The culture war for the White House

Spectator Blogs ^ | October 17, 2008 | Melanie Phillips

[Schnucki]

The ever cogent and civilised Oliver Kamm was a witness on BBC Radio Four’s Moral Maze last night, when the topic for discussion was whether we needed to change our society’s values in the light of the financial meltdown. On his blog, Oliver writes with characteristic generosity about my interrogation of him on that show. This follows his remarks in a previous post about my article in the Daily Mail last Monday on the US presidential election, and the question of whether Oliver is on my side over McCain v Obama or stands on the other with Christopher Hitchens.

Both of these posts are in fact intimately connected by a single theme. Discussing my fears about an Obama presidency, Oliver writes that his preference would have been McCain as being sounder on foreign policy, but he has been put off by McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin which, along with Christopher Hitchens, he thinks was a ‘bloody disgrace’.

On the Maze he said the financial crisis was not about morality but about incompetence and stupid decisions, and he did not agree with me that at root what lay behind it was, in the words of his fellow witness the Abbot of Worth, ‘militant atheism’. In direct contrast to Oliver I cannot understand how, along with every other form of human interaction, the administration of capitalism cannot have a moral dimension. It is surely important that bankers behave ethically, that politicians behave responsibly and that ordinary people behave prudently.

I see this financial breakdown, moreover, as being not merely a moral crisis but the montary expression of the broader degradation of our values – the erosion of duty and responsibility to others in favour of instant gratification, unlimited demands repackaged as ‘rights’ and the loss of self-discipline.

[LjubivojeRadosavljevic]

...McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin which, along with Christopher Hitchens, he thinks was a ‘bloody disgrace’.

Well, they're most likely upset because Sarah is an 'outsider' i.e. she didn't attend schools such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton....

[Philo-Junius]

Well, yes and no.

Her exotic provenance would have been forgiven had she subscribed to the insiders’ world view—diversity of costume is welcomed so long it is accompanied by unswerving adherence to the catechism of the elites.

[nathanbedford]

I posted the following contemporaneously with the selection of Sarah Palin and I think it presages the author's views:

THE MEANINGFUL SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS SELECTION IS MORAL.

She is the living breathing embodiment of all things good in the conservative tradition. Her baby is a living reproach to the sophistry of a man who cannot discuss when life begins in the context of abortion and who listens to testimony by a nurse describing how she held a dying post abortion baby in her arms without a single syllable apparently penetrating to his soul. When his sordid history in this affair was investigated, he lied.

The abortion issue is only one issue which crystallizes the moral difference between the McCain/Palin to get Obama/Biden ticket. Other issues include, corruption, special interests, spending, and putting country above party. These issues are all made flesh in the person of Governor Sarah Palin. They all resonate in the biography of John McCain. The fit is perfect. The timeliness in this election is also perfect.

McCain now has a unifying theme to his whole campaign: Reform. Reform not change. This means that you change the government not the society. Reform means that you clean up government, you root out corruption. Change means you favor one set of interest groups over another, that you substitute one set of corrupt players for another. Change means that you do something different for change sake. Reform means that you change government to improve it according to an intelligent plan built on a rigorous foundation of integrity.

The Palin selection means that the McCain ticket screams integrity at the voter. The issue is no longer experience but character. I say again: Sarah Palin is not selected because of her experience or in spite of the lies that her experience is insufficient, rather she was selected for what her experience reveals about her character.

Her decision to have a Down syndrome baby means that she is the real deal. Obama betrayed himself in the recent Forum debate on this issue to be a common bullshit artist. McCain declined to accept freedom from torture and solitary confinement out of loyalty to his troops. McCain proved that he is the real deal. I honestly believe that McCain's time in solitary has brought him to a place at the age of 72 where he is utterly removed from the petty political motivations which dominate Obama and Biden to the degree they both resorted to plagiarism to further their careers, Biden being a recidivist, MCCAIN HAS JUST CHANGED THE ELECTION FROM A REFERENDUM ON GEORGE BUSH TO A CALL TO AMERICA TO FIND ITS SOUL.

[backhoe]

Very good essay, neighbor. Back, To the top^