Tucker and the brothers
The Philadelphia Inquirer Blog - American Debate
Tucker and the brothers
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
It's a testament to America's political diversity (refreshingly so) that venerable bastions of conservatism continue to flourish even within the Obama-friendly confines of eastern academia.
Such was my thinking last night, at the University of Pennsylvania, as I wandered into the august quarters of St. Anthony Hall - a fraternity seemingly populated (at least on this occasion) by comely young men dressed in blue blazers and beige chinos, with rep ties carefully knotted below square jaws. Of course, there were sartorial exceptions; one gentleman, clad in Madras sport jacket and pink pants, appeared to have time-traveled from the late 1950s, and indeed I felt the overall sensation of having stepped back to a bygone era, perhaps to the apogee of the American century, when the WASP elite swilled martinis and spent weekends on horseback, chasing foxes. Or perhaps I was simply fixated on the oil paintings, which depicted red-coated sportsmen on horseback, chasing foxes.
Anyway, all the frat brothers, joined by a fair number of alum, had eagerly gathered to hear their guest speaker: Tucker Carlson, the feisty conservative libertarian contrarian who is probably best known for his on-air jousts with liberals on CNN and MSNBC, and who quite resembles the comely young men of St. Anthony Hall despite being 20 years their senior. And by the time he bounded to the podium with a bottle of Perrier, he well knew that his listeners were friendly, having just heard a resonant sssssssssss at the mention of Barack Obama's name during the introductions.
Not all the brothers are conservative, of course, but apparently most feel somewhat out of sync with the current national zeitgeist (from the latest bipartisan NBC/Wall Street journal poll: most Americans by a 2-1 margin trust Obama, not the GOP, to lead us out of recession). And clearly they felt bonded to Carlson, who almost prides himself on being out of sync.
The brothers signaled their approval whenever he said things like "I'm not on the liberal side" and "I'm a radical small-government guy." And they signaled again when he described Washington D.C. as an Obama haven populated with "African Americans, young people, and rich white liberals - that's everyone in town but me." (Although I should note that the brothers did not signal approval by clapping their hands; rather, they hewed to the St. Anthony Hall tradition of snapping their fingers. Whenever Carlson got off a good line, suddenly we were in a forest of crickets.)
I got the impression that the brothers were eager to cut loose and indulge their frustrations, to gorge on some rhetorical red meat at the Democrats' expense. And Carlson did tantalize from time to time. He lampooned Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel for being so infamously profane, and that got people going. And he launched into a long digression about Hillary Clinton, who once gave the finger to a heckler who had given her the finger (true story, he insisted), and who gets up in the morning and addresses herself in the mirror by talking like a man (Carlson was joking about that one, and the joke went over well). His passing reference to Nancy Pelosi prompted dismissive laughter. His attacks on the "demented" big-government bailouts ("capitalism without failure is like religion without sin, it's stupid") prompted nods of approval.
But Carlson, ever the contrarian, didn't pander to his listeners. He said of the president, "I've always liked Obama. He's a decent, friendly, personable, intelligent guy. I think that now." He said of George W. Bush, "Watching him give a speech was like watching a drunk cross a street. You weren't sure whether he would make it across." Even when invited, by several questioners, to rail against the media, he instead gave several nuanced responses, lamenting "the enormous financial pressure (that) should be a concern to everybody," and insisting that all news consumers should seek out viewpoints with which they disagree (if you fail to do that, he warned, "then you become a jerk").
And even though Carlson shared his fear that Obama and the Democrats might be spending America into ruin, that Obama is intervening in the economy even though "this is a guy who has never run a Jiffy Lube" (prompting the alumni in the rear of the room to say, "right" and "truly"), he reserved his most scathing remarks for one target only:
The Republican party. And for long stretches of time, nary a finger clicked.
"There's no countervailing argument to what Obama is doing. The Republican party has basically disappeared...It's not good to have one dominant party, and one lame, completely pathetic party. But that's where the Republicans are now. Their problems aren't just momentary, it's deeper than that. The party doesn't know what it is...The Republicans have failed in truly every sense. They've been rejected at the ballot box and on the ground. They are officially losers."
The party, he noted, has generally been a loose coalition of interests tied together by "shared dislikes" such as communism, Bill Clinton, and Islamic extremists. "Can it come together over a shared dislike of Barack Obama? Problem is, he's popular and he's kinda hard to hate. That's not an organizing principle."
Ideally, of course, the party will rediscover its identity or craft a new one, but Carlson sees only one comeback scenario in the foreseeable future: "In order for the Republicans to be a winning party again, Obama has to blow it in a big, big way. Until that happens, they'll be out power." And the problem with that scenario is, "the Republicans have no control over it."
He did opine that defeat can be "a clarifying experience. All pretenses have been stripped away, and you're forced to confront basic questions. They're forced upon you. That's where the Republicans are."
Actually, Carlson never did get around to suggesting a new GOP message that might click with the electorate. Reviving the party's small-government credo is problematical, at a time when the American majority favors greater government intervention in, and regulation of, the markets. Indeed, Carlson did a thing or two to say about his fellow Americans.
"People like free stuff" from the government, he said, recounting his interviews with Iowa farmers who consider themselves conservatives - but who are really "socialists" who depend on government handouts. Indeed, he said, "without those subsidies, they wouldn't be there. You get elected when you give people stuff. It's depressing."
But he didn't seem to depress the brothers. They liked his iconoclasm. They liked it when he popped some Nicorete gum, his method for staving off cigarettes. They liked it when he confessed about being fired a few times (from CNN in 2005 and MSNBC in 2008). They liked his throwaway line about how, if the media gave people exactly what they wanted, torture and pornography would dominate. They liked his instinctive embrace of the status quo, his willingness to thumb his nose at the current mantra of change ("Things worth having are never created in an instant, ever"). They liked that, especially. It was enough to sustain them. At the end they clapped (rather than snapped) and spilled happily from the building, their gold blazer buttons glinting in the lamplight. It was Obamaworld out there on the cobblestones, but they seemed content.
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Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist who helmed the '08 McCain campaign, today floated his own ideas on how the Republicans could redefine their identity. In a speech to the gay Log Cabin Republicans, he made the startling suggestion that the GOP should endorse gay marriage.
He said, "I would rather be in the Democrats' shoes than ours. Their coalition is expanding. Ours is shrinking. Their vote share is increasing among voter segments that are growing. Ours is not." Of particular concern, he said, is the GOP's deficit among younger voters - and the fact that these voters, who will increasingly dominate the electorate, are tolerate about gay rights, whereas the GOP agenda is not.
Schmidt thinks that the party needs to move with the times: "I believe Republicans should re-examine the extent to which we are being defined by positions on issues that...will become over time, if not a consensus view, then the view of a substantial majority of voters....While we shouldn't carelessly dismiss the importance of enduring traditions, we should understand that traditions do change over time in every society."
And he insists that, pragmatics aside, this policy shift would be the right thing to do: "It cannot be argued that marriage between people of the same sex is un-American or threatens the rights of others. On the contrary, it seems to me that denying two consenting adults of the same sex the right to form a lawful union that is protected and respected by the state denies them two of the most basic natural rights affirmed in the preamble of our Declaration of Independence - liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, I believe, gives the argument of same sex marriage proponents its moral force."
Schmidt didn't address how the GOP could embrace this issue will still retaining the loyalty of its Christian conservatives, but suffice it to say that at least somebody in that party is trying to think outside the shrinking box.
Since Obama has said that he will not prosecute the CIA for the keeping our country safe, I guess Bush and his team did not do anything wrong. I think you owe Bush et al an apology Mr. Polman for all your rants and screams about violations, blah blah blah.— CD75- Likewise, Dick, I think you owe Bush et al an apology because Obama is supporting Bush's warrantless wiretap program. Since Obama is the messiah and is always right, that means Bush was right too.— CD75
- One of the last comments was great. "Things worth having are never created in an instant". Obama's been given weeks to fix a mess that was created in decades.— gee1971
- Phrossty: from the last bolg, but hey, it was a lot of typing - I'm not a lawyer, but since I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, here goes. There has been a lot of back and forth since 2001, between Bush's 2001 Presidential Military Order, to the 2006 Military Commissions Act (which suspended habeas corpus for any person determined to be an “unlawful enemy combatant" ). The last Supreme Court ruling that I can find is from 2008, ruling 5-4 in Boumediene v. Bush that terror suspects detained by the US in Gitmo have the right to seek a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. There have subsequent rulings saying the same by various US circuit and district courts. As an aside, according to Alberto Gonzales, the constitution doesn't actually give the writ of hapeus corpus even to US Citizens - "There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away ... The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right 'shall not be suspended' except in cases of rebellion or invasion." How's that for perverse? Anyway, as for in general, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), the court wrote (emphasis mine) "All agree that, absent suspension, the writ of habeas corpus remains available to EVERY individual detained WITHIN the United States." This was the general precedent before 2001 as well. As you point out, we wouldn't need immigration trials. As a gneneral rule, non-citizens in the US enjoy most of the same protections as citizens under US law, and have for a long time. The only legal argument to be made vis-a-vis Gitmo was that it wasn't US soil.— still_independent
- CD75: no, what he's saying is that you will not prosecute the CIA for following guidelines given by the Justice Department, even if those guidelines were legally incorrect. And no, they are drastically cutting back on the ILLEGAL wiretapping. And now it looks like, oops, they were listening in on some DOMESTIC phone calls and emails without warrants. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/15/justice-dept-nsa-improperly-spied-americans/— still_independent
- Still independent: Nice spin. As mad man Keith Olbermann said last night when he ripped Obama on his show - just because the General orders you to committ a crime does not make it not a crime or absolve you from it. You can try to spin it all you want, but your messiah is trying to have it both ways.— CD75
- still, non-citizens do not enjoy the same protections as citizens under US law, IMHO! That is why the prisoners are being held at Gitmo in the 1st place, to avoid bringing them to US soil and giving them the same habeus rites that US citizens do have, despite what Alberto Gonzalez wrote(if you can't take it away, it is obviously there:)! Also, the prisoners at Gitmo only 'have the right to seek a writ of habeas corpus in federal court.'! There is no guarantee it would be granted. Like you I am no lawyer, but if the constitution expressly says "the writ of habeas corpus remains available to EVERY individual detained WITHIN the United States.", then keeping someone out of the US would then deny them those rites, no?— NEPhilly
- Great post--thanks for taking the time to write about something that most of us would not have learned about otherwise. The last sentence was a nice flourish.— Nalaka
- CD75: you are correct IF you know those orders are illegal. IF there are given orders that violate the UCMJ, then they have a moral and legal obligation to ignore those orders. That's not remotely the case here. The one memo alone is 80 pages. There is no law that defines what is and isn't torture. That entire office (Office of Legal Counsel) exists ONLY to provide legal advice to the rest of the government. If CIA officers were ordered to torture, then yes, they should be prosecuted. If they are ordered to interrogate, and given parameters based upon legal advice from the highest authority, and they do not exceed those parameters, then they shouldn't be prosecuted. It's not having it both ways. By your "logic", if in, say, Afghanistan, we have faulty intelligence, and a pilot drops a bomb on a civilian house, then the guy that attached the bombs to the plane should be charged w/ accessory to murder.— still_independent
- CD75: Thank you for showing everyone how simple-minded you are! Not only are you unable to comprehend complex issues, but you don't understand politics either. Keep up the good work dittohead! You always keep me laughing! It's like watching a dog chase after a stick! Go get it boy!— the anti-CD75
- CD75, they are not going to prosecute the CIA officials that carried out their orders because they were only following what they were told. Just like in the military, you trust you superior. The people that should be prosecuted (and still might be) are the top officials that "approved" the use of torture.— Catalyst
"..bastions of conservatism continue to flourish even within the Obama-friendly confines of eastern academia." Well DP, you believe the media doesn't slant left, so I guess you'll believe anything. An example of one of the basic differences between Conservatives and liberals is that you were able to go there as a hard-core liberal and take in the proceedings. The reverse would probably be another matter.— jmc- NEPhilly: your opinion and my opinion don't matter in this; the courts' opinions do. Non-citizens in the US do enjoy most of the same rights as citizens; it's been the case for over 100 years - including habeus corpus. The entire Gitmo thing didn't hing under the argument not it wasn't US soil - it was that we didn't have sovereignty. If that's the case, than all of our embassies fall under the control of the host country, and they can come and go as they please - which is of course ridiculous. The Supreme Court ruled that it was ridiculous to claim that we didn't have sovereignty ovr Gitmo. Yes, they may be denied a writ in Federal court, but they must be allowed to apply for it. Gitmo was set up explicitly to get around this... Put simply, do you want to hang your hat on the physical location of Gitmo (which has ben rebuked anyway)?— still_independent
- Posted by CD75 12:20 PM, 04/17/2009 -- "Since Obama has said that he will not prosecute the CIA for the keeping our country safe, I guess Bush and his team did not do anything wrong. I think you owe Bush et al an apology Mr. Polman for all your rants and screams about violations, blah blah blah." ••• OK, CD75, now watch carefully what happens when your argument gets applied to another example. (Normally I don't address your posts for fear of validating same, but this one is too fun to pass up) ••• Since [Chicago DA] has said that he will not prosecute the [Weather Underground] for the [actions they took], I guess [Ayers] and his team did not do anything wrong. I think you owe [Obama] et al an apology Mr. [CD75] for all your rants and screams about violations, blah blah blah.— Phrossty
- I can't believe I'm agreeing with Tucker on a number of his comments. Yes, watching Bush speak was like watching a drunk cross the road unsure if he will actually make it or not. Unfortanately, Republicans were the enablers in this trajedy. And I also do agree with his point on the GOP winning back the WH. Obama will have to blow it big on the economy or an international crisis for the GOP to have a rallying cry. This article brings back some unfavorable memories of students that I knew while attending PENN. I tried my best to forget about those people.— chasing history
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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