Via Reihan Salam and Graeme Wood.

There’s a tremendous essay in the new issue of City Journal by Pascal Bruckner titled “Europe’s Guilty Conscience –Self-hatred is paralyzing the Continent” It's brilliant writing, but also tremendously depressing, if not at all surprising, watching from afar Europe’s response to 9/11 and beyond:

Brooding over its past crimes (slavery, imperialism, fascism, communism), Europe sees its history as a series of murders and depredations that culminated in two global conflicts. The average European, male or female, is an extremely sensitive being, always ready to feel pity for the world’s sorrows and to take responsibility for them, always asking what the North can do for the South rather than asking what the South can do for itself. Those born after World War II are endowed with the certainty of belonging to the dregs of humanity, an execrable civilization that has dominated and pillaged most of the world for centuries in the name of the superiority of the white man. Since 9/11, for example, a majority of Europeans have felt, despite our sympathy for the victims, that the Americans got what they deserved. The same reasoning prevailed with respect to the terrorist attacks on Madrid in 2004 and on London in 2005, when many good souls, on both the right and the left, portrayed the attackers as unfortunate people protesting Europe’s insolent wealth, its aggression in Iraq or Afghanistan, or its way of life.

Europe has surely engendered monsters. But it has, at the same time, engendered the ideas that made it possible to slay monsters. European history is a succession of paradoxes: arbitrary feudal power gave rise to democracy; ecclesiastical oppression, to freedom of conscience; national rivalries, to the dream of a supranational community; overseas conquests, to anticolonialism; and revolutionary ideologies, to the antitotalitarian movement. Europe sent armies, missionaries, and merchants to distant lands, but also invented anthropology, which is a way of seeing through others’ eyes, of standing at some distance from oneself in order to approach the stranger. The colonial adventure died of this fundamental contradiction: the subjection of continents to the laws of a mother country that at the same time taught its subjects the idea of a nation’s right to govern itself. In demanding independence, the colonies were applying to their masters the very rules that they had learned from them.

Since the time of the conquistadors, Europe has perfected the art of joining progress and cruelty. But a civilization responsible for the worst atrocities as well as the most sublime accomplishments cannot understand itself solely in terms of guilt. The suspicion that colors our most brilliant successes always risks degenerating into self-hatred and facile defeatism. We now live on self-denunciation, as if permanently indebted to the poor, the destitute, to immigrants—as if our only duty were expiation, endless expiation, restoring without limit what we had taken from humanity from the beginning. This wave of repentance spreads through our latitudes and our governments like an epidemic. An active conscience is a fine and healthy thing, of course. But contrition must not be limited to certain parties while innocence is accorded to anyone who claims to be persecuted.

The United States, despite its own faults, retains the capacity to combine self-criticism with self-affirmation, demonstrating a pride that we lack. But Europe’s worst enemy is Europe itself, with its penitential view of its past, its corrosive guilt, and a scrupulousness taken to the point of paralysis. How can we expect to be respected if we do not respect ourselves, if our media and our literature always depict us by our blackest traits? The truth is that Europeans do not like themselves, or at least do not like themselves enough to overcome their distaste and to show the kind of quasi-religious fervor for their culture that is so striking in Americans.

That’s just a sample; definitely read the whole thing. Though heed Andrew Stuttaford’s cautionary warning at the Corner:

It’s well worth reading, but do so with care. The topic is the sense of guilt that Europeans are meant to feel about their past, but, as I read on, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that Professor Bruckner has succumbed to the temptation of assuming that the supposed values of Europe’s elites are those of the European in the street. In the age of the post-democratic EU, that’s an understandable mistake to make, but I still read lines like this with amazement:

. . . since the end of World War II, Europe has been tormented by a need to repent. Brooding over its past crimes (slavery, imperialism, fascism, communism), Europe sees its history as a series of murders and depredations that culminated in two global conflicts. The average European, male or female, is an extremely sensitive being, always ready to feel pity for the world’s sorrows and to take responsibility for them, always asking what the North can do for the South rather than asking what the South can do for itself. Those born after World War II are endowed with the certainty of belonging to the dregs of humanity, an execrable civilization that has dominated and pillaged most of the world for centuries in the name of the superiority of the white man.

As a description of what “average Europeans” think, this is close to nonsense. Of course, there are quite a few Europeans who feel or claim to feel the way that Professor Bruckner describes, but most of them belong to the continent’s governing class, a class that now spends a great deal of its time trying to convince its distinctly skeptical fellow citizens that they share the proudly proclaimed morality of their bien-pensant betters.

To be fair, Bruckner goes on to make a fine case showing how this sense of guilt (which he describes in more detail in the rest of the piece) is overdone, and how disastrous its consequences are becoming. Nevertheless, by missing the key distinction between the views of Europe’s elite and those of its people, he misses the way in which “guilt” is being used by the elite as a device to drain power (and justify draining power) from uncouth electorates and, of course, the nation-states that are, unforgivably, the reasonably authentic expressions of the populations that live within them.

Still, it sounds like the 1970s-vintage “punitive liberalism” that James Pierson once described in the Weekly Standard is very much alive and well and working overtime in the minds of European elites, as it is amongst of the many of those who make up America’s entrenched Ruling Class (to reference another recent magnum opus essay.)

In 2005, Jonah Goldberg wrote:

The ideas, assumptions and prejudices held by the statistically typical Democratic voter, according to the Pew study, are quite simply, European. Europeans believe in a strong social welfare state, for rich and poor alike. Europeans are cynical. They look askance—these days—on patriotic sentiment (hence the rush to form a new European nation). The church pews of Europe would make a great hideout for bank robbers since they’re always empty. The United Nations is, in the typical European’s worldview, the last best hope for mankind. From the death penalty to gay marriage, the more similar you are to a typical European in your political and social outlook, the more likely you are to be a Democrat.

How much of America’s punitive liberalism was an offshoot of this sort of Euro-nihilism? And for elites, academics, and those who presumably are making a more than reasonable wages, how can one live day to day in a country — or a continent — one loathes so painfully?

(Cross posted at PJM.)

Returning from a nice family vacation (no e-mail, no internet) this weekend, the first news item to catch my eye was the bit about Pillsbury Dough Boy (Robert Gibbs) lashing out at President Obama’s liberal critics (“They ought to be drug-tested...”), and all I could think was, as Jeff Spicoli might have said, “How totally bogus.” If I were part of whatever passes for a political brain trust in the West Wing these days, the thing I would start and end each day hoping and praying for would be – more criticism from the Left. Obama’s intentions have been signaled pretty clearly since the 2008 campaign – he wants to be perceived as a “moderate” without actually being one. That’s relatively easy to do on the campaign trail, especially with a fawning and cooperative press complicit in the deception. But it gets harder once you’ve been in office for a while and have a trail of actions and decisions behind you, the vast majority of which are not what most of America considers “moderate.” The only strategy remaining is to draw attention to, and amplify, the voices of criticism coming from the Left, however sparse and wing-nut they may be, so as to make the point: “Hey, I’m getting criticized from the Right; I’m getting criticized from the Left; I must be a moderate, right?” It would not surprise me one iota if the White House were actually dropping subtle or not-so-subtle hints to the lefty blogosphere to keep up a low-level of criticism through the 2012 election. Bogus.

...and for some reason, it never is. On Friday, President Obama marked the start of Ramadan -- and, doesn't it always seem to be Ramadan? -- by saying "Let me be clear...."

And what followed his Friday clarity were, well, clarifications. On Saturday, and then again on Sunday. He's not for it, they said. He's just talking legalities, not the "wisdom" of building a mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero, the White House said. He was so clear, apparently, he needed his flacks to clarify.

Fine. But two questions remain. The first is purely political. How stupid is this president, really, when you get right down to it? I know, I know: he's smart. He went to Harvard. I guess I don't mean stupid. I mean boneheaded. Tone deaf. In the middle of a hot-button controversy that he doesn't have to wade into, he wades into it? And then spends the weekend defending himself? Every time they hear the boss say, "Let me be clear...." the White House press office must have to immediately change their underpants.

And here's the second question, which has been nagging at me since the dawn of this controversy.

The builders of the GZM keep saying it's a celebration of moderate Islam. That it's about tolerance and reaching out.

Again, fine.

But why is the place to build such a mosque, such a temple to moderation and tolerance, New York City? A mosque like that would be so much more useful in, say, Riyadh. Or Cairo. Or Damascus. Or Kabul. Or Sana'a. Or, for that matter, London.

That’s what I thought this AP article (via HotAir), with the ridiculous headline “Teen Sex Not Always Bad for School Performance,” was about.

Actually, it’s nothing quite that eyebrow raising. According to “a provocative new study,” as the article put it, teens having sex “in committed relationships do no better or worse in school than those who don’t have sex.” The study was released yesterday at a meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, teens who “hook up”—who engage in casual sex outside of a romantic relationship—tend to get lower grades and “have more school-related problems compared with those who abstain.”

Are these findings really provocative? They strike me as common sense. Obviously, a teen in a committed relationship has to feel more emotional security and confidence than a teen who “hooks up” with a new person each time the opportunity presents itself, a regrettable habit often coupled with excessive alcohol intake, and which results in (or is caused by?) emotional instability and anxiety. That’s a heavy load to bear as you enter your biology classroom for your final exam.

The article did raise one interesting point. It's not the sex itself that determines academic and even emotional health and success, but the type of sexual relationship you're in.

So should sex-ed classes focus on the importance of relationships and highlight the negative consequences of hooking up? The study mentioned above, after all, isn't the only one that cites how harmful casual sex/hooking up is.

As they are right now, sex-ed classes teach students about anatomy, and tubes, and STDs, but nothing beyond the physical mechanics and consequences of sexual intercourse--there's nothing about how to emotionally or morally handle and moderate sex.

I know some Ricocheters may oppose the idea of "sexual education," but I think that sex-ed is here to stay, at least in the short run--so I wonder what the least harmful type of sex-ed would be. What do you think?

Another question for the Ricochet parents--does the fact that your teens may be having sex worry you because it might affect their academic performance, or does it worry you for other reasons, like emotional or moral ones?

In the current political climate, Ryan’s plan will never pass. It is not merely too radical for the Democrats; it is too radical for the Republicans. But to be too radical for the party that championed an unfunded prescription drug benefit in 2003 and rang up massive deficits while in power, one need not be radical at all.

Ryan’s reputation as an extremist is based on the standards of the modern-day political mainstream. It may say more about the state of U.S. politics than it does about the congressman from Wisconsin. In a saner world, a civil, even-tempered numbers geek like Ryan wouldn’t find his plans relegated to the policy fringe. -- Peter Suderman

I've got to hope Peter's only right for now. Paul Rahe gives Republicans their marching orders:

Michael Barone reports that Boehner and his troops intend to respond in the manner of Newt Gingrich by drafting a new Contract with America. I hope that they do so. To begin with, it is a step towards nationalizing the election. [...] If, however, Boehner and his troops want to effect a realignment, they will have to do more. They will have to articulate a rationale that makes of their proposals a whole. I would suggest that they do so by prefacing the list of proposals they intend to enact with a clear statement of principle.

[...] What I am proposing is a return to first principles. Absent this, there will be no realignment, and November’s victory for the Republicans will be a blip on the screen. The heart of the matter is that John Boehner and his merry men must remind their fellow Americans who they are and what they stand for – and then act accordingly.

I may not understand Anna Eshoo, my representative here in deep blue Silicon Valley, but at least she made the Hill’s “Most Beautiful People 2010” list; sweet consolation for this befuddled constituent. I refer to this weekend's constituent email, titled The Latest Step, in which Eshoo waxes rhapsodic over the just-concluded special session of the House.

On Tuesday, August 10th the House of Representatives suspended its August recess and returned to Washington, D.C. to hold a very important vote. During my nine terms in Congress representing you, this is the first time I’ve had to return to Washington during the August recess to vote because the weight of the issue before us demanded it.

Was Eshoo’s first August vote in eighteen years aimed at deterring Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, or eliminating roadblocks to private job-creation before we lurch headlong into the looming double-dip?

Not exactly.

The legislation I voted for and the House passed contains critical assistance to states, especially California. The funding will keep thousands of teachers in their classrooms, police officers on the beat, and first responders on alert. Further delay would have had a devastating impact on students, workers, and patients across our communities. This legislation throws a lifeline to our communities which are struggling under tremendous financial pressure.

I didn’t realize that the NEA and SEIU count as “communities” in leftist lifeguarding circles. The $26 billion will certainly keep a few union comp plans afloat through the all-important midterm election this fall; and the steady flow of union dues should trickle down nicely to Democratic reelection campaigns. But didn’t I read that the bill slashes $12 billion from the food stamp program in order to meet paygo rules? What does Representative Eshoo have to say about transferring money from the poor to well-paid government workers?

This bill uses a scalpel, not a cleaver, to make cuts in existing programs which no longer require funding or whose funding can be applied to more pressing needs.

Ah, so that’s it: “more pressing needs.” A glance at the latest Rasmussen poll no doubt serves to focus the Democratic mind, at least so far as the base is concerned.

What about the deficit? There’s still another $14 billion to find from somewhere. Don’t worry; Anna has it covered.

The bill closes expensive tax loopholes used by multinational companies to ship jobs overseas and avoid their fair share of U.S. taxation.



The legislation doesn’t add a penny to the deficit. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports the legislation will reduce the deficit by $1.4 billion over the next 10 years.

Don’t you love this? Eshoo characterizes permanently raising taxes on US multinational corporations to fund a temporary emergency pre-election union bailout as an exercise in fiscally responsible deficit reduction.

Are we all riding the Obfuscation Express during the run-up to November, or does someone have a report to share from a straight-shooting congressman of either party?

Credit where credit is due:

President Barack Obama has personally warned Turkey’s prime minister that unless Ankara shifts its position on Israel and Iran it stands little chance of obtaining the US weapons it wants to buy.

Mr Obama’s warning to Recep Tayyip Erdogan is particularly significant as Ankara wants to buy American drone aircraft – such as the missile-bearing Reaper – to attack the Kurdish separatist PKK after the US military pulls out of Iraq at the end of 2011. ...

Washington was deeply frustrated when Turkey voted against United Nations sanctions on Iran in June.

When the leaders met later that month at the G20 summit in Toronto, Mr Obama told Mr Erdogan that the Turks had failed to act as an ally in the UN vote. He also called on Ankara to cool its rhetoric about an Israeli raid that killed nine Turks on a flotilla bearing aid for Gaza.

Watch and learn, David Cameron.

Yesterday's Conspiracy Game generated such a remarkable efflorescence of lunatic creativity that frankly, I'm a little worried about all of you and not sure we should be hanging out together so often. I'm put in mind of that great scene in David Lodge's Changing Places--the one where all the academics at the dinner table play a game in which they name great literary classics they've never read, with the winner being the one who exhibits the most woeful literary ignorance. In a fit of competitive zeal, the chair of the English Department blurts out that he's never read Hamlet, thus winning the game--but losing his job.

Anyway, there were many outstanding entries in this century's contest (you read that right: this century. We are slapping a lid on this now). The judges had great difficulty deciding among such talented competitors, so much so that in fact we didn't decide. In the Great New American Tradition of low standards and universal self-esteem, you're all winners. I promised to share my best tinfoil-hat anecdote with the winner, and since you're all winners, here you go.

***

I have it on good authority from a source deep in the CIA that this really happened. Apparently, some woman drove up to the front gate of Headquarters one day, got out of her battered camper van and removed a carefully constructed helmet from her head. The helmet, as she showed the guard, was lined with tin foil and an elaborate nest of tangled copper wires. "I am here to tell you," she told the guard, "that I am receiving radio transmissions from your organization, and I will not obey your orders any more! I will not obey!"

The guard had apparently seen one too many wackos that day, and he eyed her appraisingly. "Ma'am," he said politely, "let me ask you. Are the transmissions you've been receiving in VHF or UHF?"

The woman looked slightly taken aback, but quickly decided: "They're VHF, young man, they're VHF!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but our transmissions are exclusively in UHF. What you'll be wanting is the Department of Defense, down the road."

The woman thanked him gratefully and shuffled off, clutching that lunatic helmet, never to be seen again.

***

I'm pretty sure this is a true story.

Congratulations, winners.

I really have no idea what to say.

Following accepted climbing practice, the first person to tackle a route has the right to name it. However, concerns have been raised after it was revealed that routes in the popular Järfälla climbing area outside Stockholm had been given names inspired by the Third Reich. Between 1987 and 2001, climbers christened new routes "Kristallnacht", "Crematorium" and "Little Hitler". Another was named "Zyklon B", after the cyanide gas the Nazis used to murder the Jews.

I just took another look--yes, I really read that right.

Mikael Widerberg, a climber who named "Little Hitler" in 2001 dismissed the controversy, saying the names should be interpreted as an "internal thing between climbers", adding "there are other mountains around called worse things".

Uh, Mikael--like what?

Israel’s weirdly inept public relations machine has allowed Hamas, which has a much better instinct for massaging world opinion, to hijack our interwoven narrative. The group’s defenders around the world, who equate Hamas with all Palestinians in an impressive bundling of blithe ignorance and smug self-righteousness, really need to know who they’re getting in bed with. Hamas is the worst thing to happen to the Palestinians since Yasser Arafat, kids. And that’s saying something.

This is an IDF video on Hamas tactics inside the Gaza Strip. The video uses 3-D computer graphics to illustrate how the group transformed the population centers of Gaza into booby-trapped terrorist battlefields following Israel’s total withdrawal from the area in 2005. It’s based on intelligence gathered during Operation Cast Lead in 2008. For the benefit of those readers who don’t have access to YouTube, I’ll summarize the main points.

In 2005, the IDF unilaterally withdrew from every inch of the Gaza Strip. In the years following the withdrawal, rockets continued to be fired regularly at Israeli towns from the area. In 2007, Hamas took power in Gaza, and in 2008 alone, it fired 2,735 rockets and mortars at Israel. This escalation of an already bad situation prompted the Israeli government to order the IDF to go back in. (One wonders how many rockets into their territory other governments would tolerate before taking military action, but we’ll leave that aside.) That was Operation Cast Lead.

As we know, Iranian-backed Hamas has invested the vast bulk of its resources in the creation of an infrastructure in Gaza for terror operations, including tunnels. What Israel learned during Cast Lead was the extent to which that infrastructure was deliberately constructed to be inseparable from the civilian population. The entrances to the tunnels, which are used to smuggle in Iran-supplied arms from Sinai, are often camouflaged inside houses, factories, greenhouses, and – nice touch, this – mosques. The weapons themselves – explosive devices, assault rifles, RPGs, rockets, missiles, grenades – were found stashed inside civilian homes, schools, hospitals, and, again, mosques. (Storing weapons inside mosques violates international law, but international law is a rather quaint concept for Hamas. It’s only a priority when they can accuse Israel of breaking it.)

Weapons storage is only the half of it. As the video shows, Hamas built training camps and placed rocket-launching sites, explosive devices and snipers near medical centers and schools in the Tel-Zatar neighborhood in the Strip. Looking for cover wasn’t an option: Hamas forcibly prevented the local population from leaving the neighborhood when the IDF began to move in.

Hamas considers women, children and the elderly particularly useful as shields. In the Jabaliya neighborhood, they booby-trapped some schools and used others as rocket-launching sites. In Northern Gaza City, launchers were placed near medical centers, soccer fields, gas stations, and the Palestinian Association for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled. (No evidence was found as to whether the irony was intentional.)

The situation in the West Bank, meanwhile, has progressed to the point that direct talks are approaching between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority. Israel is even dismantling the concrete security wall separating Gilo and Beit Jala. There is a way forward, but Hamas will do everything it can to blow it up. If you want to blow Hamas's horn, go ahead. But if your main concern is a healthy future for the Palestinian people, you might want to think again.

One place where Mr. and Ms. Viewer still want to sympathize with Don Draper? His professional chops. Not only because he's good, which he still is, but because we want him to be right about why and how we want things. And we want that not only because we're rooting for him, but because we're rooting against the alternative. We don't want focus groups to be final. We want the new idea with the surprise about who we could be.

But we don't want that to be final either. Tonight's conflict -- women want cold cream because they want a man to luxuriate in them; no, they want cold cream because they want to luxuriate in themselves -- points to big desires that aren't simply female but human. We want to trust the science. We want to be predictable enough -- but not too predictable. We want to be unique, but not so unique that we exhaust ourselves. Mere life can never satisfy our longings, even as we long for mere life.

We long to be satisfied. But we also long never to be satisfied. Hence the funny place in our lives of advertising, and the market capitalism behind it. Turning a buck off of these strange, contradictory desires can never be safely described as all virtue or all vice. There are only degrees of reassurance and creepiness, in both directions, slipping us hints about how to judge the scientists and the poets of desire.

I'm a busy guy. I've got a great wife and two young kids I love to spend time with, not to mention a job at a newspaper covering politics that keeps me pretty busy. Who has time to read these days?

Aside from the barrage of words I have to consume as part of my job, I'm actually getting in a decent amount of pleasure reading these days, consuming one or two books a week depending. When you consider how tightly budgeted my time is these days, that's pretty good.

So how do I do this? Here's the part where I get a lot of funny looks from people:

I do most of my reading on my phone. Yup, my iPhone. I spend an hour or so a day commuting, and it's a lot better than fumbling with a paper back.

Sure the screen's not huge, but the font is adjustable. But what about eye strain you say? Isn't reading on a backlit screen hard on your eyes? Actually, no. I've even researched this and most of the problems associated with eye strain were associated with older computer monitors with fewer pixels and slower refresh rates. In fact, according to this New York Times article, "Certain types of paper, including inexpensive newsprint and the paper in softcover books, can actually provide an inferior reading experience for our eyes than the electronic alternatives." As someone who's plowed through many dingy mass-market paperbacks in his day, that observation sure feels true to me.

Like most people, I still have a romantic attachment to books and I still read plenty of physical copies -- here's what my desk looks like as I'm typing this (and yes, I swear it's a total coincidence that The Screwtape Letters is sitting on top of Christopher Hitchens' just published memoir.) Then again, once upon a time my CD collection held talismanic significance to me and I've long since abandoned it in favor of internet-based music subscription services, satellite radio and MP3s.

If the idea of abandoning books still seems improbable, consider the advantages. There's the aforementioned portability and convenience. New ebooks tend to be substantially cheaper than hardbacks, and there are real benefits to the actual reading experience. For example, I just read Liaquat Ahamed's terrific Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, about the emergence of central banking as a political force in the early 20th century. On my phone, I was able to simply tap my screen whenever a footnote appeared, read it and tap again to quickly zip back to the text. (If I had that option when I was reading Infinite Jest, I would have hours of my life back.)

The one interesting wrinkle about eReaders is that I suspect that they are about to disrupt the economics of book publishing in a big way. While the Kindle was undoubtedly a gamechanger, I don't think it will upend things nearly as much as the iPad. The Kindle is a closed system. If you want a book on your Kindle, you pretty much have to purchase it through Amazon and only Amazon. The iPad, on the other hand, uses a third party standard for book files -- the free and open EPUB file format.

The good news is that you can buy EPUB files from many different stores on the internet in addition to the Apple's iBooks store. The bad news is that EPUB files can quickly and easily be traded on the internet through peer-to-peer networks, making it harder for authors to be compensated for their work. I took a quick look-see around parts of the internet that best resemble the Somali coast when it comes to intellectual property rights, and my suspicions were confirmed: Illegally trading ebook files on the internet has exploded since the iPad was introduced. Naturally, most the books being traded are popular fiction, but the offerings are getting more expansive. As someone who writes for a living, this is a little disconcerting. I saw at least three books being passed around on bit torrent written by people I know -- people that worked hard on those books and deserve money for their efforts.

On the other hand, I'm not one of these people that are fatalistic about technological advances. Frankly, anything that allows for more more creative ways for authors to find an audience and lights a fire under the New York publishing houses is probably a good thing in the long run.

You may be aghast at the prospect of reading on a screen, but with the emerging plethora of eReading options -- Kindle, smartphones, iPad, and the slew of Android tablets that are about to be released -- get back to me in a few years we'll see how much of a paper purist you remain.

The book is dying. Long may we read.

Right now I am at an undisclosed location on the Eastern seaboard, vacationing with my family and good family friends. I am curious for the thoughts of other Ricocheters here. We traveled 30 miles tonight to make it to Mass, where we were rewarded with a groovy service featuring a grey-haired lady who was wired up like Britney Spears and sang all the Kumbaya folk songs on her guitar -- and then sold albums after Mass.

Now I am not a high church kind of guy. I play guitar myself, and confess to not entirely outgrowing my Pete Seeger stage. But it tracks with my experience of the last two decades: no one playing the guitar at any folk Mass I've been doesn't have white or grey hair. I wonder if we could at least acknowledge that what may have begun as a youth outreach in an age that gave us "The Singing Nun" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" now seems to be a sop to our more senior citizens. The youth I know (including my children) roll their eyes.

(This is an item I blogged about yesterday at PJM, but I'm changing the ending a bit, to hopefully get the conversation flowing amongst the Ricochetistas.)

As Bill Kristol writes, “The left has collapsed;” it is “unpopular, undisciplined, and ill-tempered:”

Its claim to intellectual integrity has collapsed. Paul Krugman—Ivy League professor, New York Times columnist, and Nobel laureate (the holy trinity of the liberal establishment)—has humiliated himself with a startlingly dishonest attack on Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. Krugman, called out by Ryan, rebuked by honest analysts, and unwilling to concede his errors, has retreated into uncharacteristic abashed silence.

Its Leninist discipline has collapsed. Last week, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs complained about the craziness of the “professional left” in the punditocracy. “Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs explained. “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality. .  .  . They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.” Members of the professional left hit back at Gibbs, dubbing the Obama White House the “amateur left.”

Its democratic credibility has collapsed. In recent weeks, the left has the arbitrary rulings and sophistic arguments of federal judges who have overturned an immigration statute that mirrors federal law passed by the state legislature in Arizona, and a constitutional amendment, defining marriage as it has been defined for all of American history, enacted by the citizens of California. The left has also heaped praise on New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, as he, having bought his way to a narrow reelection, showered disdain and contempt on the majority of his fellow New Yorkers who object to a mosque next to Ground Zero.

And its good humor (such as it was) has collapsed. As Politico’s Ben Smith reported last week,

the Agenda Project, a new, progressive group with roots in New York’s fundraising scene and a goal of strengthening the progressive movement, has launched the “[expletive] Tea” project, which is aimed, the group’s founder Erica Payne wrote in an e-mail this morning, “to dismiss the Tea Party and promote the progressive cause.”

“We will be launching new products in the next several months to help people all over the country [expletive] Tea,” Payne told Politico.

Is Erica Payne a loony nobody? No, she’s a lefty somebody—a former Democratic National Committee official, a veteran of many progressive groups, and one of the founders of the Democracy Alliance, the group of big donors who have spent over $100 million to fund “progressive” organizations like the Center for American Progress.

Payne says she launched her effort to push back against “the rhetoric over results paradigm that is holding our country hostage.” She wasn’t being ironic. As the estimable Allahpundit commented, “Because, you see, if there’s any movement that’s about results over rhetoric, it’s clearly the [expletive] tea movement.”

The “[expletive] tea” movement—that’s what the left has come to. They can’t defend the results of Obama’s policies or the validity of Krugman’s arguments. They know it’s hard to sustain an antidemocratic ethos in a democracy. They realize they’ve degenerated into pro-am levels of whining and squabbling. So they curse their opponents.

There’s a familiar saying that, despite its religious origins, has usually been associated, presumably because of its odor of condescension and smarminess, with the modern left: Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Well, that was before the Left invented Earth Hour, a “Weekend without Oil,” and modern-day dam busting.

While there’s much truth there, I hope Kristol isn’t jumping the gun by boldly predicting:

Public opinion polls point to a historic repudiation of the president and the Democratic party this fall—something on the order of a 60-seat Republican gain in the House. The GOP has an outside shot at taking the Senate as well.

Though the Democrats’ internal polling could certainly explain why, as blogger Ace of Spades wrote yesterday,”Usually Democrats wait until after an election to begin insulting the public that turned them out as stupid, racist, ignorant, and emotionally sour-pussed. Now they’re doing it three months before one.”

But as I noted last week, building on article that Noemie Emery wrote in the Standard in early 2008, whatever your ideology, its opposite number has been declared DOA at some point in the last decade. Remember the cries of "A Permanent Republican Majority" in 2003 or so, and "We Are Socialists Now" from Newsweek immediately after President Obama was sworn-in last year?

So is Kristol right? And if so -- since, no matter what happens in November, presumably, the reports of the left's "collapse" are greatly exaggerated, what happens next?

At an average gait, it takes maybe half an hour to walk the circumference of the little northwest Florida town of Apalachicola. There may be outlying residential areas, but here I speak of the heart of the town. In fact the town drunk could spend entire days staggering around here and never smack his head on the same historical landmark twice. The place has more than its fair share of history, so perhaps we can redistribute its accomplishments to those towns that are less fortunate.

On the outskirts of town, next to a well manicured veterans park, stands the stately Orman House. Dating back to the early 1800's, the mansion built by Thomas Orman is made of wood that was pre-cut in Syracuse, NY and then transported to Apalachicola. Think of it as an early modular home on steroids. The specs of the house were somewhat unconventional, as Mr. Orman stood 6' 7" tall and the doorways were raised to accommodate his height. Back then, property taxed were levied, in part, based on how many doors a dwelling had that led outside. To lessen his exposure to those taxes, and still have ample access to the porches surrounding the place, Orman had floor to ceiling windows specially installed so that the windows would slide up into the second story wall. The windows functioned as doors, but did not count as such for tax purposes. And, since closets also counted as additional rooms for tax purposes, there was an outbreak of large wooden "wardrobes" about the premises. The tour guide neglected to mention if Orman was related to Arthur Laffer.

Behind the house is a weathered old shack, propped up by beams and bearing signs that quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among other notables excoriating our history of slavery. The old "Slave Quarters" is falling apart. Perhaps it could be seen as appropriate that the shack, like slavery itself, has collapsed and fallen into disrepute. I like to think so anyway. It's better than wondering if, when it came to funding the preservation of that particular landmark, it had to go the back of the fiscal bus.

Down the road is the John Gorrie Museum. A physician who settled in Apalachicola in 1833, Gorrie was on hand during a severe outbreak of Yellow Fever. His patient's suffering was made much worse by the suffocating heat in the region prompting the young doctor to apply his considerable talents to the development of a machine that produced ice to cool the hospital rooms. Locals credit him with laying the groundwork for refrigeration and air conditioning. In addition to saving lives, he therefore has the dual qualification of scoundrel. After all, no good deed goes unpunished, and his good deeds led to quantum leaps in human comfort, saved the lives of young and old alike, made uninhabitable climates habitable, leading to increased productivity and higher standards of living that in turn led to spoiled little environmental statists who fly large jets across the globe in order to lecture the rest of us on where we should set our thermostats and what kinds of lightbulbs we may use. Dr. Gorrie has much to account for.

Today, as in years past, Apalachicola remains rooted in the fishing industry, with shrimp boats docked right smack downtown. The seafood industry here alone provides over 70% of the state's supply of oysters. Apalachicola has weathered the oil spill well enough. The local oysters, some of the biggest and best in the country, have remained unmolested by the spill. The old buildings that have not yet become museums today house small businesses that cater to tourists. Ice cream parlors, clothing shops, antique dealers, and a plethora of beautiful little bed and breakfast inns, picturesque motels like the one in which we stayed, and elegant restaurants, all staffed by unfailingly friendly folks, have made this a happy anniversary and a relaxing, if brief, respite from the rigors of the road. Tomorrow, all 18 wheels hit the road again, but it was deliciously peaceful to spend just a few days in one place, resting.

Today the Capitol was the site of a demonstration and counter-demonstration regarding traditional marriage laws. I live so close to the Capitol that I try to cover most protests there but was unable to make it down today. But many the folks I follow on Twitter reported that their favorite sign was "Jesus had two dads and he turned out okay."

Isn't blasphemy so cute and hilarious? It's worth noting, of course, that liturgical Christians today commemorate St. Mary, Jesus' mother. For Lutherans such as myself, today is the Feast of St. Mary. Orthodox celebrate the Dormition, Catholics the Assumption.

But I wonder if the folks holding that sign are aware of what they're doing by writing Mary out of the parenting of Jesus. It's also worth noting that, in the account of Jesus and his miraculous conception, God provides an earthly father to His son. It's almost like God disagrees with Judge Walker about the importance of children having a father and mother.

But there's no doubt that Jesus' own views on marriage are anathema to Judge Walker. Here's what Jesus said about marriage:

And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh.

The sign maker's too-cute phrasing ignores that Jesus taught that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. But who is Jesus against Judge Walker, really?:

“Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage . . ."

And don't worry, Judge Walker is bigger than Jesus. He has this to say to Jesus and anyone else who has the audacity to think God made humans male and female for a reason:

“Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.”

Take that, Jesus! Maybe I'm just sensitive because my church body was put on Judge Walker's "hit list" of churches that harm gays and lesbians. We're in fantastic company, but it does make one wonder what the new world order will look like -- when people who follow what Jesus has to say about nature, natural law and marriage are treated as bigots.

Say hello to Ed Driscoll, this week's Ricochet Guest Contributor. Ed's shingle is hanging over at Pajamas Media. He's been blogging since 2002. Want to know more? Enter the world of Ed -- photos! FAQs! collected works! -- right here.

It's an indelible image of summer: lemonade and cookies on a folding table on the sidewalk, a jar crammed with dollars, passers-by smiling politely.

A 40-year-old man selling lemonade.

Whether a sign of recession, regression or both, a handful of adults in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn have gotten into the lemonade-stand business this summer. Add it to the list of childhood pursuits that grown-ups now take seriously, along with cupcakes, T-shirts and the Transformers. -- The New York Times

Yes, let's all jeer at the Brooklyn grups manning the (yes, organic) lemonade stands. Actually, no -- let's cheer. Here as elsewhere, entrepreneurship beats the alternative:

“I realized that if I sell three an hour, I’ll be making more than I was at Staples,” said Mr. McMahon, referring to the summer job he quit last week. Now, he focuses on the smoothie trade full time.

And it's time experiences like this stop seeming hokey:

“I’m getting to know my neighbors and my community,” he said on a sweltering Saturday afternoon, selling what he said was organic lemonade to a woman in a floral dress ($4 for a 24-ounce cup). “I don’t just sell them lemonade, I tell them about my life.”

There's a limit, of course, to the boutique refreshment economy, but the adult lemonade stand serves, to me at least, as another reminder of the advantages and just plain entertainment value of the ownership economy.

In the biggest scoop on the news shows today, Gen. David Petraeus appeared on Meet the Press. He made it clear that a quick drawdown in Afghanistan, as is scheduled for July 2011, is not in the cards. “I didn’t come out here to carry out a graceful exit, I came out here committed to carrying out our objectives.”

He added, “I’m not bowed over by knowledge that July 2011 is out there…the president has been very clear…that this is a date where the process [of withdrawal] begins that is conditions-based.”

Despite the fact that opposition to the war is growing among Americans—70% of whom lack confidence that there will be a successful outcome to the war, according to a Wall Street Journal poll—Gen. Patraeus remained focused on his mission there, not on the politics. "Let’s remember why we’re [in Afghanistan]...we’re here to make sure Afghanistan does not become center of trans-national terrorism."

To ensure that that doesn't happen, "The president wants from me my best professional military advice."

And throughout the interview, the general hinted at the advice he might give Obama as July 2011 approaches. Patraeus was sure to repeat on multiple occasions that our presence in Afghanistan would be "enduring." At one point, he said, "we will have an enduring commitment here [in Afghanistan] in some fashion...the character of which will change." At another point, he added that the war "was going to require a substantial significant commitment and that [our presence there] was going to have to be enduring to some degree, albeit its character and size being scaled down."

Part of making progress, the general said, is instituting a policy in Afghanistan of reconciling with members of the Taliban and re-instituting them into society and government life--a strategy that Patraeus oversaw in Iraq with the insurgents. "There is a prospect with reconciliating with [the Taliban]…we had to face [this] question in Iraq...will we sit down at the table with people who have our blood on their hands?" It sounds like the answer to that question in Afghanistan will be yes. There is, he said, "every possibility that there would be low and mid level reintegration" of Taliban members into the government.

Nearing the end of the interview, Gen. Patraeus noted that "I just read a book about Kipling in India." I wonder what Patraeus thinks about Kipling's poem, the White Man’s Burden vis a vis Afghanistan.

Regardless, there's one burden he will not let weigh him down, the presidency. Modifying a quote from Ulysses S. Grant, he said, "I am not a politician and I will never be, and I say that with absolute conviction."

Throughout the entire interview, Gen. Patraeus carried himself and spoke in a cerebral, honest, and forthright manner--and that sincerity was especially manifest when he spoke about not running for president. But I still think there's the chance that he could run--maybe he won't be guided by ambition, as so many are, but by a sense of duty. And maybe he won't actively seek the nomination, but be convinced to take it by supporters and friends.

What do you think?

Here he is on not running for president.

PETRAEUS: “Most recently, I’ve been reading about the historiography of [Union commander and later president Ulysses]Grant, how historians changed their views of Grant over the years, initially of course regarding him as the, a true hero of course and then over time, in the 1900s, there was a period when a bit more disparaging views of him and it’s actually come up again in recent years.

GREGORY: “Funny you should say that because I had this quote prepared for you from someone that you admire. It is this: ‘I am not a politician, never was, I hope never to be.’ Do you know who said that?”

PETRAEUS: “Was it Grant?”

GREGORY: “It was Grant.”

PETRAEUS: “Well, I am not a politician and I will never be. (Laughs.) I say that with absolute conviction.”

GREGORY: “Well that’s what he said. But does that mean that you are totally clear that you’ll never run for president?”

PETRAEUS: “Yeah, I really am. And, you know I’ve said — that I’ll adopt what Sherman said, and go back and look at what has come to be know as a ‘Shermanesque’ answer of that particular question.”

GREGORY: “No way, no how?”

PETRAEUS: “No way, no how.”

On Fox News Sunday, Bret Baier did a nice job substituting in for Chris Wallace. In the first segment of the show, Baier discussed President Obama's weekend reaction to the Ground Zero mosque with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Jack Reed, (D-R.I.).

In case you missed it, on Friday night, Obama began the weekend by making a very pro-Mosque statement at a dinner honoring the Muslim celebration of Ramadan. On Friday, he said, "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country."

Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground...But let me be clear: as a citizen and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.

Then on Saturday, he backtracked.

The former law professor said that just because he supports the right to build a mosque at Ground Zero doesn't mean he specifically supports the Ground Zero mosque:

I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right that people have that dates back to our founding.

The White House then followed up, clarifying that Obama's own clarification of his statement:

What [Obama] said last night, and reaffirmed today, is that if a church, a synagogue or a Hindu temple can be built on a site, you simply cannot deny that right to those who want to build a mosque.

Sen. Cornyn started off Fox News Sunday with a zinger: "This isn’t about freedom of religion," but "it’s nice that the folks on the left are sensitized to issues of freedom of religion."

He added, "to me, this demonstrates that Washington, the White House, and the administration seems to be disconnected from rest of Americans." Nearly 70% of independents oppose the Mosque at Ground Zero.

Sen. Reed endorsed Obama's statements about the GZM from a distance. He seemed more in tune to the popular opposition to the mosque than the White House. To Reed, Obama "was speaking about basic constitutional issues," but if the purpose of the mosque is "argumentation" or "to undercut the truth of 9/11,” then it should not be erected near Ground Zero.

The panel today--Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, Nina Easton of Fortune magazine, former White House press secretary Dana Perino and Ceci Connolly of The Washington Post--also discussed Obama's waffling remarks about the Ground Zero Mosque. In perhaps a first, the panel was unanimous in its criticism of Obama.

Dana Perino said the White House should not have gotten involved period. But when it did, it should have taken a clear and principled stance, not a meandering one that needed to be clarified multiple times. "There's a saying in communication, if you're explaining you're losing...If you're having to explain your clarification, then I don't know what you're doing."

Nina Easton wondered why Obama doesn't act more like a politician rather than a law professor. Easton added, "Obama has nationalized a sensitive issue," and mishandled it in the process.

Don't you think that whenever Obama comments on a controversial local issue, that he only manages to create more divisiveness around it rather than less? He has done this with the Ground Zero Mosque--and, previously, the Arizona immigration law, and the Henry Louis Gates arrest. Why doesn't he just stay out of it?

This was in part why Ceci Connolly questioned Obama's leadership on FNS. Specifically, she criticized his inability to emotionally connect with people. This struck me as dead on. In the case of the Ground Zero Mosque, he can't connect with 9/11 families who view the mosque as an affront. Connolly also noted that with the BP oil spill, he couldn't emotionally connect with the afflicted victims--which is why he seemed so ridiculous when he demanded to know "whose ass to kick" over BP. He simply seems incapable of expressing a sincere, compassionate emotion.

And finally, Bill Kristol implied--as did Sen. Cornyn earlier in the show--that the GZM could become an uncomfortable election issue for Democrats in the coming months.

**

In the second segment of the show, economist Mark Zandi and Fox Business Network anchor Liz Claman weighed in on the dreary economic situation. They both reached a consensus on two key issues--that a double dip recession is unlikely and that the Bush tax cuts should be extended into 2011, but then allowed to sunset as we enter 2012.

Zandi said, "I don't think it would be appropriate to raise taxes on anyone right now...not in 2011." But in the next two years, "when the economy is up and running," he thinks we need to let the tax rates revert back to the pre-tax cut rates in order to "address our long term fiscal deficit and debt." Claman agreed, acknowledging that a tax increase, coupled with spending cuts, might be necessary to address our long term fiscal situation.

**

What do Ricocheters think? Re the GZM, are you as unanimous in your criticisms of Obama as the panelists were on Fox News today? Or do you think he handled himself well? Why did Obama weigh in on the GZM when he didn't need to? Why does he seem incapable of leading the country forward on these types of divisive issues? Is Obama a bad politician? What happened to the eloquent politician that we saw on the campaign trail over a year ago?

And on the economy: are tax increases going to be necessary come 2012 to fix our long term debt and deficit? Is cutting spending not enough?

After much wrangling, Israel has approved the purchase of twenty F-35s from the US. The F-35 is a highly advanced, stealth-capable strike fighter that's expected to lock in Israel's aerial superiority in the region.

Much has been written about Israel's intentions toward Iran's nuclear program, some of it quite impressively researched. This hardware buy might appear to indicate that Israel is girding for battle (something I find deeply alarming on a personal level), but the planes won't be delivered until 2015. That timeline doesn't really prove anything regarding Israel's immediate intentions -- let's not over-interpret here -- but neither does any amount of theorizing in print, since no one knows (or will say, or should say) what clandestine work is being done by Israel or the US regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions. Real information -- the complete picture we would need to enable any of us to assess the odds of an imminent strike -- is by its very nature impossible to come by. And so, in the absence of a reliable clairvoyant, I hereby choose to believe that Israel's investment in her air superiority four years down the line is a reassuring development.

This past week at Ricochet, John Hinderaker rose in defense of Margaret Thatcher, took the spin out of Mrs. Obama's big vacation, pre-partied like it's 1994, urged today's young dudes to take one for the girlfriend, watched Mr. Obama shoot himself in both feet, and sized up this year's Miss Universe competition. Join us all in giving John a fond sendoff, won't you, as he returns to his fabled stomping grounds at Power Line.

Just as "truth" is understood differently in this part of the world, so is "time," and this point is made beautifully today in The New York Times by Anthony Shadid. Whatever the Times' prejudices, they do still occasionally live up to their reputation. This piece could easily be expanded into a book; it's one of those things that's so important to grasp, but so hard to grasp unless you've lived it day in day out for what would seem to an American a very long time, but here isn't much time at all.

I fear that it might sound sometimes as if I'm just complaining about Turkey. Let me point out some excellent things about this country:

The buses. Why don't we have nice buses like this in America? It would be much better than flying these days, wouldn't it?

The food. Everything this article says is true. It's actually one the best countries in the world for vegetarians, too, believe it or not. You could eat eggplant every night of the year here and never get bored with it. They're really that clever with eggplant.

Protection against the Evil Eye: If you can't find the amulet you need in Turkey to cast out the Evil Eye, you're either not looking or a bit too cavalier about your home security.

I just wanted to make sure you had a balanced perspective. It's not all flotillas, corruption, and lethal construction.

As you know, our Code of Conduct prohibits the discussion of "99 percent of conspiracy theories."

But!

Mathematicians will note the implication: One percent of them are allowed! But which ones, I wonder? Just for today, let's play a little game. Do you ever have a sneaking suspicion that one of those really whacked-out conspiracy theories no right-thinking person is supposed to embrace just may be true? Why?

The contributor who makes the most compelling and lucid defense of the most ostensibly totally lunatic conspiracy theory will win today's Ricochet Gold Medal. It's just glory, but heck, it's a lot of glory. To get yourself in the mood you will want to begin by asking: Does Claire actually know in advance who the winner will be? Why is she asking this? Cui bono?

Don't get too excited about this game though. Only one percent will make the qualifying round, and once this discussion's over, it's over--except for the lucky winner.

I'll begin. Look, people: A plane carrying the Polish president, the chief of the General Staff, the most senior figures in the Polish military and intelligence services, the president of the National Bank of Poland, the deputy foreign minister, twelve members of the Polish parliament, and senior members of the Polish clergy crashes because of "fog" on the way to a commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, killing all on board. There are gaps in the black box tapes, Polish pilots say the transcript makes no sense, and the air traffic controller in question has mysteriously disappeared. Do you seriously want me to take Vladimir Putin's word for it that there's nothing fishy about this? Seriously?

Right, I got that out of my system. (As did Diana West, today.) I feel much better. Occam's Razor, come back! All is forgiven!

Your turn.

I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the results humiliating to me. -- Mark Twain

After a month on the road, I've taken a few days off in Apalachicola, FL with The Missus to celebrate our anniversary. It's a quaint little town, overloaded with history. This small and pleasant place boasts museums, mansions, historic landmarks, buildings that date back to pre-Civil War days, and the people here are almost as well behaved as the dogs. Of course I mean that in the most flattering sense.

Pictured here is a perfect specimen of manners. Pooch and person were out for a stroll, when our paths crossed right in front of a local chocolate and ice cream shop. This polite pet didn't whine, throw a fit, petition for redistribution of scooby snacks, or bite the hand that feeds him. Rather, he stood solemnly in the doorway, patiently waiting admission. He didn't cut in line, curse out the cashier, or insult other customers.

There are a lot of people who could stand a few lessons from friendly Fido here. They include the mobs at Black Friday sales, the throngs in Atlanta last week crushing each other in an effort to get some government assistance, politicians, certain drive-thru customers, and most drivers in the northeast. I like this town.

So there's a list going around of the 20 Worst Americans as judged by 43 bloggers. NR's Jim Geraghty pokes a bunch of big holes in the list's inclusions and omissions --

I don’t think it’s healthy to mix the categories of “people who bug me” and “history’s greatest monsters.” Even if the Simpsons did put Jimmy Carter atop that list first.

-- and to that I give a big cosign. But rather than haggling over America's Most Horrendous, it'd be more fun to crowdsource a top 20 list of best Americans. Wouldn't it? And who better to ask than Ricochet members?