Now Richard Samuelson brings to my attention this attack ad on John Adams:
I suspect there are a lot of these floating around out in YouTube land, produced by bored graduate students everywhere. Send the best to me at: hayward487@aol.com.
Our friend Patrick Deneen has a very interesting post responding to this "rebuttal" of this WaPo op-ed. My favorite line from the "rebuttal":
The lure of large salaries is likely to appeal more to conservatives than to liberals.
Now there’s someone who’s not entertaining stereotypes!
Patrick’s argument focuses more on the "progressive" character of the research ideal that has come to define the American university. Where once colleges and universities were "conservators" of a cultural tradition (which might have contained a plurality of views, not to mention the resources for self-criticism), they’re now essentially "progressive," in the sense that the accumulation of a body of knowledge is progressive (at least since the Enlightenment). Everyone’s a scientist of a sort:
The infiltration of the canons of scientific research into the humanities has been the root cause for the decimation of the very idea of the humanities on our campuses. In their efforts to prove their "originality" and progressiveness faculty glommed onto post-structuralism, post-modernism, post-colonialism, and post- everything in order to prove that they were "with it," and indeed, that they were anything but "conservative" - that is, the one thing that made the humanities defensible inasmuch its reason for existence is to be conservators. By demonstrating their hostility to the authors and books they studied or even the very idea of "humanity" (what is now fashionably called "the subject"), the humanities at once made themselves "relevant" and destroyed themselves from within.
I tend to avoid posting much on NLT about this climate change business--I could post ten items a day if I wanted to and had the time--because I think most NLT readers rightly view the subject as a crashing bore and because it sets off another round of the usual cliches in the comments section that everyone has heard 1000 times now, but Julie’s post immediately below gives me license to post a link to this paper I wrote recently with two of my collaborators here at AEI (where we are known as the Three Musketeers) about the latest UN report on the matter.
Gore and his chorus keep yelping that the entire matter is "settled," and that it is an act of bad faith even to mention "uncertainties" in the science. So it came as a bit of a revelation to find that the term "uncertain" or "uncertainty" appears 1,300 times in the UN’s full 976 page report on climate science. The technical summary of the UN report identifies 52 "key uncertainties," many of which have a bearing on our estimation of the problem, and which would affect the sequence and timing of the whole range of policy responses. None of this is reflected in either the summaries the UN bureaucrats produce, nor in the press accounts.
I play a fun parlor game with reporters who call me. I say, "Of course I know you’ve read the whole report, so I know you’ve noticed the important bit on page. . ." Always leads to some awkward moments.
When stories like this come out, it makes me think that a smart presidential candidate would move the discussion away from "global warming" (which, looks ever more complicated and elusive as an issue except for those who wish to manipulate politics) and more toward environmental issues like this (which are fairly straightforward and concrete). Notice the efforts of AU Professor of Chemistry, Jeffrey Weidenhammer mentioned prominently in the last story.
But two points are worth noting. First, Republicans have to be serious about getting some of the themes that Huckabee has articulated if they’re serious about getting some of the support he has attracted. If the G.O.P. is going to remain a big tent, then there has to be room for Huckabites inside. Lisa Schiffren’s snarky condescension (and I’m putting it mildly here) can’t be the only, or even the modal, response. Of course, the converse is also true: evangelicals can’t be part of a winning political coalition if it’s their way or the highway.
And then there’s Randy Brinson, mentioned by Geraghty as someone with an extensive mailing list. Brinson, as I’ve noted before, is not above reaching across the aisle. The management team of Brinson’s Redeem the Vote includes this guy, whose friends range from John Street to Rick Santorum. Its advisory board runs the gamut from Eric Sapp of Common Good Strategies to YAF’s Stephanie Acosta Inks. I first heard about Brinson from the doyenne of the faithful Democrats, Amy Sullivan. And I first wrote about him for TAE Online in March, 2006, in an essay I’ve reposted here.
This is the coming wave of evangelicalism. Democrats can miss it if they continue to insist that being pro-choice on abortion is the "soul" of their party, but so can a Republican Party that thinks Rudy Giuliani is its most electable candidate. Huckabee and Michael Gerson need a seat at the table.
Here’s one assessment with various comments. Romney’s policy expertise and executive experience were displayed to good effect, although he still hasn’t quite figured out to make health care an effective sound bite. Thompson seemed funny. folksy, tough, engaged, and alive. And, as Rob Jeffrey says below, he’s the only candidate to have taken on the Department of Education. MAYBE Mitt and Fred are both beginning to roll, although Fred, in particular, has to really turn up the heat now. Huck, for once, didn’t help himself; he seemed less authentic as he shied away from risk and wit. McCain seemed tired and disabled by the moderator’s strange decision to take Iraq and immigration off the table. John can’t afford not to occupy center stage at this point, and he didn’t seem presidential. Giuliani, the incredible shrinking candidate, shrank some more. Overall, the event was unexciting but not demeaning, and all of the real contenders seems competent enough. Its significance is in terms of what might be coming in the last few weeks of the unpredictable Iowa campaign.
Posed by an old acquaintance, relayed by MOJ’s Rick Garnett, apropos of the issues raised in this post.
My short answer is that I care for three reasons. First, since I’m not wise, it’s important to me to know what smart, thoughtful people think. Second, that these smart, thoughtful people stand at the fountainhead of the tradition to which I am heir and the regime that formed (or deformed) me helps me understand who I am. They also provide a yardstick or standard against which current circumstances can be measured. The authority of the standard is of course not absolute, but it seems to me that we need good reasons to depart from it. Stated another way, unless we’re conscious or self-conscious about our circumstances, we’re not free in the way Chris Eberle seems to think he is.
Third, and finally, I learned from Plato and Aristotle that "prejudice" or settled opinion plays a powerful role in politics, that politics, in other words, isn’t fully rational. For the most part, if we don’t honor our ancestors, we’re going to honor (and flatter and gratify) ourselves. And that’s a pretty good reason to care what the founders thought.
The trial of the year, century, millenium, and beyond
Here, with the most able Patrick Deneen as an expert witness. Called by the defense or the prosecution? He doesn’t say.
But since it won’t last more than a day, I can’t imagine Socrates regarding the trial as fair, regardless of the outcome.
Update: Patrick writes to say that Socrates was acquitted, though the vote by the audience was relatively narrow (55-45). His expertise was employed by both sides, as befits a "philosopher."
Stuart Rothenberg reports on the special Congressional elections for seats in Ohio and Virginia yesterday and the Republican success both. This does not represent any shift in the status quo (Republicans already controlled both seats) but, the fact that the GOP did not lose the seats (especially the hotly contested seat in Ohio), is taken by many as a sign of good news. Well, at least its a sign that things may not be as bad as many thought after the losses in ’06. The Ohio GOP has had its share of disappointments in recent years and there is no question but that Ohio will be crucial in the coming election. Tuesday’s special election seems to be an indication that the state is still, very much, in play for the Republicans. Needless to say, not bad news is a long way from being good news . . . but I’ll take it.
Thanks to Peter for noting my earlier Christian Science Monitor piece in which I addressed the security aspects of the pending energy legislation. Today, I examine some of the economic consequences of the legislation in the Providence Journal.
Despite the attempt to appeal to environmentalists and advocates of "fairy dust" energy sources, aka "renewable energy," this bill, like most energy bills, is laden with pork, albeit "sophisticated" pork. Pork comes from pigs. You can try to dress up a pig by putting lipstick on it, but in the end, it’s still a PIG.
Bill Kristol Sees an Opening for McCain and Thompson
They seem like the most presidential candidates. Somebody might retort that they seem old enough to play ex-presidents on TV. But there’s still something to the observation, especially in McCain’s case, and tomorrow’s debate may be John’s time to shine. It also may be Fred’s last chance to look alive. Bill is certainly right that Romney seems small in his negative ads against Huck, and that Rudy has become the incredible shrinking candidate. He might also might be right that Huck is not an appropriate wartime candidate, although he adds that most voters don’t see us aa at war right now.
Well, that makes sense, if Huck is the Republican Dean. Does that mean, as the NATIONAL REVIEW says, that Mitt is the moderate who can hold the coaliton together? Or that flip-floppers can’t win? To be fair to Romney, it’s just not true that he’s part of the D.C. establishment, and he’s stuck with being plenty controversial. (Thanks to Clint.)
MOJ’s Rob Vischer calls our attention to this typically one-sided piece by the University of Chicago’s Geoffrey Stone, who trots out much of the evidence for the heteodoxy of many of the Founders. But as I suggested here and here, saying that the Founders were men of the Enlightenment doesn’t make them men of the radical Enlightenment, dedicated to a buck naked public square. Far from it, as even the carefully-worded First Amendment (leaving intact state establishments) makes clear. Stone of course overlooks one obvious reference to religion in the Constitution (the way the date is phrased) and doesn’t mention the Northwest Ordinance, which provided public support for schools that were to teach "religion and morality."
But a public square friendly to religion and religious expression isn’t the same as a Christian nation. There are all sorts of grounds for accommodation, cooperation, and support without there being any basis for establishment in the old-fashioned sense (which is the only sense we ought to care about).
