WFB's passing glory

How-some-ever, the "all taxes are evil" chatter from the national (and local) 'conservatives' is getting tiresome, as is the constant subtle or not-so-subtle glorification of The Rich.

But 'no blogs?' I don't know that that's the answer. One cannot shape thought without putting it out there, and blogs serve as a vehicle.

One CAN break down great ideas into relatively small snippets and eventually influence thought.

Nice post Rod. There are too many media for our public discourse to be dominated by a few people anymore. When the printed media was supreme it was easier to be a big fish in a small pond. There are still good books and good writers out there but they face much more competition.

I think the more important idea you bring out is the prevalence of anger in our political discourse. Anger sells and its more PC than sex for both the left and right. Like most of us I only have so much time to read. I alternate reading books with a "left" slant and those with a "right" slant. I avoid those which are obviously a smear job against the other side. Its hard to do sometimes. If you go through your political or current events section at your local bookstore it seems a large percentage are just angry books intended to reinforce existing prejudices. Jonah's book with the word Liberalism and a "Hitler" picture on its cover seems representative of this category to me. Can you really see a Buclkey or Friedman doing something like that? Heck, give ma a computer and an hour and I can probably prove that Hitler and Mother Theresa are somehow connected (they both liked the same food or the same music or something equally inane).

An honest exchange and critique of ideas is necessary for our political system to function. What we have now is people who have full time jobs just making their side angry towards the other side. They often make really good money at this or achieve lots of influence. Integrity goes out the window in this scenario. Both sides ignore the big mistakes they have made in the past and concentrate on demonizing the other side. It becomes the other guy's fault all the time. There is no personal responsibility if you can blame everything on corporations, Supreme Court justices, big government etc. The think tanks are so good at parsing every word of everyone with whom they disagree and creating anger they we expect it now. You can just go to your fav blog or TV/radio show to get your anger fix.

The odd thing to me is that this isnt how most of us outside of the beltway really live. I work with people who have varied political and religious beliefs. None of them are demonic. We disagree on many things and discussions can get heated but ultimately we respect each other and things function. I believe this is how most of us really live. We need to learn how to resist the marketing skills of the hate purveyors.

Steve

I remember that when I was living in Philadelphia, about 20 years ago, I was watching the public television station late one night, and for no reason that I could discern at the time, they showed Nixon's "Checkers" speech in its entirety. (Maybe this was in 1987, which would have been the speech's 35th anniversary. I don't remember.)

I was stunned while watching this. Here was Nixon, talking on camera, by himself, with minimal props (including his wife, Pat), speaking in lengthy, complex sentences, with subordinate clauses, and laying out a fairly complicated case about his finances. For about 20 minutes. And it was obviously intended for ordinary, average TV viewers! It was amazing. I couldn't remember any political figure in my lifetime speaking to the general public in what seemed to me such a sophisticated, protracted way.

I'm not trying to defend Nixon, and I certainly recognize that the "Checkers" speech was a piece of political theatre. And yes, there was plenty of emotional manipulation, including the lines about the dog Checkers and about Pat's "good, Republican cloth coat". But I think it's worth noting that in 1952, he and his handlers felt that he could successfully appeal to voters by going on camera and just talking, in complex sentences, about a complicated subject, for 20 minutes.

What did Gore Vidal write that was good? He was before my time, but all I know about him is his bad faith claims that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor and allowed it to happen and Bush did the same with 9/11. Did he just go crazy late in life?

Well, to be honest, WFB's fame even in the 'good old days' was with a specific crowd. I knew him, a lot of my friends wouldn't have a clue who he was. We're talking about, after all, a show that was on Sunday mornings, during the ratings 'dead zone'.

I don't know if there ever was a mass appeal to WFB's style and show, more's the pity, but though it may be less now, it isn't all that much less.

Could you imagine arguments like the federalist papers published in newspapers today?

The comments of Pejman Yousefzadeh (one of whose commenters also recalls fondly the urbanity of the late David Brudnoy of WBZ-AM Boston):

http://www.redstate.com/stories/miscellanea/william_f_buckley_jr_a_remembrance

"Bill Buckley's Firing Line, a show of grace and passionate conversation, ceased a long time ago--a sign, perhaps, of the deteriorating tone and tenor of our national conversation. With Buckley's own passing, that deterioration, alas, continues apace. No one is in a position to revive Buckley's intelligent and civilized approach to discussing the issues of the day. Indeed, most pundits of power and influence appear resolved to being the anti-Buckleys; ill-mannered brutes whose lack of courtesy is matched by a lack of intellect.

"We will miss William F. Buckley, Jr. for all that he was. We will also miss him for all that he was not. We will miss this man who made the times and we will miss the times he made. One need not be especially nostalgic to remember that there was a period, not too long ago in American life, when conversations were pleasant and enlightening affairs. And one must be blind not to see that this period has passed and its exact antithesis has replaced it."

What did Gore Vidal write that was good?

Read Julian. I'm Christian (Catholic), but also a classicist, and I have always found it stimulating and provocative. (A former colleague of mine claimed that this book was instrumental in his ceasing to be a Christian.) It's fascinating to find the story of the Emperor Julian told by someone who sympathizes with him, rather than with the Church. It's tendentious, yes, but Vidal clearly did his homework, and writes engagingly.

Thanks Mr. White, that looks interesting.

"'We' are not producing tremendous storehouses of wit, because 'we' are not producing intellectual aristocrats as we once did -- a generations-long project that actually cannot be preplanned and gamed out and effectively managed by any kind of hive mind or professional organization."

I can remember distinctly my years in undergraduate. The newspaper was managed by political hacks, and they had their token conservative who nothing but a self-serving ass that gave the rest of us a bad name. What they posted was hardly even-handed, and certainly never came up with anything original (other than sanctimony). The response of the activists, both on and off the paper, who wrote in was to defame a person as a facist or nazi, repeating the word as many times as humanly possible in a letter or article. All of this--all of it I am convinced--was egged on by some of the profs in the LAS department.

As much as I am in a political minority in law school, I greatly appreciate the fact that people, despite being less active in politics, are much more civil. Sad that the best one can hope for is to be left alone to think in solitude.

I dunno, Don, I'm a liberal and I'd have loved to have seen Bill Buckley steamroll over a sniveling hack like Carville (or, for that matter, his wife)on TV.

Allen and Franklin,

Now that I just watched a clip of Buckley and Gore Vidal, I'm inclined to agree with you. I don't watch any of the "both sides" shows, mainly because it is anything but engaging or thoughtful, just about who can scream the loudest.

"... my blog, this blog, is a real pleasure to write, but that it has been impossible for me to get my second book off the ground.... The blogging medium is training my mind to focus on the quick hit, the immediate. And it's making my output as a writer as ephemeral as it is prodigious."

Sounds like Mr. Dreher needs himself a media fast.

As much as I dig this blog, I say if you need to get that book up and running, then go ahead and take some time off. Maybe a whole big chunk o' time. Or maybe don't post every day. Whatever. We can get along just fine without you for a time.

I admire Thomas Sowell.

Amen, Alicia. I just hope our world keeps producing them.