James Poulos is the Managing Editor of Ricochet. James holds a degree in Political Science from Duke and in Law from the University of Southern California. A PhD candidate in Government at Georgetown, his writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The American Conservative, First Things, The National Interest, The Weekly Standard, and elsewhere, and he is a regular contributor to Bloggingheads.
If it's not permanent, pretty soon harassed citizens like me will make it permanent. I foresee a fortune to be made in bumper stickers: "My car is a 'D'; deal with it!" "A+ body in a B- car" "My D+ truck beat up your A+ hybrid" "My other car gets better grades than your honor student" · Sep 2 at 7:14pm |
Genius, Blue Ant. We can sell these with the spiked tea slurpees. I give my car a solid B+.
| Jimmy Carter: He "loves" America? Please. Be honest here. Twenty plus years with "God @#$% America" and selected a wife who wasn't proud of her Nation until just recently? · Sep 3 at 4:28pm |
People do funny things to become President. But let me walk it back a little, Jimmy, and put it in the negative: I do strongly doubt that Obama doesn't like America. I'm too familiar with the educated left impression that only America can successfully lead the way to the left-loved promised land to be found beyond America as we know it.
| Aaron Miller: Political icons are more than ideological leaders. They're amiable and inspiring. Their speeches are moving. Their smiles are moving. And their jokes are good. |
So here we are talking about charisma again -- a topic worthy of a conversation to itself.
| Midget Faded Rattlesnake: Well, "policy that promotes families" has different meanings to different people. Is a policy promoting families one that doesn't actively interfere with families? Some people seem to think it is. Is state recognition of the marriage bond and the family it forms an interference or is it merely acknowledging a fact of human nature that it's foolish for the state to ignore? Is an income tax that gets lower as the ratio of household members to household income goes up artificially promoting families, or is it acknowledging the natural fact that the bigger the household, the less income per household member there is? To what extent are families a natural fact of human life that the state is bound to recognize and to what extent is the family an artificial construct that the state may ignore or alter as it pleases? |
Those are among the right questions. What are your answers, MFR?
| Aaron Miller: When it happens again, we'll do well to remember that the way to fight an idol is not logical argument, but counteractive appeals to the other aspects of human nature (emotion and will). Republicans need to learn to adapt. · Sep 3 at 2:37pm Edited on Sep 03 at 02:39 pm |
I'm curious, Aaron -- what do you have in mind? Some appeals to emotion and will that the West's parties of the right have relied on are pretty discredited; others are still pretty marginal. This gets us back in some ways to the question of civil religion. But I also think it gets us back to the idea of family policy, and the ambivalences folks on the right run into when they try to use government to promote family.
| Adam Freedman: I don't mean that Obama lacks the patriotism, but he lacks the passion. |
Bull's eye, Adam. It's really come through in these Oval Office addresses. I have zero doubt that Obama really loves America -- even if it's in large part because America, in his judgment, is the only country in the world that can successfully point us and others beyond the limits on pan-human social justice that our very particular nation has itself produced. (This is a serious and sustained line of thought on the left.) But my perplexity deepens and deepens when I ponder how hard it is for BHO to find a fusion of Big Candidate mode on the campaign trail and Small President mode in office, or even a middle ground between them.
Could you imagine the debate between Biden and Ryan? · Sep 3 at 7:59am |
Why yes, Michael -- yes I can. Sure enough, Trace, Ryan's name has been floated for veep -- as long ago as 2008, and as recently as...now.
And here's this from Felicia Sonmez at The Fix:
As the Cook Political Report's Charlie Cook notes, 32 Democratic incumbents currently trail Republican challengers in public and private polling. At the same point in the 2006 cycle, one-third as many Republican incumbents were in the same position.
Even rightie campaign junkie Patrick Ruffini is surprised by the number. "I had it lower," he tweets. "Wow."
| Patrick Shanahan: James, really? Has it come to this? Parking Spot Policy? But, since we are here......What this yahoo is saying only makes sense if you ignore the fact that most publicly owned parking spots are on public property. Unless he is willing to privatize our roads and byways, what he is saying is utter nonsense. · Sep 2 at 5:47pm |
I know, I know, Patrick -- it's not exactly a Great Issue of Our Time. But it feeds into a debate about an issue that is pretty momentous, and that's why I flag it. Runaway budgets, onerous federal mandates, swelling social services, bloated civil service payrolls, and a spiraling public pensions crisis -- it all adds up, doesn't it, to a national crisis of governance at the state and local level? Cities are declaring bankruptcy, municipalities are tearing up concrete streets in favor of packed gravel, and states are issuing their own citizens IOUs. How bad does it have to get before a critical mass of people start asking serious questions about privatization and about local government that's really in the local public interest. It's already beginning to happen. And the answers might be surprising.
| Forrest Cox: My guess is that, ultimately, the size of the exodus will be determined by the severity of the losses. If we pick up more than 50 seats in the House, that White House will be filled with new faces... · Sep 2 at 2:37pm |
And remember that these little post-election purges often work -- not just from the inside out, but from the outside in. The larger the culling, I'm going to guess, the louder the press will cry "Bold! Dynamic! On America's pulse! Hope and change is back!"
| heathermc: most people are not political, and don't pay any attention to 'the news' aside from a few headlines, etc. The Junkies are watching Fox following Beck, Hannity, etc, and they are a very small part of the whole mix. Obama is good looking, he has physical grace, and when he speaks, he sounds reasonable and intelligent. What's not to like? · Sep 2 at 1:06pm |
Here's another, somewhat related possibility: what else, some might think, is a President supposed to do aside from inspire the nation to let him carry out his agenda without any interference?
| Kenneth: has anyone noticed the big yawn regarding the floods in Pakistan? [...] Hate to say it, but I think most of the world now sees Pakistan as a squalid, nasty, hopeless mess and they simply...do...not...care. |
Show more"There's no better friend in the world than America," says Oneto, 47, of Wallingford, Conn., the pilot of a Sea Knight helicopter. "Pakistan is a good ally of ours, and this is solidifying that relationship."
Perhaps. Not everyone is convinced that the $150 million in U.S. aid to Pakistan's flood victims so far — a figure that dwarfs the contributions of all other countries, including Pakistan's giant neighbor China and several oil-rich Muslim nations — compensates for the ill feelings fueled by U.S. support for the military campaign against Muslim extremists in Pakistan.
"America is our genuine enemy," says Asmad Ali, 35, the owner of a washing machine shop who blames the U.S. for the rise of the Taliban. He says he resents U.S. drone missile strikes that target terrorist leaders in Pakistani homes. Even though the U.S. ...
Above, Richard Epstein and John Yoo have just weighed in on the news. Continue the conversation there!
Edited on Sep 02 at 12:05 pm| tabula rasa: Somehow I don't see Netanyahu helping out Obama politically by agreeing to something fast. And, of course, we have sixty-two years of actual history that suggests that this may be the single most insoluble problem on the globe. · Sep 2 at 9:51am |
It's true, tabula, that Netanyahu holds the cards. The Economist seems to think he's actually willing to go back to square Clinton.
Meanwhile, Pethokoukis contemplates a September Surprise: tax cuts.
No. He'll blame George W. Bush for the loss of Democrat majorities. · Sep 1 at 4:23pm |
He'll say: "Now, there are those in Congress...who expect me...to apologize, for saving the American people...from eight years, of the worst government in history. They believe, we'd'a been better off, with no government, during the worst economic crisis, since the Great Depression, in American history. Make no mistake -- the forces of the status quo, want me to get up here...and say that the era of government is over. Well, let me be clear: no matter who controls Congress, so long as I'm in the White House, the era of bad government is over!"
Which is why Republicans had better be ready to govern.
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Re: Ricochet Podcast #32: Mark Steyn Returns
Hear, hear. A sharp, clear, solid principle. In practice, alas, it raises that nettlesome question of how small government should be, rather than how big it shouldn't. Reaching a durable consensus on that question seems akin to that miracle you mention.