The Sad Tale of Wilentz

In the last post I described the core constituency of Hillary as basically women, old people, dumb people and racists. So where do Professor Sean Wilentz, and his fuzzy alter-ego Paul Krugman, fit in? Both are not women, dumb, or racist. Why do they hate Obama, and like Hillary, so much.

Part of the answer comes from analyzing their screeds. For Wilentz (who, I should add, was my professor in college and knows me personally, even if won't remember my name correctly), see this piece of guano in the New Republic:
"Making the Case... for Hillary Clinton" and for Krugman, just read any column over the past 4 months.

What both have in common is the small group of the Democratic elite who support Hillary:

1. Baby-boomers (who are the "old" category of the previous post)
   
2. and/or fierce liberals who hate the GOP so much that they want to keep fighting the fractious red-blue wars of the 90s (and the 60s, go figure).
   
3. and/or pundits who endorsed Hillary too early - before Obama showed himself the real deal - and are now trapped in either cognitive dissonance or, worse, Pundits Dissonance (the malady that afflicts moron commentators, disallowing them from admitting error).

Wilentz and Krugman are in all three of these groups.

Baby-Boomers Against the Youngin': These hypocrites were inspired by JFK as teenagers, flocked to an inexperienced hillbilly when he was in their age group, but now that the candidate is younger than they are - like the narcissitic nihilists they have been since the banana-peel smoking 60s - they can't handle it. Punk bastards. I'll be glad when they are shoved aside, because the next president will either be the anti-baby boomer Obama (say that 5 times fast) or the stodgy crew-cutted square that the hippie boomers rejected back in the day (McCain).

Liberal Fighters: Nothing quite so sad as a victim turned bully. Especially when they don't know how to bully well. Wilentz and Krugman don't want the culture war to end. They hate Bush and the GOP so much - for what happened to Bill and Hill in the 90s and for what Bush has done since then - and heck, maybe allaway back to Nixon - that they want to keep the fight going. The logic - and Wilentz/Krugman say this explicitly - is that the GOP needs crushing and Obama is a weenie and Hillary is a fighter.

Let's take this apart, because all three premises are wrong. First, we see what a great fighter Hillary has been (even when this was first proposed, back in 1-15, and its crystal clear now): she's awful. A shrill maladriot. She can't convince a drowning man to drink and she can't beat Obama - a political newcomer with a funny name, handicapped skin, and who refuses to fight back! Hillary is as good a fighter as Kerry/Dukakis/Gore. That is, she sucks.

But the real false premise combines the misdiagnosis of Obama and the nature of our battle with the GOP. Assume for a moment that the GOP needs to be punished for the horrific misdeeds of the past 15 years (the Clinton-Bush terms). What's the best way to do that? There's the shrill victim way - that of Hillary/Wilentz/Krugman - which is just fantasy. The victim getting the upper hand on the bully... doesn't happen in the schoolyard, and it certainly doesn't happen in the boardroom. Power is power and doesn't switch hands unless the bully is in a coma.

Which brings us to the weenie charge. Only true weenies - like Hillary/Krugman/Wilentz, and their mentors in weenie-dom: George W. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, John Yoo, Rush Limbaugh - think that direct conflict is the way to win a war. Obama's skill is that of great politicians (think FDR or LBJ): diplomacy. To quote LBJ: "Remember the prophet Isaiah: Come let us reason together. Telling a man to go to hell and making him go there are two different things." A diplomat will defeat a bully unless he's outnumberd 5:1.

Obama has the true political skill that converts enemies into allies and to get his agenda - which is delightfully left-wing - passed. Bullies and other weaklings want wars because they like the glory of battle (specifcally the glory of winning). Obama, following the principles of Master Sun Tzu, will win. And if Wilentz/Krugman were real culture warriors they would flock to Obama because of that. But they're blinded, or bullies, and can't escape their prisons of thought.

Pundit Dissonance - Just as Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge became towering figures because they were the populist opposition to Pres. Clinton, so academics like Wilentz and Krugman were the necessary opposition to Bush. Especially when the mainstream press rolled over and played dead during these years, these pundits were must-reads, providing information and courage during the dark times. These smart guys became talking-heads, and they lost their academic skills and fell into a papist 'just so' trap, where they considered that their words were incontrovertable truth (note: this is also known as the Charedi Rosh Yeshiva With Only a High School Education trap).

But times have changed since Krugman had been elevated into infallibility. From 2000-2006 his indispensibility was valid and unquestioned. But then came the realigning midterms of 2006, the explosion of trusted blogger journalism, and Youtube. The Democrats now have the GOP in a fair(ish) fight, the news and reality are getting out there. Krugman is not indispensible, and he seems to have let the revolution pass him by.

One proof of Wilentz/Krugman's failure is to assume that Hillary is experienced, and/or liberal, and/or a fighter, or whatever new guano comes out of her self-inflicted wounded bunker. Her claims are demonstrably false. Any intelligent person can see that. Wilentz/Krugman won't. They are infallible! They cannot be wrong. It is we mush-headed youngsters who are being snowed over by a talented black man! Whatever.

The mystery fourth category

Even were my above analysis to be wrong (and it isn't because I am now a pundit), I have discovered, through this painful primary, a mystery fourth category that Wilentz/Krugman - and many other wrinkly Democrats who support Hillary - are in: they are McGovern-Mondale-Dukakis-Kerry Democrats (MMDKD). I'll explain that later.

Backpost: 1/15/08, 1:48 PM. All I had was the link. I'm adding the context and commentary now. Pic from here of Wilentz in 1994, 2 years after I had him in class.