The Media and Obama

Victor Davis Hanson:

Imagine the reaction of the New York Times or the Washington Post had John McCain renounced his promise to participate in public campaign financing, proceeded instead to amass $600 million and outraise the publicly financed Barack Obama four-to-one, and begun airing special 30-minute unanswered infomercials during the last week of the campaign.

I don't agree with all of the points in this article (especially the section about Palin) but do find compelling the sections about the media's treatment of campaign finance and Obama's associations.

Scariest Palin Clip Yet

Palin recently mocked fruit fly research at an autism conference, even though such research has provided indispensable genetic knowledge and insights into autism itself.

Life of Mind, Life of Body

A poetic selection from a Victor Davis Hanson article that draws the conclusion (incorrectly, I think) that Palin is qualified for the presidency:

While civilization advances on the shoulders of the educated, it is carried along by the legs of the muscular classes. And the latter are not there by some magical IQ test or a natural filtering process that separates the wheat from the chaff, but rather by either birth, or, as often, by their preference for action and the physical world.

Palin and Culture, Pt. III

From Jonathan Haidt, who appears to be very interested in helping Democrats garner more electoral success:

. . . the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way. When Republicans say that Democrats "just don't get it," this is the "it" to which they refer.

From Lee Siegel in the Wall Street Journal, via my brother, Jeremy:

As a result of all this intellectual tumult, one stark distinction stands out among the differences between contemporary liberals and conservatives (the real differences, not the manufactured ones). Liberals always think that there is something broken in politics. Conservatives always think that there is something wrong with the culture.

These conflicting urgencies have given the conservatives mostly the upper hand for over a quarter of a century. Since culture is more immediate to us than the abstract policies and principles of politics -- and seemingly more dependable than politics' often fluid expediencies -- a politics of culture is going to be more successful than mere politics. For many people, the idea that Republican politics are wholly responsible for the country's ills is hard to accept. You can't feel politics. Rather, such people blame a culture of selfishness and irresponsibility for the deepening malaise (the word that sank President Carter among liberals who thought they smelled a Christian conservative in progressive clothing). You experience selfishness and irresponsibility in the flesh every day.

Palin and the Cultural Divide

My Palin post has generated the first inklings of "A Musing?" debate so allow me to harness that horse . . .

A few thoughts on the cultural divide that has been highlighted by reactions to Palin (If this issue interests you, do not miss the Haidt piece discussed below.):

+I believe that the 60's student movement brought many important issues to the fore. I do also believe that it announced the 'divorce' of the elite student from the "ho-hum conventions of American life" (as many of the students saw it) and accordingly helped to lay the groundwork for the deep misunderstandings that we read about today.

+The elites, in my opinion, were taking advantage of their class privileges and have become accordingly self-involved. Judith Warner, in the New York Times:

[University of Virginia associate professor of moral psychology Jonathan] Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. “Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger,” he told me in a phone interview.

+Haidt writes a highly fascinating piece on "The Edge" website, called "What Makes People Vote Repulican?" It is only a few pages long and is one of the best analyses of political-cultural connections in America that I have ever read.

+Despite my disapproval of Palin as a candidate, I think that it is important that we recognize that non-Ivy league, non-Davos summit folks can be excellent leaders. Truman, for instance, never attended college.

PALIN

I'm not sure which bothers me more, the idea of Palin as president or the condescension towards her from intellectual elites.

I found Palin quite unimpressive in the ABC interview, social views aside. Still, I am deeply bothered by the "Americans are stupid for not seeing that Obama is better for their interests." trope that I hear on the Upper West Side. Here's a letter that I wrote to the NYT and WaPo editors on Palin and the liberals. I call it "Palin Payback":

Dear Sir:

Sadly, the popularity of an inexperienced and unprepared Gov. Sarah Palin is payback for the inveterate condescension of coastal liberals for their countrymen in the heartland. I have often wondered how the same sect of people that calls on America to show understanding and compassion for Anti-Americanism around the world can scarce be counted on to show a similar approach towards fellow, thinking citizens whose beliefs on religion, gun ownership, etc., are different from their own. A Palin victory would be poetic, even if not just.

My Views on The Presidential Campaign: An Update

A few developments have moved me into the Obama camp, for now. The most important is my discomfort with the image of Palin as Commander-in-Chief (see third point, below):

+I like the Biden pick. He has much of the international vision and gravitas that Obama lacks. He also is grounded in the mundane political issues that Obama does not clearly address.

+I like Obama's move to the center on NAFTA.

+I like Palin's grit and am glad that she is in the race. Her mere presence challenges Obama to prove that he is a real reformer. Furthermore, she challenges the cultural elitism of the Democrats (Read this excellent article on the topic.) that disturbs me so greatly (They can't help but respond intelligently to the crowds that are enthused by her style and personality.). Certainly, I find her equivocation on evolution and global warming to be troublesome, but she is not likely to be the one who sets the agenda on this front unless . . . McCain dies in office. In short, Palin's social views and her relative ignorance of international issues make her a huge risk, in my mind, should she have to step in as president. The risk of choosing Obama, whose awareness of foreign affairs, though not extraordinarily deep, is extraordinarily deeper than Palin's, is much less.