Alan
Colmes broke in and said, “You should read my e-mail, Bill! They
say I’m unpatriotic, they say I should defect to Iraq,” etc.
To which Bennett responded — perfectly — “Yes, but I suspect
those e-mails are from cranks. I’m talking about tenured college
profs, who shape the minds of our kids.”
Exactly.
Couple
of quick, not very important points about Matt Bai’s piece on Karl
Rove in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Bai was talking
about Tim Pawlenty in Minnesota, whom Rove discouraged from running for
Senate, wanting Norm Coleman instead. Bai wrote, “Pawlenty was just
the kind of candidate the Republican party likes to tout: the son of a
truck driver who worked his way through college and law school, a young
star who had never lost an election.”
Okay. What sort of
candidate do the Democrats like to tout? Is Bai implying that Republicans
are normally country-club brats who play croquet?
Sure he is.
And then there was,
“If Rove wants social conservatives to continue to step aside while
he builds a more inclusive party around [more moderate] candidates . .
.”
Folks, has anyone
ever said that less liberal candidates in the Democratic party
would enable that party to be more “inclusive”? Ever?
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ou may have read the story about the Democratic Socialists of America:
The DSA has called the reelection of Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone
its top electoral priority (guess Bernie Sanders is safe in Vermont).
The group said that, to win, Wellstone would “need a high percentage
of young people to register and vote for him.” As luck would have
it, “Minnesota is one of the few states that allow same-day voter
registration,” the DSA noted. So they planned to bus in some socialist
young’uns to boost the senator’s cause.
I
noticed something interesting in Alan Cowell’s New York Times
story on the Irish referendum. He began, “With the collapse of the
Soviet empire [did the Times ever admit there was a Soviet empire?],
the end of the cold war conjured heady dreams among Central and Eastern
Europe’s peoples that they might aspire to the kind of Western freedoms
and riches once glimpsed through the chain mail of the Iron Curtain.”
