March 13, 2010 [LINK / comment]

Deluge of Democratic scandals

As the East Coast gets drenched with a monster rainstorm to close out the hellish Winter of 2009-2010, the Democratic Party is getting clobbered with a deluge of scandals -- moral, ethical, financial, you name it! Nancy Pelosi declared that the Democrats would "drain the swamp" of corruption in Congress after they took control in the 2006 election, and those words are coming back to haunt her. Soon, everyone will have forgotten all about Sen. Ted Stevens, Rep. Tom DeLay, and Jack Abramoff. This comes at a most inconvenient time, as President Obama is leading the political equivalent of Pickett's Charge on Capitol Hill, forcing the health care issue without a semblance of public consensus, or even majority support.

Just when the American people need reassurance that the government is collecting taxes in a fair and equitable manner, so that shared public policy goals may be realized in an atmosphere of mutual trust, the man with the greatest responsibility for that task has been exposed as a crook. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) had to give up his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee while an ethics probe is carried out to find out the connection between the many favors he received from various corporate interests and the tax laws that he helped bring about.

By amazing coincidence, another Harlem politician, Gov. David Paterson is facing another wave of accusations about political corruption. His key assistants have resigned, and it will be a minor miracle if he manages to finish out his term, which is actually the term of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, another sleazebag. Among other things, Paterson has accepted, and possibly actively sought, free tickets to New York Yankees baseball games, with a strong appearance of a quid pro quo. One expert/consultant calls those two scandals "catastrophic for the black community in America and particularly in Harlem." See the Washington Post.

And for bizarro comic relief, Rep. Eric Massa resigned his seat in Congress after admitting to flagrantly improper behavior. It nothing more than mildy bawdy "tickle fights," in his words, but to some of his former staffers and Navy shipmates, it was sexual harrassment. What was even weirder about this case was the question of how and why it came to light. Did Democratic leaders leak the story so as to get rid of a Democratic opponent of Obamacare, thereby making it just a bit easier to pass a modified health package the second time around? Briefly, Massa became a "hero" to conservatives, according to politico.com. Rush Limbaugh loudly protested the manner in which he was "outed," and Glenn Beck made a fool of himself by having Massa on his FOX News TV show for a full hour, violating his own cardinal rule of not wasting his viewers' time. Massa is clearly a flake of little long-term consequence. See the Washington Post

"Born Again Americans"

I make no bones about my devotion to civility in political discourse and seeking bipartisan cooperation on behalf of the public interest, whenever it is feasible. Many people falsely equate such an attitude as compromising conservative principles, which is too bad. But when it comes to bogus appeals from leftists in sheep's clothing, I am nobody's fool. Someone recently sent me a link to an inspirational music video at bornagainamerican.org, and something about it struck me as a little odd. So I took a closer look, and sure enough, it's an offshoot of Norman Lear's "People for the American Way," which takes the separation of church and state to an extreme. After doing some Googling, I came across a very apt critique of the "Born Again Americans" at dakotavoice.com, a blog based in Rapid City, South Dakota.

February 27, 2010 [LINK / comment]

Defending the Tenth Amendment

Are you a "Tenther"? I'm not sure if I'm as vehement about the issue as some folks, but I have taken the Tenth Amendment seriously at least since I was in graduate school at U.Va. I was surprised back then that some of my grad student colleagues, and apparently some professors, seem to downplay the Tenth Amendment as nothing more than self-evident, redundant boilerplate language lacking much substantive meaning. Their attitude baffles me for two reasons: first, because I can't imagine why the Founding Fathers would amend the Constitution with something so trivial, and second, because it is so obvious that major issues hinge on the extent to which states exercise unique powers that are denied to the Federal government in Washington. Clearly, if you favor centralized big government solutions to social and economic problems, then you won't be too fond of any constitutional impediments that might thwart your agenda. In other words, there is a widespread dismissive attitude toward the meaning of the Constitution, tending to subvert respect for authority. In any case, here is the text:

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I bring this up because I heard a very good presentation on "Term Limits and the Tenth Amendment" this morning at the Valley GOP breakfast. The guest speaker was James Atticus Bowden, a retired Army officer, author, Republican Party activist, and blogger. His presentation is posted on his blog at Deo Vindice. I first learned who he was three years ago when he was one of the "Bloggers for Sayre," and have occasionally read his writings since then. (He is NOT the deovindice blogger from Tennessee.)

Bowden argued that American politics is out of kilter in large part because of a badly mistaken understanding about where the locus of authority and sovereignty is in our federal republic. He views supreme authority as resting in God Almighty, and human laws being subordinate to and (hopefully) consistent with Divine Will. Since the American Civil War, which badly disrupted the body politic of the American nation, there has been a steady march toward the centralization of power, which is the prime reason for the gradual breakdown of social order. Americans are allowing their freedoms to be incrementally stripped away, and one manifestation of this is the poor awareness of the role of the Constitution in upholding our individual liberties and state government prerogatives. Bowden made a very good case and displayed a solid, deep grasp of the subject matter. My only real criticism, as I stated during the Q&A period, was the fact that he glossed over the erosion of constitutional safeguards under the Bush administration, exemplified by the No Child Left Behind educational program and the initiation of military action against Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) without a formal declaration of war by Congress. Bowden agreed with me on both points.

The Tenth Amendment is the essential basis for the effort by state governments to nullify Obamacare, if it is passed. I discussed this constitutional issue in my Feb. 12 blog post, and talked about it when I met Ken Cuccinelli (then a state senator, now attorney general) last September.

Internet tax equity

The lead editorial in Monday's News Leader praised the bill sponsored by State Sen. Emmett Hanger, which would begin levying sales taxes on purchases made over the Internet from within Virginia. Of course, that got the knee-jerk anti-tax crowd all fired up with their metaphorical torches and pitchforks, but there were a number of worthwhile comments made by readers. My comment:

The idea that tax burdens should be spread equitably is obvious, or ought to be. Likewise, the need for additional revenue is obvious, especially for communities like Staunton where budget shortfalls threaten to close a key state institution, the CCCA. Too bad that some people refuse to consider worthwhile reforms, or even admit that the state budget is in dire straits.

Mr. Campbell [*] sheds helpful light on some crucial details that the News Leader editors may have missed. From what I can tell from the Legislative Information System, SB340 was tabled until next year by the Senate Finance Cmte., and SB660 is a watered-down short term incremental step. If it passes, let's hope it doesn't side-track the goal of FULLER tax equity.

A number of companies that sell goods over the Internet already charge state income tax, but I wonder how many of them actually fork over the proceeds to the fifty state treasurers like they are supposed to?

* That was a reference to a comment by R. David L. Campbell, Chief Executive of Fed-Tax.net

Are liberals smarter?

Some expert in Britain has done a scientific study which found that, "on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women." CNN.com. The more I read, the more appalled at the bigotry of the authors, one of whom linked paranoid feelings with religious faith. I also question their premises: "It defines 'liberal' in terms of concern for genetically nonrelated people and support for private resources that help those people."

February 20, 2010 [LINK / comment]

R.I.P. Gen. Alexander Haig

The man who kept the government functioning during the Watergate nightmare passed away earlier today. Gen. Alexander Haig, who served as supreme military commander of NATO forces, chief of staff in the Nixon White House, and Secretary of State under President Reagan, and few leaders of the 20th Century attained such heights of power and influence as he did. According to his family he succumbed to an infection while at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was 85. Sunday's Washington Post has a full article on his exemplary career as a soldier and a diplomat.

Haig was tapped by President Richard Nixon to help restore order in the White House after chief of staff Bob Haldeman was forced to resign as the Watergate scandal unfolded. In October 1973, as the Yom Kippur War was threatening to escalate into World War III, Nixon ordered Haig to instruct acting Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire special prosecutor Arhibald Cox, but Ruckelshaus refused and quit instead. This was the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre."

As a general, Haig was saddled with daunting challenges. In the years immediately following the Vietnam war, U.S. influence was waning around the world, and the Soviet Union was building alliances in Africa and elsewhere in the Third World. Western European countries were virtually paralyzed by economic stagnation in the wake of the surge in petroleum prices, and many people that that capitalist democracy was doomed. As commander of NATO forces during that time, Haig had to make extreme exertions to make sure that U.S. forces (under-equipped at that time) would be ready to face any sudden Soviet attack, in order to reassure our NATO allies that the United States would fulfill its treaty commitment. In this task, his abilities as a military commander and as a diplomat -- reminiscent of the role played by Gen. George C. Marshall during and after World War II -- proved invaluable to the United States.

As Secretary of State, Haig became a victim of political maneuvering and lack of firm central control in the Reagan White House. This tension came to a head in May 1982, when U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick resigned after siding with Great Britain in the dispute with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. This made Haig's job more difficult, and after he complained about the "cacophony of voices" in the administration's foreign policy, Reagan informed Haig that he was accepting his resignation -- even though Haig had not resigned!

I think it's a shame that Haig caught so much flak for that one ill-phrased statement in 1981, after President Reagan was shot and no one knew whether he would live. "I'm in control here." became a derisive catch-phrase that dogged him for the rest of his life. I think it is safe to say that every single obituary written about him will include that phrase.

Haig was a perfect example of the old Eastern Establishment Republican, and would probably have a hard time fitting in to the GOP today. He was a poised, well-rounded leader whose self-assuredness sometimes rubbed other people the wrong way. When he was chosen as secretary of state, he said that he would serve as the "vicar" of foreign policy, an odd choice of words implying a privileged, custodial decision-making role. (A "vicar" is what Anglicans call their ordained priests.) His run for president in 1988 was anachronistic in style and probably doomed from the beginning. Haig was simply out of touch with the emerging political currents, especially the Christian Right.

One of the curious aspects of Haig's career was the Moorer/Radford affair, brought to my attention by Kevin Gutzman. U.S. military leaders were suspicious of President Nixon for making secret deals with the Chinese while the Vietnam war was still going on. They enlisted Haig, then serving as deputy to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, to snoop through Kissinger's papers and pass along the latest news about what was being negotiated. This fascinating episode, which took place in December 1971, is described in Forty Years War, by Len Colodny and Tom Shachtman. They regard Haig as one of the original Neoconservatives, who have played a controversial role in U.S. foreign policy since the late 1970s. See watergate.com.

I had the pleasure to meet Gen. Haig in the mid-1990s when I was a graduate student at the University of Virginia, after he spoke at the Miller Center, where I worked. Haig was kind enough to answer my questions about what really happened with Margaret Thatcher during the Falklands War, in which the government of Peru tried to play a mediating role. (After the effort broke down, Peru sent a squadron of Mirage fighter jets to help their Argentine allies fight back against the British forces.) Haig rejected the assertion made by many critics in Latin America that Prime Minister Thatcher was determined to teach the Argentines a lesson, no matter how the negotiations went. He also praised the good-faith peace-making efforts of Peru's President Fernando Belaunde, who passed away in June 2002. (See the obituary I wrote for him.)

While it is true that Haig was involved in some intrigues that may never see the light of day, he was a highly competent, patriotic, steadying influence in the corridors of power in Washington during a tumultuous time in U.S. history. I hope he gets proper recognition some day for his great service to the country.

February 16, 2010 [LINK / comment]

More congressional drop-outs

As public opinion polls show that anti-incumbent sentiment is as high as it as been in many years, more members of the Senate and House of Representatives have announced they will not seek reelection this fall. Indiana's Sen. Evan Bayh is the latest to announce his departure. Two of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate, Byron Dorgan (ND) and Chris Dodd (CT), also chose not to run a few weeks ago, creating more opportunities for the Republicans to tip the balance back in their favor, and maybe even win a majority in the Senate once again. Altogether, 43 members of Congress have announced that they will not seek another term, on top of the 39 "dropouts" two years ago -- a virtual hemorrhage of legislative experience. Well, it's probably all for the best to "clean House" (and Senate), substituting fresh, uncorrupted perspectives for inside knowledge. Bayh explained his reasons for leaving, quoted by the Washington Post:

There is too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. ... Even at a time of enormous challenge, the people's business is not being done.

Very true indeed. Two years ago, the Republicans were plagued by a narrow focus on ideological purity, and now the tables are turned as the Democrats, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, find themselves in the same squalid trap. As Chris Graham notes at augustafreepress.com, Virginia's two moderate Democratic senators, Jim Webb and Mark Warner, are catching hell from left-wing party activists, much like Bayh was. Evan Bayh is a special case because he has aspirations for Higher Office (1600 Pennsylvania Ave., to be exact), and he was passed over two times as candidate for vice president. Frustrated ambition was probably part of his decision, but I would bet that he also deeply regrets having voted for Obamacare, against his better judgment. Voters across the country will wreak vengeance this fall on Democratic legislators who went along with their party leaders on that key vote. As for the Senate seat Bayh is vacating, former senator Dan Coats is the presumptive GOP nominee, and would be favored to win in November, but he carries some political baggage as a lobbyist and may be vulnerable.

What is particularly sad about Bayh's departure is that he is highly respected on both sides of the aisle, and has played a key role in arranging bipartisan compromises. (President Obama often pays lip service to that goal, but very few Republicans believe him.) The United States Senate prides itself on being "the greatest deliberative body in the world," placing great value on reasoned debate and deferential courtesy, in contrast to the House of Representatives, where the majority rules and the minority sulks. With Bayh gone, it will be harder for the Senate to function as it supposed to. Perhaps one of the consequences of Bayh's decision will be a renewed effort to forge some kind of centrist coalition or even a third political party. It's not very likely, given the heavy legal and institutional advantages enjoyed by the two major parties, but it's not out of the question, either.

I remember being disappointed in the late 1990s when two rising stars in the GOP, Susan Molinari (NY) and John Kasich (OH) decided to bail out of Congress. The pressure and frustration must be overwhelming for any legislator who is sincerely motivated to serve the public interest. Meanwhile, ethically-challenged veterans of Capitol Hill cling to their power and privileges decade after decade after decade...

Further back than that, I remember Evan Bayh's father, Sen. Birch Bayh, a prominent Democratic leader in the 1970s. Am I old, or what?

Neocons Sarah?

In her speech to the Tea Party convention, Sarah Palin was seen wearing a small pin with the flags of Israel and the United States. (Read Ann Gerhart's column in the Washington Post.) That is not a big issue for most of tea parties, so what's up? Was this another sign that she is being recruited by the Neocons, as George W. Bush was recruited just over a decade ago? Indubitably. William Kristol is said to be tutoring Gov. Palin on foreign policy issues. Tabula rasa.

O'Reilly vs. tea partiers

Bill O'Reilly caused a stir on Fox News the other day, telling Brit Hume, "Some of these tea parties are nuts." He even cited a figure, ten percent, which sounds pretty reasonable to me, offhand. Such a blunt, candid assessment may come as a shock to some, but O'Reilly also paid sincere respect to the civic involvement of those average Americans. It was a truly "fair and balanced" take on the controversial movement. See rawstory.com; hat tip to Bruce Bartlett. At the beginning of "The O'Reilly Factor" tonight, the acerbic commentator clarified what he meant, paying respect to the grassroots activists. Good. No one can accuse Bill O'Reilly of being a smug elitist. (Now if he would only stop interrupting his guests...)

For the record, I declined an invitation to join an anti-Tea Party Facebook group a few weeks ago. I remain wary of what some of those folks are up to, but I am generally sympathetic to their goals, and I hope they will play a constructive role in national politics. Wait and see...

Virginia politics update

Since we are covering the subject in my U.S. Government class, I have updated the Virginia politics page, with data on elections and office holders going back to the mid 1960s. Obviously, I've been pretty busy crunching numbers for the past few days.

February 12, 2010 [LINK / comment]

Health care nullification

Even if the Democrats in Congress somehow manage to pass a health care bill imposing insurance requirements on all Americans, despite their recent loss of a filibuster-proof Senate supermajority, it may not be the end of the (free) world. In Virginia, the General Assembly is working on legislation that would nullify the mandatory elements of any Federal health care law. Del. Bob Marshall is the lead sponsor of the Health Care Freedom Act, which would uphold an individual's right not to participate in a health-care plan, and would prohibit any penalty, tax or fine on anyone who opts out. See Washington Post. Good!

For some people, this raises a troubling can of worms that could lead to a full-blown constitutional crisis. Actually, however, there is a strong precedent for this kind of legislative initiative: the Virginia Resolution of 1798. Read what James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," wrote about the principle of interposition in an article by Michael Boldin at the Tenth Amendment Center. Hat tip to Ryan Setliff, on Facebook. Who knows, maybe states' rights are coming back into style for the first time since the 1860s.

R.I.P. John Murtha

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), age 77, passed away this week after undergoing gallbladder surgery. He was one of the first Vietnam War veterans in Congress, and in late 2006 played a key role in helping Nancy Pelosi become Speaker of the House, becoming her right-hand man. The Washington Post referred to him "master of pork-barrel politics," for all the Federal funds he brought home for highway construction and other projects. In the late 1970s, he was "an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal." Until the very end, he was defiantly unapologetic; in 2009 he said, "If I'm corrupt, it's because I take care of my district." For information on the future I-67 "Murtha Highway," see pahighways.com. When I lived in the Washington area in the 1980s I knew someone who had worked in Murtha's office for a while.

R.I.P. Charlie Wilson

Coincidentally, former Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-TX), the protagonist of the movie "Charlie Wilson's War," died of a heart attack on Wednesday at the age of 76. In the 1980s he made secret deals to get money to provide anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons to the Afghan mujahedeen, help to defeat the Soviet Union. He an amazing character "known in Washington as 'Good Time Charlie' for his reputation as a hard-drinking womanizer." See the Washington Post.

They just don't make congressman like Murtha and Wilson any more...

G.W. Bush: miss me yet?

The "grassroots" may miss him, but me, not so much.

February 10, 2010 [LINK / comment]

Republican resurgence: real?

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll is bad news for President Obama: If the November elections were held today, the Republicans would get just as many votes as the Democrats, with 46 percent of the respondents citing a preference one way or the other. No one can seriously doubt that this indicates deep dissatisfaction with the course the President has been leading us on. Whether it translates into actual election victories for the GOP, however, remains to be seen. Incumbents generally enjoy a huge advantage based on name recognition and their ability to deliver "pork barrel" economic benefits to their constituents.

And speaking of moola, don't forget, folks, Obama has withheld a large share of the "porkulus" funds precisely so that they could be released at the moment of greatest political impact, keeping as many Democratic incumbents in office as possible. But given the economic incompetence shown by many of the Obama administration figures thus far, they might end up squandering all that money for pet projects that yield little or no aggregate economic benefit. The American people may fall prey to charismatic sweet talking once in a while, but they are no fools.

The bottom line is, the road ahead is a difficult one, and "taking back America" is by no means assured. It is going to take a lot of work in candidate development for the Republicans to capitalize on their recent upsurge in order to have a serious chance at retaking majority control of either chamber of Congress. (Plus a lot of money.) But it can be done. Electoral success will be much more likely if the proper lessons of Bob McDonnell's huge victory last November are learned. We need strong leaders who can reach out to independent voters by combining principles with pragmatism, not hot-headed zealots. This opportunity once again places a burden on rank-and-file party members not to voice their many long-held grievances about past abuses by certain party leaders, lest the party break apart once again and become too ineffective to get enough voters to the polls.

Kudlow for Congress?

One potential Republican candidate for the House is none other than Lawrence Kudlow, the former supply-side economist who has become a leading conservative pundit. According to Talking Points Memo, he may challenge Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Kudlow has a lot of baggage and not much charisma, however, so I would rate that possibility as low.

More lib condescension

I thought it looked rather tacky when Sarah Palin used notes written on the palm of her hand when answering questions at the Tea Party convention -- especially since she was poking fun at President Obama's over-reliance on the teleprompter. But it wasn't a huge deal. The Mainstream Media certainly didn't let that opportunity pass by, and all of them dutifully got their digs in. But how many of those broadcasters and newspapers called attention to the President's repeated mispronunciation of "Navy corpsman" in a speech last week? Hardly any! (For you folks in Rio Linda, the P and S are silent.) Megan Rhodes pointed out the grossly unbalanced treatment of those two cases, which is of course another example of the "liberal condescension" which Gerard Alexander wrote about.

Likewise, when Bruce Bartlett recently posted a news item on Facebook suggesting that many Tea Partiers harbor racist sentiments (the third type of liberal condescension), I felt obliged to state:

It is no doubt true that SOME anti-immigrant activists are racists, just as some Tea Partiers are, but we should be very careful not to apply a stereotypical broad brush toward either group. I think that fear of being called a racist is one of the big reasons why Congress has been unable to deal with the problem of mass-scale illegal immigration. Tancredo is a crowd-pleasing loose cannon, not helpful to the cause of immigration reform.

February 9, 2010 [LINK / comment]

Coping with smug liberal elites

Everyone knows (or should know) that there are a lot of downright nasty things said by people on both sides of the political spectrum, but it's not a two-way street. Many of those on the Left are prone to a vice that is almost unique to their side: smug condescension. "You poor Neanderthal, how can you possibly think that way?" (Cue Bruce Hornsby.) Us folks on the Right are well accustomed to playing a subservient role in the social hierarchy, occasionally lashing out as our pent-up resentment bursts.

It's an ironic situation, given that conservatives used to serve as the defenders of wealth and privilege in the Western world. But nowadays, the news media, the entertainment industry, and the educational establishment -- in other words, the very institutions that shape public consciousness about controversial issues -- are to a large degree dominated by the Left. (Fox News is the exception that proves the rule.) So, to adequately understand why this change has come about, we must examine the bedrock institutions of society and how they have been transformed over the past century. (See below.) I will address a key aspect of this very broad question -- namely, cultural hegemony -- in a future blog post.

I bring this up because of an excellent op-ed piece by U.Va. professor Gerard Alexander in Sunday's Washington Post: "Why are liberals so condescending?" He outlines four common forms in which the annoying, presumptuously superior attitude of liberals is manifested:

1. Conservatives supposedly win elections not by offering better ideas, but by using sinister campaign tactics and misleading the public -- the good old "vast right-wing conspiracy."
2. Working-class voters are supposedly fooled by "wedge" issues (such as abortion) into voting for conservatives, against their own economic interests -- Thomas Frank's argument.
3. Republicans supposedly win by exploiting white prejudice against blacks and immigrants -- notwithstanding strong evidence that racism is fading away.
4. Conservatives are supposedly driven by emotion, anxiety, and fear of change, while liberals appeal to evidence and logic -- hence, Al Gore's 2007 book, "The Assault on Reason."

Taken together, these underlying implicit assumptions held by many if not most people on the Left create an asymmetry that make any kind of serious dialogue across partisan or ideological lines extremely difficult. Just think about how pious and contemptuous the leading left-wing pundits such as Keith Olbermann or Paul Krugman act. By way of comparison, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are just as insulting toward their adversaries, but they do not speak from a lofty (metaphorical) pedestal; they are just average Joes with a sharp wit and a gift of gab.

Why do such bigoted attitudes persist among liberal elites? Because all societies are prone to fashion an elaborate, exclusive code of morality, artistic tastes, and social standards to justify their elite privileges. It was true of 17th Century Austria, it was true of 18th Century France, it was true of 19th Century Victorian England, and in late 20th Century America, it came to pass that Manhattan literati, Hollywood liberals, Harvard intellectuals set the rules that lesser beings were obliged to follow. Eventually, the pomposity is exposed as a fraud, and some kind of social revolution replaces the ancién regime with a more humane set of values.

Prof. Alexander held on online Washington Post chat question-and-answer session on Monday morning, and he was kind enough to reply to the question which I submitted:

Staunton, Va.: I agree with what you write about the four types of liberal condescension, but you seem to hastily dismiss Richard Hofstadter's critique of the right-wing paranoid style. (He has become my touchstone for comprehending what ails today's GOP, in which I was formerly active.) Likewise, I think there is a kernel of truth in the leftist argument that modern (?) conservatives are impervious to reason. Do you not perceive a strong anti-intellectual current in the conservative movement of today?

Gerard Alexander: The key for this conversation is that I don't detect -more- anti-intellectualism among rank-and-file conservatives than among rank-and-file liberals. Modern economics and the law are probably the two areas of academic research and policy-making most influenced by conservatives. Do they seem less rational to you than, say, sociology or literature or movie-making as enterprises? And I wish paranoia existed only on the fringes of the right; I'm afraid we could all name enough conspiracy theories to go around.

I get the impression that Alexander is paying more attention to conservative academic and policy wonk circles than to the grassroots political activists and humble bloggers, many of whom do (I think) exhibit anti-intellectual tendencies. Anyway, I tip my hat once again to Bruce Bartlett for bringing Alexander's op-ed piece to my attention before it even appeared in print. My "fair and balanced" response on Bruce's Facebook page:

It's sad, but some of that condescension is deserved, as conservative "movement" activists have self-selected themselves out of the intellectual world. Panicked by what they perceive (not without reason) as the impending doom of freedom, they closed ranks and came to falsely equate personal and partisan loyalty with ideological fidelity. Derek Hunter seems to be a good example of this. Notice how Rush Limbaugh rarely cites George Will or Charles Krauthammer any more? How many right-wing bloggers cite Daniel Drezner these days? Possessing a graduate degree is now seen as a badge of shame in the GOP. All it took was one extremely wayward president to lead the party astray and wreck the whole conservative enterprise. Lacking any capacity for thoughtful self-correction, we now have a mob of "mind-numbed robots" (as Rush calls the liberals) marching in lockstep toward oblivion.

In other words, I do not deny that the fourth item listed above (emotion vs. reason) may have some validity. What is needed is a conservative renaissance in which intellectual values of criticism are given greater respect. But as Bartlett and others have pointed out, unfortunately, some of the major institutions on the Right (e.g., the Heritage Foundation) have degenerated into populist mouthpieces, pandering to the "Base," which has little or no interest in thoughtful discussion of issues. As someone who has withstood heavy pressure to conform, I think I've earned the right to call things the way I see them. The Right may be plagued by social pathologies, but it is the Left that is much guiltier of rigid "political correctness."

6th District GOP contest

A week or two ago I learned that a man named Greg Habeeb is running for chairmanship of the Sixth Congressional District Republican Committee, seeking to replace Fred Anderson, who is evidently stepping down. Habeeb seems to have a good reputation for building the GOP in the city of Salem. See Roanoke Valley Republicans. The other candidate is Trixie Averill. Since I have made a point of steering clear of intra-party intrigues since I learned about all the distasteful cronyism, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'll leave it to someone else to clean up that mess. I have met Ms. Averill on several occasions, and I also know the incumbent Mr. Anderson, who barely withstood a challenge from Jim Crosby of Botetourt County two years ago. Anderson is a decent man who tried to prevent the local Republican Party from breaking apart, but he was badly misled by certain party activists, and his actions were too little, too late.