The Unbearable Lightness of Being (a centerist)
How easy my life would be if I were a “centrist.” If I could just let go of my “extremists” view that we have to get out of Iraq and allow myself to stroll lazily down the middle of the road like the News Journal editorial board my life would be a dream.
I could be a sensible and sober advocate of “not staying in Iraq” and “not leaving Iraq” and look down on both George Bush and dirty fucking hippies at the same time. No one could pierce my carapace of calm because I’d have a single great all-purpose rejoinder to every argument.
No matter what the dirty fucking hippies in congress or bloggers proposed, I’d say that it was “unrealistic”. No matter what nonsense Bush cooked up to justify putting more troops in I’d just sniff knowingly and say that it was “unrealistic.” Al Mascitti would praise me for my calm rationality.
But I can’t.
If I took the cowardly approach of the News Journal Editorial board and had the nerve to write something as stupid and morally bankrupt as this:
Mr. Bush has spent what seems an eternity pushing benchmarks. He has been wrong so often that it’s hard to believe even he accepts what he is saying. We just simply have to start moving toward an end to this conflict.
But the other side of the political debate is just as unrealistic and maybe even more cynical. The leading Democrats are telling the American people we have to get out now.
…I would have to ignore a great many facts and turn the meaning of the word “realistic” inside out. I would have to ignore the fact that my “realistic” course leaves everything in place as it is and protects the status quo that Bush and people like Michael Castle have established in Iraq. I’d have to ignore the fact that doing nothing has a five year track record of complete failure. But most of all I’d have to ignore the fact that we will be leaving Iraq a complete mess anyway – and my foot dragging just means that more Americans and Iraqis will die in the process.
The “realistic” reality is that Iraq is fucked.We fucked it up. It is going to be fucked whether we leave today or in 2017.
So, my “extreme” view that we have to try to undo our illegal invasion and incredibly botched occupation of Iraq sooner rather that later prevents me from taking the comfy middle course.
Too bad. I’d really like to be as glib and sensible as the News Journal editors again someday.
Of course the News Journal is wrong on both its assertions.
1) Bush has not been “pushing benchmarks.” On the last go-round Bush suggested he might grudgingly accept some toothless benchmarks as a bi-partisan “compromise,” as long as the benchmarks applied to the Iraqis but not to him. He has floated all sorts of illusory milestones in order to create a false impression of progress toward a goal, but as the time approaches the milestone is quickly forgotten and a new lie is invented to cover the next six months.
2) There are no leading Dems saying “Get out now.” This is a right-wing strawman, eagerly or cluelessly repeated by the NewsJournal. All the Democratic withdrawal proposals have included a draw-down concluding many months from “now.”
Stupid and morally bankrupt.
You have to wonder how these people make it through a normal day. This editorial reads to me like a pre-pre-pre-endorsement of Mike Castle.
Pathetic.
Here are some views on the war that don’t drift down from the ivory tower at 950 West Basin Road.
The Midwest Turns on the War
Yep.
Like Castle, the editors are pretending to be in conflict with President Nutbrain.
“We just simply have to start moving toward an end to this conflict.” …by calling any movement toward ending it unrealistic.
The WNJ has had a really hard time lately keeping a coherent thought together. (more so than ever if that is even possible).
The piece on CC DE was horrendous.
This one just as tone-deaf and ill considered.
Good job Jason, very well done.
A kos commenter cautions to never again fall for the “centrist” trap.
“Centrism” is a codeword for “this week’s center, next week’s left”. Groping for the centrist position in Karl Rove’s spin world is simply acceleration toward the right. Someone has recently posted about the “Overton Window” which has been used against progressives for some 30 years now. We have been slowly shifted to the point where the today’s centrist would have been considered an extreme fascist 30 years ago. The frame of reference just keeps creeping to the right. There is no “center”. Reasonable moderate thinking has fallen off the left side of the window. Now there is only conservative propaganda.
What was once Right is now Left and What was once up is now down. We entered the looking glass shortly after 1929 during the so called New Deal. According to George Will (I know he is your favourite) in The Forgotten Man:
Franklin Roosevelt’s success was in altering the practice of American politics. This transformation was actually assisted by the misguided policies — including government-created uncertainties that paralyzed investors — that prolonged the Depression. This seemed to validate the notion that the crisis was permanent, so government must be forever hyperactive.
…Roosevelt, however, made interest-group politics systematic and routine. New Deal policies were calculated to create many constituencies — labor, retirees, farmers, union members — to be dependent on government.
…Roosevelt implemented the theory that (in [Shlaes’] words) “spending promoted growth, if government was big enough to spend enough.” In only 12 months, just one Roosevelt improvisation, the National Recovery Administration, “generated more paper than the entire legislative output of the federal government since 1789.” Before Roosevelt, the federal government was unimpressive relative to the private sector. Under Calvin Coolidge, the last pre-Depression president, its revenue averaged 4 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 18.6 percent today. …In 1936, for the first time in peacetime history, federal spending exceeded that of the states and localities combined.
…[A]s Roosevelt demonstrated and Shlaes reminds us, compassion, understood as making the “insecure” securely dependent, also makes the state flourish.
Face it guys, the pendulum is swinging back towards individual liberty… And it only took about 75 years.
Roosevelt prolonged the depression?
I guess you could say that Hilter liberated Paris too. I all depends on your perspective.
“Roosevelt prolonged the depression?
I guess you could say that Hilter liberated Paris too. I all depends on your perspective.”
Actually, when you come down to it, it was Hitler that ended the Depression.
Chris said something funny. I’m…. what do you call it…?…speechless.
“…Roosevelt, however, made interest-group politics systematic and routine. New Deal policies were calculated to create many constituencies — labor, retirees, farmers, union members — to be dependent on government.”
How silly is this? Interest Group Politics has been the something of feature of US politics since the US started. What were the Founders if not a groups of men who felt left out of their entitlements as the Interest Group of propertied gentlemen? And the interest groups of slave owners, abolitionists, cotton growers and textile manufacturers were certainly powerful interest groups in they day — and interest groups who had specific actions they wanted from government too. Roosevelt’s sin was in paying attention to interest groups that George Will wishes would not exist. Bet has has no issues with, say Big Pharma, and their constant need of government to make their profits.
“Chris said something funny.”
Not sure how it was funny. It was WWII that ended the depression. Learned that in basic economics.
“I’m…. what do you call it…?…speechless.”
If only that could be true…