Somehow, I am moved to adapt a verse from Steely Dan:

News business kids, writin' columns 'bout themselves; you know they don't give a fuck about any body else.

This piece is indicative of a common attitude about conservatives that you hear all the time from liberals.  It is the notion that conservatism is nothing but selfishness, greed, oppression, exploitation and bigotry masquerading as a political philosphy.  Nowhere in the minds of people who think like this is there room for the idea that conservatives care about the country and the common good but have a different sense of what that means and what it takes to get there.

Thus we get the rather ridiculous notion, implicit in this post, that William Kristol, as a graduate of the Collegiate School and a product of its civic-minded ethos, is betraying the values of the school by being a conservative.  Furthermore, Arthur Sulzberger, also a graduate, is almost worse by hiring him.  The basic idea here is that being "civic-minded" means being a liberal.

Now I don't happen to think very much of Kristol's philosophy, mostly because I have a hard time putting my finger on what exactly it is, other than the idea that anything Republican is good and anything Democratic is bad.  That's why I agree with MJ Rosenberg (yes, it's possible!) that Kristol's column is nothing but a bunch of GOP talking points that are laughably behind the times by about 10 years.  So if the focus is on taking apart Kristol's ridiculousness, I say let's pile on.  But I object to this notion that he represents some sort of betrayal of civic-mindedness. 

Part of the reaon, I think, why Obama is rising in the polls is that people are sick and tired of people like Jim Sleeper (or Bill Kristol for that matter) going beyond the normal disagreements that are part of politics and venturing into delegitimizing other points of view.  Thus someone who disagrees is an enemy, not an opponent and the other side has no legitimacy at all. 

I am not blind to the fact that Republicans and conservatives are far more often guilty of this than liberals or Democrats.  But I don't like it wherever I see it.

over at Radaronline the writer Charles Kaiser has telling portrait of some “family” connections involved in Kristol’s hiring. It turns out that Abe Rosenthal and Irving Kristol, Bill’s father, were friends and political allies.

One more tidbit along these lines, bearing on Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr’s role in this: He and Kristol attended the Collegiate School, together, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, although Sulzberger went elsewhere before graduating.

The irony is that this elite private school, for boys K-12 (I can already feel some TPM readers’ hackles rising) is one of the most venerable (it was founded by the Dutch in New Amsterdam, in 1628), most civic-minded crucibles of American leaders I have encountered, through graduates I have known.

In its mores as well as its curriculum, Collegiate nourishes an understanding that republican freedom requires not only armies and wealth but, critically, an elusive strength, borne of vulnerability, that risks trust in ways that elicit trust in return.

Doing that is an art, and a discipline. The civic-republican commitment of some Collegiate alums to honest journalism and a vibrant American public sphere has to be seen to be believed.

Let's be clear here. It's not like Kristol and Sulzberger are still in short pants. They're grown men, in their sixties and seventies. I think that they've moved well past the lessons of high school.

Rah, rah, its nice to see the old school spirit. But frankly, it's the inherited culture of elitism that these sorts of institutions represent that is part and parcel of the problem.

Sulzberger and Kristol did indeed take the lessons of privilege and elitism to heart.

Mr. Sleeper writes about the friendship of Abe Rosenthal and the elder Kristol. We all know about the very deliberate and intentional service (in the form of propaganda and disinformation) the Times provided Bush and Cheney to enable their war. This included the unchecked yellow-journalistic "reporting" of Judith Miller and the editorial chorus of Friedman and Safire keeping up the constant drumbeat of the war machine. But the Times while superficially more "liberal" than the odious Washington (and New York) Post has long intervened in a pernicious way in its biased and colored presentation of the news "fit to print". Here from his obit of Abe Rosenthal is an account by Chris Reed:

"In 1981-82 few American reporters realised the extent of secret but crucial US involvement in the war in El Salvador, something the authorities routinely denied. One who knew was New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner, who in early 1982 exposed the rightist Salvadoran government's massacre of nearly 1,000 men, women and children in the small town of El Mozote. The US insisted it had not happened and pressure mounted on the Times.

As executive editor, Rosenthal flew to El Salvador to assess the complaints against Bonner. Sympathetic to president Ronald Reagan's rhetoric about the communist threat, Rosenthal began limiting Bonner's coverage and in early 1983 recalled him to the New York business desk. He soon resigned. Today the atrocity at El Mozote is an accepted historical truth, but Bonner's name has faded."

and again:

"Rosenthal hired and fostered platoons of editors and reporters who knew survival and advancement depended to an important measure on catering to his prejudices and not causing offense. Offending the Executive Editor, particularly for an overseas correspondent, could bring swift and disastrous retribution, as happened to Bonner, publicly disciplined and ultimately returned to overseas duties as a more or less broken soul. The Times that published James LeMoyne and Stephen Kinzer in the 1980s, week after week slanting the news from Central America towards the outlook of the US Embassy, was the Times of A.M. Rosenthal."

Here is Jack Shafer at Slate:

"Again and again, Rosenthal would say he was making crooked Times coverage "straight." But some reporters sensed that Rosenthal and company weren't promoting accuracy as much as they were imposing their political views on the paper's stories, writes Diamond. For most of his 17 years at the helm, Rosenthal battled what he considered the left-liberal tendencies of many of his reporters. He growls about his Washington bureau reporters quoting congressional liberals more often or more favorably than conservatives. Reading a 1979 piece about the 10th anniversary of Woodstock, he recoiled at its description of the event as a symbol of "national, cultural, and political awakening." He distrusted as partisan the reporting of Raymond Bonner and pulled him out of Central America. He gave an extraordinary mandate to freelancer Claire Sterling to connect the Soviets to organized terrorism, presumably because nobody inside the paper could—or would—pursue the angle. "It was said, on the record and off the record, by the staff and by outside critics that Abe Rosenthal was a homophobe. Supposedly, the newsroom explicitly understood this, and as a result, the Times initially 'ignored' the AIDS epidemic," Diamond writes."

Lamenting Rosenthal after his death were notably right wing luminaries: William Buckley, Rod Dreher, Joseph Farar, and of course the always fulsome Charlie Rose and Nicholas Kristof. Molly Ivins recognizing how Rosenthal interfered with reporters, left the Times as quickly as she could. The Times is fine for certain purposes; but be very careful with what you read there. They do not strive for accuracy but rather for copy "fit to print"

I apologize if this is a bit off topic but it does come around to it sort of. ;-)

I've recently been reading Simon Schama's A History of Britain and it's really got me thinking in terms of political history (comparing then and now). What's beginning to be reaffirmed in my mind is that politics is inherently a broken and problematic process and that usually in the end the masses of average citizens are left paying they heftiest price for the entire elaborate spectacle. A spectacle played out by those who think they know what's best - and which ironically very often only benefits themselves.

Then as now politics tends to be practiced (generally speaking) by and for the "propertied class", the aristocracy. Call it what you like it's a group of networked families and individuals who have power in wealth and inter-connections. How this group is defined is slightly different now then it was in times past but not remarkably so. Then as now it was possible for someone to "rise up" from the "outside" from amongst the commoners and forge for themselves a role in this upper strata. It was not common and was difficult but it could and did happen. And on the fringes of this power are those who envision themselves as part of this entitled class (or hope to be) - these educated and enlightened people - who deem themselves much more capable of guiding the ship of state for the benefit of "all". "All" of course is a relative term often used to add an air of regal legitimacy and importance to their actions and beliefs but most often simply means "for themselves". These fringes are now populated by legions of experts and pundits and hangers-on, all grasping for admittance to the "royal court" where they too can partake in the bounty that power rewards to the useful and loyal. The more I step back and look, the more similarities I see between then and now. Add to this the resurgence of religion into the boiling political cauldron and is it very hard to see even darker more ominous storm clouds on the horizon? Haven't we (western nations) been here and seen this before? Can't we guess where all of this is going to lead us? Let's make a short list -

1) Vast numbers of disaffected poor and unemployed, people barely getting by
2) Romanticized ideals of a Past held up as a goal to protect or return to
3) The belief that the "ruler" is in ways unaccountable to those beneath as he grasps more power from those charged with checking that power
4) Enormous debt in which the average citizen gets squeezed to support the self-destructive system of waste
5) pervasive scandal, cronyism, secrecy, treachery and deceit
6) Various degrees of religious fervor pulling and prodding to spread their beliefs and practices onto the whole
7) Expensive wars being waged while the country falls deeper into bankruptcy

I've just finished the chapters dealing with King James I (James VI) and then on into his son Charles I. And I just can't help but see some striking parallels between them/then and us/now. They certainly seem similar to me. Not exact players and situations obviously but still strikingly similar conditions.

Conservatism is by it's very definition is an attempt to either maintain the "traditional" or to return to it. This means resisting political and social change and very often the "tradition" is based either on idyllic fantasy or on past grim fact. The idyllic is sold to the people while the end result remains grim.

...conservatism is nothing but selfishness, greed, oppression, exploitation and bigotry masquerading as a political philosphy.

BTD makes this comment and attributes this view to liberals. I beg to differ here Brad. How can liberals alone be credited for this when it is not a difficult observation to make in current or historical terms. The very traditions that conservatives want to remain unchanged or to return to demonstrate just these sorts of characteristics when viewed from outside the palace.

There is a deeper level to all of this other than outright greed and arrogance (although that does not make it any less reprehensible to me). There has always been an honest belief that the endeavors by those within this sort of system are for the "common good". A belief that there ARE people that are better or ordained to rule and control and make it all happen. And that they are the ones to do it. That without them and their version of the "common good" society and the world as a whole would fall into chaos (morally, politically and economically). They believe their way is the proper way and is to be perused at all costs for all of our sakes. Everyone else just doesn't "get it". But no matter, they will not abandon the helm. They have the fortitude to endure.

And so now, just as then, they groom their children - their heirs - to whom they can pass the mantle of power on to and thus ensure that order is maintained. They school them in the "ways of leadership". In the philosophy of the elite. It seems some things never change (which makes conservatives very happy indeed). It's more than a little ironic that conservatives use the term "elite" to batter their opponents (liberals) with when they in fact are the very bastions of the word.

/ramble :-)

One other minor point: The research on authoritarianism as a personality type--whether by Adorno, Rokeach, or the more recent review from the Berkeley Department of Psychology--reveals a startling and well documented overlap in attitude and cognitive style between adherents of conservative ideology and protofascist and and other expressions of antihuman authoritarianism.

Bill Kristol isn't betraying the school's values by being a conservative. He's violating the values by being a blind asshole.

Daniel Greenbaum -- Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion were not so much about "taxes" as they were about backcountry/agrarian resentment of cosmopolitan-Atlantic ports.

For actual info on this, check out Robert A. Gross, ed., IN DEBT TO SHAYS.

If you don't want to get into a major historical analysis, then don't use historical examples and arguments!

Ben Cronin