Buckley's Legacy: We're Soaking In It

Years ago I taught math in a small college. I could tell you lots of stories about that. But today: just one.

There was a time when I used to meet some of my math students every week in the library, to help them with their physics. I helped them because I liked them, but I really didn't understand why they needed the help. These were my brightest students, the material wasn't very difficult, and their physics teacher had been the college's "Teacher of the Year" twice in the previous three years. But none of them knew what they were doing. Very strange.

One day I couldn't stand the mystery anymore and I asked, "What can you tell me about your physics teacher?"

"He's very brilliant," one of them said, and all the others nodded.

"How do you know he's brilliant?" I asked, and the answer came back right away:

"Because nobody understands anything he says."

I didn't ask them any more questions. I was thinking, "If he's really a brilliant teacher, why can't he explain these simple concepts in terms everybody can understand?" But I knew that was a wrong question -- nobody could have answered it.

Human nature: if somebody says something incomprehensible, if he's confident and glib, and especially if he's being paid to say it, most of us won't question him. We just assume he must be brilliant and we must be stupid; otherwise surely we would understand him. And quite often -- unless somebody comes along to intervene -- the charlatan is regarded as a prophet, and the nonsense he's spewing becomes accepted as revealed wisdom.

So it's almost but not quite astonishing to see the allegedly liberal media and some very supposedly dissident journalists fawning over the rotting corpse of William F. Buckley Jr.

How quickly they have forgotten ... or never noticed ... or never dared to mention ... the essential fact of his career (not to mention his life): Buckley was an astonishingly gifted man who devoted his considerable intellect to the toughest challenge known to literate man.

"He made conservatism respectable", the obituaries say. Think of what that means.

The "conservatism" in question is a transparent fiction: at its core is an essential denial of humanity. The motto of this "respectable" conservatism was made famous in a song:

I'm all right, Jack, keep your hands off my stack!

In more concrete terms, Buckley's "respectable conservatism" strives to give more wealth to the wealthy, and more power to the powerful, and a big fat middle finger to everybody else.

This agenda is obviously and completely at odds with the desires and needs of at least 99% of the population, so back when America was a democracy, there was no tougher job than making this agenda of greed seem like a "respectable" political "philosophy".

And William F. Buckley was better at that job than anyone.

He used his enormous vocabulary to intimidate people, and to hide more truth than he revealed. He sold his readers and listeners a pack of lies, most of which they didn't even understand. And he made them think he was brilliant.

In a sense, he was. He helped convince a generation or three of American "intellectuals" that policies leading to the death and destruction of millions of people were somehow humane and righteous.

These very useful idiots in turn helped to brainwash Americans by the tens of millions. Everywhere in America -- not only in so-called "red states" -- you can find otherwise intelligent people who regularly vote for the politicians most inimical to their interests, and the interests of their children.

This is the brilliant legacy of William F. Buckley.

He baffled our fathers with bullshit, and now look -- we're soaking in it!

Straight To Hell: William F. Buckley Is Dead

The evil sons of bitches have lost one of their leaders. William F. Buckley is dead at 82.

As the New York Times eulogizes:

Mr. Buckley’s greatest achievement was making conservatism — not just electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas — respectable in liberal post-World War II America. He mobilized the young enthusiasts who helped nominate Barry Goldwater in 1964, and saw his dreams fulfilled when Reagan and the Bushes captured the Oval Office.

If nothing else, Bill Buckley's death gives us one more reason to live a righteous life.

Because now, if you go to hell, you'll have to listen to this pompous asshole for all eternity.

al-Maliki: Timetable My Ass! Bush: Move It! Dyer: Oops!

Iraqi Leader Disavows U.S. Timetable

BAGHDAD, Oct. 25 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq today distanced himself from the American notion of a time line on political measures the Iraqi government should take, and he criticized a raid carried out by American forces against the leader of a Shiite death squad.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq held a news conference in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad on Wednesday.

Speaking in Baghdad just hours before President Bush gave a press conference in Washington, Mr. Maliki tailored his remarks for his own domestic audience, reassuring the millions of Shiites who form his power base that he would not bend to pressure by the American government, or any other, over how to conduct Iraqi affairs.

“I want to stress that this is a government of the people’s will and no one has the right to set a timetable for it,” he said at a press conference broadcast on national television.

“This is an elected government and only the people who elected the government have the right to make time limitations or amendments,” he said.

Bush warns Iraqis that patience has limits

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Wednesday that American patience over Iraq had its limits but pledged not to put unbearable pressure on the country's leaders, after a protest by Iraq's prime minister.

With less than two weeks before November 7 elections in which doubts over Iraq could cost Bush's Republicans control of the U.S. Congress, Bush sought to explain his Iraq policies to Americans and smooth over new frictions with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Worries over increasing sectarian violence in Iraq have become a top issue for American voters ahead of the elections. The concerns, accompanied by calls to withdraw U.S. troops, are driven by a mounting U.S. military death toll that reached 90 so far in October, the deadliest month for a year.

"We're pressing Iraq's leaders to take bold measures to save their country. We're making it clear that American patience is not unlimited," Bush told a White House news conference.

Even so, he added, "We will not put more pressure on the Iraqi government than it can bear."

Bush said the United States remained committed to Iraq "until the job is done," but would adjust tactics to confront a changing enemy.

He voiced qualified confidence in Maliki. "We're with him as long as he continues to make tough decisions," Bush said.

We support him as long as he does what we want him to do, no matter how tough it may be for him to sell those decisions. A ringing endorsement if ever there was one.

Who's this? No good exit strategy from Iraq for U.S.

Landlubbers usually get maritime analogies wrong. "Changing course" is not cowardice; it's the sensible thing to do if the ship is headed for the rocks.

"Cutting" (the anchor cable) "and running" (before the wind) is what you do when the storm is raging, the anchor is dragging, and the ship is being driven onto a lee shore. And only very stupid rats do not leave a sinking ship.

About four years too late, the Masters of the Universe are having second thoughts about the wisdom of the whole misbegotten enterprise in Iraq.

Washington swirls with leaks, like the secret report by Colonel Pete Devlin, the U.S. Marine Corps chief of intelligence, that U.S. troops in Anbar province, the heartland of Sunni resistance, control nothing beyond their own bases, and that the Iraqi government has no functioning institutions in the province.

Ahoy! Somebody who finally makes sense when he says "cut and run"!

It's Gwynne Dyer, of course, from the Hamilton Spectator:

Senior Republicans are seeking an exit strategy that will absolve their party from blame for the disaster that is today's Iraq.

The long-term domestic political strategy is clear: blame the Iraqis themselves.

William Buckley, conservative editor of the National Review, is already writing things like "our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000." We did our best for them, but they let us down.

That argument may well persuade U.S. voters in the long run, because they have never had much knowledge of Iraq, nor much interest in it.

The SwissInfo article continues this way:

Maliki also contradicted a U.S. military statement which said Wednesday's Iraqi-U.S. ground and air assault on the crowded Sadr City slum district of Baghdad, in which four people were killed, had been authorised by his government.

"We will be seeking an explanation from the multinational forces to avoid a repetition of what happened without our cooperation in advance," Maliki said.
...
"This notion of a fixed timetable of withdrawal, in my judgement, means defeat. We can't leave until the job is done," Bush said. He said Maliki was right that no outside power could force him into actions.

Yeah, right!

Much of the anger in Sadr City over Wednesday's raid was directed at the prime minister.

"Where is Maliki? Where is his freedom?," said a man lying on a stretcher in the hospital.

Thousands of men chanting "No to America" choked the streets in a mourning cortege that accompanied four vehicles bearing the coffins of the dead to burial in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, south of the capital.

The NYT piece goes on to say:

As the violence here increases and midterm elections in the United States near, Mr. Maliki has come under pressure from the Bush administration to step up efforts to control the killing. His task is personally daunting, in large part because the very forces that elevated him to power - religious Shiite parties with their own militias - are complicit in the killing.

His remarks today were a public display of that tension. While acknowledging the problems presented by militias and death squads - groups of men with gun that American military officials say are some of the primary culprits in the new phase of bloodletting here - Mr. Maliki said pointedly that the main factor driving the violence was insurgents and militant fighters, largely Sunni, who have been bombing for years.

“Saddamists and terrorist groups are responsible for what is going on this country,” he said. “We should contain the reactions,” he added, in a reference to Shiite revenge.

Au contraire, mon ami! Americans are responsible for all of what is going on.

They invaded the country on false pretexts, disbanded the army, ruined the infrastructure while allowing every treasure trove to be looted save the oilfields, contaminated the country -- the entire region -- the entire world! -- with their vile weapon of mass destruction: depleted uranium, and now they have the nerve to get their puppet to say "Saddamists and terrorist groups are responsible for what is going on this country"! Irony fit to make your head implode, unless you count the USA as a terrorist group.

Which of course it is. As planned!

Last words to Gwynne Dyer:

As Vice-President Dick Cheney told Time magazine this month: "I know what the president thinks. I know what I think. And we're not looking for an exit strategy. We're looking for victory."

What they really need is a strongman who could hold Iraq together and support their policies in the region. Somebody like Saddam Hussein, perhaps, but Washington lost control of him long ago, and besides he's due to hang later this year.

So it may yet come to the Famous Final Scene, with people scrambling onto helicopters from the roofs of the Green Zone in Baghdad.