I thought this was sort of a fun coincidence. Over at the "RNC accredited" Power Line blog, one of the main posters, Deacon, is off for the day, observing the Jewish holiday. So he kindly decided to leave us with this posting called
"The Horror". This was originally posted on May 26th, 2004 on the subject of a mildly hyperbolic speech by Al Gore on the Abu Ghraib crisis. But Deacon thought he should bring it back today because "
the essence applies to an all-too-large chunk of [Gore's] party" these days.
To whit:
One of the great differences between liberals and conservatives is how the two camps go about explaining misconduct. Conservatives prefer straightforward, old-fashioned explanations that focus on a flaw in those who commit the misconduct -- greed, lust, cruelty, or (in extreme cases) evil itself. For liberals, such explanations are unsatisfyingly superficial. Misconduct must have a root cause, but liberals consider basic human instincts such as greed, lust, and cruelty to be insufficiently rooted. Thus, an intellectual posse must be recruited to track down the real culprit. And the search always seems to lead to the liberals' version of the heart of darkness -- "Amerika," in other words the policies adopted by America's elected leaders. By rejecting the obvious explanation and shifting the blame to American policy, the liberal accompishes that which is most important to him -- he proves his intellectual and moral superiority.
Gosh darn those arrogant liberals wallowing in the psychological mud -- maybe
Krauthammer really does have it right. What a funny coincidence then, that on the same day Deacon was recycling his brilliant old post, the inmutable Victor Davis Hanson published
this fascinating article in the National Review about--among many,
many other things--how "Rathergate" has become the culmination of "The Fall" of "a bankrupt generation" -- presumably the 60s counterculture but also, apparently, the UN, university campuses in general, the Nobel Peace Prize committee and all the major news networks. A few choice grafs:
Commentators have envisioned Rather's fall as symbolic of a "paradigm shift" and the "end of the era" -- an event that has crystallized the much larger and ongoing demise of the old establishment media. Allegories from the French Revolution and the emperor without any clothes to the curtain scene in The Wizard of Oz have been evoked to illustrate Rather's dilemma and the hypocrisy of all that went before. We have come a long way since the 1960s: The once-revolutionary pigs taking over the manor are now bloated and strutting on two legs as they feast on silver inside the farmhouse.
...
Ever so incrementally along this inevitable road to Rathergate, John Kerry's searing Cambodia-patrol story, and Kitty Kelley's Reagan and Bush pseudographies, many Americans began to worry about the ends-justifying-the-means culture of the sanctimonious Left. The counterculture was defended on the dubious premise that the activists needed to fight fire with fire as they exposed everything from Nixon's lies to the embarrassing Pentagon Papers.
But in the process there also began a professional devolution, as questionable legal and ethical methods were excused in the name of the greater good. We got the Ellsberg pilfered documents, the blank check of "unnamed sources," trips to Hanoi and Paris to meet the enemy, Peter Arnett broadcasting gloom and doom live from Baghdad -- all culminating in the two-bit forgeries used for the "higher" cause of unseating George Bush. Daniel Ellsberg, Jane Fonda, and CBS may have done things that were legally wrong (like the latter's promulgating fraudulent government documents to defame a government official), but in postmodern logic they were morally "right" given their superior knowledge, character, and progressive intentions.
...
In the meantime, as this unclean tale slowly reaches it end -- and it will -- CBS soon may have to decide between having Dan Rather and having an audience. Dan Rather, in his abject non-professionalism and in his overweening arrogance, has become the symbol of all that has gone so terribly wrong with our once-romantic but now confused, compromised, and aging generation of change. Such are the wages for those who destroy timeless rules and proven protocols for short-term expediency and thus find no sanctuary in their own hour of need.
I'm not sure what my favourite part of the article is: Hanson decrying "liberal elites" while comparing "Rathergate" to choice scenes from the French Revolution; his seemless cultural-history progression from the Ellsberg Pentagon Papers to the scandal of network reporters not sounding the jingoistic line in Baghdad (skipping thirty years of recent history in the process); his ability to tie Jimmy Carter's Peace Prize, the "deterioration" of the UN under Annan (as if Boutros-Gali was some sort of saint in comparison) and soaring tuition at colleges into the alleged coming Fall of Elite Liberalism as manifested at CBS (6 weeks before the Dems likely pick up two seats in the Senate and retake the White House); or his apparent belief--shared by an alarming number of right-wing bloggers--that the relative non-issue of Dan Rather not adequately checking his facts before running with an anti-Bush story for which he's been thoroughly fisked is somehow comparable to Watergate or to the cultural battle over the Vietnam War in which 58 million US soldiers were killed. Somehow, I just don't think Al Gore could even begin to compete with this. More to the point, I don't think he'd ever try.
In fact, in light of Hanson's latest, I'm going to offer this amendment to Deacon's analysis:
One of the great differences between liberals and conservatives is how the two camps go about explaining misconduct. In general, liberals prefer straightforward, old-fashioned explanations that focus on a flaw in the policies and individuals those whose decisions lead to the misconduct -- greed, myopia, unregulated self-interest, disregard for the public good, or (in extreme cases) evil itself. For conservatives, such explanations are insufficiently convoluted. Liberal philosophy, and in some cases, outrage over specific atrocities, must have a root cause. But conservatives consider basic human instincts such as community, social responsibility and the public interest to be insufficiently credible, let alone in their own interests. Thus, an intellectual posse must be recruited to track down the real driving force behind the liberal outrage over stuff like Abu Ghraib or massive budget-busting supply-side tax cuts -- which always turns out to be some vague, quack-psych-soc notion of elite dysfuntion. And the search always seems to lead to the conservatives' version of the heart of darkness -- taxation! or other such welfare-state or market-regulating policy ideas. By rejecting the obvious explanation and shifting the blame to some fevered notion of liberal mania based on a selective and often downright bogus reading of history and comtemporary culture, the conservative accompishes that which is most important to him -- he hides his actual anti-community goals behind a lot of rube-fooling gibberish about liberal elitism, thus advancing the goal of a totally unregulated, wealth-concentrated, small-government and basically illiberal society.
I can't wait until Kerry wins and Hanson's head explodes.