Free Republic

        There is more to governing than giving exalted moral lectures.  Our Philosopher OrganizerThe most successful practitioner of community organizing looks around for what he thinks is a problem, chastises both sides and allots absolutely equal blame, gives exalted moral lectures about compromise and understanding, and then waltzes away well paid, praised for his moderation, but having accomplished nothing.So I wasn’t too surprised to learn that President Obama decided to tackle European-American relations—something that has a pedigree going back to our Revolution, and has been analyzed by the likes of Tocqueville and Henry James to contemporary essayists such as...

European elites disdained George W. Bush and adulated Barack Obama. How will they feel as Obama starts putting his multicultural, multilateral, anti-free-trade rhetoric into practice?  Last summer, with several other Americans, I went to a garden reception attended by some French barristers, generals, and assorted professionals in Versailles. Most of them, conservatives and liberals alike, were quite ecstatic about the prospect of Barack Obama as the next American president — except one. He glanced around and then quietly whispered to me, “There is only room for one Obama — and, you remember, we already are the Obama.” I think we...

2 related articles: Hanson's blog: G-20 Outtakes http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/g-20-outtakes/ and NRO's Europe Got Obama — Now What? Obama is moving to the left of Europe. G-20 Outtakes http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/g-20-outtakes/ Poodle Redux. Blair was denigrated as Bush’s poodle, although his eloquence and influence over Bush were clear to all. In contrast,  Gordon Brown is embarrassingly obsequious to Obama, in a way Blair never was around Bush. And in further contrast, Obama shows an airy, polite disdain at being courted in such grubby fashion—while Bush was downright magnanimous in taking advice from Blair. Didn’t Brown get the message with the unviewable DVDs, the...

Back during the election campaign, I was on the radio and a caller demanded to know what I made of the persistent rumor that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. “I doubt it,” I said. “It’s perfectly obvious he was born in Stockholm. Okay, maybe Brussels or Strasbourg.” And the host gave an appreciative titter, and I made a mental note to start working up a little “Barack Obama, the first European Prime Minister to be elected President of the United States” shtick for maybe a year into the first term. But here we are 20 minutes in, and full-scale...

After outlining some “bad” trends—the conservative abandonment of budgetary restraint, the new liberal-Wall-Street nexus, the rise of therapeutic excuse-making for substandard behavior—I now offer three “ugly” trends. These are not merely bad, but sort of creepy as well. Don’t despair—I’ll end with some good developments on the next posting.I)      The Corruption of the Press. We have no media—at least as we once knew it. Somewhere in late 2007, it disappeared entirely, and became something akin to the old Pravda, or the livelier Baghdad Bob’s broadcasts, or the rants of Lord Ha-Ha. (We got everything from Judith Warner about the dreams of...

The question posed by social scientist Charles Murray at the American Enterprise Institute’s annual dinner this month could hardly have been simpler: Do Americans want the United States to be like Europe? He asked as someone who likes and admires Europe and Europeans. He asked also because it is becoming increasingly apparent that restructuring the U.S. along the lines of the European social-democratic model is the change many in the new administration — perhaps including President Obama himself — believe in. Such a redirection surely deserves consideration. Murray is convinced that Europeanizing America is a bad idea, and not only...