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Commentary on politics, history, culture, and literature by two Dartmouth graduates and their buddies
WHO WE ARE Chien Wen Kung graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 and majored in History and English. He is currently a civil servant in Singapore. Someday, he hopes to pursue a PhD in History. John Stevenson graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005 with a BA in Government and War and Peace Studies. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He hopes to pursue a career in teaching and research. Kwame A. Holmes did not graduate from Dartmouth. However, after graduating from Florida A+M University in 2003, he began a doctorate in history at the University of Illinois--Urbana Champaign. Having moved to Chicago to write a dissertation on Black-Gay-Urban life in Washington D.C., he attached himself to the leg of John Stevenson and is thrilled to sporadically blog on the Dartmouth Observer. Feel free to email him comments, criticisms, spelling/grammar suggestions. BLOGS/WEBSITES WE READ The American Scene Arts & Letters Daily Agenda Gap Stephen Bainbridge Jack Balkin Becker and Posner Belgravia Dispatch Black Prof The Corner Demosthenes Daniel Drezner Five Rupees Free Dartmouth Galley Slaves Instapundit Mickey Kaus The Little Green Blog Left2Right Joe Malchow Josh Marshall OxBlog Bradford Plumer Political Theory Daily Info Andrew Samwick Right Reason Andrew Seal Andrew Sullivan Supreme Court Blog Tapped Tech Central Station UChicago Law Faculty Blog Volokh Conspiracy Washington Monthly Winds of Change Matthew Yglesias ARCHIVES BOOKS WE'RE READING CW's Books John's Books STUFF Site Feed ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Is Bush Hatred Justified? Why Character Assasination Makes For Bad Politics There seems to be many strands of Bush hatred in the political discourse, which I think warps our perception of politics. The vitriol devoted toward proving that Bush is or is not evil pollutes the ethico-political environment, and transforms politics from deliberation on rational-legal norms to referendum on charismatic leaders. If one buys into Weberian ideal types, it is a historical regression from public rationality to a politics of cults of personality. However, while the mode of criticism is quite sad, the stuff of criticism are those policies about which we have not debated as a society, namely the war and the Bush's unapologetic and divisive leadership after 2000. Two case examples, one criticizing the Bush foreign policy team, and, the other his second inauguration encapsulate this dynamic. Gary Kamiya writes, "In a just world, Bush, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Feith and their underlings would be standing before a Senate committee investigating their catastrophic failures, and Packer's book would be Exhibit A." No. In a just world, these people would be taken out and shot. As for Packer, and his unwillingness to believe his own eyes, he may not realize or admit it, but there were plenty of antiwar lefties who knew before the war that the Bush team didn't have a chance. The fact is that the election of 2000 revealed the Bush team for anyone who was willing to look -- they were and are cheaters -- always willing to use illegality and dishonesty to try to get what they want, and what they want is something for themselves, not for the public interest, whether that public is the American public or the Iraqi public. To a man, they knew nothing about war. The "moral innocence" was theirs. They intended to visit suffering upon some people very far away for their own purposes. Packer and all the pro-war hawks are as corrupt as the neocons are, because they retain some sort of sentimental attachment to their former idealism about whether "war" can be good or bad. A war of independence has to come from those who want to be liberated -- many of us "soft" lefties knew that. This second piece is about his second inauguration, which blends disgust over divisiveness with a critique of competence. George Bush's second inaugural extravaganza was every bit as repugnant as I had expected, a vulgar orgy of triumphalism probably unmatched since Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French in Notre Dame in 1804. The politics of charisma, however, folds otherwise helpful policy debates into estimation of character and competence, and, aggregates issues that should be considered separately if we wanted to maximize the voter's interest. The fact that many of my liberal friends find Bush to be a dithering toad means that they can write off his successes as luck, and his failures as inevitable. When personalities become the central focus, the opposition's assuredness of themselves acquires a messianic megalomania, convinced of their own rightness and their inevitable triumph. The Democrats, thus, do not need to do anything because they believe that are right, intelligent, and conscientious as opposed to the evil, divisive, dithering dimwitted President. Charismatic politics not only prevents rational-legal discourses, but also impugnes the policies of controversial figures, like Secretary of State Rice, or Senator Hilary Clinton, whose ideas alone qualify them to lead this nation in 2008. |