November 10, 2008
"malice and habit have now won the day/the honors we fought for are lost in the fray" - from Fires (which burn brightly)Brooker/Reid
On television this week, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was reduced to calling her former campaign colleagues (excluding Sen. McCain) "jerks." Unnamed sources (that's cowards in blunt anglo-saxon English) in the McCain campaign had begun the finger pointing. That the senator and his aides and advisors seemed to have no idea how to run a coherent, focussed campaign against Sen. Obama was a pain of sin they could not bear. The luckless but loyal governor of Alaska now came in handy. Again.
This nasty game of misdirection is something that the Democrats are particularly good at. So it added distress to depression for Republicans when the smart young guys and gals began to play it.
And most Republicans and conservatives I know were sober this week. Not particularly angry. Chastened perhaps. Worried for their country and their Constitution. Thinking about the future in the old ways -- children, freedom, prosperity, and the very idea of a Future better than the Past.
Shelby Steele made his famous argument again in his last book about Sen. Obama, A BOUND MAN. Liberal guilt must have atonement and this is what President-elect Obama offered day after day for two years. He got it in the only way that counts for the Left. Power. Consequently, there will be no gratitude as Tavis Smiley and USA Today have already shown.
And that is the difference between conservatives and liberals (or Progressives as they now call themselves). Even conservatives who are not religious, share the Christian sensibility that we are humbled by a sense of accountability.
We are anchored by our by sin.
Liberals are bouyed by their innocence.
How else to account for the Obama message which is not new. Someone else is always to blame for failure and catastrophe. Whites (an increasingly pointless and dishonest term) fled the cities. The cities declined. Somehow it is still their fault.
Sen. Obama knows that Democrats have ruled our (formerly) major cities for half a century and yet his confidence, his happy talk, repudiated any idea that he and his party just might have some responsibility for the slow, painful dying. His major contribution to liberal politics was that he did not allow this repressed sense of blame to surface in anger. He ran a happy campaign and when his wife introduced a sour note ("this is the first time..." you know it, you've heard it before) her role was instantly reduced to loyal wife in the background.
There is a lot of talk on conservative radio that perhaps there has been some "evolving" among black leaders and trendsetters (the latter would be the new First Lady). "Evolved" is a Hollywood word that was in circulation a few years ago. Such and such an actor, director, producer was "evolved." Depending on the decade, that evolution involved crawling out of the muck of the Midwest and the South into civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, green anything.
True evolution requires something more than a revelation. Any Christian knows that. We learn and we fall and fall again. And we know that only Someone Without Blame can offer atonement. Senator Obama's followers (not mere voters they) believe his is blameless.
And there was some backsliding in this election among Republicans. And it has to be rooted in part in Sen. McCain's luke warm conservatism. I applauded his wish that his religion is a private affair. But it is obvious that as the country becomes less religious it is becoming less humane. The Constitution, individual worth and freedom, opportunity for an education in a decent and safe environment, the sanctity of human life, marriage, family, civic involvement at the Sarah Palin level -- these are what Republicans forget they were fighting for.
The Democrats may have reached out to blue dog Democrats, Catholics and Evangelicals, even "Democrats for Life," but malice and habit did win the day. Those reached out to wanted to be part of something big and historical. Not the first time a Great Leader has exploited that human desire. But for those who refused to take the hand of Destiny there was the habit of malice. Vicious attacks, lies, vulgarity, full spectrum dominance of the media, the schools, the unions, and, sadly, far too many pulpits. And the ever present threat of law suits. Little of that scrutiny was directed at the Democratic ticket, no matter how justified by gaffes, confusion, distortion, vagueness, and lying.
Blue dog Democrats already know that they have no power. I cannot resist the obvious; they are lap dog Democrats. Many well-intentioned, but used like dogs, and kicked like dogs when the get out of line.
We've had brief respites from "more of the same" in Washington, but it will be more of the same in the next four years. Will the Republicans finally put up a fight? It doesn't look like they will. Meanwhile, we are already seeing the same game. And President-elect Obama has yet to walk hatless and coatless in the cold down Pennsylvania Avenue with his beautiful young wife. Industrial strength affirmative action now caps decades of the quiet, invisible and unscrutinized kind. Should we be surprised that General Motors and Chrysler and Ford which have spent millions on job set asides -- even driving some independent contractors out of businesss -- are demanding special treatment for themselves?
President Bush was right to question the rightness of these bailouts, even as Wall Street gets theirs. But, in scarry times, people want the comfort of the familiar. That is what they are going to get. Another Kennedy (Ted this time), Carter, and Clinton administration. Even -- and you have to laugh -- cheap or at least cheaper oil.
When you don't know where freedom or prosperity comes from -- thank the NEA-fascists for this -- then comfort politics is what you want and what you get.
Sam Macomb
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