Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Red State, Blue State, Hey-Screw-You State
In the wake of Josh Marshall's post about blue values versus red values comes another worthwhile post from Paul Waldman of the Gadflyer, who's tired of hearing how contemptuous we blue-staters are toward the good, honest souls of the red states.
As Waldman observes, "conservatives need something to bitch about." A friend of mine called up last night and said he was surprised that conservatives still seem so angry. "Don't they know they won?" Yes, they certainly do, but so much of what they stand for is intimately bound up with anger--anger at terrorists, welfare cheats, immigrants, secularists, and so on--that without it, the whole enterprise would collapse for want of an organizing principle.
For Sale, One Crystal Ball, Slightly Defective: The new attorney general is going to be White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, not deputy AG Larry Thompson, as I predicted this morning. Even though I'd heard Gonzales' name mentioned, I figured he was a better bet for the Supreme Court at one of the upcoming vacancies. (He still could be, of course--and Ashcroft could be, too, saints preserve us.) Democrats should get ready to grill him about the memos he put his name to suggesting that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply in the War on Terror, and that torture is probably OK. Ladies and gentlemen, the New Chief Guardian of Your Civil Rights.
In the wake of Josh Marshall's post about blue values versus red values comes another worthwhile post from Paul Waldman of the Gadflyer, who's tired of hearing how contemptuous we blue-staters are toward the good, honest souls of the red states.
The only expressions of contempt I ever hear are directed from red-staters at places where there are lots of Democrats. From "Massachusetts liberals" to "liberal Northeastern elitists," the only regional prejudice allowable is that directed at the coasts. When the DNC chose Boston as the site for its convention, Dick Armey said, "If I were a Democrat, I suspect I'd feel a heck of a lot more comfortable in Boston than, say, America." Can anyone imagine a Democrat saying such a thing about Kansas? His career would be over.Marshall made a related point in his post--the language the two sides use to talk about one another is quite different. When blue-staters put down red-staters, it tends to be by portraying them as bumpkins; when red-staters put down blue-staters, they tend to portray us as devil worshippers who kill babies and would invite Osama over for a glass of chardonnay. Yet it's the red-staters who are hacked off at the way they're talked about. Welcome to life in the Bizarro World.
As Waldman observes, "conservatives need something to bitch about." A friend of mine called up last night and said he was surprised that conservatives still seem so angry. "Don't they know they won?" Yes, they certainly do, but so much of what they stand for is intimately bound up with anger--anger at terrorists, welfare cheats, immigrants, secularists, and so on--that without it, the whole enterprise would collapse for want of an organizing principle.
For Sale, One Crystal Ball, Slightly Defective: The new attorney general is going to be White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, not deputy AG Larry Thompson, as I predicted this morning. Even though I'd heard Gonzales' name mentioned, I figured he was a better bet for the Supreme Court at one of the upcoming vacancies. (He still could be, of course--and Ashcroft could be, too, saints preserve us.) Democrats should get ready to grill him about the memos he put his name to suggesting that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply in the War on Terror, and that torture is probably OK. Ladies and gentlemen, the New Chief Guardian of Your Civil Rights.
