A Couple Quick Hits

Ben Feller looks at how history textbooks are treating the relatively recent history of the Clinton impeachment.

The most commonly used texts give straightforward recaps of Clinton's toughest days, with some flavor of how it affected the nation. Absent are any the lurid details of his relationship with Monica Lewinksy that spiced up daily news reports and late-night talk shows as the scandal and impeachment played out in 1998 and early 1999.

One high school text book--"A History of the United States" by Pearson Prentice--

refers to the impeachment scandal as "a sorry mess" that diminished Clinton and his rivals.

Polls showed most Americans did not believe Clinton's "tortured explanations of his behavior," the book says, but also did not think his offenses warranted his removal.

I wonder if the text makes a judgement as to whether the opinion of the American people was more or less relevant than the legal issues that many believe were sidestepped by the Senate? During the time, much was made of how the opinion of the American people trumped the actual legal question. Aren't we at a point where historians should examine whether this was valid?

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Mary Katherine Ham was going to write a nice, lifestyle-type piece on Kwanzaa and was surprised to find that this ancient African traditional holiday was created in 1966 by a radical black nationalist. She ended up writing a piece that was part feel-good, part origination story and discovered that the last half wouldn't do.

In the end, I compromised. I wrote 10 inches of fluffy holiday story. The childrens' Kwanzaa artwork was beautiful and deserved to be spotlighted, no matter what kind of man Karenga was. But I also wrote 10 inches on [Ron] Karenga. Nothing too graphic. I didn't get into the specifics of the torture. I didn't list every one of his misdeeds. But I thought a little of that was important to the story, especially since it seemed no one knew anything about it.

The next day, I picked up the paper. My 20-inch story had become 10 inches long overnight. Can you guess which 10 inches they cut?

This paper never cut for space. It rarely edited a word I wrote. As a result, a 10-inch cut was conspicuous, to say the least. And indefensible. And in this case, expected.

My editor and I had a civil conversation about it, the conclusion of which was something along the lines of, "well, you just can't write stuff like that. Just because...you just can't."

Just another mile-marker in my journey out of the newspaper business.

Now, I'm not trying to be the grinch who stole Kwanzaa here, but I think it's a sin that the rather radical, Marxist, black nationalist origins of the holiday are ignored every year-- ignored with the power of a thousand suns.

It is a shame that everyone acts as if Karenga's violent crimes are immaterial, despite the fact that he was convicted and sentenced for them several years after he invented Kwanzaa. It's not as if he reformed, then became the father of Kwanzaa.

These things are not the whole story of Kwanzaa, but they are part of it, and they should be told. They are not pleasant, but I don't ever remember being told about our Founding Fathers' accomplishments in school without also hearing about their failings.

Surely, Ron Karenga should be subject to at least the same scrutiny as George Washington in a public school setting.

I have a feeling that won't happen, though, because a lot of people feel like "you just can't write stuff like that. Just because...you just can't."

I can understand why the paper didn't want to include such controversial subject matter in what was supposed to be a feel good story. But will there ever a time or place to present such a piece?

Root Cause of Barbary Terrorists

Joshua London's piece comparing contemporary terrorism to the Barbary Pirates of old is a useful piece of historical comparison. London's central thesis is that

America’s Barbary experience took place well before colonialism entered the lands of Islam, before there were any oil interests dragging the U.S. into the fray, and long before the founding of the state of Israel.

America became entangled in the Islamic world and was dragged into a war with the Barbary states simply because of the religious obligation within Islam to bring belief to those who do not share it. This is not something limited to “radical” or “fundamentalist” Muslims.

Which is not to say that such obligations lead inevitably to physical conflict, at least not in principle. After all peaceful proselytizing among various religious groups continues apace throughout the world, but within the teachings of Islam, and the history of Muslims, this is a well-established militant thread.

He points out that even when the pirates themselves were more concerned with booty than jihad, the average folks of the Barbary coast still believed that they were "holy warriors." He also offers this analysis

The Barbary pirates were not a “radical” or “fundamentalist” sect that had twisted religious doctrine for power and politics, or that came to recast aspects of their faith out of some form of insanity. They were simply a North African warrior caste involved in an armed jihad — a mainstream Muslim doctrine. This is how the Muslims understood Barbary piracy and armed jihad at the time, and, indeed, how the physical jihad has been understood since Mohammed revealed it as the prophecy of Allah.

He concludes that we should include "regional squabbles, economic depression, racism, or post-colonial nationalistic self-determinism" in our analysis of terrorism's root cause, we should also consider what "Thomas Jefferson and John Adams came to learn back in 1786, the situation becomes a lot clearer when you listen to the stated intentions and motivations of the terrorists and take them at face value."

I tend to believe we should operate from the premise that people mean what they say for the reasons they offer, unless they've proven that they can't be trusted. As London himself explains, the Barbary Pirates continued to rhetorically adhere to an ideology of jihad even when their interest devolved to economic motivation. And the people continued to believe them. Contemporary terrorists also rely upon the ideology of jihad and they haven't yet offered any evidence of other goals.

James Robbins, who likens jihad to the Muslim version of a Crusade, reviews a book (The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims" a new anthology edited by Andrew G. Bostom) about jihad history and also explains:

The nature of jihad is of course one of the central questions of the conflict. Frequently I have had students from Muslim countries explain very passionately that our understanding of jihad is flawed. That what we think of as jihad — violent struggle to extend the domain of Islam — is actually the "lesser jihad." True jihad is a moral struggle within each person to enjoin the good and resist evil, what is called the "greater jihad." Some say further that the idea that force can be used to convert is not Islamic; it would make the greater jihad impossible because the convert would not sincerely believe. All this may be true, in their understanding of the faith, and I have no quarrel with it. Would that everyone felt that way.

Nevertheless, not all Muslims are as interested in this spiritual quest, and some of the more radical adherents of the faith are convinced that nonviolence is not an option. Andrew Bostom's book shows comprehensively the historical roots of this school of thought, and its continuity over the centuries to the present day. It helps one understand jihad operationally; its use, its claims to legitimacy, its perceived inevitability. Whether this is or is not the way most Muslims view the concept of jihad in its totality is not particularly relevant because people sincerely engaged in "greater jihad" are not a national-security threat. Likewise, those terrorists who have made "lesser jihad" their avocation have no use for fellow Muslims who are seeking only to bring themselves closer to God's ideal as they understand it. As the Ayatollah Khomeini said of those who argued that Islam was a religion of peace that prevents men from waging war, "I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim."

Barbary Terrorists and other topics

I skimmed Joshua London's NRO piece on the Barbary Pirates in which he compared them to modern-day Islamic terrorists, but have put off a closer reading until sometime later. I've written about the Barbary Pirates--though in a different context--before (see "Christianity as a 'Founding Religion' Disavowed: What DID the 1796 Treaty with Tripoli Say (and when did it say it)?" so it's an area of History with which I'm somewhat familiar. However, London has taken it a step farther and, at the suggestion of The Remedy's Matthew Peterson, I suppose I'll have to dig deeper into the topic soon. So, I'll move it from the back- to the front-burner...but don't hold your breath.

Here's some other stuff that piqued my interest:

Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire.

Lawrence Goldstone's Dark Bargain: Slavery, Profits and the Struggle for the Constitution.

Matt Steinglass examines the "clear and hold" strategy and whether it links Vietnam and Iraq.

Andrew Busch's Reagan's Victory:The Presidential Election of 1980 and the Rise of the Right

Greg James Robinson has moved to Quebec and asks what it means to be an immigrant amongst francophones.

Is Black History Month Helpful?

On the upcoming edition of "60 Minutes," Actor Morgan Freeman opines about Black History Month:

Morgan Freeman thinks the whole idea of a month for black history is “ridiculous.”

The actor tells Mike Wallace he opposes designating a special month because it separates black history from American history, and is part of a labeling process that abets racism.

“You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” Freeman asks Wallace. After noting there is no “white history month,” he says, “I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history,” he tells Wallace.

The notion of a special month for black history may be hurting rather than helping efforts for racial equality, Freeman believes. When Wallace wonders whether racist attitudes may be harder to eradicate without the education that Black History Month provides, Freeman retorts: “How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it!”

Freeman believes the labels “black” and “white” are an obstacle to beating racism. “I am going to stop calling you a white man and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man,” he says. “I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn’t say, ‘Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ You know what I’m saying?”

When Freeman says that the way to stop racism is to "Stop talking about it!" I don't think he's saying that we should ignore racism, but that we should stop distinguishing ourselves by race. This essentially reflects the practice my wife and I have followed with our own kids. We make no overt allusions to race or color--people are people (to quote Depeche Mode)--and we have been telling them from an early age that "People come in all different colors, shapes and sizes." Now, it's obvious that our kids notice that people are different, but it simply isn't a big deal. So far it's worked, but they are young and haven't been confronted with racism--to my knowledge--and also aren't aware of all of the negative historical baggage.

Freeman's statement that "Black History is American History" prompted me to wonder: at what point does the segregation of history into Black or Women or Native American or Jewish History Month serve less to laud the contributions of these groups and more to set them apart? This is what Freeman believes has happened. In effect, having a Black History Month may improperly convey that the only time to talk about Black History is then. This is not true amongst historians, but I've gotten the impression that it is the case in our public schools.

There can be no question that there is value in setting aside time to recognize the particular contributions or travails of different groups throughout American history. An important part of what makes us who we are is knowing from where we've come from. Equally important is to share that knowledge with others. I would hope that we are at a point in American society where we could follow Freeman's prescription and include such points of view in the course of any survey of American History. However, I also realize that the reality is such that there remains a deep, abiding--and understandable--distrust among many that their group will be short-shrifted in any such grand narrative. Thus, the question: will we ever come to a point when it will be considered redundant to set aside such special months of recognition? Perhaps future historians will have to decide.

UPDATE (12/22/2005): Columnist Clarence Page offers some thoughts on the Freeman interview and Black History Month:

When Wallace started to ask "How are we going to get rid of racism" without Black History Month, Freeman cut in: "Stop talking about it!...

Not quite. How, I would ask, are you going to solve a problem unless we talk about it? The French tried that. They swept their race problems under "le tapis" (the rug, carpet) in the spirit of "liberty, equality, fraternity." They refused as a matter of French law to recognize that different races exist, which made it hard, if not impossible, for the law to deal with racial discrimination. The result, after decades of long-standing racial and ethnic grievances, are the recent riots by poor, largely unemployed Arab and African youths in towns across France.

Back here in the good ol' USA, I have often thought that African-Americans would have preferred to be "just American" from the time the first 20 of us arrived in Jamestown Colony in 1619, but that choice never has been left up to us.

Instead, we add our own cultural flavor to the great American gumbo of ethnic and racial groups. From St. Patrick's Day to Cinco de Mayo to Columbus Day and beyond, we're all "just American" except for one day a year when we allow our ethnic identity, whatever it may be, to express itself.

We Americans need not run from our own racial past. It is very much a part of our turbulent history, from the great debate the framers of the Constitution staged over how to count the slaves for purposes of reapportionment ("three-fifths of a person") to today's first black female secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

The bad old days of separatism tried to erase black folks from American history. Black History Month puts us back in. It is not "ridiculous" to study the tragedies and triumphs of the many people who made this country what it is. They have a lot to teach us. We need Black History Month. We don't need to limit it to blacks only--or to a month.

History Carnival and Why Historians Blog

Jonathan Dresner is host of the latest History Carnival and also has a nice little treatise (via Sharon Howard) on the benefit of having historians blog.

Shifting Sands of Party Politics and Ideologies

Fred Siegel has a review of Sean Wilentz's The Rise of American Democracy up at Slate (via Cliopatria) in which he question's Wilent'z attempt to cobble together a Democrat party narrative. Cliopatria's Ralph Luker wondered if Siegel had seen the Cliopatria symposium on Wilentz's work. (As do I. The title of Siegel's piece is "When History Meets Politics..." Sounds vaguely familiar...but I digress) Siegel is critical of Wilentz's partisan attempt to interpolate all of the positives from the Jacksonian Democrats to the modern namesake while diminishing anything that could be taken as positive--abolitionism, for example--from the Wilentz-proclaimed Whig forebearers of the modern Republican party.

. . . there is a problem with the idea that all good things can be found in one package or one party. Politics, as Isaiah Berlin never tired of explaining, is often a matter of compromising on even core principles. Liberty and equality, he noted, are necessarily in tension so that the debate over the trade-offs between them can be a matter of virtue vs. virtue. Wilentz the historian struggles with the Whigs' admirable position on slavery. But Wilentz the present-minded party polemicist has no need for such exertions; he's settled on a polarizing certainty that casts a retrospective shadow on his version of American history.

I took part in the symposium and also noted that Wilentz erred in attempting to divine such a one-to-one relationship between the Democrats of yore and the contemporary party. As I said in my critique, "we have to be careful when attempting to draw too fine a comparison between what was then and what is now."

Siegel also highlights the shifting ideological sands on which political parties sit. My recent post on the threads of conservative thought touched on the differences of those who claim to hold the same ideology (conservatism). While Siegel is discussing political parties, I find his analysis is also applicable to ideology.

Wilentz seems to suggest that there are historical plumb lines that, when dropped into the past, can place all that is admirable along a single alignment. But political systems go through refractory periods, like the run-up to the Civil War and the 1960s, when coalitions shatter and are then reshaped by losing old partners and political positions while gaining new ones. One unanticipated effect of the Dutton/McGovern reforms in the wake of the split over Vietnam at the 1968 Democratic Convention was not only to move feminists in and Catholics out, it was also to make support for abortion—which was traditionally stronger among Republicans—a cornerstone of the newly remade Democratic Party. What happened was that upper-middle-class Republican women shifted into the Democratic Party partly on the issue of abortion. The parties have sifted and sorted and resorted their constituencies and thus their issues time and again, so that attempts to read the past directly into the current political framework are bound to be problematic.

Hence, many of today's conservatives also call themselves classical liberals while many of today's liberals call themselves progressives, etc. The terms may be the same, but what they represent has changed.

Kagan compares Iraq and Vietnam

In the latest Policy Review, Frederick W. Kagan writes

It is becoming increasingly an article of faith that the insurgency in Vietnam is similar enough to the insurgency in Iraq that we can draw useful lessons from the one to apply to the other. This is not the case. The only thing the insurgencies in Iraq and Vietnam have in common is that in both cases American forces have fought revolutionaries. To make comparisons or draw lessons beyond that basic point misunderstands not only the particular historical cases, but also the value of studying history to draw lessons for the present.

He outlines the significant differences of the nature of each set of "revolutionaries" and finds the Iraqi version coming up very short in comparison. In short, the Iraq insurgency has been relegated to roadside bombings and suicide bombs: hardly a guerrilla movement as Kagan understands it.

The focus on Vietnam and the general confusion between insurgency (any sort of political or military struggle against an established government) and guerrilla warfare (the use of particular kinds of military forces in unconventional warfare) is even leading us down the wrong road militarily. Strategies like the “oil spot” approach recently proposed, in which coalition forces would concentrate on pacifying a limited number of areas and then spreading their control outward, might or might not have been appropriate for Vietnam, but they are inappropriate for Iraq. Whatever the effect of such a strategy in Vietnam, in Iraq it would be a step backward, since most of the country already is pacified, and abandoning parts of, say, the Sunni Triangle to concentrate on other parts would only provide the insurgents guaranteed safe havens they do not now have.

The fact is that, militarily, the situation in Iraq is at a level below that of guerrilla war. The enemy is engaged in a widespread terrorist campaign much more similar to the Intifadah or the ira’s or eta’s attacks, if more concentrated and destructive. The coalition has already drawn some lessons from those struggles, in fact, as recent anti-terrorist operations in Iraq have focused on finding and killing or capturing the bomb makers rather than the bomb placers — a lesson centcom drew from the British experience in Northern Ireland. It may be that the more careful scrutiny of those conflicts will be more fruitful than the continuing study of Vietnam or other guerrilla wars.

One can argue over Kagan's specific points, but a larger lesson can be derived from Kagan's acute analysis.

Any single historical example, however, will suffer from sharp limits in its power to explain, still less prescribe solutions for, the current conflict. All insurgencies are distinct from one another. . . . Historical examples are most likely to be useful in understanding [Iraq] when considered in depth, comparatively with one another, and with the clear knowledge of their differences from the current troubles. History does not, in the end, provide “lessons” to be learned. At its best, it provides guidelines to help think concretely and creatively about current and likely future problems. We’ve gotten what we are going to get out of the Vietnam example, or any other single example, already. It is time to move on.

The real reason that the Vietnam example remains so prominently in many people’s minds, of course, is that the U.S. lost that war. By comparing Iraq to Vietnam, many people are expressing the fear that because America lost one and because of certain superficial similarities, the U.S. is on the road to losing the other. This “lesson” of history is the least valid of all. America may fail in Iraq, but, if so, it will not be because of any similarity to Vietnam. It is much more likely, moreover, that if the Bush administration pursues a sound strategy in this struggle, the U.S. — and the Iraqi people — will win.

Similarly, "revolutions" are not necessarily directly comparable: the underlying causes and outcomes of the American and French Revolutions comes to mind. In short, the comparison between Iraq and Vietnam is laced with a heavy dose of consequentalism.

History of Sprawl

In Glenn Reynolds' review of Robert Bruegmann's Sprawl: A Compact History, he explains that Bruegmann is turning the conventional wisdom aboutsprawl--that it's "a recent, and largely American phenomenon; it encourages wasteful use of resources; it's aesthetically unpleasant; and it benefits the rich at the expense of the poor."--on it's head. Instead, according to Bruegmann, it's not that sprawl is new: rich people have always engaged in sprawl. How else to explain the Roman villa? Sprawl only became a "phenomenom" when the middle-class started leaving the cities, too. As Reynolds summarizes:

Sprawl didn't become a problem until the wealthy and powerful were joined by the hoi polloi. Thanks to greater wealth and improvements in transportation, they were able to move from teeming tenements to less-urban settings. Once this started to happen -- before the automobile hit the scene, and beginning outside the United States -- social critics began to complain that sprawl was ruining pristine landscapes, and destroying the charm of urban life. (Ironically, as Bruegmann also points out, some of the very aspects of sprawl criticized by earlier generations -- like the miles of brick terrace row houses built in South London during the 19th century -- are now regarded as quaintly charming: "Most urban change, no matter how wrenching for one generation, tends to be the accepted norm of the next and the cherished heritage of the one after that.")

Bruegmann also notes that sprawl is not, in fact, a particularly American phenomenon, and illustrates his book with pictures of strip malls and low density housing from places as diverse as Bangalore and Paris.

What the rich call sprawl, the middle and lower class consider "opportunity." And, ironically enough, the houses that were once considered sprawl--like the tri-deckers so prevalent in Providence, RI and Fall River, MA--are today "being reappraised by hip, young urbanites who see them as charming period pieces."

Santorum's "Conservatism and the Common Good"

Jonathan Rauch reviews Senator Rick Santorum's It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good:

Santorum wrestles intelligently, often impressively, with the biggest of big ideas: freedom, virtue, civil society, the Founders’ intentions. Although he is a Catholic who is often characterized as a religious conservative, he has written a book whose ambitions are secular. As its subtitle promises, it is about conservatism, not Christianity.

Above all, it is worth noticing because, like Goldwater’s Conscience, it lays down a marker. As Goldwater repudiated Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, so Santorum repudiates Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. It’s now official: Philosophically, the conservative movement has split. Post-Santorum, tax cutting and court bashing cannot hold the Republican coalition together much longer.

As a policy book, It Takes a Family is temperate. It offers a healthy reminder that society needs not just good government but strong civil and social institutions, and that the traditional family serves essential social functions. Government policies, therefore, should respect and support family and civil society instead of undermining or supplanting them. Parents should make quality time at home a high priority. Popular culture should comport itself with some sense of responsibility and taste.

First, as my previous post has shown, the conservative movement has never really been of one philosophy, so Rauch's idea that it has "split" is not really correct. Nonetheless, the fact remains that Santorum is promoting a new kind of conservatism.

Where Goldwater denounced collectivism as the enemy of the individual, Santorum denounces individualism as the enemy of family. “In the conservative vision,” he writes, “people are first connected to and part of families: The family, not the individual, is the fundamental unit of society.” Those words are not merely in tension with the individual-rights tradition of modern conservatism. They are incompatible with it.

Santorum seems to sense as much. In an August interview with National Public Radio, he acknowledged his quarrel with “what I refer to as more of a libertarianish Right” and “this whole idea of personal autonomy.” In his book he comments, seemingly with a shrug, “Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of ‘Big Government’ conservatism.”

Especially since he offers a litany of government programs to foster this promotion of the family. Though the goals may be laudable, the turn to government as the dispenser of a pro-family will concern many conservatives.

Comments on Princeton's Symposium on Conservatism in America

PROEM: Ralph Luker has offered some clarification that, post title notwithstanding, the post he put up at Cliopatria is referring only to the recent Princeton Symposium on Conservativism in America, not to a Cliopatria sponsored one on the same topic.

My post at Cliopatria refers to the symposium at Princeton, which is not to be confused with the citations to previous posts about conservatism by my colleagues at Cliopatria nor are they to be confused with the occasional Symposia on significant articles that Cliopatria occasionally sponsors. Notice that some of the posts cited there are as much as two years old. There was no advance call for submissions to the symposium because this was simply a post by me, not one of Cliopatria's occasional symposia.

Please keep that in mind (and for those who were here earlier, I've removed my musings about the short notice of this symposium, re-titled the post and made some edits for coherence). That aside, I think the rest of what I have written is relevant.

Taking a cue from a conference at Princeton University over the weekend ("The Conservative Movement: Its Past, Present, and Future"), the group over at Cliopatria is having a Symposium on Conservatism in America. The attendees to the conference included such conservatives as David Brooks, Steven Hayward, Midge Decter, George Nash, William Rusher, William Bennett, Lou Cannon, Stanton Evans, David Keene, Paul Weyrich, and George Will.

Brooks gave a keynote address, "The Future of American Conservatism: Hamilton Returns,"; Hayward provided a survey of the conservative movement to which Decter, Nash and Rusher offered commentary; other panels examined "the Goldwater and Reagan eras, the infrastructure of the conservative movement, the relationship between conservatism and the Republican Party, and the impact of conservatism on America's economic, social and foreign policies." None of this material is available on line (my fingers are crossed).

The items to which Ralph links are informative, but they take a decidedly skeptical view towards modern American conservativism. Much of this has to do with a conflation of the current Presidential Administration and it's policies as being typical of the ideals held by modern American conservatives. Obviously, there are many ideological conservatives who support this President--who himself claims to be conservative-- even though he has instituted policies and proposals that many conservatives, variously defined, consider un-conservative. Such things as increased entitlement spending, too-liberal immigration policies or embarking on an unwise foreign war, to name a few.

The pieces to which Ralph linked exhibit exemplify the more traditional (pre-1950) definition of conservativism. For instance, Ralph states

What passes for "conservatism" in America isn't conservative at all. If it were, it would take the lead in efforts at "conservation." Don't count on unbridled post-industrial capitalism to do that.

Ralph is concerned by what he perceives to be a gap between the rhetoric of political conservatives such as President Bush and Tom Delay and the conservative ideals as he understands them. (An article by liberal Rick Perstein, who spoke at the Princeton conference, also delves into the gap between pragmatic conservatives and principled conservatives). Ralph seems to adhere to a more traditional conservatism that is more heavy on virtue, or even noblesse oblige (no negative connotation implied) and less dependent on free markets or (at least politically) on religion-based morality. Likewise, his colleague Chris Bray cleverly contrasts a couple quotes (1, 2) by conservative Sir Edmund Burke with a comment made by Karl Rove. This is the older, traditional sort of conservatism that was prevalent before the 1950's and is but one of the many varieties of what can be considered conservative today.

What Ralph doesn't include are any posts by those who can explain some of the consistencies and inconsistencies between an apparently static conservative tradition--such as that exhibited by Ralph and Chris--and the modern conception of American conservatism. That's fine, it's his post. Nonetheless, there are simply different definitions and types of conservatism that have evolved over the past 50 years.

For example, George Nash identified three in his The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America: classical liberals (libertarians); new conservatives (championed a return to religious and moral truths); and anti-Communists (many of the "neocons" of today). William F. Buckley or the The Conservative Mind or any number of the other influences upon modern American conservatism are also worthy of examination. In short, to be conservative means many things. A survey of the pieces to which Ralph linked leads me to believe that most of the writers choose to define "true" conservativism as that of the Burkean sort, and all other claimants are but pretenders to the cause.

Unfortunately, I don't have time for a longer treatment, but one of my recent posts mentioned a couple other places that did deal with this topic, if in a bit of a different way. Also, "The Future of Conservatism," a talk held at the American Enterprise Institute, with Newt Gingrich, David Frum and Mike Pence is exemplary of the difference between conservative ideals (of one sort) and Republican politics. I'm not the first to say that not all Republicans are conservative (or vice versa). Perhaps I'll be able to get more in depth later.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg noticed Perlstein's piece and intends to look into it, while Ramesh Ponnuru offered some specific criticism.

UPDATE II: Steven Hayward has also weighed in on Perlstein:

Perlstein, a delightful fellow in person, affects a fascination and respect for conservatives and conservatism, but he seems to relish playing the bad boy role when he appears at conservative conferences. His argument seems to boil down to this proposition: examples of bad behavior by conservatives in power suggests an intrinsic hypocrisy in the conservative movement. In the discussion period I challenged him sharply on two points: first, whether he could establish an organic link between conservative ideas and the instances of bad behavior that he cited, or whether bad behavior wasn't endemic to politics since at least Alcibiades. (Couldn't I, I said, compile an inventory just as long of bad behavior by liberals in power? In other words, isn't he really just vindicating Acton, and therefore saying very little of signficance about the character of conservative ideas?) Second, I challenged him on his entirely typical use of the "southern strategy" charge against the GOP, arguing that if he was going to play that card he ought at least to acknowledge which party invented it in the first place and note instances such as Jimmy Carter's blatant racial appeals as late as Carter's governor's race in 1970 (Perlstein nodded in agreement at this), and moreover that the pattern of GOP ascendence in the South (i.e., winning first in the border states and winning last in the deep south where racial sentiment was strongest--the case Gerard Alexander made so superbly in the Claremont Review a while back) suggested that the story of the political realignment in the south had more to do with broader cultural issues, such as Democratic hostility or indifference to religion. In reply, Perlstein merely repeated himself rather than grapple with my arguments. Perhaps others who were there will care to weigh in with their perceptions. To repeat, I like Perlstein, but I wonder whether he feels the need to protect his left flank when he is slumming it with us, or whether his own ideological partisanship gets the better of him sometimes.

UPDATE III: Asheesh Kapur Siddique of CampusProgress saw David Brooks' presentation--which he characterized as offering some hope for Progressives like himself-- and offered these impressions (with some editing by me):

Conservatism, Brooks argued, has reached a moment of “crisis” largely due to its own success. Even as conservatism reigns triumphant in all three branches of government, he noted that the movement is “intellectually moribund,” “lacks a governing philosophy,” and is fraught with internal divisions. Brooks cited two examples demonstrating his thesis: President Bush’s failure to win enough support for Social Security privatization – a dream of the right’s intelligentsia since the Reagan days – even as Republicans dominate Congress; and massive government spending by the Bush administration – a key break from the right’s long-standing campaign to shrink government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub,” as Grover Norquist famously enjoined.

... Brooks offered some handy tips. First, progressive intellectuals need to become more explicitly philosophical. Brooks noted that almost every young aspiring conservative activist is enamored with some major intellectual from whom they claim to draw ideas and inspiration, be it Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, F. A. Hayek, or Milton Friedman. Yet on the liberal side, how many young activists embrace figures like Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, John Dewey, John Rawls, and Richard Rorty as intellectual heroes?...

Second, Brooks advised both sides to resist moving to the political center. “Centrists are stupid,” he stated emphatically. “There is no intellectual center in this country. To call for a center is to call for nothing. [‘Centrism’] is not a set of policies or ideas”...

Finally, Brooks suggested that the road to an electoral majority for either party now lies in appealing to voters in exurban communities, such as Loudoun County, Maryland (about 25 miles outside Washington, DC), Douglas County, Colorado (located between Denver and Colorado Springs), and Kendall County, Illinois (on the outskirts of Chicago). Residents of these areas aren’t deeply wedded to either party – instead, they’re concerned above all with having, in Brooks’ words, “a safe place to raise their kids.”

Incidentally, Johah Goldberg offers similar advice to liberals. A snippet:

Liberals have a tendency to mistake political tactics for political principles, and vice versa. Exhibit A is the Left's fascination with "unity." Unity is often useful in politics, but it's often a handicap if you haven't figured out what to be unified about. Just as the Socratic method leads to wisdom, big fights not only illuminate big ideas, but they force people to become invested in them. Unfortunately, liberals define diversity by skin color and sex, not by ideas, which makes it difficult to have really good arguments.

Of course there are arguments on the Left and there are individual liberals with deep-seated convictions and principles. But most of the arguments are about how to "build a movement" or how to win elections, not about what liberalism is. Even the "Get out of Iraq now!" demands from the base of the Democratic party aren't grounded in anything like a coherent foreign policy. Ten years ago liberals championed nation-building. Now they call it imperialism because George W. Bush is doing it.

I think that is the problem that most academics have with trying to classify "conservatism". The various strains are able to coalesce for this or against that, but still maintain their respective ideals when they are at odds with each other over particular issues (for example, libertarians for "choice" and Catholics for "life"). In the political arena, they tend to define themselves by--and play up--the things that unite them, but that doesn't mean they have given up their ideals. As Goldberg said, "Liberals have a tendency to mistake political tactics for political principles, and vice versa. " Though it may be out of sight, the debate continues.

Good Use of History

In "Father Knew Best", Paul C. Nagel offers what I think is a good example of a commentary piece that effectively and properly uses history to make a points. He starts:

IN a recent article in The New Yorker, Brent Scowcroft, a close friend of and former national security adviser to President George H. W. Bush, sharply criticized the current administration and, in all but name, its leader, President George W. Bush. That set tongues wagging anew about filial relations in the Bush family, which had earlier been brought into sharp relief in the book "Plan of Attack," by Bob Woodward. Asked by Mr. Woodward if he had discussed Iraq with his father, the younger Bush said: "You know, he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to."

How does that compare with the relationship between John Adams and John Quincy Adams, the only other father and son to occupy the White House?

He then summarizes and details the Adamses relationship, with no overt comparison to the Bushes within his narrative. He leaves such comparison that can be drawn about the similarities of the two father/son relationships to the reader. It is only in his concluding sentence that he hints at his actual opinion.

[John Adam's] death reminded [John Quincy Adams] of the admonition from Roman times that sons should "think of their fathers and of their children." Why was it, John Quincy Adams wondered, "that from the days of Pericles, the sons of eminent men have almost universally been mindless of both?"

And that's it. The question is asked, the history presented, and an anecdote is used to illustrate the author's opinion. Maybe it's not fiery or polemical enough for some. To me it exhibits a responsible use of History.

History Carnival XXI

Laura James has the 21st installment of the HC up!

No More Limbo?

If there is no limbo, where will all of the great moderates go?

Bush and Churchill’s Mid-War Speeches

Rick Richman compare's mid-war speeches between President Bush and Winston Churchill. Probably the most sound historical lesson that can be taken from the comparison is that there are times when leaders have to re-state the case for war (or any other endeavor, for that matter) and that sometimes a simple re-phrasing or re-statement of reasons and objectives can "buck up" the people. Of course, sometimes it doesn't help at all. (Via Jonah Goldberg)

UPDATE: Goldberg's gotten some feedback and an explanation:

Jonah,

Please! There is no comparison. As we know from Martin Gilbert's work,
Churchill spent hours and hours crafting his speeches. And he was dynamite
in debate and on his feet when challenged. Bush recites very well what has
been written for him by a team of speech writers and, as far as speaking
"off the cuff" or in taking questions at press conferences he is more often
than not virtually tongue-tied. I love the President, but making this kind
of comparison is apples and oranges.

Me: I'm inclined to agree. Churchill and Bush are obviously very different men. I just thought the rhetorical similarities were "interesting."

Update: More email pouring in to defend the comparison:

The point of the article was not to compare the two men's rhetorical styles but to show that: (i) the UK almost lost its nerve in the middle of WW II but did not because of executive leadership; (ii) we should take a lesson from that; and (iii) we should be thankful that the President is taking action in a manner similar in substance (not style) to the actions Churchill took -- I pray, to the same result.

Let's leave it here.

Iraq a "Reverse Vietnam"

Glenn Reynolds first offered that the Valerie Plame affair may actually be a reverse-Watergate "with the press, not the White House, keeping the important secrets about what happened" in comments he made on CNN's Reliable Sources. Reviewing the transcript, he then thought it possible that the Iraq war may be a reverse-Vietnam. In particular, this exchange struck him:

KURTZ: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES.

Pam Hess, during Vietnam U.S. officials were often accused of distorting or even lying to the press to try to make it look like the war effort was going better than it was. When you were in Iraq did you feel like you were getting the straight story?

HESS: Certainly from the militarily I did. They have no interest in cooking the books, as it were, they -- they understand that they were blamed for Vietnam and what happened, and they don't want that blame again.

They want people to understand the kind of enemy that they are facing and how long it's going to take. And frankly, most of them said to me, "Please go back and tell them not to pull us out because we are finally at a point where we have enough people here now on the ground between soldiers and Iraqis that we can actually start doing some good and start turning things around. And if you pull us out, we're just going to be back here three years from now."

KURTZ: More optimistic, at least than some of the journalists.

HESS: Yes.

He received feedback, including this corrective from one of his colleagues, Tom Plank.

I saw your post on Reverse Vietnam. I am deeply skeptical of the claim that the military misled the press or the American people about the Vietnam War. It may be that the top political leaders downplayed the costs of the war, and perhaps senior military officers went along with this, but I thought the reporting on the war was nevertheless much more negative than what was actually going on. The idea of the press reporting objectively on the war is I think another urban myth.

Two classic examples: the 1968 Tet Offensive, reported as a great defeat for the US, but which was a victory for the US and which was a devastating loss for the Viet Cong and NVA (essentially resulted in the destruction of the indigenous South Vietnamese Viet Cong).

The second example is the seige at Khe San. This was reported as a defeat for the US, with lots of comparisons to Dien Bien Phu, but the several month long seige at Khe San resulted in the destruction of several NVA divisions at the cost of several hundred US troops. By 1970, the US had defeated the NVA (the indigenous Viet Cong had long been pretty much out of the picture).

The real failure in Vietnam was not to invest in the development of a truly representative democratic government in the south and commit to protect that government from invasion from the north. Of course, then we were primarily interested in fighting communism instead of developing democracy and self determination. In Iraq, I think we have learned to foster self determination, local style.

It's an interesting theory. I wonder if many historians have remarked upon the gap between the events as understood by those closest to the action and how those same events were interpreted and passed along to the public at large by journalists. To tie to the practice of history, it also points to the hazards of over-reliance on journalistic accounts for historical sourcing. Private accounts need to be considered as well. To conclude, it seems that there is a similarity between Vietnam and Iraq: the willingness of many people, including historians, to take journalistic accounts at face value and to give short shrift to other accounts, especially postive ones, from the military and others.

Goldberg: Bush is no FDR

Jonah Goldberg wrote a column recently in which he compared contemporary anti-war, Bush-"haters" (moonbats) to FDR nemesis Clare Booth Luce. Both Luce and the anti-Bush crowd claimed that the object of their contempt lied the nation into war. As Goldberg explains, Luce probably had a much stronger case:

Charles Beard, arguably the most influential historian of the 20th century - and a very liberal progressive - dedicated the last years of his life to writing about FDR's lies and "Caesarism." Richard Hofstadter, another of the great liberal historians (and a sharp critic of Beard's), also conceded FDR's "undeniably devious leadership" in the months and years before the war. Hofstadter, like countless other historians, had to agree that FDR's diplomacy and politics were designed to push the United States through a "back door into war."

Roosevelt won his unprecedented third election on the vow that he wouldn't send American boys to war: "While I am talking to you mothers and fathers, I give you one more assurance. I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." This was almost surely a lie.

"Roosevelt repeatedly deceived the American people during the period before Pearl Harbor," writes the historian Thomas A. Bailey. "He was faced with a terrible dilemma. If he let the people slumber in a fog of isolationism, they might fall prey to Hitler. If he came out unequivocally for intervention, he would be defeated" in the 1940 election. This view was seconded by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in a rave review of Bailey's book in 1949. Schlesinger now spends his time lending gravitas to the moonbattier "Bush lied" table-thumpers at Arianna Huffington's Web site.

Just three days before Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 4, 1941, the Chicago Tribune and Washington Star-Ledger broke the story that FDR had already drafted a plan for war with Germany, a plan that entailed a 10-million-man army invading Germany by the middle of 1943. Democrats and Republicans alike saw this as further proof that FDR had been lying all along. Some suggest that a U.S.-flagged schooner sent into Japanese waters that same day was intended to provoke a fight. Roosevelt got Pearl Harbor instead, which was a surprise but nonetheless "rescued" the president, in Hofstadter's words, from the "dilemma" of needing to start a war the American people opposed.

Goldberg concludes that this does not make FDR a bad president because he recognized that WWII would have to be fought sooner or later. In general, he continued, leaders have to venture into "duplicity" all of the time. In short, the "neocon" Goldberg is espousing realpolitick. Imagine that. He also delves into the History vs. Memory debate:

Now, you might say that Iraq was no WWII, Saddam was no Hitler, and 9/11 was no Pearl Harbor. Those are all fair arguments with varying degrees of merit. But WWII wasn't "the good war" in our hearts until after Pearl Harbor and even until after the Holocaust, and a lot of Hollywood burnishing.

And concludes by remarking on the rather focused criticism of Bush.

The Bush Doctrine is not chiefly about WMD and never was. Like FDR's vision, it balances democracy, security and morality. Still, the media and anti-Bush partisans have been bizarrely unmoved by the revelations of Hussein's killing fields, his torture chambers for tots, and democracy's tangible progress in the Middle East.

History of the Iraq War

Mudville Gazette has a post up about the Iraq War, 1990-2003.

The goal of this effort has been to provide a list of facts and quotes, without bias or interpretation. There are those who will see such things as exactly that, and those who will claim it's exactly the opposite. So it goes.

I wonder how it'll stand up to the scrutiny of historians.

Rule America?

Just thinking out loud. In "Rule America?" Jonathan Last lays a substantial portion of the failure of the British Empire at the feet of liberal elite's unwillingness to buy into patriotism and draws a parallel to contemporary America. There is something to his argument, but I think a comparison of the "patriotic" attitude of the average Brit to that of today's average American would also be useful. I'm not at all familiar (in a scholarly way) with British history and wonder if the ideology of British Empire was thought to be as transferrable as today's "average" American (whatever that means) thinks the ideology of Democracy is. In contrast, it seems that there eventually was no motivation for promulgating and propogating the British Empire other than for its own sake. Isn't there some difference between being patriotic about a hierarchical, top down, colonizing "empire" (the British) and being patriotic about a nation that is "imperial" in it's belief in the spread of democracy? I suppose there are some similarities in that each believe(d) that their form of government was superior. Anyway, there's a lot to chew on!

Cliopatria Award: Nominated

Well, I see that my series Introduction to Historical Method has been nominated for Best Series of Posts for the Cliopatria History Blogging Awards. I must say, I'm honored to have been nominated, though I suspect that's as far as that will go. There are some other worthy candidates, to say the least. I nominated "The Geographical Turn" series by Nathanael at Rhine River and also liked "The Canon of Military History" by Prof. Mark Grimsley. But back to me ;) I don't expect any other nominations to come my way, but I do think that my post "Christianity as a "Founding Religion" Disavowed" was pretty good.

Crusading against The Crusades?

This is how the New York Times' Anita Gates describes the History Channel's two-part series The Crusades: Crescent and the Cross:

Sometimes, when history repeats itself, the tables turn. This has never been clearer or more disturbing than now, especially when considering the HISTORY CHANNEL's two-part documentary "THE CRUSADES: CRESCENT AND THE CROSS" (Sunday and Monday at 9 p.m.). Roughly 900 years ago, some Christians, inspired by POPE URBAN II, got the idea that their religion was superior to everyone else's and set out to conquer the Muslim world. These re-creation-style documentaries have a tendency to concentrate on the details, battle by battle and general by general. Some meaning would be good, too.

Granted, this was part of a general "WEEK AHEAD" entertainment column and not an extended review, but could the sweeping and misinformed generalization be any worse? As Andrew Stuttaford stated:

Wouldn’t it have been better, Anita, to have begun your little analysis with the Muslim conquest centuries of the ‘Holy Land’ before, or is that just too, too difficult to fit into contemporary orthodoxies?

Starting the story with Urban II, even in a brief summary, is like describing World War II without mentioning, say, the invasion of Poland.

Obviously, Gates didn't catch much of the series--maybe she didn't have access--but it was made clear that the First Crusade was launched as an attempt to RE-capture the Holy Land. Now, the Crusades did sort of devolve in each iteration, but Gates' mischaracterization of the series was irresponsible. There are plenty of books on the Crusades, but here is a responsible summary and some primary sources. Perhaps Ms. Gates should avail herself of them.