SECOND EVENING POST:  JULY 1,  2008

Posted at 8:23 p.m. ET

MORE PATRIOTISM

This morning we looked at Thomas Sowell's remarkable piece on patriotism, and what happens when a country abandons it.  It's a good week - July 4th week - to explore the subject. 

Now Jonah Goldberg examines what he considers Barack Obama's real patriotism problem, and makes a strong case.  Obama said in Iowa:

"I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and, hopefully, that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

Read that line again: "What I believe will make this country great."

And...

This sense that America is in need of fixing in order to be a great country points to Obama's real patriotism problem. And it's not Obama's alone.

Definitions of patriotism proliferate, but in the American context patriotism must involve not only devotion to American texts (something that distinguishes our patriotism from European nationalism) but also an abiding belief in the inherent and enduring goodness of the American nation. We might need to change this or that policy or law, fix this or that problem, but at the end of the day the patriotic American believes that America is fundamentally good as it is.

It's the "good as it is" part that has vexed many on the left since at least the Progressive era.  Marxists and other revolutionaries obviously don't believe entrepreneurial and religious America is good as it is.

And Obama is part of the left.

Echoes of these attitudes can be found in Obama's now infamous explanation that "bitter" working-class rural voters won't embrace him because they "cling" to God, guns and bigotry. But Obama's sometimes messianic rhetoric about "remaking" America — and the explicitly revolutionary aesthetics of his campaign — also rings a bell. "I am absolutely certain," he proclaimed upon clinching the Democratic nomination, "that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." So wait, America never provided care for the sick or good jobs for the jobless until St. Barack arrived? That doesn't sound like the country most Americans think of when they wave their flags on the Fourth of July.

And...

Obama went on to say that he will "remake" the country. Well, what if you don't want it remade? And Michelle Obama — who believes America is "downright mean" and is proud of America for the first time because of her husband's success — insists that Barack will make you "work" for change and that he will "demand that you, too, be different." What if you don't want to work for Obama's change? What if you don't want to be "different"?

Finally...

The notion that what America needs is a redeemer figure to "remake" America from scratch isn't necessarily unpatriotic. But for lots of Americans who like America the way it is, it's sometimes hard to tell when it isn't.

Goldberg makes an excellent point:  The true patriot believes that America is inherently worth defending, that the American ideal is noble.  Obama comes from an intellectual class that sees America as something of a hoax on the world. 

I've always believed that what some intellectuals really despise about America is democracy itself.  It's very easy for an "educated" person, who hangs with other "educated" people, to believe that it's somehow wrong for a plumber, or laborer, or nurse, to have the same one vote that he or she has.  That thought is the beginning of totalitarianism, a regime that has always had an alarming level of support among intellectual elites.

I'm pro-American.  Imagine the world without this country.

July 1, 2008.      Permalink          

FIRST EVENING POST:  JULY 1,  2008

Posted at 7:05 p.m. ET

TRACKERS

Both our standard tracking polls have now reported for the day. Both Rasmussen and Gallup show Obama with a five-point lead.  Earlier, as reported on our Snippets page, Rasmussen pointed to the remarkable stability of the race.

Unless something comes out of the blue, stability will probably be maintained in the coming few weeks.  It's holiday time.  The attention of the nation is not focused on the details of the candidates' proposals, and things are fairly quiet internationally. 

As I've said earlier, I think stability is a danger for McCain.  If the public is convinced it already knows enough about the candidates, it may refuse to look closely, and minds may not change.  On the other hand, McCain has an advantage that seems to have slipped from view:  He's a great long-distance runner, having come from behind in the Republican race, and won.  By contrast, Obama seemed to fade toward the later weeks of the Democratic race, and crawled across the finish line. 

The next big scheduled event will be Obama's trip to Europe, where he will be worshipped as the Second Coming of Jimmah.  In terms of TV images here, that worries me. 

UPDATE:  A CNN poll just released also has Obama up by five.  It's rare that three major polls show the exact same lead for a candidate, but they do.

July 1, 2008.      Permalink          

TUESDAY,  JULY 1,  2008

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

WISDOM

Is there a wiser writer than Thomas Sowell writing today?  A day after Barack Obama gave a windbagish speech on patriotism, Sowell cuts to the core, examining what happens when a society gives up traditional definitions of patriotism in favor of the politically correct kind.  A must-read:

Perhaps nowhere was patriotism so downplayed or deplored than among intellectuals in the Western democracies in the two decades after the horrors of the First World War, fought under various nations' banners of patriotism.

In France, after the First World War, the teachers' unions launched a systematic purge of textbooks, in order to promote internationalism and pacifism.

Books that depicted the courage and self-sacrifice of soldiers who had defended France against the German invaders were called "bellicose" books to be banished from the schools...

...In short, soldiers once depicted as national heroes were now depicted as victims-- and just like victims in other nations' armies.

And...

Did it matter?  Does patriotism matter?

France, where pacifism and internationalism were strongest, became a classic example of how much it can matter.

During the First World War, France fought on against the German invaders for four long years, despite having more of its soldiers killed than all the American soldiers killed in all the wars in the history of the United States, put together.

But during the Second World War, France collapsed after just six weeks of fighting and surrendered to Nazi Germany. At the bitter moment of defeat the head of the French teachers' union was told, "You are partially responsible for the defeat."

Charles de Gaulle, Francois Mauriac, and other Frenchmen blamed a lack of national will or general moral decay, for the sudden and humiliating collapse of France in 1940.

Does something sound familiar to you here?  Power of teachers' unions.  Teaching of internationalism and pacifism.  Moral decay.  Hmm.  I think I've heard about this stuff.

Finally...

Most Americans today are unaware of how much our schools have followed in the footsteps of the French schools of the 1920s and 1930s, or how much our intellectuals have become citizens of the world instead of American patriots.

Our media are busy verbally transforming American combat troops from heroes into victims, just as the French intelligentsia did-- with the added twist of calling this "supporting the troops."

Will that matter? Time will tell.

Read the whole thing.  Assignment for today:  Think about it, just think about it.  If you have a child of school or college age, it might be a good idea to ask, casually, what he or she is being taught.  You may be called a McCarthyite or a fascist for doing so - the vocabulary of the left is quite limited - but it's the price we pay for eternal vigilance.

July 1, 2008.      Permalink          

THE WARNING

Will the threat to our civilization come in the form of a Nazi-style invasion?  A gradual infiltration of ideas?  Or something else?

In Britain, a warning has been issued.  We should issue the same one here.  The Telegraph reports:

Britain will be vulnerable to terrorist attacks for another three decades, according to a major report.

The study, commissioned by David Cameron, warns that Britain's borders are insufficiently protected and that militants can enter the country undetected.

"There is no doubt more attacks will be attempted against the UK and those involved are again likely to travel abroad for preparation. Others may travel to the UK for the sole purpose of carrying out attacks," said the author of the report, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens.

There is "no indication that the [terrorist] threat level will reduce significantly" for "at least 20 to 30 years," he added.

Borders insufficiently protected?  Militants entering undetected?  Just as in the Sowell piece above, I get the feeling I've heard about things like this.  Haven't you?

"The lack of a clear border security strategy has resulted in a situation where agencies are unaware of where their shared priorities lie," he said.

"This has resulted in key duties not being carried out, resources not properly allocated, organisations not working together as they should and focus being placed on narrow border control issues, specific to each agency and not the overall border security picture of the UK."

Britain is our mother country.  Like mother, like child.

His warning comes after the Government's terrorism adviser, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, warned that private jets and light aircraft could be used by terrorists to launch attacks on crowds and buildings in Britain.

Lord Carlile said that senior police officers had "real anxiety'' about the possibility of terrorist missions launched from small airports amid fears over lax security.

Jets could be hijacked and used as "vehicle bombs'' to target the public. Such attacks would be "relatively simple'' to orchestrate, he said in his annual review of terror legislation.

Who's watching those small airfields?  Who's watching in America?

July 1, 2008.      Permalink          

ISRAELI ATTACK?

ABC News is reporting that Pentagon officials are worried about the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program before the year is out.  Gee, are they finally getting around to worrying about this?

Senior Pentagon officials are concerned that Israel could carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities before the end of the year, an action that would have enormous security and economic repercussions for the United States and the rest of the world.

A senior defense official told ABC News there is an "increasing likelihood" that Israel will carry out such an attack, a move that likely would prompt Iranian retaliation against, not just Israel, but against the United States as well.

We can only speculate on who the official is.  Please note, and it's only a piece of information, that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, was in Israel over the weekend.

Senior Pentagon officials are concerned that Israel could carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities before the end of the year, an action that would have enormous security and economic repercussions for the United States and the rest of the world.

A senior defense official told ABC News there is an "increasing likelihood" that Israel will carry out such an attack, a move that likely would prompt Iranian retaliation against, not just Israel, but against the United States as well.

Stories like this are extremely hard to pin down, especially when the interview was clearly held with someone at or near the top - the general meaning of "senior" in journalism.  The official could be serious and straightforward, or the interview can simply be a means of applying more pressure to Iran.  On the other hand, it could be a means of applying pressure to Israel.  Consider:

The widely held view among Pentagon officials is that an Israeli attack would do only temporary damage to Iran's nuclear program, and that it would cause major problems in the region and beyond, prompting a wave of attacks on U.S. interests in Iraq, the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.

No way to evaluate that.  File this story with others you read on the same subject.  The key question:  Do we or the Israelis know the full extent of the Iranian program?  If there is a hidden program, an attack could be a failure, destroying only what is seen, and not what is underneath.

It's widely assumed that, despite surface protests from Washington, Israel would have American cooperation in any attack.  Israeli aircraft might have to overfly Iraq, or other areas where the United States has control of the air.

This is serious stuff.  It will get more serious, very soon.

July 1, 2008.      Permalink