The turn of the liberals, cont.

Liberals don’t have rational principles by which they can say that something is right or wrong, better or worse. They have a tribal consensus, which changes from time to time by means of some pre-rational process. Liberals never say, “We thought such and such was right, but now on the basis of more evidence or further thought, we realize our past view was wrong. ” It doesn’t happen like that.

Below is a perfect example of the liberal thought process, from Jonathan Chait writing Saturday in the Los Angeles Times (as an index of Chat’s own rationality, let us remember that he once wrote a long article in The New Republic telling how he was consumed with a visceral hatred for President Bush):

Something strange happened the other day. All these different people—friends, co-workers, relatives, people on a liberal e-mail list I read—kept saying the same thing: They’ve suddenly developed a disdain for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but I think we’ve reached an irrevocable turning point in liberal opinion of the Clintons.

The sentiment seems to be concentrated among Barack Obama supporters. Going into the campaign, most of us liked Hillary Clinton just fine, but the fact that tens of millions of Americans are seized with irrational loathing for her suggested that she might not be a good Democratic nominee. But now that loathing seems a lot less irrational. We’re not frothing Clinton haters like … well, name pretty much any conservative. We just really wish they’d go away.

The big turning point seems to be this week, when the Clintons slammed Obama for acknowledging that Ronald Reagan changed the country. Everyone knows Reagan changed the country. Bill and Hillary have said he changed the country. But they falsely claimed that Obama praised Reagan’s ideas, saying he was a better president than Clinton—something he didn’t say and surely does not believe.

For years, the libs were for the Clintons. Now, as if a light switch was pushed, they’re against the Clintons. The liberals don’t have to provide a principle to explain why the Clintons were once good in their eyes, and why they are now bad. Is the Clintons’ behavior toward Obama worse than their behavior toward numerous other political targets of theirs in the past, behavior that the liberals always defended and excused? No, it is not worse, it is not nearly as bad. So why does the Clintons’ tough partisan behavior toward Obama upset them so? The liberals cannot put it in terms of objective standards, because their thought process, such as it is, is instinctive and collective, not individual and rational. All they can say is that this time the Clintons went too far. And this they all know, like a flock of birds suddenly and simultaneously changing direction in the sky.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 29, 2008 12:05 AM | Send