The Right's problem is even more fundamental than you say. In fact, they owe almost their entire success over the last quarter century to anti-intellectualism. It's been demonstrated and commented on for years that their core platform of tax cuts, market fundamentalism and corporate welfare would not earn them electoral victories, so instead they promote "values" issues and a blockbuster action movie vision of foreign policy. Indeed, Frum's own "axis of evil" meme is profoundly simplistic and anti-intellectual. For twenty five years, it's been high-concept marketing masquerading as governance. How disingenuous of Frum to deride the "just folks" populism the Republican candidates have been forced to adopt to play to the base. He is among those that conditioned the base to such brain-dead messages.

Posted at December 19, 2007 9:08 AM in response to "Hole-in-the-Head" Conservatism

Friedman's problem is, and has always been, that he still thinks of our government (the current version, with Bush in charge) as fundamentally serious and patriotic. He supported the invasion on the premise that it would be "done right" and then complained when it wasn't. This despite the fact that a person in his position should have known better.
Now, he complains that the NIE has forced us to overplay our hand and show our cards prematurely. This ignores the fact that Bush/Cheney crazies have shown a clear inclination to attack Iran. Since they've done it before, one would have to take this threat seriously and do everything possible to avert a disaster. Thus, the intelligence community did something unprecedented and, in a different context, probably unwise. But context is everything. As much as this might put the US in a hole diplomatically, at least there is little chance we will get into a third war.

Posted at December 12, 2007 12:11 PM in response to Thomas Friedman's Flawed Analogy on Iran

Back in "Lies, And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them", Al Franken had a great deconstruction of Hannity and Colmes where he consistently put Colmes name in a tiny font. Never, in my 31 years as a registered Democrat, would I have believed that the whole Democratic party would earn a tiny font in American history. Not even when they let Bush invade Iraq. But now, as they squander a majority, they are as tiny as they can get.

Posted at September 21, 2007 11:08 AM in response to Theme Song of the Senate Democrats: "Let's All Get Fooled Again"

Imperial presidency from the Democrats? How could one say that? The last Democratic president who could remotely be considered imperial was Johnson, nearly 40 years ago. His power derived from his mastery of Congress and the fact that the time had come in America for his agenda (specifically civil rights). Vietnam eroded his power to the point that he didn't even run. Would that were true for Bush.

As for militarism, that's really a joke. Mr. Bacevich makes a reasonable argument that Clinton's use of force was ineffective (though he leaves out the more successful Balkan deployment), but not that he overused it. Who would have argued with the Afghan strikes if they had neutralized Al Queda? They were a response to attacks on the US. In addition, Clinton continually balanced force with diplomacy and generally weighted diplomacy higher. There is simply no comparison between Bush and Clinton on militarism.

Posted at September 12, 2006 2:36 PM in response to Not So Radical

Gee, this discussion is academic in the extreme.  Isn't anyone interested in discussing what Fish is trying to say about the Constitution?

I don't know that much about Fish other than that he's one of the stars of Postmodernism in academia and an occasional contributor to the Times Op-Ed.  His analysis of Kerry's verbal style from before the election was right on the mark.  However, my bone to pick with this article is his intolerance for ambiguity, intentional or otherwise.  By his reading, the great literature of the world can be read only according to the authors' original intent.  Clearly, works that last in the culture take on meaning far beyond what what was intented at the time of writing.  Fish himself would be out of work if limits were placed on the interpretation of literature.

In the case of the Constitution, the question of intent becomes murkier still.  First, the document represents many compromises among a disparate group of founding fathers.  So who's intent are we seeking to gauge when interpreting the Constitution?  Must we learn who wrote each individual sentence?

Second, I believe much in the Constitution is intentionally left open to interpretation.  The drafters did not set out to produce a clear, unambiguous document.  Their goal was to build a nation out of conflicting opinions and interests and to create a document that could hold it together.  So far, it has survived the shifting beliefs and concerns of the population.  This could not have been achieved through rigidity.

Third, it seems to me that original intent is a sort of fetish.  Why would we constrain our evolving society to the idiosyncracies of individuals born nearly 300 years ago?  Don't get me wrong, they did a great job, but they did so by bequeathing us a framework with enough structural strength to withstand constant interpretation.

Posted at July 20, 2005 1:51 PM in response to Fish on Intentionality

Sad to say, but thepiper's scenario seems like an exceedingly plausible one.  Bush can't lose as long as he plays to his base, and in the medium-case, he could end up with enough votes to overturn Roe.

The real questions are:
A) Will the rest of the GOP go to the mattresses for a lame-duck president with a wide-open field in 2008?
B) Will Bush be content to lose momentum on agenda items like gutting Social Security?

Posted at July 8, 2005 2:27 PM in response to Hard Right