And another one
I intended to post a link to this article by Charles Moore last week, but I'd added comments as requested by the website, and was waiting for them to be included. They haven't been and probably never will be, so here's the link anyway: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/11/04/do0402.xml#comments
I'll skip the comments just in case they appear on the website, but also due to the fallout from the Midterms - including my friend Max, indirectly. I can't quite see how this defeat for the GOP can be equated to 'drubbing' or 'nightmare' or 'meltdown,' but I've long grasped that the media is not wholly rational in these matters.
Two Yale friends were chatting last week; the context is important, so it can largely wait for the next blog, but it became clear that they actually believed everything was all President Bush's fault.
No, no, darling friends...no no no. Problems did not begin with Bush and they will not end with Bush. The only debatable question is the extent to which he erred in (a) the decision to attack Iraq; and (b) the handling of the - war? occupation? - and regulars will know that I have accepted my lot is to be among the last folk standing when it comes to Bush. Me and 40% of the American population.
At its silliest, this Yalie belief causes people to write (on facebook) that they are 'finally starting to feel there may be hope for Americans.' Oh please.
On paper, I may well be a Democrat, albeit a Blue Dog. I'm pro-immigration. I'm in favour of taxing luxuries. I support a minimum wage. I think government should be used for the moulding of society. I'm further to the right (or, less statist) than many of my friends when it comes to education, say, but I can happily sit and argue about the mechanics.
The problem is sharing houseroom with the wings of the Party I really don't recognise, and Yale was full of this particular type of idiocy, shoving me relatively further to the right. Had I gone to school somewhere else, I may have reacted against their idiocy (it can happen - I have on occasion been the most left-wing person in the room, although probably never at Yale, at least not in a group of less than four). No doubt I would react badly to Republican idiocy...but, at its worst, maybe I have more in common with Republican idiots than Democrat idiots.
I don't have many flashpoints. (Abortion is one). But my core belief is probably that any governing ideology is, or certainly should be, fundamentally a religious ideology - ie, based on unprovable ideals. This could put me anywhere and nowhere in the political spectrum, but doesn't militate against winding up among the Authoritarian Left. This may be why I've never thought much of Nancy Pelosi...well, you can hardly expect me to like a San Francisco Liberal.
I'll skip the comments just in case they appear on the website, but also due to the fallout from the Midterms - including my friend Max, indirectly. I can't quite see how this defeat for the GOP can be equated to 'drubbing' or 'nightmare' or 'meltdown,' but I've long grasped that the media is not wholly rational in these matters.
Two Yale friends were chatting last week; the context is important, so it can largely wait for the next blog, but it became clear that they actually believed everything was all President Bush's fault.
No, no, darling friends...no no no. Problems did not begin with Bush and they will not end with Bush. The only debatable question is the extent to which he erred in (a) the decision to attack Iraq; and (b) the handling of the - war? occupation? - and regulars will know that I have accepted my lot is to be among the last folk standing when it comes to Bush. Me and 40% of the American population.
At its silliest, this Yalie belief causes people to write (on facebook) that they are 'finally starting to feel there may be hope for Americans.' Oh please.
On paper, I may well be a Democrat, albeit a Blue Dog. I'm pro-immigration. I'm in favour of taxing luxuries. I support a minimum wage. I think government should be used for the moulding of society. I'm further to the right (or, less statist) than many of my friends when it comes to education, say, but I can happily sit and argue about the mechanics.
The problem is sharing houseroom with the wings of the Party I really don't recognise, and Yale was full of this particular type of idiocy, shoving me relatively further to the right. Had I gone to school somewhere else, I may have reacted against their idiocy (it can happen - I have on occasion been the most left-wing person in the room, although probably never at Yale, at least not in a group of less than four). No doubt I would react badly to Republican idiocy...but, at its worst, maybe I have more in common with Republican idiots than Democrat idiots.
I don't have many flashpoints. (Abortion is one). But my core belief is probably that any governing ideology is, or certainly should be, fundamentally a religious ideology - ie, based on unprovable ideals. This could put me anywhere and nowhere in the political spectrum, but doesn't militate against winding up among the Authoritarian Left. This may be why I've never thought much of Nancy Pelosi...well, you can hardly expect me to like a San Francisco Liberal.
posted by BoB at 2:58 PM
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