Letter 2 America for June 4, 2013

Dear America,

For a few years, it was my ritualistic habit to read the Op-Ed page of the New York Times every Friday for the columns of David Brooks and Paul Krugman.  Over time, Krugman's focus on the economy became nothing more than a litany in which the same problem, the domination of conservative thinking among those who control this country's economic policy, was repeated endlessly.  Brooks, on the other hand, allowed his column to become more anecdotal and personal, ostensibly eschewing politics and focusing on what he had read recently that he considered a reification of his ever-more-conservative philosophical bent.  So about a year ago, my Friday ritual became an occasional indulgence, and then when my subscription to The Times ran out, I didn't renew, thus allowing my subscription to Brooks and Krugman to lapse too.  But even during those times when the two men were languishing in philosophical self-indulgence, there were Fridays on which there was an interesting de facto dialectic between the two thinkers.  On those occasions, Brooks' conservatism was focused on a subject that, while perhaps not identical to that of Krugman, was sufficiently germane to it that a stark comparison of not just philosophy, but of ethos was achieved.  Last Friday, while my wife and I were on vacation, I treated myself to the Friday Times, and after reading the news I turned to the Op-Ed page to read Brooks and Krugman again...and there it was: that stark comparison of the ethics of conservatism and those of progressivism.  

Brooks wrote about China's progress toward achieving the dubious distinction of having the biggest economy in the world...no longer second to that of the United States.  He opined that it would never happen until the Chinese abandoned conformity and began to generate rebellious thinkers and doers like those in the United States.   He vaunted branding that personalizes products for those in our fragmented countercultures of the past, claiming that the practice of advertising to people's values rather than to their actual needs is what made this country great economically.  In other words, we are a great economic force because we know how to sell, not because we know how to create, and the Chinese can't match us in that form of disingenuous manipulation, which is peculiarly admirable in his mind.  The Chinese must develop countercultures so that they can co-opt them with creature comfort if they want to be our rivals, says Brooks.  On the other hand, Krugman--whose column ironically appears on the right side of the page while Brooks' appears on the left--complained about the conservative effort to first diminish the food stamps program and then ultimately to eliminate it.  He vaunted not commerce but loyalty to our less fortunate countrymen who worry not about what car to drive, but about when they will next eat.  After extolling the economic benefits of food stamps--the return of $1.70 to the economy for every $1.00 spent for example--he took the humanistic approach to defending the program and in the end, stated point blank that what conservatives lack is compassion, not to mention the wisdom to recognize when it's good not just for those in need but for everyone else as well.

It was just like the good old days when the New York Times Op-Ed page was an exhibition of critical thinking by both those on the left and those on the right, which displayed the virtues of each political camp in the larger, moral sense.  It was a clarion call to those on both sides of the political spectrum, which of late had the liberals and progressives on the left prevailing over the meretricious Ayn Randianism of the supply-side right.  It was clear and pointed...invoking moralism in political thinking among those who read The Times, and among those who quote The Times in other media as well.  The thinking of each side was crystallized for all to see, and thus the obscurity of any baser motives was on display to either be explained away or acknowledged and rethought.  All of us should read or hear something like that every day because if we did, we could not help but debate our national creed, and in doing so define ourselves in a way that is clear to everyone.  There should be no way to shield our eyes from who we are as a nation; the rest of the world sees us and is largely critical, and we should at least consider the merits of what we do in order to know whether they are right.

Last night I saw Rudy Giuliani, the erstwhile mayor of New York turned multi-millionaire advisor to the rich, talking to Greta Van Susteren on Fox about Eric Holder and Daryl Issa of the House Oversight Committee.  There is a political war going on between them; Issa has been after Holder for the purpose of discrediting his boss, President Obama, since before the 2012 election.  Van Susteren thinks that Issa's vitriolic pursuit of Holder is a vindictive effort to redeem himself in the eyes of conservatives after failing to nail Holder on that failed gun-running program meant to trap Mexican drug cartels in the illegal trade, but while the program may have been ill-conceived, no one did anything improper or illegal, and the would-be-scandal faded away.  So now there is Issa's desire to indict Holder for perjury in the public consciousness if nowhere else, but there was no perjury.  There was just un-lawyerly imprecision on Holder's part, both in signing an affidavit in furtherance of a warrant claiming to be in service of a fake criminal investigation of a reporter in order to get his phone records, and then in stating on the record that he has never been involved in prosecuting a reporter, and doesn't think it would be good idea to start now.  Giuliani...a conservative party soldier from way back...saw it that way too, and he said so during a conversation that had started off to be about Issa's petulance in name calling directed toward the administration.  (He called the White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, a "paid liar.")  Giuliani's point was that, despite Holder's arguable lack of candor, conservatives aren't doing themselves any favors by looking for a self-serving scandal behind every bush, and the candor was refreshing.  First there was the dialectic between Holder and Issa over what is moral, and then there was honest criticism, albeit from the conservative perspective only.  It was like Brooks and Krugman, and I have to hand it to Fox for facing the conservatives' music.  It isn't like them...but if Fox wants to be the conservative electorate's New York Times, it should be.

Your friend,

Mike