PJTV: Afterburner, MSNBC and The Great Liberal Narrative: The Truth About The Tyranny of Political CorrectnessBill has a gift. He has the ability to distill history (and make it interesting) to validate his opinions. His optimistic view of America is very similar to Ronald Reagan's... which brings me to another great communicator, Faoud Ajami* who wrote a smashing essay about Obama's Humpty-Dumpty fall from the wall. In the essay (WSJ, Obama's Summer of Discontent, August 25, 2009), Mr. Ajami writes a bit about Ronald Reagan:
At the core of the Reagan mission was the recovery of the nation's esteem and self-regard. Reagan was an optimist. He was Hollywood glamour to be sure, but he was also Peoria, Ill. His faith in the country was boundless, and when he said it was "morning in America" he meant it; he believed in America's miracle and had seen it in his own life, in his rise from a child of the Depression to the summit of political power.And:
At no time had Ronald Reagan believed that the American covenant had failed, that America should apologize for itself in the world beyond its shores. There was no narcissism in Reagan. It was stirring that the man who headed into the sunset of his life would bid his country farewell by reminding it that its best days were yet to come.While Mr. Whittle doesn't yet have the wisdom and experience of Ronald Reagan, he certainly shares his optimism and exuberance about America, even if it is occasionally unfounded or rose-colored-glasses idealistic.
(*I had never heard of Faoud Ajami before, but if the WSJ article is an example of his typical writing performance, I can't wait to read more of him. WSJ states that he teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University. He is also an adjunct fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.)
But back to Bill Whittle...
I will admit to being a fan, while still maintaining my objectivity (I believe). Mr. Whittle manages to complain about leftist-intellectualism, while still maintaining a connection to average Joe, but he is clearly an intellectual himself (although not of the leftist persuasion).
This contrast sometimes causes a contradiction for Mr. Whittle, such as in his Afterburner episode about Sarah Palin's ill-treatment by the press (The Media, The Left and GOP Elitists vs. Sarah Palin: A Lesson on How to Destroy a Leader, July 27, 2009). Mr. Whittle makes a jab at intellectualism in that episode (transcript from EjectEjectEject.com):
She needs to be destroyed because the one thing that can never be allowed to happen is this: you cannot have a voice in this political debate. You know who I mean. You rubes, you hicks out there in flyover country. Your job is pay taxes, vote for who they have decided over cocktails makes them feel better about themselves, and occasionally provide your inbred idiot sons and daughters for the army or police force or whatever you people without Ivy League educations do with your tawdry little lives.[Emphasis mine.]
Meanwhile, the Harvard-educated elitist geniuses will run the country according to their infinitely brighter intellectual and moral lights.
I think it unwise to tango with an anti-intellectualism/education message. It is also possible for conservatives to have Ivy League educations and be Harvard-educated elitist geniuses. It is possible to do all of that and not come out of school as a socialist-sympathizing drone. There are some who manage to get into Harvard or other Ivy League schools who don't have the necessary backbone and intellect to become something other than Useful Idiots. The concept of Garbage-In, Garbage-Out applies to their outcome.
While these degrees no longer confer the integrity and value they once had, the degree itself is not a disqualifer. We still have to do our own due diligence, regardless of the letters after a person's name or the letters on their parchment. Let me restate that in a different way: the degrees are neither a qualifier nor a disqualifier, in the sense of conferring superiority over the average Joe, but intellectual superiority exists (it just shouldn't be assumed if a person has a specific name on their college degree).
That intellectual superiority doesn't mean the average Joe has any less right to vote, any less command of his faculties or liberties, or is any less of a good person. It just means that the average Joe doesn't rise to the intellectual capacity of others, and those others include Mr. Whittle himself. That is why we qualify Joe with average when we speak of the majority of people in the country.
The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted indeed in some degree to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call Common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules."That's the contradiction of both Ronald Reagan and Bill Whittle. They manage to cloak their intellectualism in a way that makes it possible for them to communicate with Peoria, Ill. They relate to Peoria and Average Joe without a dumbed-down charade. I do not recall, however, that Ronald Reagan ever dismissed the value of education, in the way that Mr. Whittle did in the his Sarah Palin piece.- Thomas Jefferson, 1787
What Ronald Reagan never did, that Sarah Palin does (and Bill Whittle slightly stepped over the line in his episode on Sarah Palin) is pandering to the common man. Speaking plainly and directly doesn't mean speaking down to any one, nor does it include speaking in a colloquial manner, almost a stereotypical gum-chewing/smacking manner, as Sarah Palin does. Average Joe deserves more respect than that. The Office she held and the office she sought deserves more respect than that.
It is import to remember that President Bush has a Harvard degree. President Bush's accent and slight speech-impediment prevented him from earning the title of great orator. President Bush was a decent president who nobly rose to the occasion to handle the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He was the minimum standard of the intellectual capacity of a president. We don't have to raise the
level to the Winston Churchill standard, but we should go no lower in our expectations with the bar set by George Bush.If Sarah Palin has a superior intellect, she's done a fairly good job of hiding it. If she rises to the level of President Bush's, it remains to be seen. Reagan didn't hide it, he just didn't wear his intellectual superiority on his sleeve or rub anyone's nose in it.
This is better explained by Rudyard Kipling in his If letter to his son:
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,[Emphasis mine.]
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Sarah Palin, by Mr. Kipling's standard is not a man. Of course we know that she is a woman, but the poem's message can apply equally to a woman. It is a poem about duty and responsibility, about both honor and integrity, and dealing with success and failure, and winning and losing with grace and dignity. Man is merely a shortcut for all that is admirable and needed in an individual to live up to his/her human potential.
I accept the basic premise that Sarah Palin got a raw deal with the press and continued to be plagued by nuisance lawsuits while Governor of Alaska. In my opinion, however, she whines too much and allowed what happened yesterday to demonstrate that she fails in the "neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you" Kipling requirement.
It is similar to the way that Obama continues to blame President Bush for all the troubles he faces today, rather than taking ownership for his policies. Harry Truman's famous "the buck stops here" remark sums up the quality so necessary in the President of the United States. Sarah Palin's raw deal is no excuse for her showing weakness to her current and future enemies.
Showing weakness was the quality most dangerous in John F. Kennedy, so much so that it created a dangerous situation for the United States (and resulted in the Russians acting upon the placement of missiles in Cuba). The Russians didn't consider putting missiles in Cuba on Eisenhower's watch (nor would they have considered such a thing under Ronald Reagan's watch). Weakness has proven to create an unncessary danger, encouraging bold actions from our enemies.
The Iranians knew to release the hostages captured during Jimmy Carter's term when Ronald Reagan was sworn in.
Superior strength is not a quality unique to men, in the strength of character and convictions sense, not the physical sense. No one would have found either Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir lacking strength. Those women had balls!
Strength matters and so does intellect in leadership. It matters not only in our Executive, but in our citizens, but for the latter, not as much.
Sarah Palin may have left the governorship of Alaska for Alaska's sake and benefit, but it did a disserve to the entire country in the longer term. It is akin to the policy of not negotiating with terrorists. It may benefit the 20 or so current hostages to negotiate for their release, but the success of that negotiation, of getting something out of the act, sends a signal that kidnapping and terrorism is a worthwhile venture. So, too, with Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska, by sending the message that a form of legal terrorism can be successful. We all lose when swarms of nuisance lawsuits cause officials to leave their elected posts. Expect to see much more of it as a result of Sarah Palin surrendering to it.
Sarah Palin should have recognized that long term risk, and the fact that she didn't demonstrates that she didn't have the backbone, nor the foresight of the bigger, long term picture. It is those bigger, long-term pictures that education provides, once unique to the Ivy League schools, but possible to be gleaned from lesser known institutions, or by those driven to achieve greatness in intellectual development by self study and perseverance.
Not everyone is capable of rising to the same level. That is not a handicap for being a good person or a good citizen, but it should be a handicap for higher office."That every man shall be made virtuous by any process whatever is, indeed, no more to be expected than that every tree shall be made to bear fruit, and every plant nourishment. The brier and bramble can never become the vine and olive; but their asperities may be softened by culture, and their properties improved to usefulness in the order and economy of the world."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1822
Obama fails the test on every count, but that is no excuse for conservatives to lower the bar, or dismiss the value of intellect, strength, and education. Let the Democrats pander to the common man, but require that our own, we conservatives, respect and speak directly (and honestly) to the average Joe, while simultaneously recognizing his intellectual limits."Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana
"Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty."As Ronald Reagan commanded that politicians "never speak ill of another Republican," the additional commandment I would add is: "Conservatives should never speak ill of education."- Thomas Jefferson, 1787
The glorification of ignorance and pandering will be our undoing.
"The mass of our citizens may be divided into two classes -- the laboring and the learned. The laboring will need the first grade of education to qualify them for their pursuits and duties; the learned will need it as a foundation for further acquirements."- Thomas Jefferson , 1814
Bill Whittle, I believe, made a few mistakes in his Sarah Palin episode, but he demonstrates that he has the ability to deliver to a praiseworthy performance in his piece on MSNBC/Political Correctness—the latter is a five star package. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has yet to demonstrate greatness, stamina, strength of conviction, or an understanding of the value of education and the intellectual grounding it provides to see the big picture, and to avoid history's mistakes. She may do so at some point, as Mr. Whittle has done in his episode of yesterday, but Sarah hasn't done it yet... and I refuse, absolutely refuse, to lower the bar for conservatives, simply because the Democrats have done so.
H/t Instapundit.
Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).
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