Of stories and narratives, mice and men

James Taranto in Best of the Web notes:

Drew Westen is back. He's the psychologist and political consultant who wrote a ridiculous but revealing New York Times op-ed back in August faulting President Obama for failing to tell "a story" that would comfort "scared and angry" Americans by assuring them that the president would heroically vanquish "bad guys."

It's taken me a while, but I finally realized what story it is that Westen wanted Obama to tell us:

George's voice became deeper. He repeated his words rhythmically as though he had said them many times before. "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They come to a ranch an' work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they're poundin' their tail on some other ranch. They ain't got nothing to look ahead to."

Lennie was delighted. "That's it - that's it. Now tell how it is with us."

George went on. " With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don't have to sit in no bar room blowin' in our jack jus' because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us."

Lennie broke in. "But not us! An' why? Because .... because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why." He laughed delightedly. "Go on now, George."

"You got it by heart. You can do it yourself."

"No, you. I forget some a' the things. Tell about how it's gonna be."

"O.K. Some day - we're gonna get the jack together and we're gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an' a cow and some pigs and ---"

"An' live off the fatta the lan'," Lennie shouted. "An' have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we're gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that, George."

"Why'n't you do it yourself. You know all of it."

"No.... you tell it. It ain't the same if I tell it. Go on..... George. How I get to tend the rabbits."

"Well," said George. "We'll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit-hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we'll just say the hell with goin' to work, and we'll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an' listen to the rain comin' down on the roof...."

The problem is that Westen and the Democrats forgot that Lennie could tell the story as good as George could, so when they heard Obama telling it back in 2004 at the DNC, they thought that Obama was George. What they are just now realizing is that THEY are George, and Obama is Lennie. See if this doesn't sound like the Democrats' current lament about their President:

"There's enough beans for four men," George said.

Lennie watched him from over the fire. He said patiently, "I like 'em with ketchup."

"Well, we ain't got any," George exploded. "Whatever we ain't got, that's what you want. God a'mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an' work an' no trouble. No mess at all, and when the end of the month come I could take my fifty bucks and go into town and get whatever I want. Why, I could stay in a cat house all night, I could eat any damn place I want, hotel or any place, and order any damn thing I could think of. An' I could do all that every damn month.. Get a gallon of whisky, or set in a pool room and play cards or shoot pool." Lennie knelt and looked over the fire at the angry George. And Lennie's face was drawn with terror. "An' whatta I got?" George went on furiously. " I got you! You can't keep a job and you lose me ever' job I get. Jus' keep me shovin' all over the country all the time. An' that ain't the worst. You get in trouble. You do bad things and I got to get you out." His voice rose nearly to a shout. "You crazy son-of-a-bitch. You keep me in hot water all the time." He took on the elaborate manner of little girls when they are mimicking one another. "Jus' wanted to feel that little girl's dress - jus' wanted to pet it like it was a mouse -- Well, how the hell did she know you jus' wanted to feel her dress? She jerks back and you hold on like it was a mouse. She yells and we got to hide in a irrigation ditch all day with guys lookin' for us, and we got to sneak out in the dark and get outta the country. All the time somethin' like that - all the time. I wisht I could put you in a cage with about a million mice and let you have fun."

But the Democrats can no more walk away from their Lennie than George could from his. In the end, George showed Lennie mercy, but the Democrats can't even do that, though in their case they'd only need to remove Obama's name from nomination rather than use George's drastic measure.

Racism, Obama and the Progressive Left

In The Best of the Web blog at the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto considers the proposition that criticism of Barack Obama from the Left could be racist (prompeted by a joking comment by Rush Limbaugh):

As NewsBusters.org reports, Ed Schultz of MSNBC took Limbaugh's remark personally: "[Limbaugh] is now accusing me of being a racist," the talking horse said on MSNBC's "The Mr. Ed Show."

This leads NB's Noel Sheppard to observe: "Any person with even a room temperature intelligence quotient would know that Limbaugh was claiming racism because any time anyone on the right has criticized Barack Obama since the moment he threw his hat into the presidential candidacy ring in February 2007, said person has been accused of racism by the Left." Sheppard thinks Schultz didn't get the joke, which seems unlikely. After all, Limbaugh explained the joke.

But maybe it's not entirely a joke. That thought is prompted by a pair of opinion pieces that appeared in liberal newspapers over the weekend, both by black writers: columnist Colbert King in the Washington Post on Saturday and novelist Ishmael Reed in the New York Times on Sunday. Neither man goes quite so far as to call Obama's progressive critics racist, but both travel a significant distance in that direction.

Taranto presents the kernels of the arguments by King and Reed, and concludes:

As we have argued, the leftist charge that conservative opposition to Obama is racist is in part a cynical appeal to fear, aimed at persuading blacks to continue voting Democratic. But this could backfire. If Reed and King are right, there is no reason to assume that the progressives' self-definition is widely accepted among blacks. Thus the progs' harsh attacks on Obama are likely to look as racist as the conservatives' attacks do.

In our view, progressives are largely innocent of the racism charge. As we argued Friday, they have turned against Obama because they are infantile, not because he is black. To put it more gently, their quarrel with Obama is over policy, not race--and that much they have in common with conservatives. Which of course was Limbaugh's point.

I would argue that Progressives (and others) are guilty of racism toward Obama from a different perspective. Progressives are prone to believe in the myth of the "Noble Savage" and to idealize the "Magic Negro."

Taranto summarizes Reed:

His central argument is that those who "criticize President Obama for keeping his cool"--who urge him "to 'man up' " and start "slapping people left and right"--do not understand the cultural constraints under which black men operate in America: "If President Obama behaved that way, he'd be dismissed as an angry black militant with a deep hatred of white people."

But at the same time, Progressives have their own set of cultural constraints that they impose on Black Americans. Progressives are more likely to see Barack Obama, because of his skin color, his direct African parentage and his partial upbringing in exotic Indonesia, as a being outside of the dominant American ethnocentric and nationalist culture.

Surely as a Black man born of an African Muslim father, Obama must (in their view, and the view of those less Left-leaning but equally seeking a healer for America's racial wounds) possess the power to resist the pernicious influences of American culture and history and to be able to govern differently. To them, Obama represents both the Noble Savage, untainted by inbred Americanness, and the Magic Negro, untainted by the victimhood and resentments of the African-American experience.

When Obama cuts a deal to preserve tax cuts for the "wealthiest" Americans as a response to mere political considerations, he violates the trust that Progressives put in him to be truly different from other American Presidents. Obama himself seems not to understand this: not only has he lashed out at disappointed and angry Progressives with anger and disappointment of his own, but he's fed the perception of being the "same old, same old" by relying so heavily on Bill Clinton, to the point of leaving Clinton to handle a Presidential press conference without the presence of the present President.

During the Clinton Presidency, Progressives seem to have forgiven Clinton a multitude of sins against Progressivism. They didn't necessarily expect any more from a Southern good ol' boy. But seeing Barack Obama commit some of those same offenses has sparked an outpouring of rage, and I contend it's not unfair to say that he's being held to a different standard by the Left because of his race.

The Telefon Rings

In his Best of the Web blog at OpinionJournal.com, James Taranto comments that the decision to try KSM and other enemy combatants in New York returns 9/11 to the forefront of America's consciousness.

In addition, the more dramatically the Obama administration departs from past antiterror policies, the more the public will be inclined to blame it should there be another terrorist attack--especially if, God forbid, terrorists use the trial as an occasion to hit New York.

“…should there be another terrorist attack…” With respect to the massacre at Ft. Hood, allow me to direct you to a movie from the Cold War era: the Charles Bronson spy actioner Telefon.

During the Cold War of the 1950s, the Soviet Union planted a number of long-term, deep-cover sleeper agents all over the United States, spies so thoroughly brainwashed that even they didn't know they were agents; they could only be activated by a special code phrase (a line from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" followed by their real given names). Their mission was to sabotage crucial parts of the civil and military infrastructure in the event of nuclear war.
Over twenty years pass, and the Cold War gradually gives way to détente. Nikolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence), a rogue KGB officer, defects to America, taking with him the Telefon Book, which contains the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all the agents. He starts activating them one by one. American counterintelligence is thrown into confusion when seemingly-ordinary citizens (even a clergyman) start blowing up what are, in some cases, long-abandoned facilities and commit suicide right afterwards.

Seems that the actions of Maj. Hasan conform to the outlines of the Telefon plot: he was essentially programmed to commit traitorous mass murder, triggered by key verses fed to him by an enemy agent. It’s pretty clear that Maj. Hasan’s massacre was a terrorist attack, as well as an act of sabotage by a traitor.

President Obama has exhausted any benefit of the doubt on this issue. The next mass-casualty attack by an extremist Muslim on American soil, whether it kills 10 or 10,000, will demonstrate that he's unable to match the Bush Administration's record of preventing another terrorist attack on the American homeland from 9/11 on.

And those in the media and in official government positions who are desperately trying to deny that the Ft. Hood massacre was a terrorist act committed to support the extremist Islamic jihad against America are only making that next attack more likely. They're making it more difficult for law enforcement and counter-terrorism agents to identify who's the next sleeper likely to get a call on the telefon.