Big Government and the iGeneration

Michael Barone noticed what is perhaps impolite to mention, viz. that the current Democratic leadership is really, really old (”Wily Old Dems take on Whippersnapper Republicans“).

The ages of the ranking Democrats on the Appropriations, Ways and Means, Education, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, Foreign Affairs, and Judiciary committees are 70, 79, 65, 71, 70, 69, and 81. The three party leaders are 70, 71, and 70.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with that on its own. But he adds that their generation thinks of the country's business based on an outdated model that he calls “Big Unit America.” It is a country controlled by big government, big business, and big labor. We saw it in the 111th Congress. Huge stimulus package to move the economy. Prop up the unions with card check. One big health care insurance system to cover everyone (eventually).

It struck me, however, that this view is entirely out of step with this Internet formed, emerging generation who, in my Worldmag column, I call the iGeneration ("The Politics of the iGeneration").

While it is true that younger voters are still breaking for the Democrats, as they grow up and put life and politics together they will find that the Big Unit view of the world is not theirs. The younger generation values personal control of their lives, and this priority is driven by technology. They have personal settings and privacy settings for everything. They are used to having My-this and My-that. Niche news and information sources on the Internet have replaced the big three networks of the 1970s. They are used to being heard (or at least thinking they’re being heard) through everything from blogs and comment threads to the widely publicized chatter of social network sites. Centralized, bossy, deaf bureaucracies will not be their thing. It’s not how they roll.

These are people who design their own Converse high-tops online before they buy them.

What will this young generation expect in place of centrally planned, centrally administered government health care, for example? It will be precisely what John McCain advocated (but tepidly, and explained poorly) during the 2008 election: consumer-driven health care.

See my 2008 post on it: "Hope for the Health Care Mess." That comes with links to Regina Herzlinger's three books on the subject.

Rhetoric and Political Accomplishment

President Barack Obama came to office as the Golden Boy with the magic tongue capable of sending tingles up the legs of respected journalists as though they were ten year old girls at a Jonas Brothers concert. He would cry out, "We are the change we've been waiting for," and a concert stadium would go wild. Many thought, "Finally, a President who can talk! He speaks our language and speaks to our hearts."

A year into his presidency, we are in a good position to access his rhetoical ability.

This is no small matter. Rhetoric is one of the essential tools a democratic statesman needs for governing effectively. Rhetoric is the use of public speech—words that are well chosen and well spoken—to move people to agreement and to action. Francis Bacon called it the application of “reason to imagination for the better moving of the will” (Advancement of Learning II xviii 2).

The Presidents pictured above had various records of success in their ability to speak to the American people. George Bush was pretty good when he wanted to be. He was hot when he debated Michael Dukakis on television. But in office, he spoke of "the vision thing" as though it were of little importance. He lost the next election. His son, George W., was worse. In his second term, he pressed ahead with his policies, but gave almost no attention to bringing the voters along with him in understanding and commitment. As a consequence, his approval rating fell to the floor, Congress ignored him insofar as they could, and his political power diminished considerably.

Bill Clinton could talk. He was trained by actors, and carefully calculated his words, their delivery, and their emotional coloring. He connected with the people on a deep level. But, of course, this was squandered, because what agenda he had was paltry compared to his considerable abilities, and he wasted much of his opportunity defending himself against avoidable scandals.

Then there was Jimmy Carter, the man on the end who seems to be off on his own. It is no accident that he is not the leader of his party, even though he is a former President, alive, and writes books. At our time of multiple crises, he showed us a long, worried face, and scolded us for our malaise. Apparently, he did not actually use the word "malaise," but we all remember that he did, as it summarized nicely whatever he said in his public address that night, and so it stuck. Again, one term, but also lasting shame.

The Great Communicator of course is man who is not pictured: Ronald Reagan. He had a knack for going around the press, speaking directly to the American people about their concerns in familiar terms because he knew them well.

So what about Barack Obama? In office, he has come across as inappropriately cool, as, for example, when he (finally) spoke after the underwear bomber's failed attempt to bring down a plane over Detroit. He usually speaks in the dry and technical manner of a tenured university professor, i.e. one who knows more than anyone in the room, and who doesn't have to convince anyone of anything to keep his job. He seems emotionally detatched and socially aloof.

This style does not match his agenda. He and his Democratic allies in Congress have set out on an aggressive agenda of government intervention and control the likes of which we have not seen in two generations or more. Yet, he has not been able to bring the great middle along with him. Approval for his most treasured initiative, health care reform, stands today at 37%. Under Obama's government, the American people have actually become more conservative.

David Brooks, in his column "The Tea Party Teens," identifies the present governing class (as they also identify themselves) as "the educated class," and argues that the Tea Party movement is a passionate but informed rejection of everything that this governing class--that includes and is typified by President Obama--represents.

Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

Commenting on Brooks, Noemie Emery emphasizes that the public recoil against the President's politics is substantive not only as to specific policies, but also as to the political theory underlying those policies.

While the liberal Left controls the White House along with both houses of Congress, the country it governs has moved to the Right. These phenomena are all interrelated: The country is moving Right in reaction to Obama's theories of governance, and Obama and the educated class are one and the same.

Michael Barone, also commenting on Brooks's column, remarks on how the 2008 Obama supporters were impressed largely with his style.

The Obama enthusiasts who dominated so much of the 2008 campaign cycle were motivated by style. The tea party protesters who dominated so much of 2009 were motivated by substance.

Remember those rapturous crowds that swooned at Barack Obama's rhetoric. "We are the change we are seeking," he proclaimed. "We will be able to look back and tell our children" that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." A lot of style there, but not very much substance. A Brookings Institution scholar who produced nothing more than that would soon be looking for a new job.

The great surprise of the Obama presidency has been the contrast between the enormity of his domestic policy ambitions in comparison with the rapid shrinkage of popular support for them on account not only of their inherent problems but also of his ineptitude in promoting them rhetorically. Obama's governing rhetoric has not matched the rhetoric of his campaign. Ill-crafted rhetoric in support of unpopular and even irksome policies will make Barack Obama an historically important one-term President.

Connecting the Dots on Comrade Obama

One of the tragedies of this election is that I cannot be an Obama supporter. It is not just that his supporters seem to have more fun, and get to be more stylish, and enjoy those Obama music videos on a deeper level than the rest of us do. It is above all that Barack Obama is an impressive man with an obvious potential for national leadership that can unify us in the way he boasts he will. The fact that I could at the same time vote for the first black president would just enhance the pleasure.

But I cannot support him because I am increasingly convinced that he is as radically left wing as I feared he might be. In his most public settings, like a national presidential debate for example, he is all moderation and centrism. He surrounds himself with establishment Democrats like former treasury secretary Robert Rubin and stock market tycoon Warren Buffett, and even some retired generals on occasion. But behind the election season facade is a threatening gang of communist (yes, I use the word advisedly) associates. Connecting the dots on Barack Obama's submerged radical political sentiments has become like viewing a pointillist painting. (Thus, my use, or in a sense misuse, of the December 2007 cover of The Atlantic.)

Amir Taheri ("The O Jesse Knows") quotes Jesse Jackson saying, "He is the continuation of our struggle for justice not only for the black people but also for all those who have been wronged." On its own, that testimony is just a dot. But I have noted before that while McCain says that government needs to be reformed, Obama sees America itself as the problem, i.e., our political, economic and social systems. Thus, Jackson foresees Obama bringing a "radical change of direction." His indictment is this:

We have lost confidence in our president, our Congress, our banking system, our Wall Street and our legal system to protect our individual freedoms. . . I don't see how we could regain confidence in all those institutions without a radical change of direction

Think of "radical" in the leftist political sense. Jesse Jackson says he is neither an advisor nor confident of Obama, but his son has been a close friend of Obama for years, and it would be naive to think that Jesse is not in the know.

Michael Barone, senior writer for US News & World Report and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, draws our attention to the record of intimidation and suppression of free speech among Obama operatives ("The Coming Liberal Thugocracy").

Obama supporters seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech that they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims that this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we've seen the coming of a thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.

Consider Jonah Goldberg's study of "liberal fascism." (Read Ron Pestritto's review in the Claremont Review of Books, "A Nicer Form of Tyranny.")

Obama the Chicago community organizer is closely tied to ACORN, infamous for their physical intimidation of elected officials, widespread voter fraud and abuse of public funds. Read Stanley Kurtz's extensively researched, "Inside Obama's Acorn," and "Obama and Acorn" from the Wall Street Journal. Kurtz also shares the story of ACORN's gestapo-style assault on Newt Gingrich's legislative attempts to limit their influence ("Spreading the Virus").

House Speaker Newt Gingrich was scheduled to address a meeting of county commissioners at the Washington Hilton. But, first, some 500 protesters from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) poured into the ballroom from both the kitchen and the main entrance. Hotel staffers who tried to block them were quickly overwhelmed by demonstrators chanting, "Nuke Newt!" and "We want Newt!" Jamming the aisles, carrying bullhorns and taunting the assembled county commissioners, demonstrators swiftly took over the head table and commandeered the microphone, sending two members of Congress scurrying. The demonstrators' target, Gingrich, hadn't yet arrived - and his speech was cancelled. When the cancellation was announced, ACORN's foot soldiers cheered.

He reports other frightening incidents of violence. These are Obama's associates, people he has defended and with whom he has worked closely. This is what community organizing means in Chicago. Obama's wife, Michelle, told us, "Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He's a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change."

The WSJ editorial ended with this:

The Obama campaign is now distancing itself from Acorn, claiming Mr. Obama never organized with it and has nothing to do with illegal voter registration. Yet it's disingenuous to channel cash into an operation with a history of fraud and then claim you're shocked to discover reports of fraud. As with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, Mr. Obama was happy to associate with Acorn when it suited his purposes. But now that he's on the brink of the Presidency, he wants to disavow his ties.

The great exposé, however, is Joshua Muravchik's article, "Obama's Leftism," in the recent Commentary. From the evidence he assembles, the reader can trace a pattern of communist (yes, I mean Marxist, communist) associations in Obama's personal and profession life.

His mentor in high school was poet Frank Marshall Davis, a member of the Communist Party.

In college, Obama has written that "I chose my friends carefully. ... The Marxist professors and structural feminists...." That was not just a phase he went through in college.

Moving to Chicago and throwing himself into community activism, he joined himself to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his politically charged Trinity United Methodist Church. "The first time Obama attended services at Trinity, Wright delivered a sermon (it was titled “the audacity of hope”) whose theme was: “white folks’ greed runs a world in need.”" Obama told us he was "shocked" to learn of these radical, America hating, Marxist (liberation theology) views. But they was as hard to miss as beer in a bar. "[N]ot only was he aware of Wright’s views, they were what had drawn him to Trinity church in the first place."

Community organizing in Chicago was invented by leftist radical Saul Alinsky. In those years, Obama was schooled in the art of professional radicalism and he schooled others in turn.

Obama's connection with the murderous, bomb-throwing 1960's domestic terrorist William Ayers is harder to pin down. Information on this connection has been suppressed. But the connection is sufficiently clear that a responsible press would dig for greater details. Muravchik uses the words "likely," "most likely," "apparently," "conceivable," "could only have been," and "these facts suggest" in reporting the relationship. But when you put it all together and in the context of all of Obama's radical associations, it is a compelling and, given his chance at the presidency, a disturbing case. On it's own, a snow flake is of no consequence. But the cumulative effect of many snow flakes in coincidence is a deadly storm.

Ayers became an English professor and community activist in the Saul Alinsky tradition. Remember Michelle Obama indiscreet words: “Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He’s a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.”

Obama's political career started in the Illinois state senate when he took over the seat of Alice Palmer who chose him as her successor. Clearly, she expected him to carry on in her tradition. Palmer was a communist...literally.

Like others among his mentors or patrons, Palmer, too, was a radical, a member of the executive body of the U.S. Peace Council, the least disguised of Soviet front organizations. She had made multiple pilgrimages to the Soviet Union, and in 1986 attended the 27th Congress of the Soviet Communist party, telling the party paper on her return that the Soviets “plan to provide people with higher wages and better education, health and transportation, while we in our country are hearing that cutbacks are necessary in all of these areas.”

During that campaign, Obama received the endorsement of "the New Party (NP), a coalition of socialists, Communists, and other leftists," a favor for which he later thanked them in person.

It is generous to think that, if there is any truth to these indicators, Barack Obama will be moderated by the office and by some of the establishment Democrats around him. On the other hand, as Muravchik observes, there is nothing in his intellectual development nor in his career path--from his professional radicalism in Chicago to his almost monolithicly liberal voting record in the Senate--to suggest any hope of moderation in an Obama presidency.

Muravchik sums up,

"Obama comes to us from a background farther to the Left than any presidential nominee since George McGovern, or perhaps ever. This makes him an extremely unlikely leader to bridge the divides of party, ideology, or, for that matter, race. If he loses, it will be for that reason (though many will no doubt adduce different explanations, including of course white racism, to which every GOP victory since Nixon’s election in 1968 has been attributed)."

"And if he wins? Without a doubt, it will be a thrilling moment. But the enduring importance of that landmark event will depend on the subsequent effectiveness of his presidency. If his tenure—like that of, say, Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter—should end by inviting scorn, then it may open as many wounds as it heals. On the other hand, it is not unimaginable that he may rise to the challenge of the office and govern from the center, as he will have to do to succeed. This, however, would truly involve reinventing himself, a task for which his intellectual and ideological background furnishes few materials."

On this subject, there is also David Feddoso's book, The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate (Regnery, 2008).

Honestly, given John McCain's shortcomings, if Barack Obama were an ordinary, left of center Democrat, I might very well support him. My hope would be that it would be worth suffering the minimal harm he would do for the sake of the reconciliation he could bring the nation and for the benefit the Republicans would experience during their wilderness reflection. But given his consistent history of leftist and even radical politics, I foresee no reconciliation, huge growth of government at the expense of our economic and political liberties, and the emboldening of our enemies around the world.

Looking at Barack Obama soberly, I see nothing but a tragedy waiting to happen. He could have been great.


Postscript:

David Brooks anticipates one or the other of these two Obama presidencies based on his historical and psychological assessments:

And it is easy to sketch out a scenario in which he could be a great president. He would be untroubled by self-destructive demons or indiscipline. With that cool manner, he would see reality unfiltered. He could gather — already has gathered — some of the smartest minds in public policy, and, untroubled by intellectual insecurity, he could give them free rein. Though he is young, it is easy to imagine him at the cabinet table, leading a subtle discussion of some long-term problem.

Of course, it’s also easy to imagine a scenario in which he is not an island of rationality in a sea of tumult, but simply an island. New presidents are often amazed by how much they are disobeyed, by how often passive-aggressiveness frustrates their plans.

It could be that Obama will be an observer, not a leader. Rather than throwing himself passionately into his causes, he will stand back. Congressional leaders, put off by his supposed intellectual superiority, will just go their own way. Lost in his own nuance, he will be passive and ineffectual. Lack of passion will produce lack of courage. The Obama greatness will give way to the Obama anti-climax.

From "Thinking About Obama," New York Times, October 17, 2008)

Why Is Obama Campaigning Against Himself?

So having reviewed much of what the Obama campaign is doing wrong, it is fair to ask what McCain is doing right.

Michael Barone says that the old fighter pilot has been "Getting Inside Obama's Loop."

Senator McCain was trained as a fighter pilot. In his selection of Governor Palin, and in his convention and campaigning since, he has shown that he learned an important lesson from his fighter pilot days: He has gotten inside Senator Obama's OODA loop.

That term was the invention of a great fighter pilot and military strategist, John Boyd. It's an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

"The key to victory is operating at a faster tempo than the enemy," Boyd's biographer, Robert Coram, writes. "The key thing to understand about Boyd's version is not the mechanical cycle itself, but rather the need to execute the cycle in such a fashion as to get inside the mind and decision cycle of the adversary."

For a fighter pilot, that means honing in above and behind the adversary so you can shoot him out of the sky. For a political candidate, it means acting in such a way that the opponent's responses again and again reinforce the points you are trying to make and undermine his own position.

Read how McCain has applied this strategy. It starts with his selection of Sarah Palin as running mate. The Obama people and their friends in the media go into a tailspin from there.

As Barone admits, Charlie Martin at American Thinker ("McCain and the OODA Loop") got the story first and provides more detailed analysis.

Are We Doomed To An Idiot Election?

It seems that, in the last couple of generations, we have developed the habit of electing an idiot every 16 years. In 2008, according to that pattern and as well as to present indications, we're due for another one. Michael Barone explains why in "The 16-Year Itch" (Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2008).

Of course, he does not use the word idiot, but instead refers to "outside-of-the-system candidates."

Democrats Find Religion and Pray for Defeat

The news these days is that the Democratic Party has found religion. So what do these newly baptized holy rollers pray for? Defeat on the battlefield, it seems...so they can bring home the troops (whom, of course, they fully support) and, on the basis of this victory, ride a wave of public approval into the eventual control of all three branches of government. If don't see the mutilation of human reason in that, you must have just returned from the Yearly Kos Convention.

A week ago, on the New York Times op ed page, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M Pollack (both at The Brookings Institution) wrote up their report on the apparent success we (yes, "we") appear to be having in the president's 2007 counterinsurgency, the so-called "surge" ("A War We Just Might Win," July 30, 2007). Dems are panicking at the news. We are not supposed to win. It's supposed to be a quagmire, Vietnam all over again. The reputations of respectable presidential candidates are at stake. Furthermore, if we are to have any hope of liberating America, the liberation of Iraq must fail. And on it goes.

Commenting on the shock waves this report has sent through Washington, Michael Barone says in today's New York Sun ("Shifting Perceptions of the War"), "It's not often that an opinion article shakes up Washington and changes the way a major issue is viewed. But that happened last week, when the New York Times printed an opinion article by analysts of the Brookings Institution, Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack, on the progress of the surge strategy in Iraq."

His basics points are these: In February 2006, Al Qaeda bombed the Shiite mosque in Samarra and something approaching sectarian civil war broke out. Reality changed, and the president's failure was in not responding. Hope springs eternal when things have been going well.

But after the November 2006 election, President Bush changed our approach to the Iraq war, appointing the author of the Army's new counterinsurgency manual, General David Petraeus, to prosecute the war based on a different set of assumptions and with new goals corresponding to actual conditions. Reality changed once again, but the Democratic opponents of the war (what seems like the whole party, except for "independent" Joe Lieberman) are now failing to recognize it and change their approach to the domestic political war.

Barone concludes, "Democrats could find themselves trapped between a base that wants retreat and defeat, and a majority that wants victory." Politics are not the faint hearted.

Also look at Ralph Peters' "Winning in Iraq and Losing in Washington" from the New York Post, July 26, 2007, and, on the same page, Victor Davis Hanson's "Architects of a Poison 'Peace.'"