Tuesday, February 28, 2023

In Which Bill Galston Makes the Entire Obama Administration Magically Disappear


Galston is one of the Bulwark's tame, housebroken "Liberals".

If you'd rather not watch the vid, here is the transcript interleaved with my own observations.

Galston:  It's a little worrying, this kind of talk [of a National Divorce] because it's insane.  It's insane.  It's all too easy to say where it's coming from. The more we focus on the culture wars -- which are much harder to negotiate in both senses of that verb -- the more we see ourselves as an irremediably divided society, which I believe is not the case.  But it's going to take a change in our politics at the top!  In how we talk about the cultural issues!  

driftglass:  Just curious?  Did you just wash up on our fair shores a month ago?  And perhaps are as yet unfamiliar with the presidency of Barack Obama?

Galston:  We desperately need a national leader who understands that the cultural issues cannot be sidestepped and cannot be resolved simply by taking one side firmly but by looking as hard as possible for common ground even on these very difficult issues.

driftglass:  Seriously. Obama?  Barack Obama?  Ring any fucking bells?  At all?

Galston: It is rarely the case -- and I address this to my own side of the divide; I'm a Democrat...

driftglass:  Oh, you're a "Democrat"?  And yet you are somehow blissfully unaware of Obama administration?  

Galston: ...it is rarely the case that there is no truth whatsoever in the criticisms of one's own position from the other side however ill-tempered and ill-advised it may be...

driftglass:  So you're going with the "On the other hand, the Nazis did build excellent roads.." argument?  Well, OK, but if you're going to insist this bilge is actually some kind of natural law or universal truth, allow me to take the ill-tempered "other side" and point out that your opinions on this matter are either staggeringly ignorant or you're just lying.  

Which means, according to Bill Galston's Law, that there must be some truth in my position that you are either staggeringly ignorant or you're just lying, right?

Right?

Did I just Shatner your brain computer, Bill?


Galston: ...and the longer we believe as Democrats that we can simply pound our fists on the table and talk about the economic issues and avoid the deep cultural divisions in the country, the worse it's going to get.

driftglass:  Once again I must ask, were you just decanted from some think tank creche a year ago?  Because, as I have written many places for many years, for eight years we had a perfect lab experiment in what would happen is Democrats elected exactly the sort of person you're talking about.  A calm, humane, honorable, compromise-prone Democratic president who offered the GOP every possible opportunity not to be racist, seditious assholes.  

Obama never pounded his fists.  Never announced that it was his way or the highway.  And yet, for eight years, Conservatives -- including the very same Bulwark goofs across from which Galston sits every week -- 


-- gleefully told him to go pound sand.  Played him for a chump.  Used his willingness to jettison many, many Liberal priorities and go many, many extra miles to see the Republican side of things as a goad to string him along again and again, before pulling the rug out from under him again and again.

And then congratulating themselves on the "win".

And then the Republican Party nominated and elected the King of the Birthers.

But of course Galston won't say these things because when your top professional priority is accomodating Conservative fairy tales, the rule is always...




I Am The Liberal Media


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