01-10-2003 17:20									#1
	amen! finally, i'm starting to see more columns like this! Put an end to popups!

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/opinion/30BROO.html

quote: The Presidency Wars By DAVID BROOKS Published: September 30, 2003 Have you noticed that we've moved from the age of the culture wars to the age of the presidency wars? Have you noticed that the furious arguments we used to have about cultural and social issues have been displaced by furious arguments about the current occupant of the Oval Office? During the 1980's, when the culture wars were going full bore, the Moral Majority clashed with the People for the American Way. Allan Bloom published "The Closing of the American Mind" and liberals and conservatives argued over the 1960's. Those arguments have died down, and now the best-sellers lists are dotted with screeds against the president and his supporters. A cascade of Clinton-bashing books hit the lists in the 1990's, and now in the Bush years we've got "Shrub," "Stupid White Men" and "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." The culture warriors were passionate about abortion, feminism or prayer in schools. But with the presidency warrior, political disagreement, cultural resentment and personal antipathy blend to create a vitriol that is at once a descendant of the old conflicts, but also different. "I hate President George W. Bush," Jonathan Chait writes in a candid piece in The New Republic. "He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school — the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks. . . . I hate the way he talks. . . . I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more." The quintessential new warrior scans the Web for confirmation of the president's villainy. He avoids facts that might complicate his hatred. He doesn't weigh the sins of his friends against the sins of his enemies. But about the president he will believe anything. He believes Ted Kennedy when he says the Iraq war was a fraud cooked up in Texas to benefit the Republicans politically. It feels so delicious to believe it, and even if somewhere in his mind he knows it doesn't quite square with the evidence, it's important to believe it because the other side is vicious, so he must be too. The fundamental argument in the presidency wars is not that the president is wrong, or is driven by a misguided ideology. That's so 1980's. The fundamental argument now is that he is illegitimate. He is so ruthless, dishonest and corrupt, he undermines the very rules of civilized society. Many conservatives believed this about Clinton. Teddy Kennedy obviously believes it about Bush. Howard Dean declares, "What's at stake in this election is democracy itself." The warrior goes out looking for leaders strong enough to crush the devil. Wesley Clark appeals to the warrior mentality when he declares: "This is war. It's a culture war, and I am their greatest threat. They are doing everything they can to destroy me right now." It doesn't matter that Clark doesn't yet have policies. This isn't about policies. So far the campaign has not been shaped by how much of the Bush tax cut this or that Democratic candidate wants to roll back. It's about who can stand up to the other side. To the warrior, politics is no longer a clash of value systems, each of which is in some way valid. It's not a competition between basically well-intentioned people who see the world differently. It's not even a conflict of interests. Instead, it's the Florida post-election fight over and over, a brutal struggle for office in which each side believes the other is behaving despicably. The culture wars produced some intellectually serious books because there were principles involved. The presidency wars produce mostly terrible ones because the hatreds have left the animating ideas far behind and now romp about on their own. The warriors have one other feature: ignorance. They have as much firsthand knowledge of their enemies as members of the K.K.K. had of the N.A.A.C.P. In fact, most people in the last two administrations were well-intentioned patriots doing the best they could. The core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it's the haters themselves. And for those who are going to make the obvious point: Yes, I did say some of these things during the Clinton years, when it was conservatives bashing a Democrat, but not loudly enough, which I regret, because the weeds that were once on the edge of public life now threaten to choke off the whole thing.

finally, more people are realising this whole right-left argument, about liberalism or conservatism being evil and what's ruining our society.... is bunk, and it's this disgusting display of hypocrisy and snide sniping that's ruining it instead.

	01-10-2003 17:28									#2
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I agree.
Bunk is ruining our society and, if Henry Ford is to be believed, has been doing so for years. But are we getting the bunk to which we are entitled, or is today's bunk a mere shadow of the bunk enjoyed by our forebears?

	01-10-2003 18:39									#3
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This is such crap -- and so typical! Anything the GOP does is fair game, until it's turned on them; then, suddenly, it's out of bounds, a "danger to democracy."

Republicans attack the poor, and it's politics. Democrats attack the rich, and it's "class warfare."

Republicans spew vitriol at the president for eight straight years (1993-2001), and it's politics. Democrats spend a few months attacking Bush, and its "hatred."

And regardless of what whether some guy in The New Republic hates Bush, the pundit who best embodies the term "hater" is not him, or Michael Moore, or Al Franken, or Wesley Clark. It's Ann Coulter, hands down -- and she's defending the president.

And now this sob sister "regrets" that he didn't say anything earlier. Boo-hoo. Or, as the Church Lady used to say, "how convenient."

Amen my ass. It's the GOP, Fox, and the like who have done more to poison political discourse in this country than anyone else. Let them reap what they've sown, even if it offends the delicate sensibilities of some feckless op-ed writer.

Last edited by Rufus T. Firefly on 01-10-2003 at 18:51

	01-10-2003 18:42									#4
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quote: This is such crap -- and so typical! Anything the GOP does is fair game, until it's turned on them; then, suddenly, it's out of bounds, a "danger to democracy."

I thought it was excellent. Thanks, Q Cubed.

	01-10-2003 18:55									#5
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rufus, maybe it's come too late to really do much, but at least he's realized he's done something wrong.

the vitriol spewed by the republicans on clinton, now that it's being returned to them, is nothing more than karma. yes, they are the ones who fired the first shot, but as long as more and more pundits and people begin to realize that it's their "discourse" that's ruining america, maybe finally we'll put an end to this shitstorm we call party politics here.

	01-10-2003 19:21									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed rufus, maybe it's come too late to really do much, but at least he's realized he's done something wrong. the vitriol spewed by the republicans on clinton, now that it's being returned to them, is nothing more than karma. yes, they are the ones who fired the first shot, but as long as more and more pundits and people begin to realize that it's their "discourse" that's ruining america, maybe finally we'll put an end to this shitstorm we call party politics here.

But we won't; isn't that obvious? Lies, smears, and demagogery have put the GOP in power (especially in Congress; the political godfather of these tactics was Newt Gingrich, who once tried to start a whispering campaign smearing Speaker Tom Foley as a child molester. I'm not making that up). Now that they're in power, they're complaining about the prevailing political climate. Why? Because it could turn against them. I find the current climate poisonous, too, but journalists suddenly discovering their long-dormant senses of decency only plays into Bush's (or, really, Rove's) hands -- and makes the country safe for the "right" kinds of liars and bullies.

	01-10-2003 19:33									#7
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quote: The warrior goes out looking for leaders strong enough to crush the devil. Wesley Clark appeals to the warrior mentality when he declares: "This is war. It's a culture war, and I am their greatest threat. They are doing everything they can to destroy me right now." It doesn't matter that Clark doesn't yet have policies. This isn't about policies. So far the campaign has not been shaped by how much of the Bush tax cut this or that Democratic candidate wants to roll back. It's about who can stand up to the other side.

This in and of itself is kind of sad.

	01-10-2003 20:04									#8
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quote: But we won't; isn't that obvious? Lies, smears, and demagogery have put the GOP in power (especially in Congress; the political godfather of these tactics was Newt Gingrich, who once tried to start a whispering campaign smearing Speaker Tom Foley as a child molester. I'm not making that up). Now that they're in power, they're complaining about the prevailing political climate. Why? Because it could turn against them. I find the current climate poisonous, too, but journalists suddenly discovering their long-dormant senses of decency only plays into Bush's (or, really, Rove's) hands -- and makes the country safe for the "right" kinds of liars and bullies.

oh, i'm well aware of the tactics used to put the gop in power. i still cannot believe what they put the mccain family through in scarolina--it wasn't the bush campaign per se, but their supporters made house calls making slanderous comments about mccain, his wife, and their adopted child.

the climate's been poisonous for years, ever since the middle of clinton's first term when this **** first started to take off. soon after, you get hate writers like coulter becoming huge, gop apologists like hannity growing more popular, and then in response a more and more outrageous michael moore and al franken. they would do us all a favor if they took their pens, sharpened the tips, and shoved one up their ass, another in their eye, one in their ear, and the last one through their trachea. that ain't gonna happen. a lot of those fox news pundits could also do us a favor by placing their faces into a waffle iron.

however, what i'm saying, and what i believe, is that if these people started to stfu, and stop being such asswipes, maybe then we can actually have some reasoned discussion about issues.

the anti-war protests had many flaws, and one of the biggest was that they demonized bush and company; rather than arguing the issues, they chose the more salient and more aggressive path of ad hominem attacks. so much so, that any reasoned discussion about the war itself was quickly drowned out by the clamoring of "the commander-in-thief" being fascist and the "cowardly liberals" wanting to "destroy america by attacking its foundations".

(sigh)

i'm at wits end with this place. i'm glad that some of these people are starting to see the light, after they've crapped and pissed in the waters, and yes, i'm afraid it just might be too late.
but there's still hope yet, i'd like to believe. there's hope yet that this next election will be about issues, which is what i want to vote on, rather than voting against bush.

	01-10-2003 20:42									#9
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Joe Conason's Journal
Now that liberals are finally pushing back on the playground, the Bush bullies are running to tell the teacher.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Sept. 30, 2003 | Rip van Brooks awakens to this cruel, cruel world
Elevated to the New York Times Op-Ed page from the dank, Murdochian stable of the Weekly Standard, David Brooks seems eager to cleanse himself of old habits and nasty associations, while affecting an air of wistful, evenhanded semidetachment. (Eventually, these ostentatiously hygienic columns will annoy some of his old comrades.) In today's offering, he laments the increasing meanness of presidential politics, particularly as reflected in the "hate" expressed toward George W. Bush by certain liberals.

Brooks is concerned that several left-leaning books, none of which he seems to have read, are appearing on bestseller lists. To him, a single confessional article in the New Republic suggests that everyone on the left simply despises the president for reasons that have nothing to do with dishonesty, incompetence and horrific policy. He frets that "the hatreds have left the animating ideas far behind and now romp about on their own." He detects in the haters a "threat to democracy."

His handwringing is hokum. After a decade of continuous Clinton-bashing, much of which appeared in a magazine he edited, has Brooks just now noticed the substitution of vitriol for debate? Has he just awakened, like some right-wing Rip van Winkle? Has he failed to notice the tactics used by the Bush administration, that repository of honor and integrity, against critics like Joe Wilson?

No. More likely, what troubles Brooks is that liberals are finally answering his movement's attacks on their patriotism, character, morality and honor. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that sooner or later, unrelenting viciousness would provoke an angry response.

In fact, the Brooks column is merely an example of the latest variety of neoconservative whine. Not long ago, Byron York unburdened himself of his own wounded feelings about aggresssive liberal Al Franken in National Review Online. And not long before that, York collected some flotsam and jetsam from the Internet, plus a letter to the editor in Vanity Fair, as frightening proof of liberal hatefulness. (One likely target of this guilt-mongering is the traditional, feebly "liberal" commentator -- someone like Ellen Goodman.)

Expressions of hatred toward the president are deplorable, of course, no matter how obscure. It was also deplorable when right-wing propagandists were spewing pus at the last elected president, his wife, mother, daughter, brother, friends, associates, employees, as well as his cat and dog. Nobody on the right seemed too worried about that. (Just yesterday, Times Op-Ed sage William Safire took yet another obsessive, gratuitously personal shot at Hillary Clinton. He must be frustrated that she's in the Senate rather than in prison, as he so recklessly predicted.)

Brooks even acknowledges that most of the people who worked for Bill Clinton were well-meaning patriots, a description rarely applied to any of them in the Weekly Standard, where personal abuse is editorial routine. Brooks realizes that his moaning about the quality of American politics may strike the rest of us as rather belated: "I did say some of these things during the Clinton years, when it was conservatives bashing a Democrat, but not loudly enough, which I regret because the weeds that were once on the edge of public life now threaten to choke off the whole thing."

That melodramatic warning is a happy omen. If conservatives are suddenly worried about civility, perhaps they will begin to act civilly. A truer threat to democracy was the lopsided national discourse that conservatives have so loudly and rudely dominated in recent years. That's over, and good riddance.

	01-10-2003 20:45									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed however, what i'm saying, and what i believe, is that if these people started to stfu, and stop being such asswipes, maybe then we can actually have some reasoned discussion about issues.

It's not going to happen. They're greedy, evil, manipulative bastards. Unfortunately, the only way to save the country from them is to adopt their tactics, because otherwise they'l just keep trouncing the people who try to be reasonable.

The country has changed.

	01-10-2003 20:48									#11
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now, i'll admit i wasn't aware of brooks's past. however, i still think this is a positive step, because he's one of the first of the conservatives to finally understand what has happened to political discourse in this country, no small thanks to the conservatives during clinton's era.

	01-10-2003 20:49									#12
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quote: It's not going to happen. They're greedy, evil, manipulative bastards. Unfortunately, the only way to save the country from them is to adopt their tactics, because otherwise they'l just keep trouncing the people who try to be reasonable. The country has changed.

i'll wait four more years. if it hasn't changed, and has fallen further than it has now, i plan on staying with the foreign service and never coming back to the states. i'll still be american, but i don't think i'll be able to stand watching idiots on both sides of the fence ruin a once-great nation.

	01-10-2003 20:51									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed i still think this is a positive step,

Then you're being naive. This isn't a call for both sides to return to a reasoned debate. It's a call for the Democrats to once again turn the other check and let themselves be the Repulicans punching bag. It's really too late. Maybe if the Republicans weren't so busy stealing elections, it might be considered sincere. Until the right plays by the rules, I see no reason for the center to have to (as America has no left).

	01-10-2003 20:53									#14
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I'm proud to see neither side wants to be the bigger man on this. Vindictiveness is what makes America great.

	01-10-2003 21:01									#15
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Until the right plays by the rules, I see no reason for the center to have to (as America has no left).

Like ALL sides haven't been doing this for years...



The left (or center) playing by the rules in the past...

	01-10-2003 21:10									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Drake Tungsten I'm proud to see neither side wants to be the bigger man on this.

Being the bigger man means being the loser in this case.

	01-10-2003 21:13									#17
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Maybe if the Republicans weren't so busy stealing elections, it might be considered sincere.

What city are you from again?

PS Seriously, am I the only one that finds it a little sad that someone without even a clear platform or even an actual idea on where he stands on the Iraq war has risen so far in the Democratic race so far?

	01-10-2003 21:16									#18
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maybe i should take what i said back about leaving the country for a permanent tour of duty in the foreign service. 'cause it sure as hell doesn't look like i'll be back.

	01-10-2003 21:17									#19
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I don't know what you have been reading but the media has been bashing republicans since... well, forever.

	01-10-2003 21:19									#20
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc What city are you from again?

St. Louis, why?

quote: PS Seriously, am I the only one that finds it a little sad that someone without even a clear platform or even an actual idea on where he stands on the Iraq war has risen so far in the Democratic race so far?

Honestly, what makes this different from most of the rest of elections. It's never about issues but about winnability. For some reason, Americans don't want to vote for what they believe in, but for someone who can win. Then they're always pissed at what they get. That's the biggest problem with a two party system.

	01-10-2003 21:24									#21
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It does seem like both sides have been wrapped up in mindlessly bashing the other's President.

	01-10-2003 21:26									#22
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there's no "seeming" about it. that's all they're doing.

and they won't let a dead horse lie, either. clinton's still being blamed for things.

	01-10-2003 21:26									#23
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While I admit there has been a lot of mindless bashing of Bush, there has also been a lot of substantive bashing of Bush. Far more than there ever was against Clinton (who really deserved some substantive bashing).

	01-10-2003 21:29									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed there's no "seeming" about it. that's all they're doing.

Wrong, Bush and the wing of the Republicans he represent, have done serious damage to the republic. There are a lot of good reason to bash him. Unfortunately, some of them are old (like oil exploration in ANWAR, or now, off the coast of Florida ) and some are too complicated to fit in a sound bit (the stuff he did with Bush Exploration and subsequent companies). Some of it isn't sticking, despite the seriousness, like Bush's being a deserter yet cmomanding the military.

	01-10-2003 21:31									#25
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"politics is no longer a clash of value systems, each of which is in some way valid. It's not a competition between basically well-intentioned people who see the world differently. It's not even a conflict of interests."

ummm....when has this EVER been the case, he is describing what we call 'politics' in any country and giving it a new buzzword name.

Like Chretien said once about why he wanted to be PM 'I like to win' it's all about winning and losing.

And come on, who the **** at anytime in any country had a political culture that was a 'clash of value systems, each of which is viewed in some way way valid'?

The point of having an opposing viewpoint is that you believe the other guy is in some way fundamentally wrong. People may work together because of a system or game theory, but they never by definition belief opposing views are equally valid.

This is (my turn to coin a phrase) Op Ed buzzword-itis. I don't know where it comes from but it seems like so many Op Ed guys think they have had some great new insight to share, with a whole new terminology and jargon (culture wars, president warriors, etc etc), for the same old ****.

Cases in point: Road 'rage' "Air Rage" 'Club Drugs', Date Rape, Culture Wars, Science Wars, Gender Wars, Language Wars Kulturkampf, all meaningless buzzwords for stuff that has being going on in some form all the time dressed up with some fancy shock crap to get you make them more money.

	01-10-2003 21:33									#26
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I'm all for oil exploration. It's much better to produce domesticly then to import from the middle east. Not to mention it puts our economy less at the mercy of OPEC.

Believe it or not modern oil production can be done with a minimal enviromental impact.

	01-10-2003 21:34									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Believe it or not modern oil production can be done with a minimal enviromental impact.

So then why don't they?

	01-10-2003 21:35									#28
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'cause it's expensive. Go Nukes!! CANDU-2, the safest nuclear reactor in the world.

	01-10-2003 21:41									#29
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara So then why don't they?

They do. Just check out the way they've been doing it in California for the last 20 years. Ever since they moved to trip walled pipe lines and triple redundant computer controlled flow systems there hasn't been any significant oil discharge. The only major oil spill was off Santa Barbara in 1974 and that was with single walled pipes and human error (i.e. a guy forgot to open a pipe valve so pressure built up and the pipe burst). With the new systems it is very, very, very unlikely such an event would ever happen again.

	01-10-2003 22:04									#30
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We're talking about Alaska and off shore oil drilling. In both cases, what was supposed to have been environmentally friendly has turned out not to be the case.

In Prince William Sound, for example, only double hulled ships were suposed to be used (the Exxon Valdez was single huilled). They were supposed to have adequate facilities on hand to deal with a spill of the EV's magnitude. They didn't. And so on. If they can cheat the people of the United States, let alone anyone else, they will. I don't trust them, simply no the basis of one state with tough environmental regulations.