Posted on 06/06/2017 4:34:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
Writers never know when something they write will strike a nerve -- or, in the common phrase of the internet, "go viral."
Yet my last column, "Why Conservatives Still Attack Trump" did both. Aside from being reprinted on almost every conservative website, Newsweek published the column, and The New York Times quoted it.
More importantly, many major conservative writers responded to it, mostly in disagreement.
It is interesting that the column elicited so much attention. Maybe, like the man who bit the dog, an articulate case by a mainstream conservative in support of the president is so rare that people felt a need to publish it and respond to it.
Whatever the reason, I feel compelled to respond to some of the disagreements.
Before doing so, I want to note the respectful tone that permeated virtually every one of the disagreeing columns. We have enough cannibals on the left without conservatives eating each other up.
After reading the responses, I feel confident in saying that they confirmed my primary thesis: Anti-Trump conservatives do not believe that Americans are fighting what I call the Second Civil War, while pro-Trump conservatives do.
Indeed, Jonah Goldberg in National Review said as much. He denied that we are in the midst of a civil war on two grounds: One is that it is not violent, and the other is that we are fighting a "culture war," not a civil war.
Whenever I write about the subject, I almost always note that this Second Civil War is not violent. I never thought that the word "war" must always include violence. The word is frequently used in nonviolent contexts: the war against cancer, the war between the sexes, the war against tobacco, the Cold War and myriad other nonviolent wars.
Perhaps Goldberg would respond that he did not write that all wars are violent, only that all civil wars are violent. But if there are nonviolent wars, there can be nonviolent civil wars.
Nevertheless, what most disturbs me is his second argument -- articulated in various ways by most of those who disagreed with me -- that there is simply no civil war. And many repeated the universal belief among Never-Trumpers that a Hillary Clinton victory would not have been a catastrophe.
My response is that "culture war" is much too tepid a term for what is going on now. Maybe anti-Trump conservatives are fighting a "culture war," but the left is not. The left is working to undo the American Revolution. It's very close to doing so.
Of all people, one would think Jonah Goldberg would understand this. He is the author of what I consider to be a modern classic, "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Change."
His book leads to one conclusion: We are fighting fascism. How is that not a civil war? When you fight fascism, you are not merely fighting a "culture war."
So, shouldn't the primary role of a conservative be to vanquish leftism? To me, that means strongly supporting the Republican president of the United States, who has staffed his Cabinet with conservatives and already won substantial conservative victories. As I suggested in my previous column, conservatives would have been thrilled if any Republican president had achieved what Trump has at this point in his administration.
"But what about Trump's character?" nearly all my critics ask. Or, as John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine, tweeted, "For Dennis Prager, who spent 40 years advocating for a moral frame for American politics, to argue as he argued today is, may I say, ironic."
First, I have indeed dedicated much of my life to advocating for morality -- for ethical monotheism as the only way to achieve a moral world; for raising moral children (as opposed to concentrating, for example, on raising "brilliant" children); and for the uniquely great Judeo-Christian moral synthesis developed by the Founding Fathers of America.
But I have never advocated for electing moral politicians. Of course, I prefer people of good character in political office. But 30 years ago, I wrote an essay titled "Adultery and Politicians" in which I argued that what political leaders do is more important than their character. To cite but one of an endless list of examples, I would prefer an adulterous president (like John F. Kennedy) who supported Israel than a faithful family man (like Jimmy Carter) who was an anti-Zionist.
Second, as a religious Jew, I learned from the Bible that God himself chose morally compromised individuals -- like King David, who had a man killed in order to cover up the adultery he committed with the man's wife; and the prostitute Rahab, who was instrumental in helping the Jews conquer Canaan -- to accomplish some greater good. (And, for the record, I am not suggesting that God chose Donald Trump.)
Third, though I listed his moral defects in column after column during the primaries, I believe that Trump is a better man than his critics maintain. I see no evidence, to cite one example, that he is a misogynist. His comment about famous and powerful men being able to do what they want with women was a) said in private -- and we are fools if we assess people by their private comments (Harry Truman, a great president, frequently used "kike" in private comments about Jews), b) not a statement about anything he had actually done, c) not misogynistic and d) often true.
Fourth, even if he were as morally defective as his critics maintain, my response is this: Trump's character is less morally significant than defeating the left. If the left wins, America loses. And if America loses, evil will engulf the world.
See 71.
Leftist talking points about Russia. With not one smidge of evidence that ANYONE did anything illegal, or wrong. And of course, nothing about Trump himself and Russia.
You embarrass yourself when you say everyday there is something "closer to home" when there's no evidence you, or anyone else, can point to. Go ahead, try to find some. I'll be waiting.
Let me be the first to say, you're either a leftist troll, or really naive (I'm being nice).
You think he speaks without thought and says stupid things. You are imagining an inadvertently self-placed target on his back and you wince but the imagined target takes no damage while the real one over there to the left is bull’s-eyed.
Your posts in 71 say nothing. Again, collusion to do what?
The special counsel has just started. He will have wide berth to find evidence that may cLear Trump’s Russia Cloud or prove involvement. I would say things look worse today than they did innaguration day. Although I agree, nothing proven so far. But again, the investigation is young.
Are you aware that special councels are supposed to be appointed to investigate a *crime*? No one other than Maxine Waters has suggested an actual crime occured. (She thinks it’s a crime that Trump is POYUS; in her mind that’s sufficient for ‘inpeachment.’) ‘Collusuion,’ of which there is zero evidence, is not a crime.
‘Robert Mueller is tasked with finding a crime that does not exist in the law. It is a legal impossibility.
As special counsel, Mueller can engage in all manner of spectacular jurisprudential gymnastics. However, it will not change the fact that colluding with Russia is not, under America’s criminal codes, a crime. It’s just not there.
Maybe it should be. Perhaps someday Congress will pass a law criminalizing such conduct in political campaigns. But for now, there is not a single statute outlawing collaboration with a foreign government in a U.S. presidential election. Or any election, for that matter.’
There’s a lot more, but I was speaking as popularly interpreted. Trump’s public persona is carefully calculated and he leaves little to chance. The party line endlessly repeated by our elites betray a capacity for intellectual contortions beyond mortal comprehension. I find most Deplorables tend to be simpletons who believe our lying eyes.
We’ll see. Explain why he accepted a job for something that can’t exist?
Because he’s a good friend of Comey’s. Or possibly, if he’s not as much part and parcel of the swamp as he appears to be, to investigate the highly illegal unmasking that Obama and his ilk were perpetrating on Trump and others.
Maybe Jonah’s book was ghostwritten.
What’s funny is that for years Dennis would correct his LA radio callers, and tell them that he was in fact a Robert Kennedy liberal. Now Dennis, who hasn’t changed, is to the right of frauds like Goldberg and Kristol.
Mercy Otis Warren wrote about the pre-war sentiment and development in MA; she said that by the time the war had begun, it had long been accepted as inevitable by the majority of people.
The way she said it was that the war had for some time been fought in the hearts and minds of the people before any armed conflict took place.
I am paraphrasing.
We again, we’ll see.
I’m waiting.
There’s not much to wait and see. If Mueller were a man of integrity, he’d never have taken the job. He is not merely friends with Comey, but “close,” friends. That is as textbook a case of conflict of interest as it’s possible to have.
There’s no getting around it; the very fact that Mueller accepted the job means he has an agenda. You can take it to the bank the agenda isn’t to harm his good friend. Rather, he’ll try to make Comey look good by casting as many aspersions on Trump as he can. He may well try to snare an underling in a process crime. Whatever he does, it will be to hurt Trump and validate Comey.
They’re all dirty in DC. Trump is singlehandedly trying to drain the swamp. It’s a Herculean task at a minimum. I support him all the way.
[This particular article uses the term, “relationship.” There were at least half a dozen others that used the term, “friend.” If you don’t believe me, do a search for yourself.]
‘Robert Mueller has a serious conflict of interest that should disqualify him from serving as special counsel.
He has had a long and close relationship with someone who will surely become a pivotal witness –James Comey.
snip
‘How can Americans have confidence in the results if they know the special counsel may harbor a conspicuous bias? They cannot. The conflict inevitably discredits whatever conclusion is reached. It renders the entire investigatory exercise suspect, and it only elevates the controversy surrounding it.
For this reason, Mueller should not serve as special counsel.’
Even if all you say is true about Mueller and Comey, it still boils down to what Mueller can or cannot cobble together with his investigation and the subsequent indictments, if any.
Let me clarity my earlier reply: Even if all you say is true about Mueller and Comey, it still boils down to what Mueller can or cannot cobble together with his investigation and the subsequent indictments, if any, and the effectiveness of them if he does issue them.
My point is that Mueller will not be conducting a straightforward and honest investigation. If he were that type of individual, he’d have declined the job. He has a massive conflict of interest. Don’t imagine it will be anything other than center stage as he ‘investigates.’
Do you recall the travesty of justice that put Scooter Libbey in prison? Patrick Fitzgerald was supposed to find out who ‘outed,’ Valerie Plame. Richard Armitage admitted up front that he did it. But that didn’t make Bush look bad. So Fitzgerald committed prosecutorial misconduct in order to charge Libbey. It was a dirty investigation from start to finish.
Look for the same from Mueller. It’s coming.
http://www.hoover.org/research/false-evidence-against-scooter-libby
Just one.
Name ONE crime that supposedly happened.
Just one.
It's been since December that the democrat/media complex has been looking for either, yet you won't be able to find one answer for each question, and that ought to tell you something. Facts, we don't need no steenkin facts......
That you have bought the made up out of whole cloth narrative is pretty startling. Saying "things look worse than on inauguration day" without a shred of evidence or even an alleged crime may be the silliest post I've seen in a long time.
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