Many politicians, especially democrat politicians, have built careers on telling every audience what they want to hear, never mind inconsistencies. President Clinton successfully took this to breathtaking new levels. Democrat politicians can rely on the media wing of their party to play down the inconsistencies, and of course, their constituencies consist of an odd combination of those too poorly educated and ignorant to notice, plus a lesser number of those who know better, but are so committed for reasons of ideology or personal benefit that they are indifferent to such practices.

Even more troubling than the total disregard of truth, however, are indications that Sen. Kerry, like President Clinton and Vice President Gore before him, has an impaired relationship with reality. I discussed this on another thread at

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/002279.html#16127

What we are seeing in Kerry’s stories such as the ones about piloting Israeli fighter jets upside down, or the pet dog being blown through the air to land unharmed on another swift boat after a mine “goes off hard” under Kerry’s boat and Kerry simply dusts himself off, is confabulation, the replacement of fact with fantasy in memory, a deeply pathological sign. Clinton’s “memory” of a wholly fictitious wave of black church burnings in Arkansas, or Gore’s imaginary “memory,” enunciated during the presidential debate, of having gone to Texas after a storm emergency about which candidate Bush had just spoken, are comparable examples.

Clinton, Gore, and Kerry all strike me as deeply narcissistic personalities, with little sense of their own identity apart from what is reflected back to them from their publics. Real leadership is impossible for such men, as they have no core of values and convictions on which to base decisions: everything is done on a calculation of what will likely produce an immediate short term favorable public reaction. Leadership, on the other hand, requires efforts to educate and bring along opinion, not merely pander to it. While a successful politics can be built on the Clinton/Gore/Kerry approach in untroubled times, one fears for the consequences in a time when difficult choices must be made and unpleasant realities faced.

I want to underscore the key line of Thucydides’ comment about Kerry, because I think it helps explain what is otherwise a very puzzling individual. He is a “deeply narcissistic personality, with little sense of his own identity apart from what is reflected back to him from his public.” This may be true of other politicians, as Thucydides points out, but I think it is true to a unique degree in Kerry’s case. It explains how he can simultaneously be so arrogantly full of himself, and be so contradictory and vacuous.

I rather liked that “Benedict Arnold CEOs” sentence. I think it might serve Flippy well, there is a lot of anti-Americanism (in cultural and economic sense) among business elites.

Begining with Reagon first term, somehow in public discourse we lost a sense that a corporation is an economic structure, more akin to an assembly line organization than to a person. It is as patriotic as an ATM machine, it is anti-American as a fishing boat.
It is programmed to make money for the owners and advance interests of the management. Fact that corporation is American and execs are Americans is irrelevant.

To advance interests of the country corporations must be kept on a leash.

In answer to Mik: that CEO’s and corporations are American may be irrelevant may be true now, and no sane person ever mistook big businesses for altruistic institutions. At one time, however, business executives did show more patriotism, social responsibility and simple foresight than they do now.

After a couple of days of reflection on these stories of Kerry blaming his speechwriters for what he has said, it strikes me that the significance of this behavior goes far beyond the matter of “flip - flops” or inconsistencies treated by the media as no more than poor campaigning. Imagine the reaction if President Bush, pressed by reporters on some issue, abruptly sought to terminate the matter by saying it was just something his speechwriters had put in, and he had complained to them about it. Imagine the consequences in a time of war of having a president who will not take responsibility for what he has said. Nothing could illustrate the fundamental lack of seriousness on the part of Kerry, and on the part of his party and its media wing, than the casual passing over such incidents. In a more rational world, one of these instances alone would terminate a candidacy.

Mr. Levine writes:

“and no sane person ever mistook big businesses for altruistic institutions.”

Maybe not altruistic, but a sizable slice of the establishment, WSJ Editors and Free Trade Uber Alles pundits (mostly on the establishment right but some on the left) like Kudlow, Bartlett, Allen Reynolds, Dow 44000 man, Instapundit Glen Reynolds, come very close to declaring ‘What is good for the business is good for America’.

Apparently it is perfectly good and ethical to pick-up technology paid by the taxpayer for free, transfer all technology to our enemies, move thousands jobs overseas, keep corporate profits overseas and never pay taxes on them, pay execs in one year 10 year worth of corporate profits, bribe race hustlers with stockholders money, openly discriminate against native born Americans in hiring and pay-up leftist extortionists.

You do all of it and you are still a patriot and a great American in the eyes of FreeTradeUberAlless cabal. Something wrong with this picture. If John FlipFlop Kerry cannot use this issue he is less competent than Dukakis.

Mik, The problem with Kerry is that he is, in reality, one of the FreeTradeÜberAlles folks himself. If there were a genuine populist running on the Dem ticket, Bush (likewise a FreeTradeÜberAlles type) could be ripped to shreads on the campaign trail - especially among hose highly desirable middle-class suburban voters. Yes, Kerry will make the noise about how bad such business practices are when pandering for votes, but the fat cats all know very well that it’s just a dog and pony show for the benefit of the “little people.” The country seriously needs a new political party, as there is no longer any substantive between the two.

Carl wrote
“The country seriously needs a new political party, as there is no longer any substantive between the two.”
And don’t you think that this year, the year of the “Skull-and-Bones” presidential face-off, would be prime time for an articulate,courageous and principled candidate to shake up the political world? Look what Ross Perot did in 1992, without the benefit of a coherent platform, and driven on by a vendetta against Bush Sr. What could a candidate with clear principles who wasn’t afraid to articulate them do?
I know I’m fed up with the GOP leadership.

H. ®oss Perot garnered fewer votes in two elections than John Hospers did in one. George Wallace is a better example. He knew how to play the system.

This race should be nearly as tight as the last, unless one side collapes (or, less likely, one side shapes up). Single states will make the difference again.

So why not enter single-state candidates, each seeking only his own state’s electors? “Toss-up” states come to mind first, but there’s an even better way: close the gap in the otherwise hopeless states by offering the dominant party’s voters a patriotic alternative.

That could be Joe Guzzardi or Brenda Walker in California (the Vdem Party?) threatening Kerry’s 55 “sure” votes there. Or Mr. Wall himself threatening Bush’s 34 in Texas. (I tend to doubt our Mr. Auster or Mr. Sutherland are well placed to shift New York’s 31. Bill Kauffman, perhaps?)

Depriving them of any safe states would at least force our issues out onto the table.

Carl,

I know that Senator Flippy is a member in good standing of the FreeTradeUberAlles cabal. He has $500 million reasons to be one.

Reg Cæsar,

A single state cadidate is an interesting idea. Unfortunately for a large state like CA one needs tons of money and/or name recognition. A small state is more doable but also less important to the major candidates.

A much more realistic approach is to start with pro Open Borders in Congress. Some OpenBorders are somewhat shaky. One, Uta congressman Cannon, was forced into primary run-off by an opponent who ran on anti-Open Borders platform. See for more info

http://www.projectusa.org/current_activities.html

I don’t see why it is so difficult to get a good presidential candidate in the GOP. All a candidate has to do is (1) be conservative on economic issues, such as taxing, spending, and regulations; (2) be conservative on social/moral issues, such as being pro-life, opposing gay marriage, opposing gun control, etc. This describes Ronald Reagan, who was not the greatest on all issues and did not put equal energy into all of these issues, but was at least genuinely conservative.

So, why do we get Bob Dole, the Bushes, etc.? Why does the GOP establishment look at two Reagan landsides, followed by a Bush come-from-behind win over a weak Dukakis and a loss to a weak Clinton, followed by Dole’s loss to Clinton, followed by Dubya’s electoral college squeaker over another weak candidate in Al Gore, and conclude that the key to winning is to get someone who is “moderate in tone” and not too conservative? The leftist media constantly claims that anyone who runs on a conservative platform will pay a price for it, and the GOP establishment buys it, even though experience says the opposite. With the leftist atmosphere of the media and academe and Hollywood, I guess some people find it easy to believe that you have to find a candidate who runs away from conservatism.

In response to Mr. Coleman’s question, I think the reason we keep on seeing the GOP establishment turn away from genuine conservatism is that the GOP establishment is itself liberal. Despite the track record you mention, the conservative principles you listed rankle these people at a basic level. It’s not that they are so much afraid of what a bunch of leftists in the media are going to say, they actually share the same basic worldview - to create a utopia - as the leftists. The area of disagreement is over the pace of implementing the agenda.

Bush’s recent use of the leftist smear “racist” in describing anyone who questions the ability of a Medieval Islamic society to morph into a liberal democracy is really quite revealing in this regard. That’s why I see no substantive difference between Bush and Senator Flipper when it comes down to the issues that really matter. On the simple issue of patriotism, Limbaugh and the cheerleaders are always telling us that Bush is at least loyal to America while Kerry isn’t. How can a man who allows his country to be invaded - even to the point of doing zero about incursions by fully armed units of the Mexican military - and approves the sale of sensitive military technology to a foreign power whose generals have overtly threatened to attack the US with nuclear weapons (China) be considered a patriot?

Clark Coleman’s last post was excellent. I would like to add two comments: One, that the media always attack the Bushites and Doles AS IF they were genuine conservatives anyway so their “moderation” in practice does not afford them genuine protection. Bush 41.1 escaped from the usual media hostility for a while because of the reaction to September 11 (little though he deserved it) but that could last for only a limited time. Second, it is worth remembering that the only decent and successful Republican leaders of the last half century, Eisenhower and Reagan, came from outside the party. Neither was a politician until they were well along in years, and both had been Democrats most of their lives. Unlike the neocons, they left the party as individuals, and in Reagan’s case definitely on principle. They were not chased out.

I agree that Bush is a right-liberal, which was one of the motives for my post. But I don’t agree that the Country Club Republicans are liberals. I have talked with quite a few of them over the years.

One thing I see is that there has been no appeal made to the Country Club Republicans (i.e. business owners, Wall Street types, etc.) except on the issue of tax cuts. It has been 20 years since I have heard meaningful talk about deregulation. It is possible to make a stronger appeal to CCR’s while at the same time making a stronger appeal to traditional conservatives (who, after all, are not foes of tax cuts and deregulation and so on). In this way, a coalition is built in which every faction gets more than a token nod in their direction.

But, we keep getting candidates who do not seem to believe in very much or have much passion for any issue. The result is an occasional bone thrown to the Country Club Republicans, another occasional bone thrown to moral/social conservatives, etc., with no one really satisfied and no one thinking “This president is really one of us!”

I am very interested in Mr. Coleman’s remark about the Country Club Republicans not being liberals. If they are not, then how has the party been so thoroughly hijacked by liberals for the past 15 years? Is the neocon wing really that influential? In several important state primaries this year, the party establishment has gone all out to destroy conservatives and nominate “moderates” like Ryan in Illinois or outright liberals like Specter in Pennsylvania. Note also the demonization of Tancredo. If the Country Club folks aren’t running the party and just as unhappy about the pathetic bones thrown their way by the party establishment (though it strikes me that open borders and “free trade” are fairly major concessions to the CCRs, as they don’t enjoy support among the general electorate), why do they continue to support Bush, Rove at al in their campaign to drive the party to the left?

I think there are a couple of things at work among the Country Club Republicans:

1) Many think economics is everything. They grew up in an era when the very most conservative Republicans they knew were conservative in the sense of being anti-New Deal, anti-communist, in favor of smaller government with less spending and less taxes. There were no issues like abortion and gun control and immigration on center stage in the 1940s and 1950s. They see the people who are pushing these things as the newcomers to the party who are trying to “highjack” the GOP and change its focus. There is an egotistical turf battle rather than coalition building.

2) They don’t want “needless” controversy over things like abortion, gay rights, etc. They engage in the wishful thinking that maybe all these things will just go away if those Religious Right newcomers would shut up about them.

3) They are persuaded by the leftist new media that these issues are losers, anyway.

4) The Religious Right are low-church, low-income, low-culture, etc., in the eyes of the Country Club Republicans.

Reg Caesar, in his post of 2:58 a.m., proposes a strategy of single-state candidates. (And thanks for suggesting I be one of them). It’s a good idea, we just need to convince enought stalwarts in the various states to take the plunge.
Mik, in his post of 5:54 a.m. proposes a congressional strategy. Hopefully, the attack on Utah’s Cannon is a sign of things to come, his defeat could be a bellwether. Also, Tom Tancredo and Bay Buchanan have just started the Team America PAC, which could be useful as well.