You should take a gander at Bob Tyrell's book After the Hangover.
It pokes a lot of holes in some of the "conventional wisdom" about the state of the GOP and Democratic parties. You kind of seem to buy into a lot of the liberal's characterization of the way things are.
I think you overestimate Jonah Goldberg's reach. He's kind of lost in a sea of conservative columnists, it seems to me. He's a good conservative columnist when he wants to be but a lot of the time he seems kind of timid.....I think the reason that Frum and other moderates like you like to "pick on" Goldberg is he gives the impression that he's somewhat "weakkneed" in his defense of conservativism. You think you can goad him into denoucing Rush or Beck or whoever your conservative villian is at the moment.
He is a Star Trek geek so I don't doubt that he want to appeal to Matrix fans as well. Why not take this up with him...he's responded to a few of my emails in the past, and looks like he publically responded to your assertion that Wilsom wasn't so bad. It seems to me you should like Goldberg, as that was your big break.
You can take this personally if you want to, but I think you need to get to the point where you stop seing the worse and accentuuating the flaws, real or imaginary, of various popular conservative figures. Everybody's human, and that means nobody is perfect. You could just put forth your own ideas on things, like your disagreement with Goldberg on Wilson, without dragging in your personal dislike of Levin, Beck, Rush, etc. It distracts from the central point that you trying to make. There's no need to constantly nitpick and henpeck Rush and company. You are not automatically more thoughtful if you are anti-Limbaugh and company. It's cool to disagree with them, hell I don't care if you listen or watch them at all, but enough of the scolding.
I think the widespread dislike of Obama's agenda by the majority of Americans is all the more reason to associate the words liberal, socialist, Marxist, and Democratic to him. I think Obama is doing more untold damage to the Democratic brand than anybody wants to admit, even conservatives because we always think we are going to lose. This was one of the things Rush talked about in his CPAC speech a year ago....conservatives shouldn't be mislead into believing they are a minority and always on defense. We have Obama and the Democrats playing defense, and nobody saw this just over a year ago.
Calling Obama a socialist/Marxist hasn't seemed to hurt Republicans in recent elections, including the liberal states of NJ and Mass. Obama's poll numbers are in a ditch despite all those "teabaggers" and "wingnuts" calling Obama a socialist or Marxist. I always laugh at how there's never any criticism of liberal Democrats for using terms like teabaggers and wingnuts, but conservatives get blasted as almost evil if they call Obama a Marxist or socialist. They teach Marx in colleges....it is a political philosophy that Leftists subscribe to.....I don't see what's wrong with making them own it. They don't want to own because they know it's a political loser in America. If Obama's poll numbers are in the ditch, and it looks like Republicans are heading for some massive gains in the Congress in the midterms, I dont' see anything that buttresses your case that the use of the word "socialist" and Marxist to describe Obama is hurting the conservative movement. :)
Obama has always run away from the liberal/socialist/Marxist label, despite the fact that he is. He was never attractive to the American people on policy issues...he downplayed his liberalism in the campaign.
I think people like you that don't think Obamacare is the end of America was wel know it are naive.
I'm not sure how defining Obama's political philosophy as Marxist/socalist is inaccurate or obscures anything. You have not made a convincing case as to why he's not a Marxist/socialist. I think you are more concerned about being labeled a "red meat" conservative than defeating Obama's agenda. :)
I never understood why "conservatives" like you get your panties in a wad when conservatives call Obama a Marxist or socialist. He is those things. Do you think no American subscribes to the politcal philosphy of Marxism/socialism?
Or is it, I suspect, that you just dont' want anybody to accuse of "McCarthyism", although the Verona papers along with other evidence, has vindicated McCarthy....there were Communist spies in the government. :)
I hate it when Beck refers to liberals as progressives. That's lett them run away from the liberal label that they hate. And Beck does probably sound insane to political neophytes when he's railing against "progressives", b/c after all, who doesn't like progress.
But again, I don't think Beck is a demagoguge. That's the kind of thing you say that is polarizing.....you can deny that if you want, but it seems to me he just has opinions on things like you do, and he's no more full of himself than you seem to be.
Goldberg has never seen like a 'red meat" conservative to me. He's lectured Rush in the past for "only preaching to the choir", although that seems like something you can say about any conservative when they say conservative things. I happen to think conservatives are m ore persausive when they in "preaching to the choir" mode. I'm not sure who exactly Frum and David Brooks, etc bring into the Republican tent. If you dump on Republicans all day, seems like you are making the case for the Democrats. :)
I think for some reason, I got Hoover mixed up with Wilson.
When I saw the expression "Wilsonian democracy", I remembered learning about him in high school. I guess a lot of people that are anti-Iraq war are anti-Wilson, because no doubt Bush was compared to Wilson as to "wanting to spread democracy". So in that sense, mabye it is populist to beat up on Wilson?
O'Reilly is always saying he is "looking out for the folks". He's claimed in the past that his reporting on Big Oil intimidated them into dropped oil prices, which had skyrocketed after Katrina knocked out some refinieries. Cavato on Fox News mocked him and suggested it was probably more supply and demand than O'reilly's reporting that resulted in gas prices coming back down. O'Reilly has also said his boycott of France brought France to it's knees. O'Reilly is a big "wall street greed" guy, which is the hallmark of populists. Bonus, he even has called himself a populist. :)
When we call him a populist fool, this is the kind of nonsense we are talking about. He also loves to talk about the "hard right", and in the past that did include Rush and Hannity. :)
I always got a strong sense that a lot of people hate Hannity b/c they think he's a "hick" because he doesn't have a college degree and he has a country music theme on his show. There's a lot of jealous people out there that don't like it when some guy with no college degree is successful. It's just human nature, but Hannity's a bright guy, and a very good debater. A lot of people like to compare him to Rush, but I don't think his show is anything like Rush's, as Hannity has guests and does a more traditional talk show with guests. Hannity has on McCain all the time...don't think Rush would ever have McCain on. Rush's show is more a satire show, and he does satire well. Beck tries to do satire, but he doesn't do it so well. Hannity doesn't try to do satire so I think hard to say he copies Rush. Obviously they agree on a lot, but again, they are conservative "purists". :)
I guess that I sort of lump him in with Teddy Roosevelt, becauise Beck, who has brainwashed me and countless others, tends to do that, so I assumed he was a Republican.
But you are right, I don't care. I think in the greater scheme of things, Woodrow Wilson is probably one of the most "boring" presidents to talk about. You could say that one of the "benefits" of Goldberg's book was to get people interested in a president that nobody was interested in before, even if it was sheer populism to dump on Wilson. :)
I think it's laughable to label Rush, Hannity, Levin, Steyn, etc as populists. They aren't constant Wall Street bashers, which is like the core tenent of populism. It seems to me it's Obama and the left that are on a jihad against Wall Street. Rush was even supportive of the Dubai Ports Deal, while most Americans were opposing it. This notion that he just says stuff people want to hear isn't true.
I dont' think Beck is a "true" conservative. I think to some extent he parrots Rush but he seems to much more like Ron Paul on the issues these days. Again, I can disagree with him, without demonzing him, as our hero does, by calling him a demagogue, which is hyperbole defined. :)
I don't think your response refutes my central claim, which is that all you basically do is henpeck popular conservatives. You claim there is nothing much to criticize Obama on now? Not one thing slightly more pressing than you "refuting" claims by Goldberg and Beck that Wilson was a progressive? I think that kind of gives away the store on where you are at.
Your problem isn't that you disagree with popular conservatives. It's that you tallk down to them, you lecture them, despite having no popularity with any group of people. You can hoist yourself on a Cross if you want, but there are plenty of people attacking popular conservatives. I was little surprised that you even went after Steyn though, because as far as "tone" goes, he's the anti-Mark Levin. Who is good enough, outside of you, of course, to deliver the conservative message? My point was that your appraoch to disagreeing with other conservatives is snarky and arrogant....I don't disagree with the substance of your post that maybe Wilson wasn't so bad. But as I said earlier, I'm not interested in dead Republican presidents. We have all the time in the world to deal with dead Republican presidents. Obama should be the focus now. While you are henpecking conservatives on their "tone" and minor issues like Wilson, other conservatives are focused on defeating the Obama Democrats.
You wanted the attention that you are receiving from people like me by attacking popular conservatives.....it's a business model that many Republicans have, like Frum and Brooks, but you have to accept the criticism that comes with that. Nobody's trying to shut you up....it seems to me that you Frumbots want to intimidate me and other conservatives into a form of self censorship by suggesting we are just "rah rah" for Rush or Hannity or Beck or Steyn or Goldberg or Levin or any other conservative that you happen to be sneering at. All I'm doing is putting the liberal Republicans like yourself under the same microscope that you place the popular conservatives that you sneer at (for attention for yourself). :)
I never thougth I see somebody accusing Goldberg of being a "red meat" conservative. Wasn't he the guy that Ann Coulter called a girlieman? I'm not sure why a "conservative" would get their panties in a wad about a book called LF, and if you are so thin skinned that the book title "offfended" you, that's a little weird. The book seems more scholarly than intended for us "red meat" conservative, as I have no interest in Woodrow Wilson's "progressivism". I don't see the point in beating up on dead Republicans like Wilson or Teddy Roosevelt at this point.....Obama is the man with the power and he's giving us plenty of material to work with to describe what's wrong with liberal ideas. We can deal with the dead liberal Republicans later.
I also don't get the point in getting down in the weeds to prove Goldberg's assertions are wrong, but it seems to be driven by your hate of Beck,who you called a demagogue. While I'm not a big Beck fan as I find his delivery to be awkward and hyperactive, I'm not sure how he's so sinister that any sane person can call him a demagogue. I dont't think he's purposely telling "lies" to "amass power", which is what a demagogue does. He's not even a politician...he's just a guy on the radio with an opinion...he has no power. He's a dork and dorks are not sinister, at least, not to me. :)
Hey, when all you do is henpeck popular conservatives and rarely talk about Obama and the Democrats, you are going to get criticized. It seems to me that you and the other Frum types want to be able to do this without yourself getting criticized.
You like to label conservatives that you don't like as "hard right" and then deny that this is a term used by the LEFt and others like the populist fool Bill O'Reilly , for mainstream conservatives. Define the "hard right" for us....give us some names. Given your constant whining about Mark Levin's "tone", I assume you include him as a member of the "hard right". It would seem you would include Beck, who you called a demagogue, as a member of the "hard right". I have no doubt, as a guy that seems to parrot the David Frum's and Brooks of the world, that you despite Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as well. You seem a lot more interested in sneering at popular conservatives, and it seems kind of a waste of time, if the objective is to defeat liberal Democrats. That doesn't seem to be your objective.
I think to deny that you used "hard right" as an insult is smarmy.
You seem like the longwinded version of David Frum. It's not what you have to say, it's how you approach debate that is the turn-off. You are a whiner and contentious, and you seem to have bug up your butt about conservatives in general. You even lectured Mark Steyn approach to talking about income taxation, which just seemed desperate to nitpick at somebody that you know is popular. Seems to me you are more on the Left side of the issues than you want to admit.
You should take a gander at Bob Tyrell's book After the Hangover.
It pokes a lot of holes in some of the "conventional wisdom" about the state of the GOP and Democratic parties. You kind of seem to buy into a lot of the liberal's characterization of the way things are.
I think you overestimate Jonah Goldberg's reach. He's kind of lost in a sea of conservative columnists, it seems to me. He's a good conservative columnist when he wants to be but a lot of the time he seems kind of timid.....I think the reason that Frum and other moderates like you like to "pick on" Goldberg is he gives the impression that he's somewhat "weakkneed" in his defense of conservativism. You think you can goad him into denoucing Rush or Beck or whoever your conservative villian is at the moment.
He is a Star Trek geek so I don't doubt that he want to appeal to Matrix fans as well. Why not take this up with him...he's responded to a few of my emails in the past, and looks like he publically responded to your assertion that Wilsom wasn't so bad. It seems to me you should like Goldberg, as that was your big break.
You can take this personally if you want to, but I think you need to get to the point where you stop seing the worse and accentuuating the flaws, real or imaginary, of various popular conservative figures. Everybody's human, and that means nobody is perfect. You could just put forth your own ideas on things, like your disagreement with Goldberg on Wilson, without dragging in your personal dislike of Levin, Beck, Rush, etc. It distracts from the central point that you trying to make. There's no need to constantly nitpick and henpeck Rush and company. You are not automatically more thoughtful if you are anti-Limbaugh and company. It's cool to disagree with them, hell I don't care if you listen or watch them at all, but enough of the scolding.
I think the widespread dislike of Obama's agenda by the majority of Americans is all the more reason to associate the words liberal, socialist, Marxist, and Democratic to him. I think Obama is doing more untold damage to the Democratic brand than anybody wants to admit, even conservatives because we always think we are going to lose. This was one of the things Rush talked about in his CPAC speech a year ago....conservatives shouldn't be mislead into believing they are a minority and always on defense. We have Obama and the Democrats playing defense, and nobody saw this just over a year ago.
Calling Obama a socialist/Marxist hasn't seemed to hurt Republicans in recent elections, including the liberal states of NJ and Mass. Obama's poll numbers are in a ditch despite all those "teabaggers" and "wingnuts" calling Obama a socialist or Marxist. I always laugh at how there's never any criticism of liberal Democrats for using terms like teabaggers and wingnuts, but conservatives get blasted as almost evil if they call Obama a Marxist or socialist. They teach Marx in colleges....it is a political philosophy that Leftists subscribe to.....I don't see what's wrong with making them own it. They don't want to own because they know it's a political loser in America. If Obama's poll numbers are in the ditch, and it looks like Republicans are heading for some massive gains in the Congress in the midterms, I dont' see anything that buttresses your case that the use of the word "socialist" and Marxist to describe Obama is hurting the conservative movement. :)
Obama has always run away from the liberal/socialist/Marxist label, despite the fact that he is. He was never attractive to the American people on policy issues...he downplayed his liberalism in the campaign.
I think people like you that don't think Obamacare is the end of America was wel know it are naive.
I'm not sure how defining Obama's political philosophy as Marxist/socalist is inaccurate or obscures anything. You have not made a convincing case as to why he's not a Marxist/socialist. I think you are more concerned about being labeled a "red meat" conservative than defeating Obama's agenda. :)
I never understood why "conservatives" like you get your panties in a wad when conservatives call Obama a Marxist or socialist. He is those things. Do you think no American subscribes to the politcal philosphy of Marxism/socialism?
Or is it, I suspect, that you just dont' want anybody to accuse of "McCarthyism", although the Verona papers along with other evidence, has vindicated McCarthy....there were Communist spies in the government. :)
Well,
I hate it when Beck refers to liberals as progressives. That's lett them run away from the liberal label that they hate. And Beck does probably sound insane to political neophytes when he's railing against "progressives", b/c after all, who doesn't like progress.
But again, I don't think Beck is a demagoguge. That's the kind of thing you say that is polarizing.....you can deny that if you want, but it seems to me he just has opinions on things like you do, and he's no more full of himself than you seem to be.
Goldberg has never seen like a 'red meat" conservative to me. He's lectured Rush in the past for "only preaching to the choir", although that seems like something you can say about any conservative when they say conservative things. I happen to think conservatives are m ore persausive when they in "preaching to the choir" mode. I'm not sure who exactly Frum and David Brooks, etc bring into the Republican tent. If you dump on Republicans all day, seems like you are making the case for the Democrats. :)
I think for some reason, I got Hoover mixed up with Wilson.
When I saw the expression "Wilsonian democracy", I remembered learning about him in high school. I guess a lot of people that are anti-Iraq war are anti-Wilson, because no doubt Bush was compared to Wilson as to "wanting to spread democracy". So in that sense, mabye it is populist to beat up on Wilson?
I report, you decide. :)
O'Reilly is always saying he is "looking out for the folks". He's claimed in the past that his reporting on Big Oil intimidated them into dropped oil prices, which had skyrocketed after Katrina knocked out some refinieries. Cavato on Fox News mocked him and suggested it was probably more supply and demand than O'reilly's reporting that resulted in gas prices coming back down. O'Reilly has also said his boycott of France brought France to it's knees. O'Reilly is a big "wall street greed" guy, which is the hallmark of populists. Bonus, he even has called himself a populist. :)
When we call him a populist fool, this is the kind of nonsense we are talking about. He also loves to talk about the "hard right", and in the past that did include Rush and Hannity. :)
I always got a strong sense that a lot of people hate Hannity b/c they think he's a "hick" because he doesn't have a college degree and he has a country music theme on his show. There's a lot of jealous people out there that don't like it when some guy with no college degree is successful. It's just human nature, but Hannity's a bright guy, and a very good debater. A lot of people like to compare him to Rush, but I don't think his show is anything like Rush's, as Hannity has guests and does a more traditional talk show with guests. Hannity has on McCain all the time...don't think Rush would ever have McCain on. Rush's show is more a satire show, and he does satire well. Beck tries to do satire, but he doesn't do it so well. Hannity doesn't try to do satire so I think hard to say he copies Rush. Obviously they agree on a lot, but again, they are conservative "purists". :)
Oops.
I guess that I sort of lump him in with Teddy Roosevelt, becauise Beck, who has brainwashed me and countless others, tends to do that, so I assumed he was a Republican.
But you are right, I don't care. I think in the greater scheme of things, Woodrow Wilson is probably one of the most "boring" presidents to talk about. You could say that one of the "benefits" of Goldberg's book was to get people interested in a president that nobody was interested in before, even if it was sheer populism to dump on Wilson. :)
I think it's laughable to label Rush, Hannity, Levin, Steyn, etc as populists. They aren't constant Wall Street bashers, which is like the core tenent of populism. It seems to me it's Obama and the left that are on a jihad against Wall Street. Rush was even supportive of the Dubai Ports Deal, while most Americans were opposing it. This notion that he just says stuff people want to hear isn't true.
I dont' think Beck is a "true" conservative. I think to some extent he parrots Rush but he seems to much more like Ron Paul on the issues these days. Again, I can disagree with him, without demonzing him, as our hero does, by calling him a demagogue, which is hyperbole defined. :)
@ CK MacLeod:
I don't think your response refutes my central claim, which is that all you basically do is henpeck popular conservatives. You claim there is nothing much to criticize Obama on now? Not one thing slightly more pressing than you "refuting" claims by Goldberg and Beck that Wilson was a progressive? I think that kind of gives away the store on where you are at.
@ CK MacLeod:
Your problem isn't that you disagree with popular conservatives. It's that you tallk down to them, you lecture them, despite having no popularity with any group of people. You can hoist yourself on a Cross if you want, but there are plenty of people attacking popular conservatives. I was little surprised that you even went after Steyn though, because as far as "tone" goes, he's the anti-Mark Levin. Who is good enough, outside of you, of course, to deliver the conservative message? My point was that your appraoch to disagreeing with other conservatives is snarky and arrogant....I don't disagree with the substance of your post that maybe Wilson wasn't so bad. But as I said earlier, I'm not interested in dead Republican presidents. We have all the time in the world to deal with dead Republican presidents. Obama should be the focus now. While you are henpecking conservatives on their "tone" and minor issues like Wilson, other conservatives are focused on defeating the Obama Democrats.
You wanted the attention that you are receiving from people like me by attacking popular conservatives.....it's a business model that many Republicans have, like Frum and Brooks, but you have to accept the criticism that comes with that. Nobody's trying to shut you up....it seems to me that you Frumbots want to intimidate me and other conservatives into a form of self censorship by suggesting we are just "rah rah" for Rush or Hannity or Beck or Steyn or Goldberg or Levin or any other conservative that you happen to be sneering at. All I'm doing is putting the liberal Republicans like yourself under the same microscope that you place the popular conservatives that you sneer at (for attention for yourself). :)
I never thougth I see somebody accusing Goldberg of being a "red meat" conservative. Wasn't he the guy that Ann Coulter called a girlieman? I'm not sure why a "conservative" would get their panties in a wad about a book called LF, and if you are so thin skinned that the book title "offfended" you, that's a little weird. The book seems more scholarly than intended for us "red meat" conservative, as I have no interest in Woodrow Wilson's "progressivism". I don't see the point in beating up on dead Republicans like Wilson or Teddy Roosevelt at this point.....Obama is the man with the power and he's giving us plenty of material to work with to describe what's wrong with liberal ideas. We can deal with the dead liberal Republicans later.
I also don't get the point in getting down in the weeds to prove Goldberg's assertions are wrong, but it seems to be driven by your hate of Beck,who you called a demagogue. While I'm not a big Beck fan as I find his delivery to be awkward and hyperactive, I'm not sure how he's so sinister that any sane person can call him a demagogue. I dont't think he's purposely telling "lies" to "amass power", which is what a demagogue does. He's not even a politician...he's just a guy on the radio with an opinion...he has no power. He's a dork and dorks are not sinister, at least, not to me. :)
@ CK MacLeod:
Hey, when all you do is henpeck popular conservatives and rarely talk about Obama and the Democrats, you are going to get criticized. It seems to me that you and the other Frum types want to be able to do this without yourself getting criticized.
You like to label conservatives that you don't like as "hard right" and then deny that this is a term used by the LEFt and others like the populist fool Bill O'Reilly , for mainstream conservatives. Define the "hard right" for us....give us some names. Given your constant whining about Mark Levin's "tone", I assume you include him as a member of the "hard right". It would seem you would include Beck, who you called a demagogue, as a member of the "hard right". I have no doubt, as a guy that seems to parrot the David Frum's and Brooks of the world, that you despite Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as well. You seem a lot more interested in sneering at popular conservatives, and it seems kind of a waste of time, if the objective is to defeat liberal Democrats. That doesn't seem to be your objective.
I think to deny that you used "hard right" as an insult is smarmy.
You seem like the longwinded version of David Frum. It's not what you have to say, it's how you approach debate that is the turn-off. You are a whiner and contentious, and you seem to have bug up your butt about conservatives in general. You even lectured Mark Steyn approach to talking about income taxation, which just seemed desperate to nitpick at somebody that you know is popular. Seems to me you are more on the Left side of the issues than you want to admit.