Today In “Sucking Up to the Nitwits Who Destroyed The Gulf Coast” Wingnuttery
Although it would be nice to think that Col. Mustard was a crank outlier, Roy has been doing a good job of rounding up people who believe that the Constitution should be correctly understood as enacting Sarah Palin’s Facebook posts. (The Trainwreck Media hack who goes on and on about how Obama is a tyrannical threat to the rule of law and the Constitution before conceding that “BP may have been under no legal constraint to follow Obama’s dictate” is definitely my favorite.)
This is all silly enough. But then he found this example of ante-upping from reasonable, moderate, thinking man’s conservative Reihan Salam:
Shakedowns [like this perfectly reasonable argeement to ensure that BP will actually compensate the victims of its disastrous ineptitude rather than just giving its money to executives and shareholders] have a long and undistinguished history.
[...]
During the westward expansion of the United States, the federal government “negotiated” with sovereign Indian nations in a similar spirit. European powers engaged in a truly extraordinary shakedown of China during the 19th century, forcing a then-vulnerable empire to accept the spread of opium and surrender treaty ports like Hong Kong. Resentment of the West lingers still.
[...]
It should go without saying that demanding money from BP is not quite like a playground full of schoolyard bullies kicking a kid when he’s down. For one thing, BP isn’t terribly sympathetic. But that’s precisely the point—the Muslims who were burned alive in Gujarat in 2002 weren’t sympathetic to those who victimized them either.
I remember being assured by many otherwise sharp people that Salam was a thinker who had to be Taken Seriously. Then I read his extensive analysis of the wrongthink in a mediocre Chevy Chase comedy, so that was the end of that. (If I recall correctly, I was subsequently assured that this was in fact an 11-dimensional satire of…something, which will perhaps be the defense mounted this more recent and much more indefensible exercise.) I have, however, long thought that Douthat was the most overrated of the young reactionary thinkers praised by many liberals for no obvious reason, but I may have to reconsider that.
Salam is a strange dude. I know him mostly through his bloggingheads appearances, in which he is intelligent, entertaining, and intermittently baffling. I think the key to Salam is that, and it saddens me to say it, but he’s one of those guys who’s intelligent insofar as his thought tracks liberal thought, which it does more than occasionally. When he expresses his inner conservative, his conclusions get totally iffy. I find myself wondering what the Salamian conservatism would really look like. Ultimately, I’ll take him over Douthat by a long shot, but you may be right about your conclusion, because Salam is probably better regarded by liberals.
that Salam was a thinker who had to be Taken Seriously.
There is no such animal among modern conservatives, who are all as reflexively anti-intellectual, fact free, and irrational as the dumbest teabagger in America.
Apparently, Salam has “updated” his thoughts on this matter. If the escrow account was actually all BP’s noble idea, and the Obama administration is merely trying to grab credit for it, then of course it is understandable politicking rather than comparable to the mass murder of Native Americans. Apparently, there’s no room for anything between “BP: Nicest Company Ever” and “Obama: Socialist Constitution-shredding Gangster.” On the bright side, anyone who continues to suggest that Salam is even remotely worthwhile, as opposed to just another pseudointellectual shitstain on the underwear of the body politic, can be removed from your secular winter holiday card list. Because I for one don’t care if he’s personable, feeds stray kittens, and occasionally makes an argument that isn’t vile dishonest hackery of the first water. The “Muslims who where burned to death in Gujarat” comparison alone should disqualify him.
Every time I hear Salam’s name, I have to revisit this Washington Post chat he hosted, just to count how much stupidity he managed to fit into one hour, including an assertion that Mark Levin is sincere and has no desire to mislead the public.
Here was one of my interactions with Salam (commenting on his statement that ‘The Daily Show’ is an ‘ideological news outlet’), in which he flaunts how much of serious thinker he is:
Come on you guys. This issue is hard for the rightwing to demagogue. Take it easy on them.
Everyone knows that governments shouldn’t have the power to make polluters pay for destroying the environment. That’s just undamnConstitutional. Obama probably sent out his thug bodyguard Rahm Emmanuel to bitch slap BP around. Everyone knows his pimp hand is strong.
And after BP promised to cough up the cheddar, Obama called his homeboys back in Chicago to tell them they gettin’ paid. Kenyan usurper Obama then dialed up Dave Chapelle on the phone and yelled “I’m rich, bitch!” Black people from coast to coast are gonna get the slush fund money to go out there and register more Mickey Mouses and Ronald McDonalds to vote for Barack Hussein Obama.
Every cat on the street knows this, why don’t you?
Wait wait wait? Now Imperialism is a bad thing?
Hi guys:
Thanks for reading the column.
Martin: I guess much depends on what you consider liberal thought. I tend to think that a lot of conservatives, myself included, are part of a liberal tradition. I don’t think of myself as terribly ideological — Daniel Larison did a better job than I could have of explaining my motivations:
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2010/06/21/staying-off-the-bandwagon/
I have to say, I think I was pretty explicit about the fact that BP isn’t the nicest company ever and that the company clearly merits scrutiny and, after a proper investigation, some kind of serious punishment.
My guess is that most of you don’t read my blog, which is fair enough. I’m a strong believer in providing regulatory agencies with the funding and the authority they need to do their jobs well, particularly the IRS. But I also think governments should invest careful consideration in what they can effectively regulate — choosing your battles carefully, walls, not brakes, etc.
I actually do think governments should have the power to punish wrongdoers. But I think it’s important that this power not be abused.
And I’m not sure how many of you read the column to its conclusion — I also think it’s important that governments not attack weak claimants, like single parents and children who rely on TANF. Again, it helps to have some context.
I can’t imagine I’ll change any minds here. When someone calls me a “shitstain,” I figure they’re not really amenable to arguments from me. But I figured I’d do my best.
And I guess I didn’t like *Fletch* very much. I do love *Real Genius,* which is an excellent movie with a Reagan-era-skewering plot.
I encourage everyone to go read that Washington Post chat. I think I handled it pretty well.
Hi Reihan: I do appreciate you responding here, despite the snark.
I actually do think governments should have the power to punish wrongdoers. But I think it’s important that this power not be abused.
I will be making this argument in more detail at the Prospect, but I find the argument that this represents an abuse of normal processes very odd. Reaching agreements before a trail plays out pretty much defines the modern American legal process — and BP has many more resources and much more leverage than the typical plea bargainer. If BP thought they would get a better deal by rejecting a deal, they are in a much better position to do so than most.
And I guess I didn’t like *Fletch* very much.
We agree on one thing: Animal House is much funner than Fletch. Where we disagree is whether this has anything to do with Animal House being “conservative” and Fletch being “liberal.”
Perhaps it wasn’t clear that the article was meant to be a silly provocation. The original draft had a lengthy section on *Real Genius,* my favorite film, which I characterized as a brilliant liberal yarn. And I still think there’s truth to that. But of course not everyone shares the same sense of humor.
And as for whether or not it represented an abuse of normal processes depends on some crucial facts that are very difficult to establish — my article was premised on an understanding of the situation that may well be incorrect. It reflected the administration’s pronouncements regarding the fund.
I don’t find this kind of snark very edifying. But it evidently reflects something very important to you, and I can’t begrudge you that.
It reflected the administration’s pronouncements regarding the fund.
Well, here’s the nub of the argument. My argument about plea bargains isn’t snark — it’s serious. The state using threats of prosecution as leverage to make deals couldn’t be a more banal feature of the American legal system. Why it’s supposed to be uniquely troubling when the party reaching a deal is not only responsible for an immense amount of damage but is unusually powerful s genuinely puzzling. So even accepting that your initial characterization of the facts was accurate, I don’t believe that your argument (even if one removes the offensive analogies) holds.
That is an entirely fair point — i.e., that my argument, properly understood, doesn’t hold.
Perhaps it wasn’t clear that the article was meant to be a silly provocation.
Perhaps you should stay away from attempting “silly provocation,” since you obviously don’t do it well. And none of your comments here really address why people are so pissed off at you – your comparison of the President of the United States and wealthy multi-national corporation BP negotiating a settlement fund with genocide by the strong against the weak. It’s clear that you don’t get it, which means you simply a doctrinaire conservative, masquerading as a “serious thinker.”
Reihan, all your forays onto the Daily Beast represent this sort of “playful intellectuallism”, like your posts on Beck and nominating Cheney for president. About half your commenters are rightwingers that don’t get the “joke” and are all right on! baby , and the other half are liberal sapients that find your “jokes” disgustingly tasteless.
There are no comments to keep you honest at The Agenda/NRO. We all know why NRO can’t have comments.
The contempt you and your fellow soi-disant young “intellectual” conservatives is simply breathtaking.
Perhaps, just perhaps, you might want to educate your base instead of making a joke on them.
The contempt you and your fellow soi-disant young “intellectual” conservatives hold for your base is simply breathtaking.
Reihan, I fail to see how any of the above makes comparing BP to the Muslims burned alive in Gujarat any less stupid and morally repugnant.
I actually think it’s a useful exercise to interrogate our own motivations. Of course no one thinks of themselves as remotely comparable to “the kind of person” who would commit that kind of violence. I think it’s useful to confront the fact that there are habits of mind that lend themselves to dehumanizing others.
The victimizers in question weren’t profoundly different from middle class North Americans. Rather, they were trained to think in certain ways that were activated in a particular context. I recommend reading John D. Mueller’s writing on the Rwandan genocide.
To tell you the truth, I find the discursive style of people who use dehumanizing language to refer to others in political discourse as a pretty serious warning sign. Motive and opportunity: in a society like ours, there are, thankfully, few opportunities to commit the kind of violence we saw in Gujarat. And there are — also thankfully — more opportunities for venting anger, like blog comment threads.
So do I regret confronting people with where the taste for vengeance leads? No, not really. When a dude calls me a shitstain on the Internet, I figure it is marginally less likely that there will be a road-rage incident somewhere in America.
And for what it’s worth, I care quite a lot about what happened in Gujarat, and in the Maluku Islands and other places where we’ve seen this kind of anger boil over. I was raised on stories about the Bihari minority in Bangladesh, which was targeted for its supposed “collaboration” with the Pakistani government during the War of Liberation. Here was a classic example of an oppressed minority turning on, and doing great harm, to another oppressed minority.
I accept that you think I’m an imbecile. I sincerely wish you well.
Multinational corporation =/= persecuted religious minority
No matter how mad people get at BP, BP has the social, political and financial capital to protect itself against the slings and arrows of hippies with placards. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad be damned, corporations aren’t individuals and they certainly aren’t vulnerable to the same social violence as individuals. In the very same country where the Gujarat Muslims were killed, Union Carbide killed thousands of people and poisoned an entire population. Twenty six years later, a handful of executives were sentenced to two years in jail. Babi Yar it ain’t.
I sincerely wish you well.
Oh, please.
You are not an imbecile, Reihan, far from it.
But there are only two kinds of conservatives anymore.
Honest and dishonest.
Which are you?
liberals think conservatives’ default state is stupidity unless they agree with liberals. conservatives think that liberals’ default state is depravity, unless they behave like conservatives.
It’s because he compared a mutual agreement between a corporation responsible for a disaster and the government on par with GENOCIDE.
It’s a stupid fucking thing to say, and he deserves to be called out on it.
Worse yet, the whining about ‘Rule of Law” is transparent bullshit. If you break my window, and I threaten to call the cops unless you pay for it’s replacement, that’s perfectly legal. If I threaten retaliation by violence and vandalism unless he pays, then I’ve outstepped the “Rule of Law”.
The “threat” posed to BP could be in terms of stricter regulations or enforcement of existing regulations, loss of government contracts, or legal proceedings against the corporation. All of these are perfectly legal, and while they may harm BP’s bottom line, are not existential threats comparable to GENOCIDE. Bills of Attainder would be illegal, but that’s not even on the table, and there’s a pro-corporate Supreme Court in the way.
Conservative default state IS stupidity.
You said it yourself.
Lawl, five decades of memetic selection for voters too dumb to vote their own economic interests, not to mention, pre-trib fundies, cristofascists, racists, creationists, ensoulment at fertilization believers, and other 40 percenters….what did you expect?
I LEARNED from Lucca Luigi….you obviously didnt.
;)
Douthat is so much worse. Sort of a Brooks/Will bybrid in training. Pontificate for a bit, then make some shit up, punch a strawman, then leap to a thoroughly unsupported conclusion.
Douthat hates women.
At least Reihan likes women.
i think.
Douthat is a misogynistic creeper. Did you see his post on how Palin/Haley/Anglle/Firorina are avatars of feminism?
/spit
they are all flaming anti-women’s reproductive rights.
that is the thing about conservatives……even their smart people are retards.
Douthat and Salam co-wrote a book about how conservatives were going to make a terrific comeback and impress America with their awesomeness (once they manage to again con the rubes into thinking that they have their best interests at heart), so saying that one is worse than the other is like saying that Coke tastes better than Pepsi – maybe it does, but who really gives a fuck?
Douthat and Salam co-wrote a book about how conservatives were going to make a terrific comeback and impress America with their awesomeness (once they manage to again con the rubes into thinking that they have their best interests at heart), so saying that one is worse than the other is like saying that Coke tastes better than Pepsi – maybe it does, but who really gives a fuck?
The Opium War analogy is especially weird, since it was initially a corporation that moved against the Qing government, though, of course, Parliament eventually backed and funded (some of) the military action that resulted in the Hong Kong agreements.
Hey there Reihan, thanks for interacting.
You really think that when Levin claimed that it was Obama who destroyed the banking system in 2008 that he wasn’t trying to mislead people? Is that your backhanded way of calling Levin a complete idiot?
matoko, you’re one of the creepiest things i’ve ever encountered on the internet.
Orly?
you’re the one that said it not me.
you sneer at the conservative base constantly.
Please….. I am aware of all internet traditions…..Pudgy Reese Witherspoon Douthat is the creepiest creeper of them all.
Reihan is just using his “playful intellectualism” to carry water for stinky old conservative failmemes like the glorious invisible hand of the market that just punched America in the face.
I really hope that Reihan’s default mode is taking the piss, because otherwise you have someone writing that Steve Jobs is “possibly the world’s most charismatic man” with a straight face.
Ah, here’s the link to that article.
don’t stint Jack.
more examples of “playful intellectualism” used in an attempt to humanize toxic, evil people.
How Glenn Beck saves lives
Cheney for president.
let us not forget, Ross and Reihan were the original Palincrack pushers. Those two losers were apparently indulging in their own merchandise, because they were successful in fastening that unholy succubus onto the low-information base before they realized she wan’t going to play Galatea to the GOP Pygmalion…
tant pis.