NRO Newsletters . . . Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty
March 30, 2012
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There will be no Jolt next week, and the next edition of will arrive on Easter Monday. I'll spend a portion of next week driving down to South Carolina and back, so if you thought I was obsessively irate about high gas prices before, just wait until I've added a couple hundred miles to my odometer.
Happy Friday!
Jim |
| 1. With All Thy Getting, Get Understanding, Lefty Friends
In the Daily Telegraph, Tom Chivers summarizes one of the points raised by a book I'm reading: Jonathan Haidt, the moral psychologist, shows as much in his book "The Righteous Mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion", which I've mentioned before and which my colleague Ed West and I have been reading from our differing political perspectives. The measure is a simple one: how well do they understand their political opponents?
They asked two thousand Americans to describe their political leanings (liberal, moderate, conservative) and fill out a questionnaire about morality, one-third of the time as themselves, one-third of the time as a "typical liberal", and one-third of the time as a "typical conservative". The clear answer was: self-described conservatives and moderates were much better at predicting what other people would believe. Liberals, especially the "very liberal", were by far the worst at guessing what people would say, and especially bad at guessing what conservatives would say about issues of care or fairness. For example, most thought that conservatives would disagree with statements like "One of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal" or "Justice is the most important requirement for a society." In other words, broadly speaking, we conservatives disagree with liberals but we understand their thinking and why they think what they do. They, on the other hand, don't agree with us or understand us. If this is true, it explains why liberals were completely blindsided by this week's arguments before the Supreme Court.
John Podhoretz began on Thursday by declaring: The panicked reception in the mainstream media of the three-day Supreme Court health-care marathon is a delightful reminder of the nearly impenetrable parochialism of American liberals. They're so convinced of their own correctness -- and so determined to believe conservatives are either a) corrupt, b) stupid or c) deluded -- that they find themselves repeatedly astonished to discover conservatives are in fact capable of a) advancing and defending their own powerful arguments, b) effectively countering weak liberal arguments and c) exposing the soft underbelly of liberal self-satisfaction as they do so. At Patterico's Pontifications, Karl picked up the thought and added, Yesterday, I noted the libs are likely overreacting, but also noted similar self-delusion from Dahlia Lithwick and Michael Kinsley. Lithwick relied heavily on the aforementioned Linda Greenhouse, whom Ed Whelan shows to be engaged in denial and dismissal herself (along with claiming Nancy Pelosi as a constitutional scholar). Lithwick also asserted an "argument" that Obamacare's constitutionality is "best illustrated by the fact that -- until recently -- the Obama administration expended almost no energy defending it." Whelan correctly notes that this is as factually false as it is bizarre. The same goes for Kinsley's claim that that nobody argued the mandate was unconstitutional until after Obamacare passed. Ramesh Ponnuru notes Kinsley is factually wrong, not to mention making a claim progressives would never make regarding legal bans on abortion or sodomy.
Liberals and liberaltarians are increasingly fond of claiming the right lives in an echo chamber. It is said -- sometimes even on the right -- that the right's successes in the past few decades has made them intellectually lazy, unable to engage and overcome progressive arguments and attacks as they did in the halcyon days of Buckley and Reagan. However, when it comes to Pres. Obama's signature achievement, and a major step toward socialized healthcare, the progressives' experts and top-shelf pundits display the judgment, rhetorical skill and logic of toddlers. The liberal echo chamber has a long history, exemplified nicely in the apocryphal quote attributed to New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael: "I can't believe Nixon won. I don't know anyone who voted for him." Many of us on the right had a good laugh when then-congressman Phil Hare dismissed questions about the constitutionality of the individual mandate by declaring, "I don't worry about the Constitution on this." Thank Representative Bobby Schilling -- now facing a challenging reelection bid under new district lines -- for beating Hare in 2010. But I think Hare was just being honest. He, like many of his brethren on the left, generally believe that if the government has an idea to make the country a better place, it ought to just enact it; whether there's a provision in the Constitution authorizing the government to do that is immaterial.
My blogospheric mirror, Moe Lane, notes that we conservatives probably shouldn't pat ourselves on the back too much for understanding liberal thinking and arguments better than they understand ours; it probably just comes down to the amount of exposure. The reason why conservatives understand liberals better than liberals understand conservatives is because you cannot avoid the liberal mindset in this culture even if you wanted to. It's flipping everywhere: and you have to learn to recognize at least the basics in sheer memetic self-defense. Contrariwise, it is exceedingly easy for liberals to ignore conservatives if they so desire; and most liberals do. Honestly, if conservatives could ignore liberals we probably would; we would, if we could, but we can't, so we don't.
And if you think that all of this is unfair, consider this: when was the last time that the conservative movement got caught as flatfooted as liberals did over the Obamacare critiques? Not saying that it doesn't happen, but liberals do seem to tend to get unpleasantly surprised a lot. |
2. Courage, DanOh, Dan Rather. Newsbusters quotes the former CBS News anchor: I still can't believe that here, in the second decade of the 21st century, in a presidential campaign, that we're talking about contraception. Do you know any woman, of any race, creed, color or religion, who doesn't use some form of birth control? . . .
The openly gay Maddow tactfully let Rather's question pass unanswered. Sigh. Think, Dan, think. What kind of woman would not need birth control? |
3. The Long-Awaited Tebow Analysis When the Tebow trade went down, I said I needed time to process it. A runaway cultural phenomenon and social lightning rod I generally admire coming to my favorite team that has a whole bunch of needs to meet high expectations. Sheesh.
First, read my distinguished colleague Dan Foster's thoughts, shortly after the trade: Tebow is a high-character, likeable guy, but there is only so far that takes you in a locker room full of NFL-sized egos (Jets CB Antonio Cromartie has been tweeting against the Tebow trade since the first whiff of it) and a fanbase on the bad end of 40 years of disappointment. His presence takes a volatile locker room and makes it more volatile still. . . .
Does anyone think the New York media will take an interest in Tebow's social life? They are going to eat the kid alive.
I am not a happy Jets fan at the moment. Nor am I happy Tebow fan. Welcome to the worst of both worlds. Still, watching that press conference, I fell in love with the kid. What a healthy attitude toward his sport, his profession, his teammates, his fans, and life in general. Think about it: He takes the helm of the Broncos, gets them to the playoffs, gets them a playoff win, gives the franchise the most buzz, excitement, and energy since Elway retired, and then gets unceremoniously tossed in favor of an aging veteran with a neck that appears to be held together with duct tape. In his shoes, I'd feel a little bitter, snubbed. The chip on my shoulder would be powerful enough to meet the processing requirements of Deep Blue.
And yet here he is last night: In a short statement linked to his Twitter feed, Tebow wrote, "Well, that was an interesting couple of weeks! Now that things have finally settled down a bit, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you great Denver fans for all of your support.
"The ride that we were able to enjoy together this past season is something that I will always cherish. I'd also like to thank all of my former coaches and teammates as it was an honor to play for and alongside each of you. I will always be grateful to the Broncos organization for giving me the initial opportunity to fulfill my dream of being an NFL quarterback." Perhaps, alone, in the dark, when no one is looking, Tim Tebow curses a blue streak and swears revenge on everyone who's ever wronged him. But I doubt it. Off the field, I think he'll still be the guy who exemplifies everything we want to see in a professional athlete. And on the field, I think the Jets will end up calling a surprising number of halfback options. You will probably see Mark Sanchez and Tebow on the field simultaneously (Sanchez usually lined up as a wide receiver during the Jets' previous wildcat plays). Defenses could see both Sanchez and Tebow in the huddle and not know who would be lining up under center. If the Jets really plan on getting their money's worth out of Tebow, expect a lot of unexpected runs in likely passing situations and passes in expected running situations and general unpredictability -- a breath of fresh air after the Brian Schottenheimer years. |
4. Addendum
Kevin Eder: "The two competing visions of this country are not 'left' and 'right.' This election is between reality and fantasy." |
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