Lileks has some tart thoughts on those who believe that America sux:

You can picture the satisfied little grins on the authors’ faces; you can imagine the whole tableau–the computer (which most people in the world will never touch, let alone use, let alone own) the TV in the corner connected to a network that has channels catering to every taste, the iPod stocked with music hoovered up free of charge without consequence, the fridge stocked with food–the light comes on when you open the door, too, unless it’s burned out, and then you go to the store and get another one; they always have another one. The soft bed, the coffee machine, the well-fed pet, the vast panoply of free information and unfettered opinion flowing 24/7 from the internet. You can drink alcohol without being sentenced to death; you can be a girl alone in a room with a man without earning a public stoning; you can stand up in a room and argue for the candidate of your choice without being arrested; you stand in a society that allows for astonishing amounts of freedom, comfort and opportunity. But.

But. Someone somewhere is a practicing Baptist and someone somewhere else is eating a hamburger larger than you’d prefer, and other people are watching cars go around a track at high speed. As your skinny unhappy friend said the other night: people are just too fat and happy. He bites his nails and plays WoW six hours a night, but he has a point. It doesn’t matter that these fascists-in-fetal-form never quite seem to accomplish anything; it’s not like they drove the gay Teletubbies off the air or had Tony Kushner drawn and quartered in the public square. But they’re preventing something. Something wonderful. And they’re driving large cars to Wal-Mart and putting 18-roll packs of Charmin in the back and they have three kids. Earth has withstood a lot in its four billion years, but it cannot withstand them. And even if it does, who wants to live in a world where these people don’t care that they’re being mocked by small, underfunded theaters in honest, gritty neighborhoods? (Which are being gentrified by upwardly-mobile poseurs who have decided it’s a great place to live because the theater is good and the restaurants are cheap. F*#*$ing interlopers. But we’ll deal with them later.)

Hey, “Murkan Boob“? You’re probably too stupid to realize it, but he’s talking to you.

I’m tempted, actually, to institute a new comment policy. Anyone who leaves brainless comments anonymously using a “clever” (which is to say, stupid) nickname, off topic, will have posts deleted and the poster will be banned. I’m all for an interesting discussion, but these drive-by cowardly graffiti artists get very tiresome.

Jerry Zeifman reminisces about Watergate:

After President Nixon’s resignation a young lawyer, who shared an office with Hillary, confided in me that he was dismayed by her erroneous legal opinions and efforts to deny Nixon representation by counsel-as well as an unwillingness to investigate Nixon. In my diary of August 12, 1974 I noted the following:

John Labovitz apologized to me for the fact that months ago he and Hillary had lied to me [to conceal rules changes and dilatory tactics.] Labovitz said, “That came from Yale.” I said, “You mean Burke Marshall [Senator Ted Kennedy’s chief political strategist, with whom Hillary regularly consulted in violation of House rules.] Labovitz said, “Yes.” His apology was significant to me, not because it was a revelation but because of his contrition.

At that time Hillary Rodham was 27 years old. She had obtained a position on our committee staff through the political patronage of her former Yale law school professor Burke Marshall and Senator Ted Kennedy. Eventually, because of a number of her unethical practices I decided that I could not recommend her for any subsequent position of public or private trust.

And now she stands a good chance of becoming the next president.

I never fail to be amazed at how blind people can be to the corruption of these people. Read the whole thing.

Michael Lynch:

…how does a man of proclaimed “principle”–a proclamation bolstered by those who know him best and by a 16-year voting record–go so wrong on such consequential issues? Skeptics heap scorn on the notion that McCain has any principles. “His principle is that he should codify any prejudice he happens to have,” scoffs Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute.

McCain’s friends, foes, and biography suggest a more complicated, but no less politically worrisome, explanation. For John McCain, principle is fundamentally about honor–personal honor: about keeping his word, about doing what is right and doing it well. “Principle” combines honesty, stubbornness, and loyalty. This notion of principle is very different from adhering to a consistent political philosophy. It explains McCain’s popular appeal, especially in contrast to the exceptionally dishonorable Clinton administration, but also accounts for the distrust, even contempt, he inspires among the ideologically committed.

As Virginia notes, it’s also worth reading Matt’s book.

And as Robert Bidinotto says, we don’t need another Teddy Roosevelt–another “liberal fascist.”

Jonah’s book has provided a useful new prism through which to view the world.

[Tuesday morning update]

Jonah says that “progressives” should be careful what they wish for, and understand their history a little better:

Today’s progressives still share many of the core assumptions of the progressives of yore. It may be gauche to talk about patriotism too much in liberal circles, but what is Barack Obama’s obsession with unity other than patriotism by another name? Indeed, he champions unity for its own sake, as a good in and of itself. But unity can be quite amoral. Mobs and gangs are dangerous because of their unblinking unity.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, often insists that we must move “beyond” ideology, labels, partisanship, etc. The sentiment is a direct echo of the Pragmatists who felt that dogma needed to be jettisoned to give social planners a free hand. Of course, then as now, the “beyond ideology” refrain is itself an ideological position favoring whatever state intervention social planners prefer.

A key point of the book, that many on the left miss, is that Hitler gave fascism a bad name. Up until all the racism and the genocide and the war mongering, they were all on board with the Nazi project. When mindless and ignorant leftists mistakenly call classical liberals “fascists,” they’re not calling them as bad a name as they seem to believe. Which is a good thing, because it is their own beliefs that are truly fascistic.