In response to Matt Yglesias' deconstruction of Core Conservative Lie #187 -- that liberals somehow "don't like the idea of Arab countries being democracies" -- Conor Friedersdorf begins his observations as follows:
I honestly don't have a good enough recollection of 2003 to 2005 to gauge the accuracy of Matt's characterization.
For those of you who don't know of Mr. Friedersdorf, he is the still-damp-with-Righteous-Libertarian-albumen Conservative hatchling that Andrew Sullivan has been painstakingly cultivating as his own, hothouse Ross Douthat. Mr. Friedersdorf -- who Mr. Sullivan continues to leave in-charge-ish of his giant blog in his absence -- speaks almost entirety in the simple, binary, breathlessly declarative sentences of a 17-year-old who just finished reading "Anthem" and has rushed into the dining room to show off his commanding understanding of human nature, philosophy and economics to the grownups.
Add to Mr. Friedersdorf's blunt, pre-fabricated opinions an apparent ignorance of significant events prior to the premier of "30 Rock" and you are truly in the presence of the Future of American Conservatism: Young, Dumb and full of Frum :-)
You also begin to understand at least part of the reason why Mr. Sullivan's "blog" does not permit comments.
10 comments:
Young, dumb, and full of Frum. Brilliant.
Young, dumb, and unable to use teh Google or read a History Book, let alone understand it.
Let me help Mr. Friedersdorf. During 2003 to 2005, which I remember quite well, "liberals don't like the idea of Arab countries being democracies" was a Republican straw man talking point. No liberals said it or believed it.
With all due respect, I think you'll find that Douthat was more likely cultivated in a dark, damp basement.
We, the people of the country formerly known as Canuckistan, apologize, profusely, for allowing Mr. Frum to breech your Lieber(un)manned-up northernmost border.
But.
Just so you know, Mistah Frum, he loves to revise the recent history of his homeland also.
.
"...full of Frum."
Hope that's nothing like "Santorum."
"frumpkt?"
P.S.
Japanese word ver?
"bashe"
I'd hardly label either Friedersdorf, or Sullivan for that matter, as being spokesmen for the libertarian perspective on much of anything, other than perhaps gay rights. Sullivan suffered some kind of psychotic break around about the time Sarah Palin uttered her first "you betcha," and Friedersdorf has written nothing but nonsensical defenses of everything-Obama since Captain Sully passed him the wheel.
Oh, yes. Let me add applause for "young, dumb, and full of Frum."
That's gonna get stolen, for sure.
You've got to be fuckin' kidding me. (And that tag is a keeper.) This is a variation on the Alberto Gonzales and Meghan McCain defenses, I guess.
Friedersdorf wrote a good dissection of Andrew McCarthy recently, and good for him on that one. But on the other hand, liberals didn't need to pretend McCarthy had any credibility left to lose. He went off the deep end long ago. Back in 2008, McCarthy speculated that Bill Ayers might have written Dreams From My Father for Obama. McCarthy's liberal-and-muslims-jihad book is basically Goldberg's Liberal Fascism with a different spin, and McCarthy's attacks on Guantanamo attorneys for daring to uphold the justice system for those accused of crimes marked him as the sort of eager-baby-fascist Liz Cheney would adore. A lawyer should know the importance of fair trials, even – or especially – for the guilty. (But then, this is the National Review, which every year pretends that MLK was really a conservative, and that they were down with the whole Civil Rights thing all along, never mind all those op-eds they wrote at the time defending segregation. Pointing out bad faith is uncivil!)
Some big-hearted liberals – as well as some of the "both sides do it" crowd – keep making like Diogenes and looking for an honorable conservative. (I occasionally fall prey to it.) There are a few on the blogs and columns like Bacevich, but none in power. And most of the remainder of "reasonable" conservatives are like Frum and Friedersdorf. They can be lauded – but most of the time, only if graded on a curve. Reading them is like watching an addict in denial take a baby step, then go no further. It's "cognitive dissonance, for fun and profit." Thus, Friedersdorf can feign ignorance or indignation if any one bring over the bullying, dishonest, McCarthyist (Joe this time) campaign to slur liberals throughout the Bush years. And let's be clear: this was not incidental. What Yglesias mentions was merely a continuation of the dishonest bullying used to start an unnecessary war, which was only, oh, the central political event of the past decade (and needless to say, utterly despicable). The same trends continue now. But who cares about that? Matt Yglesias said something mean; let's quibble with it, and pretend history started yesterday! (Incidentally, Yglesias also got the war completely wrong – although at least he's admitted it.)
The most charitable explanations I can come up with for Friedersdorf is that a) he truly is ignorant, and/or b) he has such a deep psychological need to believe that his side's political leaders are honorable and act in good faith he can't recognize the fucking obvious. He quibbles about "How They're Attacking Obama." It doesn't matter how conservatives attack Obama, because their only agenda is to attack, and nothing Obama has ever done or would ever do would change that. (It's not as if the evidence of this has been secret for the past three years!) There are no grander principles behind this attack, and certainly no coherence. Even Friedersdorf agrees with this point in regards to Limbaugh – but he's unwilling to admit this is the rule, not the exception, for conservatives. And – to wrap it all up – he is unwilling to acknowledge that this is exactly what conservatives did in the run-up to the Iraq War. (And they have done it on almost every fucking issue under the sun for the past decade, at least.)
I realize it must be painful for these young, sincere conservatives to realize their leaders are a bunch of selfish, reckless, lying, nihilistic assholes, who have and will fuck over their country time and time again for the slightest political advantage, but in the meantime, it's hard to take their kiddie table yelps seriously.
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