Last week's debate between Robert Kuttner and Bill Kristol debate wasn't quite vintage Buckley or Hitchens, but it was nevertheless a cut above most of what passes for discussion these days.
I have to confess that most of what appears on my television these days (however fleetingly) disgusts me.
I have never watched a reality show or American Idol. I have yet to see an episode of Lost. I would rather watch old Andy Griffith reruns than almost anything that passes for comedy or drama these days, though House from time to time I find engaging.
The news channels are even more difficult to stomach, perhaps because one would like to think the standards are higher. They're not. I have made this point several times over the past several months, so I won't belabor the disturbing conclusion that public discourse on major issues in this nation is often embarrassing on cable and network news shows. Tabloid rules are in play and unless you enjoy the challenge of trying to decipher the rantings of four people all talking at once, you might agree with me.
What a pleasure, then, to turn on my television this past week to find the Robert Kuttner/Bill Kristol debate. Finally, a little wit and intelligence, a little sparring that might rise above the mere screaming of platitudes. It wasn't quite vintage Buckley or Hitchens, but it was nevertheless a cut above most of what passes for discussion these days.
The debate claimed to be a discussion about Conservatism as a political movement and its capacity to effectively govern.
Kristol did an admirable job making the case that conservatism's macro-record on both the domestic and foreign policy front has been pretty good. Reagan helped shape policies that unleashed almost 25 years of uninterrupted economic expansion. His foreign policy agenda — a strong defense coupled with a tough approach toward the Soviets — helped hasten the fall of communist tyranny in much of the world. Likewise, a conservative Congress in the 1990s forced on President Clinton compromises that led to welfare reform and spending policies that produced a fiscally responsible government.
Kuttner, a self-described progressive, for the most part kept the debate fairly high toned and substantive. Yet he could not resist taking a couple of cheap shots that Kristol, to my utter amazement, allowed to pass without comment or rebuttal.
For example, Kuttner tried to lay 9/11 at the feet of the Bush administration, an outrageous claim given the Clinton administration's inaction on a host of national security issues for close to eight years. Yet, in eight months, Kuttner argued, Bush should have unraveled and foiled the 9/11 attack. For Kristol to have stood by silently in the face of such a loaded charge was mystifying. Does he believe it? Members of the audience certainly did, for they applauded the inflammatory claim and had that applause blessed by Kristol's silence.
Kuttner likewise claimed that Bush's handling of both Katrina and Iraq demonstrated that his administration was completely inept. Kristol again basically conceded the point, claiming to support Bush's Iraq policy though not its execution.
This is a matter worth exploring, because, after all, to accuse the Bush administation of incompetence leads inevitably to the conclusion that an administration served by Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condaleezza Rice, Tom Ridge, and Paul Wolfowitz was akin to the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
If that is so, then we must conclude that the national media that once celebrated almost all of these individuals as among the toughest, most competent people in Washington, does its job almost as badly as the Bush team they love to criticize.
Is it a matter of competence or a matter of too much geostrategic ambition? Or a combination of both? (With respect to David Halberstam, RIP, we are confronted here with a "best and the brightest" comparison — recall that Kennedy and his team initiated the Vietnam War, which by almost all accounts, was mismanaged by such luminaries as McGeorge and William Bundy, Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk, among many others.)
The Bush administration has faced unprecedented calamities the likes of which this nation has not seen since World War II — the worst attack by foreign enemies and arguably the worst natural disaster in our nation's history. Mistakes of judgment and execution have surely been made, but is it possible that some problems don't budge just because we want them to?
There are many challenges in Iraq, but the biggest problem is that we confront a ruthless enemy that moves in and out of the shadows of the very communities we are trying to save. We cannot destroy the terrorists without destroying those communities, which approach we did not hesitate to take in World War II but which we are prevented from taking today because of the nature of our political culture and the complexities of a war we must wage on many fronts.
Clearly, Katrina caught everyone off guard, not just the President and his team. Was every leader in the Gulf Coast area incompetent or is it possible that in the face of such a comprehensive disaster no one could have managed it much better?
The jury may or may not be out on Bush and his team, but I do know that many of the people quick to point the finger of blame fall short when circumstances are much less dire and the stakes not nearly as high. A little humility and perspective might be in order.
Had I been Bill Kristol, I would have responded with a few questions of my own for Kuttner.
Mr. Kuttner, it took 300,000 American lives and millions more from nations around the world to defeat the Nazis. Would you have concluded in the early 1940s that this loss of life meant that FDR and his administration were mismanaging the war?
Mr. Kuttner, if Bill Clinton and his team could not manufacture a comprehensive policy on terrorism in the almost eight years since the first World Trade Center bombing, why would you expect the Bush administration to do it in eight months?
Mr. Kuttner, you claim that the President missed his chance to unite the country. What about Democrats who have called the president a liar, compared him and our military to Nazis, and — almost from the moment the war in Iraq got tough — systematically set out to undermine him?
Yes, the President has made mistakes. It could be argued convincingly, in restrospect, that the war in Iraq was a mistake. But to liberate a nation from excruciating tyranny, to seek to help a duly elected government root out ruthless terrorists, to try and seed democracy in a region of the world where tyranny has proven fertile ground for terrorism — these are serious matters that deserve far better than the conspiracy rhetoric coughed up by the President's critics. Mr. Kuttner might consider the log in his own movement's eyes before sticking his finger in the eyes of those trying to manage during difficult times.
There is a fine line between being polite and obsequious. I wish Kristol had managed to walk it a little more tightly during his debate with Kuttner.
shadroui@yahoo.com
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I don't think that war generally or the war on terror specifically are manifestations of conservative philosophy. Witness the lack of outrage from the left regarding President Clinton's many forays into other nations including Iraq.
I wish I saw the debate, because I would want to know if general conservative principles were presented, rather than things like Bush's failures. Bush is not very conservative, so his presidency has little to do with the merits of conservatism as a philosophy of government.
Leftists tend to argue this way in order to avoid answering for the manifest failures of their political initiatives. The government we have today, no matter who is currently in power, is largely the product of entrenched leftism. Compromise and consensus simply means a little less leftism than originally asked for.
We will be able to effectively debate the merits of conservatism once we have returned government to its constitutional confines and allowed liberty to demonstrate its moral superiority.
Comment by Mountain Man | May 8, 2007