In the last few days, I’ve been thinking a little about Dick Cheney’s image. This stems from a lunch a group of us had with him last week (and I wrote about it here). Cheney is an unusual person: very sensible, very measured, very trustworthy. No wonder he has been entrusted with so many sensitive government positions. He is a calm person, and he has a calming effect on others. He is the kind of man you want in public service — party or partisanship quite aside.
In the course of our lunch, he said that the recent Democratic victory was “part of the normal cycle of a competitive two-party system,” and “fundamentally healthy for the nation.” He also talked about how wondrous it was to swear in the first black president.
And what is his widespread image? He is a kind of Dr. Evil to people, although, unlike the Austin Powers one, not a comical Dr. Evil. He is a right-wing menace, a scourge of civil liberties, a Torquemada. This is absolutely perverse.
And what of President Bush’s image — at least one aspect of it? They say that he is less than bright: that he is stupid. And stupid is the last thing President Bush is. Call him willful, call him stubborn, call him petulant or cussed or difficult. Stupid, he is not.
Consider one more public figure: Sarah Palin. I keep hearing and reading, in various quarters, that she is a “bimbo.” That is the word I hear about her, rather a lot: “bimbo.” This is a woman, of course, who has been married since her early 20s. She and her husband, Todd, have five children. Sarah is governor of her state; Todd works in the oil fields. From what anyone can tell, they delight in each other, and in their family. They seem almost an advertisement for monogamy: for the married life. And yet people say “bimbo.”
In a nation full of bimbos, Governor Palin is one of the few who aren’t.
It seems to me that the Left has won: utterly and decisively. What I mean is, the Saturday Night Live, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher mentality has prevailed. They decide what a person’s image is, and those images stick. They are the ones who say that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo. And the country, apparently, follows.
I have a friend who teaches at a prominent university, and she says that, when Palin’s name is mentioned, the people laugh. In the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, an extraordinarily accomplished woman — more accomplished than most of the rest of us will ever be — was turned into a laughingstock.
What are the shaping institutions of American life? The news media. Entertainment television. The movies. Popular music. The schools, K through grad school. In whose hands are those institutions? In what areas do conservatives predominate? Country music, NASCAR, some churches? (Talk radio too, I suppose — no wonder so many on the left want to shut it down.)
I will be talking more about this in the coming weeks, months, and possibly years. Sidney Blumenthal once wrote a book called “The Rise of the Counter-Establishment” (meaning conservative associations and institutions). The counter-establishment needs to be tended, and beefed up.
A country that believes that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo is a country with its head up its . . .
A report from the Associated Press began as follows: “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday it is unlikely that ailing former Cuban leader Fidel Castro will ever appear in public again.” My question is, Will his political prisoners ever appear in public again? Or will they remain in their dungeons until they die?
And do opinion-makers in free countries care?
Jimmy Carter got himself known as a human-rights president, and he has created an image as a human-rights person all around. Very curious. He is certainly selective. Recently, he has been in China, praising that state to the skies. In his meetings with PRC rulers, he apparently said nothing about human rights — and this is a country, remember, with a gulag (called “laogai”). Untold numbers of people have disappeared into it.
Listen to a little of this AP report:
“The main thing is for the new administration to work harmoniously with China . . . and overcome those differences which are inevitable and seek out the best ways to cooperate as partners,” Carter said on the sidelines of a conference commemorating the establishment of ties [between the U.S. and the PRC] on Jan. 1, 1979.
Human rights issues have . . . been a consistent source of friction between the two sides, with the U.S. pushing China to improve its poor record, including its religious repression and silencing of political dissidents. But Carter, a recipient of the U.N. Human Rights Award and a fierce critic of [the] United States’ own human rights violations under the Bush administration, did not make any public comments on the issue on this trip.
Instead Carter praised China for its remarkable transformation over the past three decades.
“Not even Deng Xiaoping could have anticipated the glorious changes that have taken place in this wonderful country,” he said during his opening speech at the academic conference.
So, that’s Carter. If Chinese political prisoners are waiting on him, they will be waiting a long, long time. When people such as Carter urge free countries to “work harmoniously with China” and to “cooperate as partners” — what they mean is, “Shut up about human rights.” By the way, if the Philippines of Marcos, or the Chile of Pinochet, or the South Africa of the Boers had harvested organs — what would Carter and the Today show (to use a shorthand) have said?
And did you catch the AP, above? “Carter, a recipient of the U.N. Human Rights Award and a fierce critic of [the] United States’ own human rights violations under the Bush administration . . .”! Not even an “alleged”!
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