The Lost Liberals
WASHINGTON — With Scott Brown’s election to the senatorial seat
held by Edward Kennedy for 47 years, a few things are suddenly
clear. Americans in large numbers fear a further government
encroachment on our private healthcare system. There are other
means of reforming it. Americans do not want to bear higher tax
burdens, more profligate government spending, and crushing deficits
to be borne by future generations. One other thing is clear. For
the most part, the American press is not very informative.
When Bill Clinton went up to Massachusetts to campaign for the
Democratic candidate, not one mainstream news organization reported
what is a matter of cold fact, to wit, when Bill Clinton campaigns
for others they lose. In fact when Clinton was president the
Democratic Party mostly lost. In 2004, as I reported in my 2007
book on Clinton in retirement, of the 14 Democrats Clinton
campaigned for 12 lost. He was not even able to campaign
successfully for his pal, Terry McAuliffe’s gubernatorial bid in
Virginia last year. Equally unhelpful is outside campaigning from
the Prophet Obama. He was no help for Democratic candidates in the
recent midterm elections in New Jersey and Virginia. Right now
Obama’s presidency is a failed presidency. Nowhere in the
mainstream media is that reported in their one-year assessments of
his presidency. Yet it is now thunderously clear.
There are still wisenheimers out there who will say that this
very clever president will now recalculate and change course. He
will steal to the center. His Democrats will follow. Truth be
known, the Democrats led by Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid,
are no more likely to change course than the artistes of
the Grateful Dead were ever likely to take up aerobics, join
Alcoholics Anonymous, and resort to golf before they all died years
short of the average longevity for an adult American male. The
Democrats vote the way they do because they are captives of a
culture, the youth culture of the 1960s, a culture that has
endured, aged, but never smartened up.
This week in a very funny segment of his radio show Rush
Limbaugh made a very pertinent point. He did so after playing what
he called “patriotic music,” in this case the Venezuelan national
anthem, which sounded as though it were being performed by a large
orchestra of kazoos. Then Rush referred to the “1960s hippies who
govern us.” Given to amusing hyperbole as he is, El Rushbo was not
far off. Most of the real 1960s hippies are either doddering around
in early retirement (retirement from life spent on a park bench) or
long ago they served as crepe suzettes for the worms. Sure one or
two of the left-wing Democrats in Congress might have once been
hippies — one can envisage a long-haired Henry Waxman shuffling
through Haight Ashbury in bell bottoms and Jesus sandals — but
today’s dominant Democrats in Congress, for a certitude, were
hippie fellow-travelers since their troubled youths in the 1960s
and early 1970s. They have ever since lived in a closed society,
closed to the realities of the Reagan and post-Reagan years.
The Prophet Obama may be a bit too young to have joined what in
the late 1960s and early 1970s was called the New Left, but his
mentors, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the late Saul Alinsky, were
true believers. They saw America as a failed state years ago, and
the president agrees. Remember his extraordinary statement last
April to 2,000 Europeans at his Strasbourg Town Hall: “In America,
there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world.
Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner
with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where
America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”
This is vintage 1960s left-wingery. Just as Jimmy Carter was the
first former president to speak ill of a sitting president while on
foreign soil. Obama has now surpassed him. He is the first sitting
president to speak ill of America while on foreign soil,
and he has done so repeatedly.
Most probably the president sees nothing wrong with this sort of
diminishment of his country. Most probably the Democratic
leadership sees nothing wrong with it either. Liberals like them
get elected not because they understand Americans but because they
understand American journalists, who also are part of their 1960s
culture. Yet it is a culture from an America of long ago. As even
Massachusetts demonstrated this week, most Americans believe
Americans know how to solve their problems through initiative,
limited government, and hard work, not through the nanny state.
Hold That Tiger
WASHINGTON — When I read the other day that the lapsed golfer
Tiger Woods’ nationwide approval rating had fallen from 87% to 33%,
the only conclusion I could draw was that he had been out
campaigning for the Democrats’ healthcare plan. According to an
interesting piece on him in the current Vanity Fair, the
superb golfer now has a disapproval rating of 57%. Is this the
consequence of his getting too close to Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid and the glacial-faced Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi?
No, apparently it is the consequence not of his associating with
politicians but rather of his living like one. His sex life has
been exposed, and it is comparable to that of a particularly
virulent germ.
If the reporter for Vanity Fair is accurate, Woods’ sex
life is hyperactive, to say nothing of unhygienic. Yet his
disastrous collapse in the polls still perplexes me. If he were
president of the United States and being impeached for his
wantonness, his polling numbers would soar. His critics would be
assailed with that popular line from the 1990s, “it’s only sex.”
Why, I ask, is a golfer being abominated for promiscuity? He tried
to keep his sex life private. He did not flaunt his many
gallantries. It is not as though he has cheated on his golf game,
and if he has so does Bill Clinton. There are whole books written
about the former president’s cheating on the golf course. Some
Americans find it amusing. Others give Bill a good-natured
pass.
Supposedly the disapproval Woods is suffering is because he and
his handlers carefully choreographed a squeaky-clean image for him.
Yet most politicians live carefully choreographed lives. Worse they
invite the press to cover their lives, while keeping the unsavory
stuff out of sight. Woods did not invite the press into his private
life. He was a very private person. Unlike the politicians who
invite the press into their homes while keeping the cuties out of
sight, Woods never practiced such deception. The press might at
least show him the respect they once showed 2008 presidential
candidate John Edwards, who played the reporters for fools.
With the revelations about Woods’ scortatory pursuits, millions
of dollars of corporate endorsements have been withdrawn. The claim
is that his publicists lied about Woods’ wholesomeness. Well, what
is surprising about that? Publicists are supposed to lie about
their clients. They exaggerate their clients’ virtues and hide
their defects. In fact, I would argue that the word
publicist is a euphemism for “liar.” Maybe Woods’ critics
should turn their wrath on his publicists, and let him get on with
playing golf. It is his golf game that attracted the millions of
people to follow him, not his sex life — though this might now
change.
One of the complaints now swirling around Woods is that his
handlers carefully manipulated his press conferences. In them he
would, according to an indignant golf correspondent, “talk forever
and say nothing.” Now this brings me to a matter that has always
mystified me about press conferences held for sports stars. They
almost never have anything interesting to say. Woods is now being
criticized for ornamenting his press conferences with such
vacuities as, “I had a pretty good day.” Apparently the assembled
reporters believe he had an obligation to add, “And I am going to
have a pretty good night. I have two bimbos waiting in the
limousine. They’re in the trunk with the champagne.”
One thing has caught my eye in all the angry coverage of this
fallen golfer. He was a sports prodigy from a very early age.
Reportedly, at the age of two he appeared on The Mike Douglas
Show where he demonstrated his “perfect swing” — the
reference is to a golf swing, I am sure. Apparently, he has been in
the limelight ever since. He has won about every tournament that an
athlete in his sport could win, often more than once. Then he
retires behind a facade. His only real interest has been golf.
I have actually known two child prodigies from different sports,
one a very popular sport, the other less so. For years they
dominated the opposition. Both men had one thing in common. They
were born blanks. There was nothing to them, aside from their
athletic achievement. Perhaps Woods’ critics among his erstwhile
fans and among the sportswriters would not be so angry if they had
recognized Tiger Woods’ emptiness. Still they only have themselves
to blame for investing in a superlative golfer qualities that he
never had. Yet give him this much credit: he never made any claims
to nobility. The errant politician always does — and his loyal
followers fall for his claims every time. Even now there are
Clinton loyalists out there insisting that Bill is a noble man.
Some might even believe he is a virgin.
