By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 12.8.05 @ 12:09AM
But for Democrats, a full glass is always empty if not shattered.
WASHINGTON -- The President is out on the hustings. He is
exhorting steadfastness on the war. He is booming the economy. He
will be getting hoarse quite soon. The reason is simple. He is
trying to reason with the unreasonable.
On the matter of the war his opponents' rejection of reason is
demented. There is no alternative to facing down the
terrorists and the nihilists in the Middle East. They attacked us
here and will do so again and again unless they are defeated -- and
for many of them that means death. They have transcended the
kamikaze pilots of World War II to become a kamikaze movement.
There is no alternative to defeating them.
On the matter of the economy the President's opponents not only
reject reason, they reject an abundance of evidence that the
economy is vigorous and on course to healthy growth. On the war his
opponents gin up a host of spurious arguments and faulty data. On
the economy the data is overwhelmingly against them and as for
spurious arguments they have very few. This economy is in a period
of growth and there is no alternative argument to growth save for
those made by the diehard disciples of the late Prof. Malthus
(1766-1834), prophet of scarcity and no growth.
Yet gloom over the economy is pumping from every smoke stack of
the Kultursmog. During the 2004 presidential election,
when the economy had already been growing strongly for a year, 36%
of the citizenry had been persuaded that the economy was in
recession. Now a year later, with growth nearing 4% for the past
ten quarters, 43% of the citizenry believe we are in recession.
Unemployment has dropped from 5.5% to 5%. In the past 16 months 3.5
million jobs have been created. Stocks are on the way up. The Fed
has taken strong measures to squelch inflation and seems to be
succeeding with no damage to healthy growth. Still with practically
every economic announcement the coughing, wheezing voices of the
Kultursmog predict economic danger.
Brian S. Wesbury, one of the most infallible students of today's
economy, laments in the Wall Street Journal: "During a
quarter century of analyzing and forecasting the economy, I have
never seen anything like this. No matter what happens, no matter
what data are released, no matter which way markets move, a pall of
pessimism hangs over the economy." Whereupon he cites the
auspicious data and their gloomy explications: Bond yield up?
Housing market imperiled! On Monday, housing market weakens? The
housing bubble is about to burst! On Tuesday, the housing data
strengthens? Bad news, the Fed will raise interest rates!
How do we explain the unreasoning response to all this good
news? How do we prevent the President from growing hoarse in
defending a perfectly defensible economic vigor? Allow me to offer
this explanation. Republicans in power worry Democrats. If
the Democrats presided over an economy as robust as this, there
would be no apprehension in the Kultursmog. That brings us
to the heart of the matter. The media are not dominated by
liberals. They are dominated by Democrats.
Actually there are no true liberals out there nowadays. For many
decades those who were pleased to call themselves liberals in
America were civil libertarians of various degrees of
libertarianism who believed in state management of the economy and
in inflicting moralism into every disagreement. When President Bill
Clinton said "the era of big government is over," he was merely
acknowledging the confusion into which American liberalism had
collapsed. A liberal today is merely a Democrat.
Democrats, certainly all who identify themselves deeply as
Democrats, worry about George W. Bush in the White House. In this
they are sincere. Bush frightens them. Of course, Ronald Reagan
frightened them too. In fact, it is instructive to note that the
very same things that worried them about Reagan worry them about
Bush. Both are seen as stupid, overly religious, overly patriotic,
simple. The concern our Democrats have about the economy is
heartfelt. I do not think anything can be done to cheer them up.
Certainly improvement in the economy is not going to cheer them up.
What could be done? If growth were to rise from 4% (third-quarter
growth has just been revised up from 3.8% to 4.3%) to 5% they would
only fret about inflation or perhaps the rape of the environment.
And do not try to cheer them up with a hearty Merry Christmas. They
suffer some bugaboo about that too. The best course is to avoid all
serious discussion with them. Talk to them about the New Deal or
the New Frontier. Remind them that Chelsea Clinton is almost old
enough to run for president, and she has never been accused by an
Independent Counsel of lying.
topics:
Environment, Libertarianism
