The title says it all.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010861

The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 14, 2007.

Joe Gwinn

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
The title says it all.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010861

The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 14, 2007.


Good one. Berkowitz generally has a cool head.

--
Ed Huntress (close enough to Princeton to recognize the type)

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:33:11 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm,
Joseph Gwinn quickly quoth:

The title says it all.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010861

The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 14, 2007.

I see your article and raise you a calendar.
http://tinyurl.com/25yrj3

--
Don't forget the 7 P's:
Proper Prior Planning Prevents ****-Poor Performance

read the article - it seems to me that you could substitute "clinton" for
"bush" everywhere and it would read the same

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
The title says it all.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010861

The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 14, 2007.

Joe Gwinn



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

this was in the local paper.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbc...NEWS/711160335

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:33:11 -0400, Joseph Gwinn
wrote:

The title says it all.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010861

The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 14, 2007.

Joe Gwinn
The Insanity of Bush Hatred
Our politics suffer when passions overcome reason and vitriol becomes
virtue.

BY PETER BERKOWITZ
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Hating the president is almost as old as the republic itself. The
people, or various factions among them, have indulged in Clinton
hatred, Reagan hatred, Nixon hatred, LBJ hatred, FDR hatred, Lincoln
hatred, and John Adams hatred, to mention only the more extravagant
hatreds that we Americans have conceived for our presidents.

But Bush hatred is different. It's not that this time members of the
intellectual class have been swept away by passion and become votaries
of anger and loathing. Alas, intellectuals have always been prone to
employ their learning and fine words to whip up resentment and
demonize the competition. Bush hatred, however, is distinguished by
the pride intellectuals have taken in their hatred, openly endorsing
it as a virtue and enthusiastically proclaiming that their hatred is
not only a rational response to the president and his administration
but a mark of good moral hygiene.

This distinguishing feature of Bush hatred was brought home to me on a
recent visit to Princeton University. I had been invited to appear on
a panel to debate the ideas in Princeton professor and American
Prospect editor Paul Starr's excellent new book, "Freedom's Power: The
True Force of Liberalism." To put in context Prof. Starr's grounding
of contemporary progressivism in the larger liberal tradition, I
recounted to the Princeton audience an exchange at a dinner I hosted
in Washington in June 2004 for several distinguished progressive
scholars, journalists, and policy analysts.

To get the conversation rolling at that D.C. dinner--and perhaps
mischievously--I wondered aloud whether Bush hatred had not made
rational discussion of politics in Washington all but impossible. One
guest responded in a loud, seething, in-your-face voice, "What's
irrational about hating George W. Bush?" His vehemence caused his
fellow progressives to gather around and lean in, like kids on a
playground who see a fight brewing.

Reluctant to see the dinner fall apart before drinks had been served,
I sought to ease the tension. I said, gently, that I rarely found
hatred a rational force in politics, but, who knows, perhaps this was
a special case. And then I tried to change the subject.

But my dinner companion wouldn't allow it. "No," he said, angrily.
"You started it. You make the case that it's not rational to hate
Bush." I looked around the table for help. Instead, I found faces keen
for my response. So, for several minutes, I held forth, suggesting
that however wrongheaded or harmful to the national interest the
president's policies may have seemed to my progressive colleagues,
hatred tended to cloud judgment, and therefore was a passion that a
citizen should not be proud of being in the grips of and should avoid
bringing to public debate. Propositions, one might have thought, that
would not be controversial among intellectuals devoted to thinking and
writing about politics.

But controversial they were. Finally, another guest, a man I had long
admired, an incisive thinker and a political moderate, cleared his
throat, and asked if he could interject. I welcomed his intervention,
confident that he would ease the tension by lending his authority in
support of the sole claim that I was defending, namely, that Bush
hatred subverted sound thinking. He cleared his throat for a second
time. Then, with all eyes on him, and measuring every word, he
proclaimed, "I . . . hate . . . the . . . way . . . Bush . . . talks."

And so, I told my Princeton audience, in the context of a Bush hatred
and a corollary contempt for conservatism so virulent that it had
addled the minds of many of our leading progressive intellectuals,
Prof. Starr deserved special recognition for keeping his head in his
analysis of liberalism and progressivism. Then I got on with my
prepared remarks.

But as at that D.C. dinner in late spring of 2004, so again in early
autumn 2007 at dinner following the Princeton panel, several of my
progressive colleagues seized upon my remarks against giving oneself
over to hatred. And they vigorously rejected the notion. Both a
professor of political theory and a nationally syndicated columnist
insisted that I was wrong to condemn hatred as a passion that impaired
political judgment. On the contrary, they argued, Bush hatred was
fully warranted considering his theft of the 2000 election in Florida
with the aid of the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore; his
politicization of national security by making the invasion of Iraq an
issue in the 2002 midterm elections; and his shredding of the
Constitution to authorize the torture of enemy combatants.

Of course, these very examples illustrate nothing so much as the
damage hatred inflicts on the intellect. Many of my colleagues at
Princeton that evening seemed not to have considered that in 2000 it
was Al Gore who shifted the election controversy to the courts by
filing a lawsuit challenging decisions made by local Florida county
election supervisors. Nor did many of my Princeton dinner companions
take into account that between the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S.
Supreme Court, 10 of 16 higher court judges--five of whom were
Democratic appointees--found equal protection flaws with the recount
scheme ordered by the intermediate Florida court. And they did not
appear to have pondered Judge Richard Posner's sensible observation,
much less themselves sensibly observe, that while indeed it was
strange to have the U.S. Supreme Court decide a presidential election,
it would have been even stranger for the election to have been decided
by the Florida Supreme Court.

As for the 2002 midterm elections, it is true that Mr. Bush took the
question of whether to use military force against Iraq to the voters,
placing many Democratic candidates that fall in awkward positions. But
in a liberal democracy, especially from a progressive point of view,
aren't questions of war and peace proper ones to put to the people--as
Democrats did successfully in 2006?

And lord knows the Bush administration has blundered in its handling
of legal issues that have arisen in the war on terror. But from the
common progressive denunciations you would never know that the Bush
administration has rejected torture as illegal. And you could easily
overlook that in our system of government the executive branch, which
has principal responsibility for defending the nation, is in wartime
bound to overreach--especially when it confronts on a daily basis
intelligence reports that describe terrifying threats--but that when
checked by the Supreme Court the Bush administration has, in
accordance with the system, promptly complied with the law.

In short, Bush hatred is not a rational response to actual Bush
perfidy. Rather, Bush hatred compels its progressive victims--who
pride themselves on their sophistication and sensitivity to nuance--to
reduce complicated events and multilayered issues to simple matters of
good and evil. Like all hatred in politics, Bush hatred blinds to the
other sides of the argument, and constrains the hater to see a monster
instead of a political opponent.

Prof. Starr shows in "Freedom's Power" that tolerance, generosity, and
reasoned skepticism are hallmarks of the truly liberal spirit. His
analysis suggests that the problem with progressives who have
succumbed to Bush hatred is not their liberalism; it's their betrayal
of it. To be sure, Prof. Starr rejects Bush administration policies
and thinks conservatives have the wrong remedies for what ails America
today. Yet at the same time his analysis suggests, if not a cure for
those who have already succumbed, at least a recipe for inoculating
others against hating presidents to come.

The recipe consists above all in recognizing that constitutional
liberalism in America "is the common heritage of both modern
conservatives and modern liberals, as those terms are understood in
the Anglo-American world," writes Prof. Starr. We are divided not by
our commitment to the Constitution but by disagreements--often, to be
sure, with a great deal of blood and treasure at stake--over how to
defend that Constitution and secure its promise of liberty under law.

The conflict between more conservative and more liberal or progressive
interpretations of the Constitution is as old as the document itself,
and a venerable source of the nation's strength. It is wonderful for
citizens to bring passion to it. Recognizing the common heritage that
provides the ground for so many of the disagreements between right and
left today will encourage both sides, if not to cherish their
opponents, at least to discipline their passions and make them an ally
of their reason.

Mr. Berkowitz is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover
Institution and a professor at George Mason University School of Law.

After a Computer crash and the demise of civilization, it was learned
Joseph Gwinn wrote on Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:33:11
-0400 in rec.crafts.metalworking :
The title says it all.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010861

The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 14, 2007.

Joe Gwinn

Good article, and applicable to all other areas where people allow
emotions to cloud reason. Maybe we can rewrite the "Litany against
fear" as "a Litany against Anger". Or other strong emotions.

Love is blind - lust just doesn't give a damn.

pyotr



--
pyotr filipivich
"If once a man indulges himself in Murder, very soon he comes
to think little of Robbing, and from Robbing he comes next to
Drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to Incivility and
Procrastination." T. De Quincy (1785-1859) "Murder Considered As One of the Fine Arts"

In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
The title says it all.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010861

The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 14, 2007.


Good one. Berkowitz generally has a cool head.

I thought so too. And I've certainly met people were so crippled by
hatred of this or that politician that they simply could not speak
straight, let alone understand how that politician managed to keep on
winning elections. I suppose one can invert the old saying to yield
something like: If they are so stupid, how come they are rich?

The populations of the big coastal cities are often surprised by the
outcomes of US national elections, forgetting that the majority of
voters live in flyover states. I live in Massachussetts, where the
coastal city effect is particularly strong, especially in areas where
academic institutions cluster. Like the People's Republic of Cambridge.

Joe Gwinn

"Clark Magnuson" wrote in message
...
When I was in college the humanities professors would tell us how much
they hated Nixon. The math and science professors wouldn't bring it up.

My kids are in college now and tell me that the humanities professors tell
them how much they hate Bush, but the math and science professors don't
bring it up.

Nothing has changed there.

The media hated Nixon, but grumpy old men could listen to Paul Harvey.
The median hates Bush, but grumpy old men can listen to Rush Limbaugh.

Nothing has changed there.

But instead of putting on a bumper sticker that says, "American Love it or
Leave it"...

I was shocked to see one of those again, just a week or so ago. It was on a
pickup, right under the "Jesus Loves Me" sticker. No kidding.

--
Ed Huntress

When I was in college the humanities professors would tell us how much
they hated Nixon. The math and science professors wouldn't bring it up.

My kids are in college now and tell me that the humanities professors
tell them how much they hate Bush, but the math and science professors
don't bring it up.

Nothing has changed there.

The media hated Nixon, but grumpy old men could listen to Paul Harvey.
The median hates Bush, but grumpy old men can listen to Rush Limbaugh.

Nothing has changed there.

But instead of putting on a bumper sticker that says, "American Love it
or Leave it", we can now type on the internet that liberals will destroy
society if no one stops them.

Something changed there.

In article ,
"William Noble" wrote:

read the article - it seems to me that you could substitute "clinton" for
"bush" everywhere and it would read the same

I'm sure Berkowitz would agree - his point is about the crippling
effects of all-consuming hatred, and not about the object of that hatred.

I would submit that you are mistaking the article as an attack on Bush
haters, versus an observation on haters in general.

Joe Gwinn


"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
The title says it all.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010861

The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 14, 2007.

Joe Gwinn

no, I was attempting to point out that the same poison was operative with
the Clinton administration -


"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"William Noble" wrote:

read the article - it seems to me that you could substitute "clinton" for
"bush" everywhere and it would read the same

I'm sure Berkowitz would agree - his point is about the crippling
effects of all-consuming hatred, and not about the object of that hatred.

I would submit that you are mistaking the article as an attack on Bush
haters, versus an observation on haters in general.

Joe Gwinn





--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

In article ,
"William Noble" wrote:

no, I was attempting to point out that the same poison was operative with
the Clinton administration -

OK. And let us not forget Nixon. Or That Man. Etc.


"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"William Noble" wrote:

read the article - it seems to me that you could substitute "clinton" for
"bush" everywhere and it would read the same

I'm sure Berkowitz would agree - his point is about the crippling
effects of all-consuming hatred, and not about the object of that hatred.

I would submit that you are mistaking the article as an attack on Bush
haters, versus an observation on haters in general.

Joe Gwinn