New Republic, we need to talk. As you know, I'm a big fan of some of your work. And over the past few years I have taken it upon myself to defend you from your various detractors. And how do you repay me? By embarrassing both of us with an issue containing not
one but
two (subscription req'd for this one) completely idiotic pieces on the Schaivo affair. I'll start ranting about them on the flip.
The first bit of idiocy comes courtesy of the editors. The common stereotype of TNR is that it is pretentious, but also vacuous. This is where that stereotype comes from. Essentially, the article is the worst kind of the New Dem/Convulsive neo-liberal nonsense that results from its purveyors' desparate need to lecture both sides of an issue in an attempt to show how highminded they are. Attack only one side? My, that's partisanship. Our fellow Harvard/Yale alums won't think us clever if we don't demonstrate our ability to be even handed.
The editorial starts off promisingly enough, rightly calling out Bush for his awful role in this tawdry affair:
When George W. Bush made his dramatic and demagogic flight back to Washington in the middle of the night to sign that wretched bill--he must be a man of principle, he interrupted his vacation--he besmirched his oath of office, insofar as he swore to preserve and protect the Constitution, which is to say, to serve in a republic of laws.
So far so good. But then things turn ugly, quickly. After chastising the Right for only caring about outcomes, and not process, the editors turn their venom on the Left:
And, alongside the antinomianism of the American right, there was the legalism of the American left, which once again repaired to judges for enlightenment about the quandaries of life.
To quote someone I read today on DKos (but can't recall who it was) "Pardon me, but what the FUCK are you talking about?" We didn't "repair" (nice word choice guys!) to the courts. The Schindlers and Congress forced this thing into the courts. And oh by the way, how else, exactly, should we solve family disputes? Perhaps we should have a nationwide plebiscite in every case? I think that would be a tad inefficient. I know, instead of having a judge decide, why don't we just have the interested parties fight it out in some sort of televised boxing event. I'm sure FOX would be happy to cover it. Apparently, attacking our 1000 year old system of justice without any good reason is the sort of thing that passes for enlightenment these days at TNR.
Oh, and what would a convulsive neo-liberal editorial be without the mindless regurgitation of right-wing talking points:
The liberals who were so passionate that Terri Schiavo should be allowed to die also possessed no certain knowledge of her wishes; but they carried on as if the answer to this terrible question was plain. So it is worth insisting that law is not the same as morality, even if it includes moral considerations. A judge is not a priest. A judge is not a philosopher.
Great, the old, why do want Terri to die? bullshit. OK dumbasses, for the last time. There's nothing wrong with insisting, even passionately, that the rule of law be followed. It's the most important distinction between this country and third-world dictatorships. Both sides fight hard, but in the end, we recognize that we should all abide by the outcomes of the democratic and legal processes. I'm sorry that I got pretty pissed off when Pat Buchanan et al called on the Bushes to defy the courts and send armed thugs into the hospice. But I guess I'm just less tolerant of treason than TNR.
The editorial mercifully concludes soon thereafter, but not before making yet another idiotic comment:
When liberals chose to oppose the feeding tube, they were acting as autonomous moral agents, on the basis of reasons. When conservatives chose to support the feeding tube, they were acting as autonomous moral agents, on the basis of reasons.
What the fuck does that mean? This sort of incomprehensible nonsense could only have been written by Marty Peretz, who couldn't get published in the Palookavile Daily Shopper if he didn't own his own publication. To the extent he's saying that everyone acted in good faith (Let the Healing Begin!), he's being an idiot. The right constructed their own fake reality in this controversy, and steadfastly refused to listen to anything contradicting their worldview. They are deserving of scorn, not praise. As are the editors (where was Sullivan? he was so good on this issue in his blog).
So after reading that, I was hoping to cleanse myself by reading Noam Scheiber's column on the Schaivo circus. I should say at the outset that I generally like Noam's work and enjoy his blog, but his piece was at least as dumb as his colleagues'.
He starts out by imagining a split among Democrats on the Schaivo issue between those that favored privacy and those who favored federal intervention. Tellingly, Scheiber can't cite one leading thinker on the left that was pro-tube (though I suppose he could have cited Nader's half-assed ruminations on the subject). Instead he points to the whopping 47 cowards, I mean Democrats, who voted for the Schaivo bill. Now I'm sure some of them did so on principle, but I'd wager most voted for it out of fear.
Scheiber then makes a vary dubious comparison between this issue and abortion in a pathetic attempt to show that the issue could hurt the party in the long run. Note to Noam: there's a difference between an issue where 55% of the people agree with you and one where over 80% agree with you. And why should we assume that abortion hurts democrats at the polls? Noam's evidence, exit polls from the 1988 presidential election showing that social conservatives didn't like Dukakis. Wow, there's a shocker.
Putting that aside, Scheiber then concludes his column with a disgusting insinuation that we have to violate the Constitution to show that we have "values":
It was dawning on the party that there was an affirmative statement of values to be made, not simply a libertarian attack on government intervention. (snip) So it was reassuring to learn this week that congressional Democrats like Tom Harkin and Barney Frank are closing ranks behind legislation that would allow federal courts to review cases in which end-of-life choices are murky and the family is divided. Considered alongside Hillary Clinton's efforts to reframe the pro-choice position as a communitarian belief that every child should be born into a loving, caring family, it looks as though we're seeing the beginning of a new Democratic Party. It's a party that appeals to core values, not one that allows itself to be caricatured by their absence. Let's hope that party is here to stay.
So apparently, a belief in freedom somehow demonstrates that you're immoral. I'm sorry Noam, I didn't realize you were a Nazi. For the rest of us, including almost all Americans, we believe that it is right and moral that society (and especially Congress) not meddle in every private decision we make. But what's really awful about this is that I don't think Scheiber really believes this garbage. But he does seem to think that we should do anything to get elected. The bill contemplated by Frank and Harkin is clearly uncontsitutional (see Judge Birch's concurrence linked on the main page). But fuck the constitution, we've got to carry West Virginia!
Until now I could always defend the New Republic as a generally intelligent, if infuriating, magazine. Now that magazine has been replaced by one that reflects the worst of neo-liberal thinking. Let's hope that magazine is not here to stay.