While good comedians punch up and conservative comedians punch down, P.J. O’Rourke punches himself. While he is clever and occasionally quite funny, his lack of earnestness ultimately undermines him both as a comic and as a social commentator. He criticizes everyone, including himself, for being too self-centered. But he doesn’t offer any real alternatives. He’s a self-loathing Baby Boomer who is convinced that his generation destroyed this country through their narcissism and fascination with personal betterment at the expense of any higher calling. Yet, he doesn’t have a higher calling to offer. The only thing he really succeeds in is making me doubt, again, whether Hillary Clinton will really become our next president. Could we possibly elect a “senior” Baby Boomer like Clinton…a person born in the late 1940’s “on the bow wave of the baby boom’s voyage of exploration…keelhauled by the baby-boom experience and left a bit soggy and shaken”? Can we really go back to talking about whether someone failed to inhale the marijuana they were smoking? It seems like too much of a time warp. We have gay marriages to attend.
I keep that in mind when I hear rumblings of discontent on the left. Maybe Clinton could break the deadlock and reunite the country within a solid-left consensus. But I just have the feeling that progressives have learned to walk on their own and are going to be insisting on something more to their liking.
On the other hand, I don’t think the Boomers are quite done fucking with us, yet. Clinton will probably win this thing.
I did like Rourke’s take on proper drunk driving:
“Some people say you should drive a big, sturdy car. Others say you should drive a nimble, evasive car. I say you should drive a rental car.”
That was back in the ’80s before we got too MADD.
The rumblings were heard in 2008 which is who, imo, really carried Obama in the beginning primaries. It’s why for a while I thought, “Damn, maybe we do have a chance at an FDR for our times,” something I thought Obama could have (and should have) been.
We can talk about FDR’s majorities being larger all we want, but his first 100 days kicked the shit out of Obama’s, and he damn well wouldn’t have allowed Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson decide his legacy.
I can’t believe it took the recent contraceptive battles to really wake the Democrats the fuck up about the filibuster, but at least we’re past that point. Maybe now we can truly have another FDR moment, but that chance probably won’t happen until 2020 or 2024.
Abortion Cases in Court Helped Tilt Democrats Against the Filibuster
Forgot the link^
No Joe Lieberman + no Ben Nelson = no ACA. You go to war with the Congress you have.
And I guarantee you Democrats will still be fighting about Obama’s first two years in 2024, and 2044 for that matter.
That’s just it, though: the filibuster shouldn’t have been an impediment then either.
Iunno, I do not think FDR would have allowed it to block his shit or even stand a chance of screwing him over like it almost did post-Scott Brown.
But I’m not just blaming the president here…his dumb faction in the Senate needed Janice Rogers Brown saying contraception is the devil to make them wake up. Maybe nothing besides this and beyond could have spurred action.
Anyway, no use browbeating it, the point I was trying to make was this: back in 2008, I thought we moved past this era already, and we’re still talking about Clinton being the probable nominee and president. And it makes me damned depressed.
Well, I see what you mean. Progressives were right about so many things in ’08-09 but we had to water our great bills down to satisfy centrist dummies. That’s still painful.
That being said, I think one shouldn’t underestimate the value of having a safe, uninspiring, yet obviously strong Hilary as our 2016 nominee in an era when Republicans are dangerously insane. One of our party’s central goals must remain warding off the GOP until their fever breaks.
I don’t think your grasp of history is very sharp, seabe. FDR didn’t have to deal with filibuster problems because the Dem Senate majorities during the crucial years of his Presidency were filibuster-proof. Plus, many of the New Deal programs he shepherded through Congress were declared unconstitutional and tossed out by the Supreme Court. He allowed the Court to continue “screwing him over” until his second term. His court-packing proposal crashed and burned in the ’37-’38 Congress, and the Dems suffered huge Congressional losses in the mid-term election.
As far as Obama’s first Congress, are you proposing that the Senate Dems should have killed the filibuster right away? If Reid lacked the votes for a limited filibuster kill until late 2012, what makes you think he had the votes to clear aside the filibuster ON LEGISLATION in ’09-’10? He would have needed some of the “dumb faction in the Senate” to vote for that, you know.
I agree with you here, but you realize this argument will never end, right?
I sometimes make the mistake of making these discussions too personal. People who put forth a viewpoint usually have selected facts which support their view. When I’m composing my responses more realistically, my goal is to persuade the other readers, not the person who I’m responding to.
The only thing Clinton has going for her, in my opinion, is that she is likely to win. Considering the alternative, that’s a very important point. But going back to the Boomers for leadership seems like a very bad plan. I’m tired of the arguments of the sixties. It’s time to move on.
I’ve always considered BooMan’s certainty of Hillary’s unbeatability in 2016 to be an eccentric departure from his usual acumen in predicting outcomes. 2016 isn’t just an eternity in politics, it’s a lengthy period in life itself. Hillary could be ill or dead by 2016, for all we know.
Hillary could win a 2016 landslide, She also could fail to gain the Democratic nomination. Let’s see what sort of campaign she decides to put together, and what the GOP does in their nomination process. I like our chances, but I have enough experience to know that it’s WAY too early. That this weak O’Rourke column could shake his confidence in Hillary’s inevitability shows how shallow that confidence is.
Well…Liz Warren is a Boomer. She’s definitely not Clinton. Her arguments are pretty timeless, and not “the arguments of the sixties”, whatever those are.
Obama is a Gen-Xer, strictly speaking. Generally, once a president is elected from a younger generation, no more presidents are elected from older generations. 2016 might be an exception.
Although there is merit to the idea of generational responsibility, as Marie points out about the “greatest generation” above, I think the whole generational thing can be a bit too rigid. It sure makes it easy to blame millions of very different people for the same ideas or actions, as if they had that much control over events.
I see as much self-centered behavior in every generation as the Boomers are accused of. And as much achievement.
When was the last time P.J. O’Rourke was relevant? 1996?
As for Hillary, if/when she is elected it will be as a Grande Dame (a la Thatcher, Merkel). That will be her persona and the vessel for her candidacy. But let’s hope that she is not as conservative as those two; and moreover, I hope we on the left can hold the space for her to be more progressive than her husband. I trust that both her and Bill have learned a few things over the past 13+ years, and have also learned from watching Obama about how to move the country forward as Prez.
I believe they want to be remembered as the greatest liberal duo since FDR and Eleanor. Whether they are is up to Hillary.
Lemme see…
This is a progressive website, right? It says that right on the homepage bookmark.
“Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community”
OK. This website’s frontpagers…mostly Booman, of course…have been about 95% supportive of Obama from the original Clinton/Obama primaries right on through until today. So have most of the other posters.
So what is this “something more to their liking” upon which the progressives are going to insist? Inquiring minds want to know. Rule of law? After the NSA fiasco and Obama’s executive decisions to kill people by the use of drones no matter what their nationality or level of guilt may be? Some form of governmental competence? After what we have seen of Homeland Security, the Obamacare rollout and the surrender of much our our security apparatus to private contractors who hire minimum wage-level workers with no real background check and then throw up their hands in amazement why some of them go bananas w/ an AK 47? Fiscal responsibility and a functional watchdog system to keep the financial predators in check? Give me a break!!!
As they have the previous five years and counting?
Please!!!
Wake the fuck up.
AG
What’s your plan, “progressive”? Your frequently stated desire to browbeat us into allowing the Paul movement to lead us to true progressive victory does not appear to be catching on, and your hold on only 5% of the readers here does not leave us optimistic that you are communicating a persuasive political philosophy.
I am not “communicating a persuasive political philosophy?”
Please show me someone who is. This current neo-liberal/centrist thing is most definitely not working. We are headed straight for ToughLove Christie, who is really just the right hand of the PermaGov as opposed to the Obama/Clinton left hand. Eight years of liberals whining about Christie is what’s next. What a prospect!!!
There are any number of people who are “communicating” cogent alternatives to the current economic imperialist swamp-headed-to-a-tarpit in which we are currently trapped, from the Paulists at the right through people like Elizabeth Warren in the center/left and the radical left as personified by people like Noam Chomsky and others who write for Counterpunch.The government media complex colors them all with the same set of non-personing, “unelectable” brushes and the people…conservatives, centrists and progressives alike…swallow this load of bullshit like manna from media heaven.
If we do not wake the fuck up soon, it will be too late. It may be too late already. The American Dream is rapidly morphing into the American Nightmare, and anyone who supports what Obama has done…or what Hillary or Christie will do, bet on it…is deaf, dumb and media-blinded.
Sigh.
I do keep trying. Getting tired of trying, though.
Bet on that as well.
Eventually I’ll just see it as a lost cause. Wouldn’t y’all be relieved!!!
Meanwhile…just consider me a burr under your media saddle or maybe the remnant of your conscience.
So it goes.
Later…
AG
Ron Paul cites Hayek as an influence, by your own admission, no? Hayek is considered one of the architects of what is called neoliberalism. You are aware of that, right? It would be safe to conclude that Ron Paul and his son Rand would likely be advocates of at least some form of neoliberalism – albeit one with a nominal dollop of isolationism added to the rhetoric. Getting progressives on board with that is bound to be as close to impossible as one could imagine. As for anyone to the left of progressives? Forget about it.
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are formidable opponents from the center-left, and perhaps folks like the new NYC mayor will emerge as powerful voices in their own right.
For an overview of neoliberalism, I will still recommend David Harvey’s “A Brief History of Neoliberalism.” It’s highly readable, sufficiently brief, and easy enough to find. Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” would make for a good companion book.
Neoliberalism is a lazy epithet thrown around all-too-often by people who don’t know what it means. And no one agrees on the proper definition, anyway.
Besides, Arthur Gilroy surely disliked the liberals more than neoliberals, since the former were even more predatory.
Bringing up Hayek in this context is instructive. If you define him as a neo-liberal, then what does that make Al Gore? If you don’t define him as a neoliberal, then does that make him a National Socialist? He’s certainly not a communist.
I find the term useless and I think less of people who I see using the term as an epithet.
Me too, in a way. I use it…as I use almost all language and most certainly all brands like “progressive,” “liberal,” “conservative…as an idiomatic shortcut when I think that I am communicating in a certain culture. The word “neoliberal” in and of itself has as many meanings (or lacks of real meaning) as does the word “motherfucker.” In certain street contexts “motherfucker” has a wide and subtle range of meanings; in others it’s just a Hollywood brand (think Samuel L. Jackson); in some instances it is simply a rude and insulting term and in yet others…bet on it, I learned the hard way…them’s fightin’ words.
In the leftiness blog world “neoliberal” has come to by syonymous w/”faux liberal”…a pol who talks a good, progressive game but walks with the Permanent Government. Obama, in short, and the Clintons as well. That is how I use it, not as some academic football upon which various perfessers write empty theses and make Wikipedia reputations.
Durito and his oh so erudite “communism?”
Leftiness Doritos.
Nothing more.
Later…
AG
For someone who bitches and whines about hypnomedia, you sure do rely on an awful lot of it. Strange.
Hypnomedia? We live in it, DD. Short of adopting an almost totally Luddite life choice, we swim in it. Ask most fish about water and they will say “Water? What water?” Excepting the really smart ones, of course.
They use it.
You and most other members of the leftiness club?
Glub glub glub.
Bet on it.
And while I am at it…
WTFU.
AG
I know.
AG
An artist’s rendition of yours truly:
Oddly enough, there is an actual academic usage of the term, neoliberalism, and it is quite conceivable to use it as a descriptive label rather than as a pejorative. When I use it, the intention is to describe politicians who adhere to policies with varying degrees of transfer of wealth from those of us who make up the working classes to those who make up the upper echelons of socioeconomic status. It is in part economic theory insofar as names like Hayek and Friedman get mentioned, and political insofar as certain figures and parties have been identified with austerity, privatization, deregulation, etc., to varying degrees. There are certainly variations on such notions as liberalization of trade and regulations, and privatization of previously public functions. The Pauls represent one very radical side of the continuum, and someone like the Clintons or Al Gore might represent another side of the continuum. The latter might look for ways to ease the pain to their constituents, which I suppose is wonderful insofar as it goes. The term late capitalism was used to describe it in the 1980s and early 1990s. It got re-labeled sometime after I left college. Maybe as Sherry Ortner puts it, neoliberalism is merely “late capitalism made conscious.” Anyhoo, the main take-away is that neoliberalism is not some monolithic set of economic and political policies, but includes a number of diverse variations on a theme, if you will. Much can be said about any of a number of other ideological positions that either currently exist, or have existed in the past, such that there may be considerable disagreements as to what to include or exclude as exemplars.
I honestly have no idea why you would even suggest even in jest a comparison of Gore to National Socialists other than to invite the invocation of Godwin’s Law. National Socialism was a particular brand of fascism specific to a particular time and place, and sane people (i.e., those not glued to FauxNews) have the good sense to know that there was nothing socialistic about it. Al Gore was as of 2000 largely a continuation of Clinton. If one liked the policies of the Clinton era (NAFTA, deregulation of the banking industry, “ending welfare as we know it”), there would have been much to like about Gore. Maybe he’s changed his stripes since then, but honestly I neither know nor care. Nor am I particularly interested in Democratic partisans’ hurt feelings at the term neoliberal (albeit in its milder variations) being used to describe positions taken by many of their favorite political figures. What I do care about is the potential development of emerging leaders in the party who are keen on moving away from the 1990s, such as Elizabeth Warren.
At least we can agree that Al Gore is not a communist. How wonderful.
Wow, I was disinclined to click through to O’Rourke’s piece because I’ve liked nothing he’s written and find him to be an insufferable panelist on TV programs. But I figured I should see what BooMan’s talking about. That column was one long, flatulent complaint with no path out, meant for the misanthrope. Those types tend to the antisocial, so we couldn’t even say there’s an assembled audience for this writing.
Two things I note: P.J. has some gall to complain that the personal has become the political. His writing and commentary has almost always used personal anecdotes and remarks to serve his political points. This column is full of personal proposals which are actually unsupported clichés meant to serve his politics. So, FTG.
And, then, this:
“And we’ll never retire. We can’t. The mortgage is underwater. We’re in debt up to the Rogaine for the kids’ college education. And it serves us right–we’re the generation who insisted that a passion for living should replace working for one.”
The conservative political movement is almost entirely responsible for systematically destroying the financial retirement security of most of us Baby Boomers. Our parents’ generation often had more secure retirement incomes, so we know it’s possible. In his litany of complaints, O’Rourke fails to note the unfettered, corrupt greed of the ruling class and the conservative movement’s successful demagoguing of taxes and social welfare programs.
In general, there has been a decades-long attack by O’Rourke’s conservative movement on collective we’re all-in-this-together action on behalf of the middle class, from unions to government programs. This all had a whole lot to do with creating the retirement problems he complains about in that paragraph, but let’s not talk about that.
P.J. appears to have a sad because “it will be hard to assemble those huge conscripted armies that used to fight wars.” Oh, and he appears to believe that the best and the brightest are over at Goldman Sachs. Or maybe his intent is to communicate something else; if so, his writing is not clear enough to make that point. Made to guess, I believe he actually believes these things.
And if that is true, what an insufferable asshole he is.
if she runs and WINS, ok.
but I’m not down with the let’s CORONATE HILLARY meme.
she can run and win, but nobody should move out of the way for her…fuck that.
Oh what a simply depressing thought: the Three Clintons in the White House again. Gridlock.
Interesting discussion on some talk radio show the day after Obama won in 2008 pointing out that with Obama we’ve moved past the Bush/ Clinton Vietnam era to and fro into problems of the 21st century. Hope Hilary wins if she is the nominee, but also hope we have a candidate that doesn’t bring us back to that era. I thought/ hope Brian Schweitzer is running?
Yeah, well we had the fucking “greatest generation” to contend with. The fine folks that sat on their duffs during the McCarthy era. Cheered on massive highway construction everyone and shunned mass transit. Fled from cities out to culturally deficient crappy suburbs. They loved the Vietnam war, and then voted for fucking Richard Nixon. Twice. They got theirs and then elected the senile Ronald Reagan. Twice.
McGovern was the most honorable and decent man to be nominated for President in the past half century and he lost in a landslide. That — and not the “boomers” is what — is what began the take down the progressive/liberal Democratic Party. All the late boomers like Obama that thought/think Reagan was admirably transformative.
On election night 1968 as the returns rolled in I despaired and said, “How will we ever survive four years of Nixon?” Little did I know that it wouldn’t be four years, but forty-eight years and counting. If 2016 ends up being Hillary (the senior citizen Goldwater Girl) v. X, it will be fifty-two years. And we’re not doing so well. The planet isn’t do so well.
Well, duh:
THIS boomer has been saying for years now that Obama has participated and sometimes led in major shifts in society and that many of us don’t want to go back by looking at modern political issues through 70s lenses. And as a matter of fact Obama made the point in 2008 (to SF Gate editors I think) that he could bring fresh thinking to national issue and elevate the discussion out of the Vietnam era narratives.
So Boomer voters aren’t holding back candidates under 60. And there are plenty of younger folks “fucking with us” over politics who think Hillary is just great. Yet the lack of imagination on this and many other left leaning blogs to look at potential candidates other than Hillary has been alarming.
Clinton won’t win because of me. I may be a liberal voter and vote for her if she is the candidate – but it will take liberal drinking on my part to get to that point. Why?
The page turned long ago. Progressives are in deep trouble if we don’t realize that.
agree with all of your points
and the 16 candidate may run against Bush. bleak would be my word for that
Another thing that bugs me about Hillary Clinton is her disastrous hires like Mark Penn. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is famous for making very good hires.
Wait. What? I was supposed to take O’Rourke seriously? I read the whole thing as tongue in cheek humor and giggled to myself all the way through. I even sent a link to the Momcat thinking she might get a kick out of it too.
There is one P.J. O’Rourke book I think is worth reading even if you hate his later stuff: Parliament of Whores. He was prepared to hate the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as a bunch of over-regulating killjoys, but after interviewing some staffers there he found that they were all car nuts just like him. And O’Rourke gained some sympathy for members of Congress and their staffers. (I wonder what he thinks of the Tea Party caucus, though.)
Modern Manners was a hilarious book.
PJ O’Rourke….please. No need to consider his “analysis.”
Two important points:
Obama and Clinton didn’t merely bury the hatchet – they struck a serious deal, and created a legacy plan. And the idea was Obama’s.
That massive black vote in the Iowa DEM caucuses?
Obama was set also to win in NH — until team Clinton pulled out the race card. Not expecting that to be heard outside NH or quickly within the SC AA community.
You’re misremembering NH.
Clinton won after a public show of sexism finally brought more women to her side. NH was the “iron my shirt” and “like-able enough” primary.
But whatever – those are old stories now. The Obama-Clinton Plan is pretty much in effect in the Democratic Party.
Not misremembering it at all. It was blatant enough that I picked up on it from 3,000 miles away. Principally because I wrote about it the next day in It Worked! But At What What Price?
Had that not been there in NH and had it not worked, Bill Clinton wouldn’t have attempted to repeat it in SC — and that’s when they got nailed for it.