Home » On the Saddleback interviews—whose simplistic world is it, anyway?

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On the Saddleback interviews—whose simplistic world is it, anyway? — 45 Comments

  1. I remember in 1968 in Ann Arbor people waving little red books in my face. Did not the author of said book say, “Power comes from the barell of a gun.”
    (for reference see Adams Brothers & and 2nd Amendment)

    The liberal mantra is, “Violence never settles anything.” Vlad the Impaler does not agree.

    When Putin came to power I asked the Russian Jews in my Chabad House about him. They all said the same thing, “Once KGB always KGB.”

  2. Very thoughtful post, neo. I think the appearance of nuance and deep thoughtfulness in Dems from Obama to Kerry makes them appear collegiate and intellectual, but actually belies a more shallow and limited view of the world, in which all things are relative, and no absolute can exist.

    And so it was with Obama’s performance. He wiggled through the vast sea of nuance and relativism, while McCain cut to the quick, called it like he saw it.

    Many complain that McCain doesn’t hold true to his ideas, that he changes with the wind, and admittedly he does evolve his way of thinking on issues over time. However, he does this not because he believes all ideas are relative, but because he has the ability and courage to evaluate and reason beyond party lines and ideologies. He still stands on the rock of his personal conviction, not the ethereal plain from which Obama postulates…

  3. What was Obama’s answer to the ‘evil’ question (I would guess either negotiate with it or digress about using the word evil. I would agree with him there. Let’s all agree to stop using that word in describing groups of people or threats we face. Iran’s mullahs are not evil. They just want the bomb and will use negotiation as a means to stall until they have it.)?

  4. McCain would be believable if he was the same person as he was before. I wonder if anyone actually remembers the old McCain.

  5. Evil. n. Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.

    No sense in newspeaking that word into oblivion; use it freely whenever you mean to say what it means.

  6. Who the hell is Sally Quinn? And what makes her commentary revealing or enlightening. Clearly, much of the Fourth Estate is unimpressive and intellectually challenged.

  7. Any interview in which a man of the cloth is posing questions to post-modernists is going to exasperating.

  8. Peter:

    McCain has been around for years. I do remember him. He is not a simple cut out kind of guy.

  9. I’m sure when Obama is elected he will inspire Quinn and Bradlee to turn their two country estates into summer camps for poor kids from the Bronx and PG County. Maybe they can show the kids how to grow organic arugula so they can survive when the prices go up at Whole Foods. What an airhead!

  10. I wish the word nuance could be taken out of the vocabulary. People like Quinn think that we have evolved beyond the whole good and bad thing, fine, but there are plenty of bad people in the world who are not evolved and do not want to evolve. That is the reality.

  11. Dear Ms. Quinn,

    Even though the world you perceive has many people who lack clarity of thought, forthrightness, integrity, and a sense of moral purpose does not mean that McCain’s clarity is not a true grasp of the nature of how we, as moral agents, shape the world we live in.

    The Lacanian Gestalt you live in may exist in the minds of your sub-culture, but in the real world people actually DO employ solid principles. Granted, things can get complicated, and the truly sophisticated moral reasoning entails balancing conflicting and complementary principles – not the denial that there are any or any that are less valid than others.

  12. The Obama campaign claims McCain cheated. Let’s assume they are sincere and really believe this piece of nonsense. The reason given is that McCain “seemed so well prepared,” which is amusing, if truly believed.

    It would mean that they underestimated McCain, up to now. Once they lick their wounds and are able to think rationally about what happened they will probably try to limit joint appearances.

    Two boxers in the ring, one who jabs, moves and counterpunches well, dazzling in his skill, the other a slugger who keeps coming on. If the technician can last he will probably win on points.

    I am consoled by the fact that the premier slugger of all time, Rocky Marciano, retired undefeated.

  13. I admit I have deliberately tried to tune out Obonga much of the time. I find his proclivity for deception odious.

    But every now and then I do hear him (or read his words) as he is queried away from script, and he almost never gives a straight answer. He qualifies continuously, sometimes to the point of utter absurdity.

    I think he avoids debates and forums where he would come across as less than glib and stellar. It’s all a contrivance. People like Sally Quinn who find him interesting and intelligent must be around people who are certainly less than he is. Not saying much…

  14. Any Democrat hitting autumn with less than fifteen percent advantage in the polls is a loser.

    Obama cannot survive another debate with John McCain. Not because McCain has any unfair advantage, or he will be coached. Obama isn’t equipped to function as President, and in a world ruled by merit he wouldn’t have made it out of Chicago’s machine.

    I fully expect the Obama campaign to go full race/full time. I also look for them to back out of the debate commitments they have made, and expect the MSM to assist and enable them in whatever lame excuse or tactic they come up with.

    John McCain is not my first choice for president by a long, long chalk. But John McCain has lived a life, whereas Barry Obama has constructed an image.

    Games not over yet. But if he loses any more ground at all, somebody, soon, is going to point out that he faces a floor vote in Denver.

    I’m cooking extra popcorn.

  15. How can someone listen to Obama and consider his stance *more* detailed than McCains?

    Really, I find it *considerably* more simplistic to have Obama, through the power of himself, being the fix.

    So, even lets assume she is correct (I see none of the issues she talks about Obama recognizing that McCain doesn’t also recognize – she just chooses to ignore it when McCain says it) and Obama has a clearer view of what is ailing us he has *no* solution whatsoever. He hopes that things will work out by doing something different. No idea what they difference is other than Obama is in charge.

    The whole thing is just the same old liberal tripe that we hate anyone other than white protestants (unless your catholic, then I guess you are a WASC instead of a WASP) and are evil – it is just worded in a nicer way.

  16. “John McCain is not my first choice for president by a long, long chalk. But John McCain has lived a life, whereas Barry Obama has constructed an image.”

    That was brilliantly stated, TmjUtah.

    I might further add that John McCain has looked into the eyes of evil many times. He knows those kinds of people. They racked him and they brutalized him. Their eyes and their mouths showed the abyss to him, and he endured it.

    John McCain was not my first choice. Congressman Duncan Hunter was. But Obonga, being a true post modernist socialist, really does not know evil when he sees it. William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn got away with murder. Literally. On a technicality, because by the time they were reeled in the U.S. Congress had performed a vasectomy of our intelligence services. Being the unapologetic Communist terrorists that they still are, anyone who breaks bread with people like them lacks the antennae for evil. Just cannot recognize it. Cannot name it.

    People like Vlad Putin and Ahmed Ahmadinejad would make short work of Obonga.

    People like Sally Quinn are just plain silly.

  17. Bravo, neo. As I read your concluding paragraphs I was silently cheering.

    When one has respect for one’s own human fallibility, it takes courage to then say: this is good and that is evil; I will promote this good and fight that evil.

    That our human fallibility means we cannot avoid misidentifying good and evil in some instances does not make it a virtue to avoid identifying good and evil.

    The left believe they maintain virtuous clean hands in part b/c they never misidentify good and evil. There is much to be said about that, but for now I will only say this: no person can avoid choosing between good and evil – or, if one prefers: between better choices and worse choices. It is folly to believe otherwise.

  18. Well “Vlad Putin” made shorter work of your last standard bearer, Mr. Air National Guard dope smuggler, with his weekly flights to Florida to bring back “plants”.

    “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” George W. Bush, President of The United States of America. Yeah, right.

    “Once KGB always KGB.” And George was thinking about how much he missed coke.

  19. @ FredHjr August 18th, 2008 at 10:58 pm

    Nice post, but it seems you excuse BHO in a sense, or let him off the hook, when you say he doesn’t know evil when he sees it. But perhaps I’m not understanding your thought correctly. 🙂

    I, for one, think he’s knows it very well, and in some way has sold out to it, because to me, at least, it is abundantly clear that he will do anything, say anything, and betray anyone to get what he wants. I think it’s all very personal with him, and in his eyes it’s truly all about him.

    Mmmmm, I think I just described narcissism…

    Agree that TmjUtah’s quote is brilliant: that’s a keeper, and I’m gonna be quotin’ ya, TMJ!

    BTW, Hi Neo…..I’m new to reading your blog and it fascinating. I can’t find anything beyond part 6B, I think it was, in your story….what am I missing? Can you let me know by email? Sorry to veer OT.

  20. Well “Vlad Putin” made shorter work of your last standard bearer, Mr. Air National Guard dope smuggler, with his weekly flights to Florida to bring back “plants”.

    Well, crap. Just CRAP! Now I’m going to have to re-think my plans to vote for GWB in November after that particularly lucid and factual counter-argument.

    What? Bush isn’t running? Oh. Someone ought to tell Mr. Wheel that before he goes all apoplectic over slanderous fictions.

    [/troll mockery]

  21. Timberg, in Song of The Nightingale, refers to events of the late Sixties and early Seventies in talking about several folks involved in Iran-Contra.

    He refers to the trauma suffered by the people of the word–such as Quinn–when they left their campuses, altars to the Word as Lord, and faced the riot troops. These were their high school classmates. The ones who played football, stole hubcaps, and dealt with the real world. And were armed and disciplined. It was an emotional shock.
    They never recovered, in that they never tried again as a personal type to deal with the real world. Words are now their reality. Being insulated by their money and the protection the other type of person provides, they can generally rationalize away any difficulties and contradictions between the Word and the real world.

  22. It’s pretty clear that neither the far left nor the far right really understand what gave the Swiftboat Vets’ allegations so much weight, much like Hunter S. Thompson never really understood what made “Fear and Loathing” so great, and thus was never able to write anything that could equal it. Much like Thompson’s later works, the attempts to “swiftboat” McCain and Obama are becoming increasingly clumsy, panicky, flailing efforts that will do more to annoy the electorate than convince them.

  23. the wackaloons worked overtime it seems. now they are claiming that the whole thing is a wash because mccain cheated on the cone of silence.

    in other words, to explain mccains greater competency at answering questions, they conjure up that he watched the show in the limo, was fed lines by a person with a cell phone, watched on a cell phone, or had a receiver in the ear (as they claimed for bush at one point).

    in other words, he wasnt competent, he cheated, which made him competent.

    sheesh….

  24. I thought the Saddleback debate was a wonderful way to gauge the two candidates and compare them to one another. I also think that Rick Warren did a great job, with balanced and probing questions … questions which any legitimate candidate for President of the United States should have already wrestled with on his own, way before arriving at this debate. Therefore, why did Obama respond to the questions as if it was the first time he has ever considered these points. John McCain’s immediate and decisive answers show that he had already given a great deal of thought to real concerns, as posed in these questions … where as Obama had to take the time to stutter and deliberate over the same questions asked of McCain. This was very revealing, and so were the Obama camp’s accusations of cheating, after Obama lost the debate … just another indication that Obama is a sore loser who is not qualified to lead this country … and, McCain is.

  25. “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

    That doesn’t speak to what he saw there.

    But I’m sure that Putin would have used the cone of silence, and that after his first meeting with Putin Obama would come home with a pocketful of magic beans.

  26. The effective leader knows that he must struggle to understand the nuances and the shades of gray…and then must come out other other side of this struggle, resolving the shades of gray into primary colors and making a clear decision.

    People who spend their lives dealing with words–journalists, writers, many types of academics and “nonprofit” denizens–don’t understand the “come out the other side” part.

  27. One does get a sense that the S.S. Obama is holed below the water line, and taking on water fast.

  28. david foster Says:

    “People who spend their lives dealing with words—journalists, writers, many types of academics and “nonprofit” denizens—don’t understand the “come out the other side” part.”

    That… and then there are people that do not want to let on what really think….

  29. Thomass…yes–complexity and ambiguity can be a refuge for those who are afraid to take strong stands.

    In business, people who lack courage often migrate to staff positions, in which they can analyze and sometimes advise, but never need to make unambiguous decisions with their name on it.

  30. Is this ultimately about decision making?

    I have wondered if it’s not a remnant of the academic world… everything is abstract and professors aren’t supposed to tell students what to think about issues, just present the various sides or evidence.

    CAN Obama make choices and decisions in the face of contrary but compelling argument? Has he ever had to?

    Is refusing to make choices, either between two bad things, or else between two good things, really the more intellectual thing to do?

    And real life is usually that way… not choosing between good and bad but making choices between more than one “good” thing or else choosing which “bad” thing you prefer to live with. In fact, I’d say that all “good” choices come with negatives. Actually making a choice and getting on with it does not mean that someone has not adequately thought through the “nuances.”

  31. Three debates.

    Moderated by any mutually acceptable individual.

    The candidates agree on a set number of questions, and agree to a set number of follow ups allowed per question.

    No candidate input allowed on what questions will be asked.

    And then hold the debates exactly as the Saddleback forum was conducted – the candidates appear seperately , answer the same questions in the same sequence.

    The debate could be carried on two different networks, simultaneously. Or both candidates could be questioned at the same time by different moderators in different studios before different audiences.

    It’d put Obama away. No amount of money or threat will get him back in the situation he found himself in during Saddleback.

    Pity. Saddleback is going to look easy when he gets a chance to look back.

  32. “Much like Thompson’s later works, the attempts to “swiftboat” McCain and Obama are becoming increasingly clumsy, panicky, flailing efforts that will do more to annoy the electorate than convince them.”

    Just wondering, T – do you think that the actions of the Swift Boat Vets were a dishonorable event?

    I’ve always thought being familiar with the facts in a candidate’s record was a good thing. ‘Specially when the candidate wants to be president.

  33. Some events are dishonorable but still important to confront, as President Clinton managed to demonstrate. The Swiftboat Vets’ allegations were incredibly tawdry, since even though Kerry was probably the Scott Thomas Beauchamp of his unit, he still could have caught a bullet intended for any of his fellow soldiers (even if he never actually did). However, the important thing about the allegations was that they could only be refuted by digging up Kerry’s actual actions, in Vietnam and afterward, and those are what sunk his campaign. The electorate was driven to examine the things Kerry *did* do on record, from his “Winter Soldier” backstabbing to his carefully choreographed discarding imitation medals on the White House lawn. While these acts made him a demigod to the nutroots crowd, they condemned Kerry in the eyes of the voting public.

  34. When the Swift Boat Vets stuff first came out I went to their website and watched the video interviews… the interviewer was trying to get the old fellows to say that Kerry wasn’t brave and not a one of them did it. He had to be brave, he was on a Swift Boat. Period.

    What he clearly was, however, was a self-promoter… which isn’t a crime either, only annoying. But his campaign had presented him as a war hero, which was true only in the sense that anyone who serves at all is a hero. He really didn’t stand out from his peers in the hero department… no matter how rude it is to say so. Except that the very clear implication was that his war hero status and military experience was supposed to bring in the (apparentlly unthinking, lock-step, bruitish) military and veteran vote I’d say that the extreme nit-picking of Kerry’s military record wasn’t… mentally balanced. It was nearly obsessive compulsive.

    But what got him, really, were some very simple facts that are not and never were in dispute.

    The treatment of vets after Vietnam has left deep, unhealed wounds to this very day. The sense of betrayal for many of those people was fresh and personal and included John Kerry.

    He may have been a minor figure then, but running for President made him a major one.

    And vets and military were supposed to think nothing at all of Winter Soldier, Jane Fonda, near universal accusations of war crimes, Genghis Khan, throwing away “his” medals in a grand gesture, and meetings in Paris ALL on the basis of 4 months on a Swift Boat.

  35. Tatterdemalian – it’s a bit of a tu quoque, I know, but I have a hard time viewing the Swift Boat Vets’ shedding light on Kerry’s actual record as “tawdry” after what he did to them after Vietnam. Or, perhaps not outrage and revenge but concern for the fate of the nation with Kerry at its helm prompted their coming forward. Either way, I’m glad they saw fit to expose themselves to the slings and arrows as they did.

  36. I spent eight years as a Marine.

    Prior to his presidential run, the only things I really new about Kerrey were that he’d been in the Navy during Vietnam, had won his political spurs by being an anti war uber-lib, and was nobody I’d vote for.

    The campaign process brought the timelines and transcripts of his record to the forefront, and everything about his military service just stank from a distance, especially to me, with my familiarity with how military culture worked.

    The guy came in the Navy “connected” politically He was on a cruiser for a short while, then on Swifts, then suddenly scored more medals per mission than Audie Murphy, then came home early and shoved a knife in the back of every service member who served in Vietnam.

    The swifties didn’t testify to his bravery. They testified to his honesty, and fitness for command. When your CO from back in the day has nothing one way or another to say about your qualities, after having signed off on Hearts and a few stars, that’s a signal. And when shipmates take a stand against you… ones who were lead or under fire alongside you… that has a lot of weight.

    To this day, when I hear somebody call ‘swift boat” as a pejorative, I assume they are down on points in whatever debate they are involved in.

    The term is abused, I think. “Vigilante” is in the same column.

  37. Sen. Kerry still will not allow his Navy personnel folder (military jacket, as it is called) be open to public scrutiny. There is a reason for this. He got a general discharge from the Navy, for conduct unbecoming and violations of the UCMJ while still in uniform. He participated in anti-war groups while he was still an officer in the Navy. Also, he had broken civilian and military laws by meeting with Madame Bihn in Paris ostensibly to “negotiate” a peace treaty.

    By no means not the only reason, but one of the reasons, why the Church hearings occurred was because Ted Kennedy wanted to get Kerry’s record upgraded and the government’s surveillance against Kerry and other seditionists exposed. So, in order to advance John Kerry’s career our spy agencies were, in effect, given a nasty vasectomy by Congress and the Senate. His general discharge was upgraded to honorable (but EVERYTHING original stays in his jacket) and eventually even his decorations were restored.

    Any one who aspires to be Commander in Chief of the armed forces must be able to stand up against a thorough vetting process. Now, the opposition will say that the only acceptable vetting process is an election. I beg to differ. Both Kerry and Obonga have very shady backgrounds, and are less than honorable men. They also have a history of saying things which would harm our military and our nation’s defense.

  38. > The liberal mantra is, “Violence never settles anything.” Vlad the Impaler does not agree

    I like Robert Heinlein’s response, from Starship Troopers… paraphrased:
    “Go ask the city fathers of Carthage what they think of that idea. What? No Carthage? Guess violence settled that argument, didn’t it?”

  39. I also find the mention of Jimmy Carter by neo in regards to Obama as amusing.

    IMNSHO, Obama, if elected PotUS, will surpass Jimmy Carter for the most ineptly performed, poorly organized, and incompetently run Presidency in the last century or more. His domestic policicies will fail utterly on every level, and his foreign policies will even lack the success that Carter had at Camp David.

    You will see serious inflation, stagnation, and unemployment, as well as gas lines once again.

    I really hope I don’t get the chance to be proven correct. Because I’m damned sure I’m not going to be proven incorrect.

  40. Lots of good analysis in the above comments.

    Neo: Glad you’re back from vacation. Hope you’re recharged and rested.

  41. …the interviewer was trying to get the old fellows to say that Kerry wasn’t brave and not a one of them did it. He had to be brave, he was on a Swift Boat. Period.

    As pointed out above, the apposite issue was Kerry’s leadership and fitness for command, not his bravery, but I think that the interviewees also were doing something that Kerry himself failed to do: stand up for his comrades-in-arms.

  42. “…the interviewer was trying to get the old fellows to say that Kerry wasn’t brave and not a one of them did it. He had to be brave, he was on a Swift Boat. Period.”

    I have never criticised Kerry’s Vietnam service. He was a self promopter and a jerk, but he served. His medals may or may not have been deserved, but that was not uncommon either. He was not liked by many ofd his shipmates. Not uncommon either.

    What was unforgivable was what Kerry did after he came back and was still a USN officer. If he had had the honor to resign his commision before he embarked on his anti-war, anti-military, libel of his brothers in arms, he might have been excused as a misguided but somewhat honorable individual. Instead he turned on his brothers in arms while still officially in the military and carried out his treasonous meeting in Paris. Had he been humble enough to apologize for his anti-war activities he still might have redeemed himself. He wasn’t Swift Boated, he defeated himself by his own seditious, arrogant behaviour. The Swift Boat Vets just brought all that out.

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