Slice Three: Glenn Beck

Next, we move from Christian Zionists in general to a particular Mormon Zionist – Glenn Beck. Granted, Beck is not so religiously bigoted as a lot of Evangelical Christian leaders. He belongs to a religion they despise as heretical and makes at least the attempt to be inclusive in religious matters. But (as his detractors are fond of pointing out), he dabbles very heavy in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, without ever quite descending into anti-Semitism.

Most notoriously, his "expose" of George Soros as the puppet master was rife with anti-Semitic stereotypes. Some, like the Jew as banker and internationalist have at least the advantage of being based in fact and legitimately controversial. Others are longstannding anti-Semitic classics, like the view of Soros as conspirator and puppet master running a shadow government behind the scenes and controlling all world events. All in all, the portrayal was a sot of latter day Protocols of the Zion Elders. Nor does the Soros piece stand alone. He has promoted anti-Semitic sources from Eustace Mullins, who as blamed Jews for everything from running to Federal Reserve for their own benefit to 9-11 to concentration camps; to Elizabeth Dilling, author of amy anti-Semitic conspiracy screeds and supporter of Nazi Germany, and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, who blamed Malaysia's economic collapse on a Jewish plot (led by Soros, or course) against a Muslim economy. Beck's defense, when confronted with with these associations, is to explain that he never actually read the books by Mullins and Dilling that he was promoting. And when he set forth the nine most dangerous people, in the present or recent past, eight were Jewish.

At the same time, Beck is a passionate supporter of Israel. He reaches out to Orthodox Jews. He held his “Restoring Courage” rally in Jerusalem to express his solidarity with Israel (or at least with the most expansionist elements thereof). He generally lets it be known that he regards Israel as a heroic outpost fighting a lonely battle against Islamic extremism, and that the slightest hestitation in our support will incur the wrath of God.

In short, Beck, far more than any mainstream conservative politician or Christian Zionist, makes a clear Good Jew/Bad Jew distinction. In short, Beck sets himself up as arbiter of Jewish authenticity, with authority to decide who is an is not an Authentic Real Jew. Soros is not an Authentic Real Jew because he is an atheist and does not support Israel. Reform Jews are not Authentic Real Jews because of their association with liberal politics. And Israel's tent city protesters are not Authentic Real Israelis, but puppets of the radical left and militant Islam because, well, because Beck doesn't approve of their politics.

And it is this more than anything else, more than Beck's incredibly frivolous Nazi analogies, more than his constant dabbling in anti-Semitic stereotypes, that that has led to conflict between him and the Jewish community, including conservative Jews who would really like to see their fellow Jews move more in Beck's direction. But they are outraged that any goy would presume to have the authority to determine who is an is not a Authentic Real Jew -- especially when his definition is so narrow as to exclude the largest group of practicing Jews in the U.S. and as many as 87% of all Israelis. So he has been forced to walk back his claims that Reform Jews are not Real Jews and that ahe has the prerogative of determining what is legitimate in Israeli domestic politics.

Perhaps Glenn Beck and others like him should consider the possibility that Jewish authenticity may be more broadly defined than they like. The stereotype of the liberal, cosmopolitan Jew is as well established as the stereotype of the Jewish banker and, like so many stereotypes, it persists because there is at least some truth in it. Soros, besides a currency speculato, is a thoroughly international figure who favors international cooperation on many matters that transcend borders. It is not too presumptuous to guess that one reason he has no fondness for Israel is that Israel represents the sort of blood and soil nationalism that he despises and regards as the problem in today's world. This tradition of the Jew as internationalist, as liberal cosmopolite, as critic of nationalism is sufficiently well established that maybe it, too, is part of what it can be to be an Authentic Real Jew.

I want to address this issue later, but only after looking at the nastiest aspect right wing Jew-hating but Israel loving tendancy -- the European semi-fascist movement.

When Politics Eclipse Policy

I had planned a belated post on the Torture Memos, but it will have to be even more belated, because the whipped-up hysteria over healthcare reform is becoming more and more disturbing. In fact, mendacity and sheer insanity of the protests is becoming so disturbing and so far out of bounds of what was formally acceptable debate that the tone of the protests is beginning to eclipse the issue itself.

What is so disturbing and out of bounds here?

Certainly not the existence of the dispute. I do not doubt that Republicans have sincere, principled disagreements with the Democrats' proposal. Nothing wrong with that. That is politics as usual and might, by itself, even be amenable to compromise. Two factors prevent compromise. One is a matter of policy -- Democrats and Republicans and ideologically incompatible views of how to handle rising health care costs -- regulate more versus regulate less. The other is political -- the opposition party wants to thwart the ruling party to keep it from looking successful. Ideologically, Republicans fear that universal health care will go badly. Politically, they fear it will go well. But this dilemma, too, is nothing new or, by itself, especially disturbing.

What is disturbing is the outrageousness of the lies being told about this proposal, how broadly they are being spread, the willingness of the senior Republican leadership to go along with them, the the hysteria they are whipping up. Yes, a certain degree of spin, distortion and deception is a normal part of political debate. When Bill Clinton came out with his own health care proposal, there was a great deal of discussion among opponents about the horrors of single payer, but no acknowledgement that he was not, in fact, proposing a single payer. But there was nothing at the time like accusations of "death panels" pulling the plug on Grandma, comparisons to Hitler, and even remote insinuations that the elderly, the sick and the handicapped would be murdered. Yes, there have always been fringe groups of paranoids who held beliefs like this, but these are views being propagated, not by fringe groups, but by mainstream channels like talk radio and Fox News, and being pushed (well, usually hinted at in such a way as to maintain plausible deniability) by mainstream Republican leaders. The Republican leadership quite simply has decided to sever any ties to real world fact and just shriek out any lie that serves their purpose. Such a breathtaking level of cynicism is both new and alarming.

Also alarming are the angry crowds showing up, believing these outrageous lies, shouting down anyone who disagrees with them and even packing heat. Granted, there have not been actual outbreaks of violence. But telling an armed man that Obama wants to kill your grandmother is playing with fire.

Even more disturbing is that shrieking blatant lies seems to be working. One might dismiss a recent poll saying that support for the bill before Congress has fallen to 36% in favor an 42% opposed. More disturbing is that fully 45% of all respondents at least partially believe in the "death panels." And, although respondents are about evenly divided in their opinion on the protests themselves, the critical independents say 50% to 34% that the protests have done more good than harm. The protests, in other words, are swaying, rather than repulsing, swing voters. As one commentator remarks, "[I]t creates an enormous incentive to lie, blatantly and repeatedly, to the public. There are no real penalties, and the number of Americans who'll believe nonsense skews the debate in the liars' direction." This means that whenever any other major Democratic initiative comes up, Republicans will repeat the tactic.

So what is the agenda? Well, in the short run, presumably to shut down a Democratic Congress, to make it impossible for Democrats to pass any major initiative. Presumably the goal is to drive the base into a frenzy and associate Democrats in the mind of swing voters with ineptitude and inability to get anything done. The short run goal is presumably to win Congress in 2010, just as the Republicans did in 1994, and to win the White House in 2012.

But there is a problem here. Whipping the base into a frenzy and turning swing voters off of Democrats as inept is not really a good long-run strategy. Frenzies are exhausting and not sustainable. And if the Republicans do win a majority in 2010, they would do well to remember the lessons of 1995. Upon taking over Congress, Republicans promptly overreached. Demonizing Democrats can win elections and turn voters off of the Democratic agenda, but it will not win any converts to the Republican agenda. No one much liked what Gingrich and his crowd were trying to, and Bill Clinton rebuilt his Presidency by standing up to the Republican Congress.

The long-run goal, presumably, is to continue working on Karl Rove's project for a permanent Republican majority. Needless to say, the 2008 election was a setback to that goal, but to judge from the level of hysteria the Republican Party and its media allies are seeking to whip up, it apparently has not been abandoned.

From the very start, Rove's plan was not structurally sound. Permanent* control of the government by one party is stable only if that party enjoys a strong majority of popular support. And over the long haul, that sort of support is sustainable only by enacting sound policies and competently implementing them. Rove wanted to take a country fairly evenly divided between the parties, muster 51% support for Republicans, and exclude the other 49% from power entirely. To do this, he focused on ignoring moderate swing voters, rallying the base, demonizing nearly 49% of the population, and enacting policies based on their appeal to favored constituencies, without much regard to their effectiveness. The result was a general ineptitude that turned an evenly divided population sharply against Republicans and their ideas. Yet the Republicans show no intention of changing their policies.

So how do you build a permanent Republican majority when your party does not command majority support and your ideas are widely unpopular? To judge by the hysteria currently being whipped up, the answer appears to be to undermine and delegitimize the Democrats, by fair means or foul. Demonize any Democrat who has the unmitigated audacity to usurp the Presidency. Turn their presidency into a frenzy of accusations and ugliness. Proclaim the Big Lie on Fox and across talk radio. Make it impossible for Democrats to pass any significant legislation. Whip up the mob if they appear to be succeeding. And explain that given the level of oppression underway, you completely understand the returning militia movement.

Granted, none of this will actually make Republican ideas or their implementation any more palatable. But it may at least be more palatable than the paralysis and orgy of recrimination accompanying a Democratic government. What we are seeing now looks like an attempt at permanent Republican majority by blackmail -- vote for us, or we'll shut the country down.

You think the hysteria in the Clinton years was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet.
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*By "permanent" here I do not actually mean until the end of time, and do not think Rove meant it that way either. Beyond the lives of the present generation is a fair definition of permanent in a this context.

Jonah Goldberg Is an Idiot

Okay, so it's not exactly news. But so long as Goldberg insists on obnoxiously intruding his idiocy on our attention, I consider myself privileged to point it out. This column is a prime example.

It begins by complaining about all the sycophancy Obama has been receiving in the mainstream press, a reasonable point. Goldberg is particularly offended at hearing Obama compared to Lincoln because he is attempting to model his cabinet on Lincoln's.

[W]ho looks at how Lincoln staffed his Cabinet as the defining feature of his residency? Saying Obama is the next Lincoln because the two men share staffing styles is like saying George Bush is Thomas Jefferson because they both liked chicken soup. If I wear a pointy hat, can I call myself John Paul II?

Coming from the author of Liberal Fascism, the chutzpah here is stunning. It's as absurd to compare Obama to Lincoln because of similar staffing styles as to compare George Bush to Jefferson because of their taste in food or Goldberg to the Pope because of their headgear, but perfectly reasonable to compare liberals and fascist because both eat organic food. Goldberg goes on to say that Lincoln's greatness came from saving the Union and ending slavery, two big non-issues these days, and that he fought a civil war that he has no desire to emmulate.

Let me try to explain this to Goldberg. Lincoln's defining accomplishments were saving the Union and ending slavery. What permitted him to achieve these two great feats was an outstanding political and leadership ability, combining firmness of principle with flexibility of action. It is possible to seek to emulate Lincoln's leadership style and apply it to situations other than fighting a civil war or ending slavery. Doris Goodwin's book Team of Rivals argues that an underrated aspect of Lincoln's leadership ability was his ability to reconcile with old rivals, and his incorporation of many of them into his cabinet.

That being said, one certainly be skeptical about the "team of rivals" approach. It worked for Lincoln, not because he recognized his rivals as the top talent in the Republican party. Any contemporary would have recognized as much. Lincoln's outstanding achievement was not in choosing such a cabinet, but in making it work. This meant listening to the conflicting advice of some of the most brilliant minds of the day and taking responsibility for making the decision. It meant giving each one enough autonomy to do his job, but not enough to run out of control. It meant conciliating the egos of the top leaders of the day and getting them to work together. It mean convincing men with far stronger resumes to take their orders from Mr. Nobody from Illinois. In short it meant, as this article puts it, instead of choosing a team of loyalists, choosing the best team around and then winning their loyalty. Lincoln could pull that off. Whether Obama can remains to be seen.

But returning to Goldberg, he goes from silly to delusional on the subject of FDR. Claiming that the glorification of FDR shows a longing for the Great Depression, Goldberg says:

If liberals really loved peace, prosperity and national cohesion, they’d remember the 1920s or 1950s more fondly. And yet they don’t. Why? Because liberals didn’t get to impose their schemes and dreams on the country in those decades. Behind all the talk of unity and bipartisanship and shared sacrifice lies an uglier ambition: power. The audacity of hope behind all this Lincoln-FDR-Obama blather is the dream of riding roughshod over the opposition, of having their way, of total victory.

The Chinese curse and cliche “may you live in interesting times” is on point. Liberals (and a few conservatives as well, alas) seem desperate to live in interesting times. Not me.

You know what I hope? I hope Obama is another Coolidge or Eisenhower. But I’m not holding my breath.

Where do I begin? In talking about Lincoln, Goldberg points out, correctly, that the era of Republican dominance that followed Lincoln was forged in blood and imposed by military force. But despite his alarmist talk of liberals "impos[ing] their schemes and dreams on the country" and goal of "riding roughshod over the opposition, having their way, of total victory," the period of Democratic dominance that followed FDR was nothing of the kind. Sorry, Jonah, but the New Deal was not something that FDR forced over on an unwilling population, nor did the Republicans spend so much time out of power because Roosevelt's stormtroopers crushed them by brute force. Quite simply, when FDR "imposed" his "schemes and dreams" he was enacting a highly popular program. If he was able to "ride roughshod" over Republicans to "total victory," it was because it took some time before Americans were willing to trust Republicans with the economy again, and because many people feared the Republicans would take away popular programs. In other words, FDR enacted a popular program that won the people's support for a generation. Goldberg fears Obama will do the same.

Furthermore, do actual facts on the ground mean anything to Goldberg? What we are hearing is not a desparate wish to live in "interesting times." It is the recognition that "interesting times" are upon us, whether we like them or not. Just in case Goldberg has been too busy defending Liberal Fascism to follow the news, we are currently in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930's. Comparisons to FDR do not mean than anyone is longing for another Great Depression, they mean that people fear another depression may be at hand and hope for FDR-like leadership to get us through it. The reason that no one is invoking Coolidge or Eisenhower -- or, for that matter a more recent President who presided of general peace and prosperity, Bill Clinton -- is not a dislike for general peace and prosperity, but an acknowledgement that they do not seem to be in the cards right now. Maybe Goldberg should get out and pay some attention to the real world for a change.

More Chutzpah -- This Time About the Clintons

Rich Lowry's latest column on Bill and Hillary Clinton is an extraordinary display of wilfull blindness. He and his fellow right-wingers have spent the last 15 years foaming at the mouth with rage at the Clintons as a wild-eyed left-wing radicals. Now Lowry has actually looked at Hillary and found her to be "[a] centrist-oriented Democratic politics that is pragmatic and economically literate." The only problem -- he can't give up 15 years worth of rage at her and, inexplicably, all those years of unrelenting vilification has left her embittered. He just can't handle her resentment.

Imagine that! Bill Clinton hewed center; he belonged to the DLC; he offended much of the Democratic Party's liberal wing; he was the very model of moderation. As a reward, he reaped the hatred of the Republican establishment that was outraged that any Democrat would dare usurp their god-given right to the White House. Right-wing pundits reviled Clinton as a wild-eyed radical; foundations spent vast sums smearing him; a special prosecutor dedicted himself to bringing Clinton down; conspiracy theorists spun the wildest rumors about him; private militias trained in the woods for armed rebellion against his government. And Lowry still can't forgive the Clintons for any of this.

But what's really unforgiveable about the Clintons is that they did not take this lying down. Lowry is outraged that, when smeared, they hit back:

Throughout the 1990s, their attacks were directed at people who were vulnerable by virtue of their status as allegedly self-interested women accusing Bill of misconduct, or as conservative politicians hated by the press, or as special prosecutors whose work was distasteful to the public.

Translation: When Paula Jones sued for sexual harrassment, Bill Clinton defended the case. When Newt Gingrich took control of Congress and promptly overreached himself by passing a lot of unpopular measures, Clinton had the audacity to veto them and win a showdown with the Republican Congress. Worse yet, popular opinion sided with Clinton. And special prosecutor Ken Starr's attacks on Clinton merely boosted his popularity, while making Starr look mean and vengeful. Lowry calls this a "politics of personal destruction" (although he conceeds that the game was played "on both sides.")

In short, after spending 15 years slandering Hilary as a radical, Lowry suddenly realizes that she is not, and that her views aren't so bad after all. But politics of the 90's were so nasty, what with all those attempts to bring the Clintons down that he just can't forgive her for it.

Maybe I should make a new category of chutzpah, because Lowry's is impressive.

Iran -- A New Definition of Chutzpah

Do our leaders know how ridiculous some of their excuses for war with Iran are? Their arguments about protecting Iraqi sovereignty from outside meddling deserve some sort of prize for chutzpah. Consider, for instance, Vice President Cheney's recent and much-quoted speech:

Iran's real agenda appears to include promoting violence against the coalition. Fearful of a strong, independent, Arab Shia community emerging in Iraq, one that seeks religious guidance not in Qom, Iran, but from traditional sources of Shia authority in Najaf and Karbala, the Iranian regime also aims to keep Iraq in a state of weakness that prevents Baghdad from presenting a threat to Tehran.

Perhaps the greatest strategic threat that Iraq's Shiites face today in -- is -- in consolidating their rightful role in Iraq's new democracy is the subversive activities of the Iranian regime.

Consider, seriously, what Cheney and others in the Administration are saying. We have the right to invade Iraq, a country on the far side of the world that poses no threat to us and impose our will by armed force. But for a neighboring country to attempt to influence events there is an intolerable infringement on Iraqi sovereignty. We can back anyone we want in Iraq's civil war, but Iran (sitting right next door) has no right to back anyone (even though, in fact, the Shiite factions Iran is supporting are mainstays of the government we also support). Furthermore we have the right (which have repeatedly and broadly hinted we will use) to preemptively attack Iran. But Iran has no right to preemption against our forces forces in Iraq, even as we hint that attack is at hand.

My purpose here is not to morally defend the Iranian government, merely to point out that as a matter of realpolitik, any government in their position would do much the same. No government wants civil war and chaos next door; civil war and chaos tend to be contagious. But many governments would nonetheless prefer civil war and chaos to a hostile army camped out on their doorstep, especially if the leaders of the hostile army keep dropping hints that they will attack as soon as the civil war and chaos die down. Under those conditions, what government would not want to keep the civil war and chaos going for a long time? And what country does not have a strong, indeed, legitimate, interest, in influencing its neighbors? As Anonymous Liberal puts it:

The truth is, of course, that Iran has an enormous interest in the outcome of our Iraq experiment, and it is perfectly rational for Iran's leaders to attempt to influence events there. Remember, this is a country that invaded Iran in 1980, leading to a bloody eight-year war in which nearly a million people died, the majority of them Iranian. It's probably fair to say that nothing is more important to Iran's national security than the character of the regime that eventually emerges in Iraq. To expect that Iran would just sit back and not try to influence events there is profoundly naive.

What our government is asking of the Iranian government, in effect, is for them to sit quietly while we invade a neighboring country, make no attempt to influence events, and then refrain from acting even as we prepare for a new attack on Iran. Old definition of chutzpah: killing your parents and then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you are an orphan. New definition of chutzpah: Invading a country on the other side of the world and then starting a war with its neighbor on the grounds that it is not respected the invaded country's sovereignty.