A self-described leftist writing in to Andrew Sullivan summed it up well:
[Y]ou see classic conservatism as the defense of liberty from brutality through doubt, caution, common sense and rigorous self-examination[.]
The right wing in America is stuck with the paradox of holding a philosophy of "conserving" and an actual order it does not want to conserve. It keeps trying to create something new it might think worthy, someday, of conserving.
-- Garry Wills, Confessions of a Conservative, pg. 211.
Peggy Noonan has not left her President. Her President has left her.
I left the Republican Party three years ago because the truth of every one of Noonan's criticisms of Bush (and several other criticisms as well) was obvious by then, and I was disappointed and disgusted that no one in the GOP was willing to challenge him. Every major Republican political figure (Noonan included) was content to stay silent and let things go to hell. I wanted someone to have the courage to run against Bush in the 2004 presidential primaries; to take a stand for a different vision of what the Republican Party could and should be. No one did.
That's why I have no sympathy for Noonan and her ilk. They made the bed in which they are about to lie.
Keith Olbermann unloads [streaming video].
We say we are the land of the free and the home of the brave. When, then, will we rid ourselves of an administration that takes away our freedoms and undermines our bravery?
For an American coming of age in the last third of the nineteenth century, one of the surest ways to gain prominence or to secure it was to become a fine public speaker. Oratory was an indispensable element in both politics and religion, on every public holiday and anniversary, at every unveiling of a statue or laying of a cornerstone, and at the banquets obligatory for any group able to hire a cook and rent a hall. Dozens of lecture circuits had sprung up by midcentury, enabling farmers as well as city dwellers to hear the best-known politicians, writers, actors, and preachers in the land.
[…]
[…N]early every adult had been able to witness a variety of oratorical performances. They thus elevated public speaking with much the same mix of canny criticism and admiration we now apply to professional athletes and movie stars. Newspapers routinely published the full or nearly full transcripts of major political speeches and sermons by celebrated ministers; editorial "impressions" accompanied the texts.
-- Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan, pgs. 10-11.
Freud asked, "What do women really want?" It is the kind of question people ask when they do not want to know.
-- Garry Wills, Confessions of a Conservative, pg. 150.
Two views on the Foley scandal: Glenn Greenwald and Billmon.
I used to tease Frank about the way he opposed the state while becoming obsessed with it. He thought of nothing else, day or night. It had even greater power over him than he thought it was trying to get. Once one defines oneself primarily by opposition to one other thing, the essential surrender is made. One resembles those Christians who defined themselves in terms of opposition to the devil. The devil himself became their operative god, the thing that filled their thoughts and limited their actions. The obsessed person longs for some Ahab showdown with his own white whale. He grows to resemble the cruel thing he opposes, becomes its antitype or photographic negative[…]
-- Garry Wills, Confessions of a Conservative, pg. 59.
A friend wrote the following about the compromise a few weeks ago between the Senate and the President about the use of torture:
The Senate, whose majority leader systematically killed cats obtained under false pretenses from local animal shelters, has given the sole authority to determine exactly what does and does not constitute torture to a man who used to blow up frogs with firecrackers.
An e-mail to Fox News:
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 10:53:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steve Casburn
To: comments@foxnews.com
Subject: Labeling Mark Foley a Democrat
Dear Sirs,
Earlier this week, Fox News repeatedly showed a graphic which labelled disgraced Republican congressman Mark Foley as "Former Congressman Mark Foley (D-FL)".
Until this incident, I had questioned your standards and biases but believed that Fox News was basically a news organization. I can't believe that now.
Sincerely,
/s/ Steve Casburn
We can learn a great deal about something without learning of something; we can perceive the outline with remarkable clarity without perceiving the essence; we can see how a thing is seen without feeling how that thing is felt.
Maybe Fox News knows something about liberals. Maybe atheists know something about Christians. Maybe Americans know something about Iran. Maybe Ohio State fans know something about Ann Arbor. Maybe I know something about a thousand things.
But how important are the things known when compared to the things unknown? And in the absence of the things unknown, what worth exists in conclusions drawn from the things known?
No one who looks upon disagreement as an occasion for teaching another should forget that it is also an occasion for being taught.
-- Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book (1972 ed.), ch. 10.
