Franklin Foer on College Republicans and dirty tricks
March 20, 2007 12:40 PM Subscribe
Swimming with Sharks. How do College Republicans learn to use dirty tricks? They practice on each other. TNR's Franklin Foer describes the summer 2005 race for College Republican National Committee chair. Via Paul Krugman. Previously.
Serving your GOParty sure beats serving your country.
Ask any Yellow Elephant.
posted by nofundy at 12:56 PM on March 20, 2007
Ask any Yellow Elephant.
posted by nofundy at 12:56 PM on March 20, 2007
pretty cool. thanks for the post. would have been nice to link to the original TNR article as some people have access.
posted by bhouston at 12:56 PM on March 20, 2007
posted by bhouston at 12:56 PM on March 20, 2007
"Like all good cabals, it is hard to know exactly who belongs to the Establishment and how Machiavellian their meddling is."
There is no cabal here.
posted by ericb at 1:01 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
There is no cabal here.
posted by ericb at 1:01 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
These people think that politics is just a game, and they couldn't care less about people hurt by bad policy.
posted by delmoi at 1:03 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by delmoi at 1:03 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
I'm pretty sure John Moe wrote about this (from his viewpoint on the convention floor) in Conservatize Me.
posted by drezdn at 1:03 PM on March 20, 2007
posted by drezdn at 1:03 PM on March 20, 2007
And then there was the Stephen Glass faux-article in The New Republic on Young Republicans gone wild.
posted by ericb at 1:08 PM on March 20, 2007
posted by ericb at 1:08 PM on March 20, 2007
Ask any Yellow Elephant.
I would have, but the pink ones chased them off and now they're all shushing me, chanting "Don't ask, don't tell! You'll have it made / Don't dare play Twister or charade / Have one more gin & lemonade / the elephants on parade!" [NOT CHROMOPACHYDERMIST]
posted by cog_nate at 1:10 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
I would have, but the pink ones chased them off and now they're all shushing me, chanting "Don't ask, don't tell! You'll have it made / Don't dare play Twister or charade / Have one more gin & lemonade / the elephants on parade!" [NOT CHROMOPACHYDERMIST]
posted by cog_nate at 1:10 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
I do think that this is a formative experience for the up and coming GOPers. And it is an experience that Democrats lack. The recent elections that I've witnessed have been knife fights and the Democrats haven't been as skilled as the Republicans. Not sure there is a solution.
Back in university I was in charge of the yearly student body election in my faculty (Engineering and Computer Science) at the end of my first year. It was more intense that I expected with some individuals calling me at all hours of the day with quite a few people engaging in borderline shady tactics.
posted by bhouston at 1:10 PM on March 20, 2007
Back in university I was in charge of the yearly student body election in my faculty (Engineering and Computer Science) at the end of my first year. It was more intense that I expected with some individuals calling me at all hours of the day with quite a few people engaging in borderline shady tactics.
posted by bhouston at 1:10 PM on March 20, 2007
You are making a FPP out of a two year old cover story in one of the biggest political magazines in the county?
Scrapping the bottom of the barrel, eh?
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 1:20 PM on March 20, 2007
Scrapping the bottom of the barrel, eh?
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 1:20 PM on March 20, 2007
All I remember of the Young Republicans in college was their perpetual war with the university's radio station (where I was a music director). They viewed us a bunch of rabble-rousing miscreants (we were) and we saw them as a pack of high-strung, stick-up-their-asses, thugs (which they were).
No matter how little our activities directly affected them, they were always there complaining to the administration or putting up fliers protesting something we were doing.
Despite the fact that this was fifteen years ago, it's funny that in some ways, things never really change.
posted by quin at 1:35 PM on March 20, 2007
No matter how little our activities directly affected them, they were always there complaining to the administration or putting up fliers protesting something we were doing.
Despite the fact that this was fifteen years ago, it's funny that in some ways, things never really change.
posted by quin at 1:35 PM on March 20, 2007
Scrapping the bottom of the barrel, eh?
That would be a fine idea.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 1:37 PM on March 20, 2007 [4 favorites]
That would be a fine idea.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 1:37 PM on March 20, 2007 [4 favorites]
"Scrapping the bottom of the barrel, eh?"
The bottom of the barrel is right. How's the light down there?
posted by 2sheets at 1:38 PM on March 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
The bottom of the barrel is right. How's the light down there?
posted by 2sheets at 1:38 PM on March 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
You are making a FPP out of a two year old cover story in one of the biggest political magazines in the county [sic]?
It is put into current perspective as Krugman comments on the current state of conservatives and their methods of governing in his post today: Don’t Cry For Reagan (to which the FPP does link):
It is put into current perspective as Krugman comments on the current state of conservatives and their methods of governing in his post today: Don’t Cry For Reagan (to which the FPP does link):
"...Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity.posted by ericb at 1:41 PM on March 20, 2007 [5 favorites]
...Why is there such a strong family resemblance between the Reagan years and recent events? Mr. Reagan’s administration, like Mr. Bush’s, was run by movement conservatives — people who built their careers by serving the alliance of wealthy individuals, corporate interests and the religious right that took shape in the 1960s and 1970s. And both cronyism and abuse of power are part of the movement conservative package.
In part this is because people whose ideology says that government is always the problem, never the solution, see no point in governing well. So they use political power to reward their friends, rather than find people who will actually do their jobs.
If expertise is irrelevant, who gets the jobs? No problem: the interlocking, lavishly financed institutions of movement conservatism, which range from K Street to Fox News, create a vast class of apparatchiks who can be counted on to be “loyal Bushies.”
The movement’s apparatchik culture, in turn, explains much of its contempt for the rule of law. Someone who has risen through the ranks of a movement that prizes political loyalty above all isn’t likely to balk at, say, using bogus claims of voter fraud to disenfranchise Democrats, or suppressing potentially damaging investigations of Republicans. As Franklin Foer of The New Republic has pointed out, in College Republican elections, dirty tricks and double crosses are considered acceptable, even praiseworthy.
Still, Mr. Reagan’s misgovernment never went as far as Mr. Bush’s...."
"shock troops for Bush"
Thanks for the mention. Here's the article [Beautiful young shock troops for Bush] which I had not read.
posted by ericb at 1:44 PM on March 20, 2007
Thanks for the mention. Here's the article [Beautiful young shock troops for Bush] which I had not read.
posted by ericb at 1:44 PM on March 20, 2007
Quote from the Salon "Shock Troop" article:
Picture Karl Rove in wool shorts, crisply ironed shirt, playing in the sandbox -- or dodgeball. Nelson Muntz or Ralph Wiggums?
posted by ericb at 1:50 PM on March 20, 2007
"You used to get beat up. Now you're the one beating people up."A former colleague pointed out that whenever trying to figure someone out, picture the person in 5th grade in gym class or on the playground. Much of their current behavior can be understood by imagining them then.
Picture Karl Rove in wool shorts, crisply ironed shirt, playing in the sandbox -- or dodgeball. Nelson Muntz or Ralph Wiggums?
posted by ericb at 1:50 PM on March 20, 2007
This brings to mind the New Yorker article "God and Country -- A college that trains young Christians to be politicians." [previously discussed].
posted by ericb at 2:04 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by ericb at 2:04 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
Re: Beautiful young shock troops for Bush.
Yikes. I'd never seen that article before and so I was surprised to see an acquaintance of mine quoted at length (I won't say which one). Not the nastiest of the bunch, but still I'm a bit shocked at some of the stuff coming out of his or her mouth - s/he must tone it down a bit when non-Republicans are around.
posted by naoko at 2:23 PM on March 20, 2007
Yikes. I'd never seen that article before and so I was surprised to see an acquaintance of mine quoted at length (I won't say which one). Not the nastiest of the bunch, but still I'm a bit shocked at some of the stuff coming out of his or her mouth - s/he must tone it down a bit when non-Republicans are around.
posted by naoko at 2:23 PM on March 20, 2007
Dang, that Don't Cry for Reagan quote captures my feelings about this administration perfectly. Just plain contempt for the job of governing. If they were honestly trying to govern how they thought best, then that's one thing, but they just seem to be following hunches and ideology while ignoring science and evidence.
If that's not criminal and/or impeachable, it sure ought to be.
posted by mrnutty at 2:33 PM on March 20, 2007
If that's not criminal and/or impeachable, it sure ought to be.
posted by mrnutty at 2:33 PM on March 20, 2007
A former colleague pointed out that whenever trying to figure someone out, picture the person in 5th grade in gym class or on the playground. Much of their current behavior can be understood by imagining them then.
Picture Karl Rove in wool shorts, crisply ironed shirt, playing in the sandbox -- or dodgeball. Nelson Muntz or Ralph Wiggum[s]?
I'd stake a lot of money he was Nelson, if not physically then an intellectual bully. That kind of pop psychology sounds really good, but it doesn't tend to be actually, you know, true. People who are bullies as grown-ups tend to have been bullies as kids, because people don't really change that much.
The only time they stop being bullies is when life beats them up so bad that they no longer have the opportunity, a la Al Bundy jock-types.
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:44 PM on March 20, 2007
Picture Karl Rove in wool shorts, crisply ironed shirt, playing in the sandbox -- or dodgeball. Nelson Muntz or Ralph Wiggum[s]?
I'd stake a lot of money he was Nelson, if not physically then an intellectual bully. That kind of pop psychology sounds really good, but it doesn't tend to be actually, you know, true. People who are bullies as grown-ups tend to have been bullies as kids, because people don't really change that much.
The only time they stop being bullies is when life beats them up so bad that they no longer have the opportunity, a la Al Bundy jock-types.
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:44 PM on March 20, 2007
>>Just plain contempt for the job of governing. If they were honestly trying to govern how they thought best, then that's one thing, but they just seem to be following hunches and ideology while ignoring science and evidence.
That's because their plan for "governing" has just 3 choices:
A) Steal
B) Bash someone different than me
C) Use fear to make it easier to perfrom A or B
posted by SaintCynr at 2:47 PM on March 20, 2007
That's because their plan for "governing" has just 3 choices:
A) Steal
B) Bash someone different than me
C) Use fear to make it easier to perfrom A or B
posted by SaintCynr at 2:47 PM on March 20, 2007
In part this is because people whose ideology says that government is always the problem, never the solution, see no point in governing well. So they use political power to reward their friends, rather than find people who will actually do their jobs.
I like Paul Krugman's writing, but this is too facile. The ideology of "government is always the problem" is earnestly held by many conservatives, of course. But that's not the problem with the current lot, even if they do use that rhetoric. The Bush administration is monarchist, and in its collective mind, the government exists as the instrument of its will, not the instrument of the people's will. And some people are ok with this.
posted by adamrice at 2:50 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
I like Paul Krugman's writing, but this is too facile. The ideology of "government is always the problem" is earnestly held by many conservatives, of course. But that's not the problem with the current lot, even if they do use that rhetoric. The Bush administration is monarchist, and in its collective mind, the government exists as the instrument of its will, not the instrument of the people's will. And some people are ok with this.
posted by adamrice at 2:50 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
Wow. reading ericb's [Beautiful young shock troops for Bush] really got me irate. When they are interviewing the kids at the end, I just got this sense of... entitlement.
Ick. I wanna go wash my brain now.
posted by quin at 3:15 PM on March 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
Ick. I wanna go wash my brain now.
posted by quin at 3:15 PM on March 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
I never thought I'd say this but, thank god I went to art school.
posted by fidgets at 3:19 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by fidgets at 3:19 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
Dislike being a spoisport, but the piece refers of course to young folks at college. What and how do the Dems learn the tricks that gave them crontrol of Chicago, Tammany Hall etc?
Republicans oppose stem cell research so that Dems won't develop spines. (hey! I have never voted for a Republican )
It is good to know the enemy and how they think and operagte. When swiftboated, you have to use torpedos in return.
posted by Postroad at 3:22 PM on March 20, 2007
Republicans oppose stem cell research so that Dems won't develop spines. (hey! I have never voted for a Republican )
It is good to know the enemy and how they think and operagte. When swiftboated, you have to use torpedos in return.
posted by Postroad at 3:22 PM on March 20, 2007
Steve_at_Linnwood: You are making a FPP out of a two year old cover story in one of the biggest political magazines in the county? Scraping the bottom of the barrel, eh?
I didn't post this as an attack against Republicans. I'm honestly puzzled about the whole phenomenon of movement conservatism--the coexistence of no-holds-barred, knife-fight tactics against one's political opponents, and a general contempt for established laws and institutions, with an evangelical belief in bringing democracy and the rule of law to the rest of the world by fire and sword!
What is going on here? How did this crew manage to hijack the United States and run it into the ground? And what the hell are they thinking?
For anyone outside the United States, this is the most baffling aspect of US politics since 2000. The US took a very wrong turn with the 2000 Supreme Court decision halting the Florida recount.
I saw Krugman's reference to the Franklin Foer article and tracked it down. It doesn't seem to have been posted widely, so I thought it'd be worth posting here.
A previous discussion I had with Smedleyman on the subject of movement conservatism.
Postroad: It is good to know the enemy and how they think and operate.
The Republicans are not the enemy. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are the enemy. Why do movement conservatives think of Democrats as "the enemy" instead of "the opposition"?
posted by russilwvong at 3:38 PM on March 20, 2007
I didn't post this as an attack against Republicans. I'm honestly puzzled about the whole phenomenon of movement conservatism--the coexistence of no-holds-barred, knife-fight tactics against one's political opponents, and a general contempt for established laws and institutions, with an evangelical belief in bringing democracy and the rule of law to the rest of the world by fire and sword!
What is going on here? How did this crew manage to hijack the United States and run it into the ground? And what the hell are they thinking?
For anyone outside the United States, this is the most baffling aspect of US politics since 2000. The US took a very wrong turn with the 2000 Supreme Court decision halting the Florida recount.
I saw Krugman's reference to the Franklin Foer article and tracked it down. It doesn't seem to have been posted widely, so I thought it'd be worth posting here.
A previous discussion I had with Smedleyman on the subject of movement conservatism.
Postroad: It is good to know the enemy and how they think and operate.
The Republicans are not the enemy. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are the enemy. Why do movement conservatives think of Democrats as "the enemy" instead of "the opposition"?
posted by russilwvong at 3:38 PM on March 20, 2007
The Republicans are not the enemy.
The Republicans have killed a heck of a lot more people than al-Qaeda ever did.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 3:44 PM on March 20, 2007
The Republicans have killed a heck of a lot more people than al-Qaeda ever did.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 3:44 PM on March 20, 2007
"What and how do the Dems learn the tricks that gave them crontrol of Chicago, Tammany Hall etc?"
Tammany Hall is the best you can do? Forgot all about the Petticoat Affair or the Swarthout-Hoyt Scandal of 1841?
posted by klangklangston at 4:12 PM on March 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
Tammany Hall is the best you can do? Forgot all about the Petticoat Affair or the Swarthout-Hoyt Scandal of 1841?
posted by klangklangston at 4:12 PM on March 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
lupus_yonderboy: The Republicans have killed a heck of a lot more people than al-Qaeda ever did.
That hasn't prompted the Democrats to declare war on the Republicans. Or did I miss the news bulletin?
posted by russilwvong at 4:16 PM on March 20, 2007
That hasn't prompted the Democrats to declare war on the Republicans. Or did I miss the news bulletin?
posted by russilwvong at 4:16 PM on March 20, 2007
bhouston: would have been nice to link to the original TNR article as some people have access.
You're right, here's the original.
posted by russilwvong at 4:20 PM on March 20, 2007
You're right, here's the original.
posted by russilwvong at 4:20 PM on March 20, 2007
From the Salon article:
If Bush and his successors remain in power for the next decade, Cole believes, we'll have a world "where leaders say what they mean and follow it up ... millions and millions will enjoy the freedoms that our forefathers fought for. Democracy will spread across the world. Iraq was a phenomenal start. In Africa, the United States is helping Liberia and giving AIDS relief. Soon, they'll be back on the economic track. People now living in squalor will experience a home-owning boom like that following World War II. Look at how Staten Island was developed ..."
Ah, 2003. Wonder what he thinks now?
posted by jokeefe at 4:27 PM on March 20, 2007
If Bush and his successors remain in power for the next decade, Cole believes, we'll have a world "where leaders say what they mean and follow it up ... millions and millions will enjoy the freedoms that our forefathers fought for. Democracy will spread across the world. Iraq was a phenomenal start. In Africa, the United States is helping Liberia and giving AIDS relief. Soon, they'll be back on the economic track. People now living in squalor will experience a home-owning boom like that following World War II. Look at how Staten Island was developed ..."
Ah, 2003. Wonder what he thinks now?
posted by jokeefe at 4:27 PM on March 20, 2007
The Bush administration is monarchist, and in its collective mind, the government exists as the instrument of its will, not the instrument of the people's will. And some people are ok with this.
Ah, yes, the Law of Rule as opposed to the Rule of Law.
Most of us never get out of junior high (8th grade), where all this "he said this and then she did that and then I went and told everyone what the other girl did..." etc. gets its start. Some people get good at it, others don't or get outbullied by the others, as noted above.
/derail
I for one, want to reclaim the term "Patriot" for those of us who love our country and want to make it right when it goes wrong, and label the folks who want to "spread democracy" (really americanism) at the end of a bayonet "Americanists".
Patriotism has borders. Americanism doesn't.
damn. /second derail. Sorry
posted by lysdexic at 5:09 PM on March 20, 2007
Ah, yes, the Law of Rule as opposed to the Rule of Law.
Most of us never get out of junior high (8th grade), where all this "he said this and then she did that and then I went and told everyone what the other girl did..." etc. gets its start. Some people get good at it, others don't or get outbullied by the others, as noted above.
/derail
I for one, want to reclaim the term "Patriot" for those of us who love our country and want to make it right when it goes wrong, and label the folks who want to "spread democracy" (really americanism) at the end of a bayonet "Americanists".
Patriotism has borders. Americanism doesn't.
damn. /second derail. Sorry
posted by lysdexic at 5:09 PM on March 20, 2007
XQUZYPHYR, I don't think that's how they look at it, (although few hard workers would think of themselves as losers (at least at what they're working at), and moral compass aside these people seem to work pretty hard). They know they aren't being elected so much as winning the game. I think Truman said something about being able to do anything, as long as you don't care who gets the credit.
Largely that's how I look at these guys, they are playing their game, the actual politician is simply picked as the most likely winner, a figurehead or a vessel to carry their team, like horse races, but with people running, or Political Pokemon. (Howard Deanachu! I choose you!)
posted by SomeOneElse at 5:32 PM on March 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
Largely that's how I look at these guys, they are playing their game, the actual politician is simply picked as the most likely winner, a figurehead or a vessel to carry their team, like horse races, but with people running, or Political Pokemon. (Howard Deanachu! I choose you!)
posted by SomeOneElse at 5:32 PM on March 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
russelvwong wrote: "an evangelical belief in bringing democracy and the rule of law to the rest of the world by fire and sword!"
I'm not sure that's actually true. That's the front, of course, but I'm not coninced that the movement conservatives didn't view the Iraq invasion as complying with the Ledeen Doctrine as opposed to any belief in democracy.
Were there a real belief in democracy among movement conservatives, there would have been a reckoning with the sins of the 1980s, when we funded death squads in Latin America and the future Taliban and al Qaeda in Central Asia. But the Iraq invasion, for all the liberal rhetoric that surrounded it, was more about domination and jingoism than about democratization.
I believed the democracy and anti-dictatorial rationales for the Iraq invasion and supported it at the time; I regret that now.
posted by ibmcginty at 7:22 PM on March 20, 2007
I'm not sure that's actually true. That's the front, of course, but I'm not coninced that the movement conservatives didn't view the Iraq invasion as complying with the Ledeen Doctrine as opposed to any belief in democracy.
Were there a real belief in democracy among movement conservatives, there would have been a reckoning with the sins of the 1980s, when we funded death squads in Latin America and the future Taliban and al Qaeda in Central Asia. But the Iraq invasion, for all the liberal rhetoric that surrounded it, was more about domination and jingoism than about democratization.
I believed the democracy and anti-dictatorial rationales for the Iraq invasion and supported it at the time; I regret that now.
posted by ibmcginty at 7:22 PM on March 20, 2007
This link was the intellectual equivalent of that skin disease post from a few days ago. I have a stomach ache now.
posted by tkchrist at 7:31 PM on March 20, 2007
posted by tkchrist at 7:31 PM on March 20, 2007
ibmcginty: I'm not sure that's actually true. That's the front, of course--
Behind the scenes, the decision-makers in the White House (like Wolfowitz) appear to have been sincere. Deluded, of course, but sincere. Mark Danner's long article Iraq: The War of Imagination goes into the details. Rumsfeld's idea was to overthrow Saddam, install Chalabi, and leave; so the Pentagon didn't have a plan for the occupation. Bush squashed the installation of Chalabi, on the grounds that it'd be undemocratic ("putting its thumb on the scales"), but then he didn't get the Pentagon to come up with an alternative plan.
Danner quotes an unnamed White House official: DOD had a stupid plan, but they had a plan. But if you don't do that plan, and you don't make the Pentagon work with State to develop something else, then you go to war with no plan.
posted by russilwvong at 8:34 PM on March 20, 2007
Behind the scenes, the decision-makers in the White House (like Wolfowitz) appear to have been sincere. Deluded, of course, but sincere. Mark Danner's long article Iraq: The War of Imagination goes into the details. Rumsfeld's idea was to overthrow Saddam, install Chalabi, and leave; so the Pentagon didn't have a plan for the occupation. Bush squashed the installation of Chalabi, on the grounds that it'd be undemocratic ("putting its thumb on the scales"), but then he didn't get the Pentagon to come up with an alternative plan.
Danner quotes an unnamed White House official: DOD had a stupid plan, but they had a plan. But if you don't do that plan, and you don't make the Pentagon work with State to develop something else, then you go to war with no plan.
posted by russilwvong at 8:34 PM on March 20, 2007
I'm awfully late, russilwvong, but I'd argue that the vague desire for Iraq to become democratic was overall more a talking point than an animating force behind the invasion.
I don't doubt that some on the inside, like Wolfowitz, really hoped that democracy would flower and that we would then launch a global democracy jihad.
But our focus in rhetoric before the invasion was about the threat from Saddam, and our focus in planning was simply on removing Saddam.
There was no evidence that people like Rumsfeld were chastened by their past embrace of Saddam. There was no rethinking among conservatives that, wow, it's not good to prop up human rights violators (indeed, the argument has been over how we should torture prisoners).
The underlying reason for the invasion, I think, was the desire on the part of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and advisers like Feith and Bolton who were even less realistic and humane than Wolfowitz, who just wanted to hit something to show that we mean business. Saddam had been a thorn in our side for years, he hadn't been forthright about his WMD programs, and we could take him out without much trouble. So he fit the bill.
Do you think that the democracy rationale was more important than I'm describing?
posted by ibmcginty at 3:23 PM on March 21, 2007
I don't doubt that some on the inside, like Wolfowitz, really hoped that democracy would flower and that we would then launch a global democracy jihad.
But our focus in rhetoric before the invasion was about the threat from Saddam, and our focus in planning was simply on removing Saddam.
There was no evidence that people like Rumsfeld were chastened by their past embrace of Saddam. There was no rethinking among conservatives that, wow, it's not good to prop up human rights violators (indeed, the argument has been over how we should torture prisoners).
The underlying reason for the invasion, I think, was the desire on the part of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and advisers like Feith and Bolton who were even less realistic and humane than Wolfowitz, who just wanted to hit something to show that we mean business. Saddam had been a thorn in our side for years, he hadn't been forthright about his WMD programs, and we could take him out without much trouble. So he fit the bill.
Do you think that the democracy rationale was more important than I'm describing?
posted by ibmcginty at 3:23 PM on March 21, 2007
ibmcginty: I'm awfully late--
No problem, we've still got another 27 days before the thread gets archived.
There was no rethinking among conservatives that, wow, it's not good to prop up human rights violators (indeed, the argument has been over how we should torture prisoners).
Right.
It's often been pointed out by diplomatic historians that American thinking about foreign policy tends to suffer from excessive self-righteousness, the tendency to see conflicts as a struggle between good guys and bad guys, with the US as the good guys. The critical thing here is that when good guys do bad things, they're still the good guys.
From reading various conservative pundits, it seems to me that this is totally the movement-conservative mindset. This what they mean by "moral clarity." See the thread on 24 and its creator, Joel Surnow.
Another example: why do conservatives oppose nuclear disarmament? Nuclear weapons make the US much more vulnerable than it would be to conventional weapons; why doesn't the US move more aggressively on nuclear disarmament? Jon Kyl: To borrow a phrase from my good friend, Richard Perle, traditional arms control often equates guns in the hands of cops with guns in the hands of robbers.
The contrasting view is that morality is best judged by one's actions, not by one's objectives. George Kennan described this point of view back in 1959: Foreign Policy and Christian Conscience (Atlantic subscribers only, unfortunately). IIRC, Kennan refers to what the movement conservatives call "moral clarity" as "chauvinism" --he talks about "the easy acclamations usually produced in our society by a vigorous ringing of the chauvinist bell." A post I put together on morality and foreign policy.
ibmcginty: Do you think that the democracy rationale was more important than I'm describing?
Yes. Afghanistan was already a demonstration that the US meant business.
My understanding is that the debate within the White House on Iraq was between cautious realists, like Colin Powell and the military leadership, and crazy people who wanted to transform the Middle East. (Ray McGovern, Bush I's CIA briefer: When we saw these people coming back in town, all of us said who were around in those days said, oh my god, "the crazies" are back--"the crazies"--that’s how we referred to these people.) And of course the crazy people won the debate. Powell wasn't even in Bush's inner circle--see O'Neill's The Price of Loyalty.
See these quotes from David Frum's The Right Man for a good explanation of the "let's transform the Middle East" point of view. The Bush administration believed they could establish an Iraq that would be friendly towards the US, and more or less democratic (Wolfowitz thought it might be like post-Communist Romania); given the importance of Iraq in the Middle East, they could transform the entire Middle East into a US sphere of influence, like Latin America or Eastern Europe. As military analyst Anthony Cordesman put it, they crossed the line between neo-conservative and neo-crazy.
posted by russilwvong at 10:45 AM on March 22, 2007
No problem, we've still got another 27 days before the thread gets archived.
There was no rethinking among conservatives that, wow, it's not good to prop up human rights violators (indeed, the argument has been over how we should torture prisoners).
Right.
It's often been pointed out by diplomatic historians that American thinking about foreign policy tends to suffer from excessive self-righteousness, the tendency to see conflicts as a struggle between good guys and bad guys, with the US as the good guys. The critical thing here is that when good guys do bad things, they're still the good guys.
From reading various conservative pundits, it seems to me that this is totally the movement-conservative mindset. This what they mean by "moral clarity." See the thread on 24 and its creator, Joel Surnow.
Another example: why do conservatives oppose nuclear disarmament? Nuclear weapons make the US much more vulnerable than it would be to conventional weapons; why doesn't the US move more aggressively on nuclear disarmament? Jon Kyl: To borrow a phrase from my good friend, Richard Perle, traditional arms control often equates guns in the hands of cops with guns in the hands of robbers.
The contrasting view is that morality is best judged by one's actions, not by one's objectives. George Kennan described this point of view back in 1959: Foreign Policy and Christian Conscience (Atlantic subscribers only, unfortunately). IIRC, Kennan refers to what the movement conservatives call "moral clarity" as "chauvinism" --he talks about "the easy acclamations usually produced in our society by a vigorous ringing of the chauvinist bell." A post I put together on morality and foreign policy.
ibmcginty: Do you think that the democracy rationale was more important than I'm describing?
Yes. Afghanistan was already a demonstration that the US meant business.
My understanding is that the debate within the White House on Iraq was between cautious realists, like Colin Powell and the military leadership, and crazy people who wanted to transform the Middle East. (Ray McGovern, Bush I's CIA briefer: When we saw these people coming back in town, all of us said who were around in those days said, oh my god, "the crazies" are back--"the crazies"--that’s how we referred to these people.) And of course the crazy people won the debate. Powell wasn't even in Bush's inner circle--see O'Neill's The Price of Loyalty.
See these quotes from David Frum's The Right Man for a good explanation of the "let's transform the Middle East" point of view. The Bush administration believed they could establish an Iraq that would be friendly towards the US, and more or less democratic (Wolfowitz thought it might be like post-Communist Romania); given the importance of Iraq in the Middle East, they could transform the entire Middle East into a US sphere of influence, like Latin America or Eastern Europe. As military analyst Anthony Cordesman put it, they crossed the line between neo-conservative and neo-crazy.
posted by russilwvong at 10:45 AM on March 22, 2007
russilwvong: Those Frum quotes are chilling in their conflation of different issues and their casual certainty of the US's benign omniscience and onmipotence.
Note how he concludes that first quote, though: "Donald Rumsfeld and his Defense Department became the advocates of the bold second option [overthrow Saddam, watch democracy flower]". Did Rumsfeld really believe that, or did he merely see that fuzzy-minded utopianism as a vehicle to do some damage?
Also, I don't think that the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Feith axis were satisfied with winning in Afghanistan. It was a war-torn state, and not all that hard to overthrow. They wanted to send a bigger message.
I'll sign on to your theory a bit. Here's my modified version-- Frum's black-and-white utopianism helped persuade the president, who is not known as a detail-oriented guy. But Rumsfeld's Pentagon, which championed and implemented the policy prescriptions of the WH's utopianism, was concerned more with picking up some small crappy little country and throwing it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
So, it was a perfect storm of an ideological confluence. Both strands ignorantly lump together numerous negative things as a grand plot, prioritize use of force, and, in their indifference to how reality actually works, fail to consider informed advice, instead assuming that everything will just magically work out in the end owing to our innate, universally recognized awesomeness. In some ways, it's Chomsky in reverse.
As to Kyl, let me phrase his argument in the most charitable and rational way possible: "The problem with the idea of arms control is that it regards all states as equal billiard balls. Saddam's signature on the NPT means every bit as much as the US's, even though Saddam has invaded his neighbors and tortured his people. The response is don't trust, but verify; to this I reply in turn, one slip-up in verification, anywhere in the world, could have the most catastrophic results imaginable." That verification is hard dissuades movement conservatives from even trying arms control; that a missile defense shield is technologically impossible is merely a hurdle we can surmount with hard work, courage, focus, robustness, and whatever other adjectives are in favor over there these days. Because we're us, and others have the misfortune to be mere foreigners, we must do everything we can that might conceivably bolster our security, regardless of what reactions the rest of the world might take.
By the way, a Kennan article quite similar to the Atlantic one can be found here. I have been thinking quite a lot about Reinhold Neibuhr, and about the term "chauvinism" of late, so evidently I'm going to have to grapple with Kennan a bit.
Thanks for your excellent post, and all the great stuff up at your site.
posted by ibmcginty at 12:28 PM on March 22, 2007
Note how he concludes that first quote, though: "Donald Rumsfeld and his Defense Department became the advocates of the bold second option [overthrow Saddam, watch democracy flower]". Did Rumsfeld really believe that, or did he merely see that fuzzy-minded utopianism as a vehicle to do some damage?
Also, I don't think that the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Feith axis were satisfied with winning in Afghanistan. It was a war-torn state, and not all that hard to overthrow. They wanted to send a bigger message.
I'll sign on to your theory a bit. Here's my modified version-- Frum's black-and-white utopianism helped persuade the president, who is not known as a detail-oriented guy. But Rumsfeld's Pentagon, which championed and implemented the policy prescriptions of the WH's utopianism, was concerned more with picking up some small crappy little country and throwing it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
So, it was a perfect storm of an ideological confluence. Both strands ignorantly lump together numerous negative things as a grand plot, prioritize use of force, and, in their indifference to how reality actually works, fail to consider informed advice, instead assuming that everything will just magically work out in the end owing to our innate, universally recognized awesomeness. In some ways, it's Chomsky in reverse.
As to Kyl, let me phrase his argument in the most charitable and rational way possible: "The problem with the idea of arms control is that it regards all states as equal billiard balls. Saddam's signature on the NPT means every bit as much as the US's, even though Saddam has invaded his neighbors and tortured his people. The response is don't trust, but verify; to this I reply in turn, one slip-up in verification, anywhere in the world, could have the most catastrophic results imaginable." That verification is hard dissuades movement conservatives from even trying arms control; that a missile defense shield is technologically impossible is merely a hurdle we can surmount with hard work, courage, focus, robustness, and whatever other adjectives are in favor over there these days. Because we're us, and others have the misfortune to be mere foreigners, we must do everything we can that might conceivably bolster our security, regardless of what reactions the rest of the world might take.
By the way, a Kennan article quite similar to the Atlantic one can be found here. I have been thinking quite a lot about Reinhold Neibuhr, and about the term "chauvinism" of late, so evidently I'm going to have to grapple with Kennan a bit.
Thanks for your excellent post, and all the great stuff up at your site.
posted by ibmcginty at 12:28 PM on March 22, 2007
ibmcginty: Thanks for your excellent post, and all the great stuff up at your site.
I'm glad you found it interesting. I don't have the bandwidth to maintain a blog; the nice thing about a static website is that I can just leave it sitting there for months or years at a time.
Thanks for the link to the Kennan speech--I think it might be the same one as the one in the Atlantic, more or less.
ibmcginty: ... in their indifference to how reality actually works, fail to consider informed advice, instead assuming that everything will just magically work out in the end owing to our innate, universally recognized awesomeness.
Just to pick up on this: one characteristic trait of the American way of thinking, if there is such a thing, is optimism. This is a great strength, of course: Americans have been able to accomplish many great things. But when it comes to foreign policy, optimism can easily translate into arrogance and hubris: not all problems can be solved. I remember thinking before the war that even if the US didn't get everything right initially, they ought to be able to fix it later. Obviously, I was totally wrong.
I haven't read much Niebuhr (only Moral Man and Immoral Society), but I've read quite a lot of Kennan and Hans Morgenthau. For Kennan, I'd recommend starting with his autobiography, and then maybe Around the Cragged Hill (written after the end of the Cold War).
What really stands out about the so-called political realists--Niebuhr, Kennan, Morgenthau, Kennan's colleagues such as John Paton Davies Jr., Louis Halle, Charles Burton Marshall--is their skepticism and pessimism. Charles Burton Marshall's The Limits of Foreign Policy (a series of lectures given in 1953) provides a particularly entertaining explanation of this view.
I wish them luck, of course, but it's going to be a hard sell. Optimism is so ingrained in the American character that the pessimism of the realists can easily be portrayed as un-American by the unscrupulous. There are precedents for the movement-conservative approach to foreign policy in the attacks of Senator Joe McCarthy and his allies on the Truman administration ("The Attack of the Primitives," as Dean Acheson called them). McCarthy fans like Ann Coulter and Joel Surnow provide a direct link.
posted by russilwvong at 11:14 PM on March 28, 2007
I'm glad you found it interesting. I don't have the bandwidth to maintain a blog; the nice thing about a static website is that I can just leave it sitting there for months or years at a time.
Thanks for the link to the Kennan speech--I think it might be the same one as the one in the Atlantic, more or less.
ibmcginty: ... in their indifference to how reality actually works, fail to consider informed advice, instead assuming that everything will just magically work out in the end owing to our innate, universally recognized awesomeness.
Just to pick up on this: one characteristic trait of the American way of thinking, if there is such a thing, is optimism. This is a great strength, of course: Americans have been able to accomplish many great things. But when it comes to foreign policy, optimism can easily translate into arrogance and hubris: not all problems can be solved. I remember thinking before the war that even if the US didn't get everything right initially, they ought to be able to fix it later. Obviously, I was totally wrong.
I haven't read much Niebuhr (only Moral Man and Immoral Society), but I've read quite a lot of Kennan and Hans Morgenthau. For Kennan, I'd recommend starting with his autobiography, and then maybe Around the Cragged Hill (written after the end of the Cold War).
What really stands out about the so-called political realists--Niebuhr, Kennan, Morgenthau, Kennan's colleagues such as John Paton Davies Jr., Louis Halle, Charles Burton Marshall--is their skepticism and pessimism. Charles Burton Marshall's The Limits of Foreign Policy (a series of lectures given in 1953) provides a particularly entertaining explanation of this view.
I stress the obvious but often overlooked externalness of foreign policy. The fundamental circumstance giving rise to foreign policy is that most of the world is outside the United States. The areas in which our foreign policy has its effects are those lying beyond the range of our law. They include about fifteen-sixteenths of the world's land surface and contain about sixteen-seventeenths of its peoples. We cannot ordain the conditions there. The forces do not respond to our fiat. At best we can only affect them.Various people are attempting to revive political realism these days, under the name "ethical realism" (to distinguish it from the Kissinger variety, presumably): Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, William Pfaff, the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy.
I wish them luck, of course, but it's going to be a hard sell. Optimism is so ingrained in the American character that the pessimism of the realists can easily be portrayed as un-American by the unscrupulous. There are precedents for the movement-conservative approach to foreign policy in the attacks of Senator Joe McCarthy and his allies on the Truman administration ("The Attack of the Primitives," as Dean Acheson called them). McCarthy fans like Ann Coulter and Joel Surnow provide a direct link.
posted by russilwvong at 11:14 PM on March 28, 2007
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