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March 16, 2007
My Honor...Defended!
Thanks, Rob. So I actually watched a bit of Kaus's Bloggingheads, which wasn't nearly as enraging as I'd expected: Kaus is too petulant to be genuinely offensive. But his assault demonstrates something interesting. Kaus's fury towards me appears related to my judgment that "neoliberals did much to correct the Democratic Party's image, but not much to update its policies." I think I overstated that case somewhat, but not by much. Kaus, however, is a breathing, walking, balding example of my unadulterated argument.
His criticisms of me appear to take two main forms. The first is that I'm on "the far left." The second is that I'm young. Now, unless your spectrum runs from Al From to Sam Brownback, it's six types of absurd to place me on the "far left." But fine: Maybe Mickey is such a firebreathing conservative that advocating for universal health care really does make me a Communist. And here's where it gets interesting. Mickey's latest post at Slate is anchored by a gushing encomium to my friend Jon Cohn. Jon is set to release a wonderful book called Sick (which you can, and should, preorder), and recently gave a promotional talk at LA's Venice Family Clinic. Mickey attended and it blew his mind. "I have seen the future of health care punditry," he writes, "and its name is Jonathan Cohn."
Jon is, if anything, farther left on health policy than I am. For instance: I was impressed with the boldness of John Edwards' health plan, which included a public insurance option. Jon wrote, "the new Edwards plan is not as far-reaching as some plans now circulating in Congress including plans that call for remaking the health care system top-to-bottom by creating a single-payer system modeled on Medicare. Precisely because the Edwards plan comes from the candidate positioning himself as the voice of working-class populism, that makes the final product just a tad disappointing." That's some bad-ass leftyism. Invigorating!
But for Kaus, the question is style points. Jon Cohn and I both focus on social policy, both believe approximately the same things, and both are working towards much the same outcome. But I'm the "far-left." Why? Style. I'm young, I'm partisan, I'm pro-union, I'm insufficiently impressed with Mickey's years in the trenches of neoliberalism. Temperamentally, I'm the anti-neolib. And that's enough. Indeed, it's too much.
That's what's so fundamentally unimpressive about writers like Kaus. Their ideology is underpinned by a grudge, not a belief system. It's aesthetic, characterological, and above all, personal. They hate unions and so they worry about productivity costs, loathe Jesse Jackson and so can't think seriously think about racial justice. Kaus doesn't like me and so I am far left, he does like Jon and so Jon is the future. The substance is immaterial. Neoliberalism was, for some of these folks, an attitude first and an ideology second. In recent years, Kaus has become an embarrassingly public exhibition of that prioritization scheme.
March 16, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Well, he speaks from a position of power, since Althouse does blogroll him. And that is what you get for calling her "loathsome", and she ain't forget that soon.
Posted by: jerry | Mar 16, 2007 12:28:19 PM
Ezra wrote, about writers like Kaus: "Their ideology is underpinned by a grudge, not a belief system. It's aesthetic, characterological, and above all, personal."
I hadn't really encapsulated it before, but that's the truth about Kaus. I stopped reading him because I would find myself thinking "This must be about something that happened to Mickey Kaus in the eighties or nineties when some person slighted him in some way. It's sure not about current politics or the issue purportedly at hand."
When that thought occured to me about almost every bolus on his blog, I realized that I didn't need a map to Mickey Kaus' ego. So I stopped reading him.
I'm glad that others still occasionally point out how creepy his reflexive typing (I won't call it "thinking") is, however.
Posted by: blatherskite | Mar 16, 2007 12:39:46 PM
He's a reactionary, that's all. They're a dime a dozen.
Posted by: Jason | Mar 16, 2007 12:45:32 PM
Their ideology is underpinned by a grudge, not a belief system. It's aesthetic, characterological, and above all, personal. They hate unions and so they worry about productivity costs, loathe Jesse Jackson and so can't think seriously think about racial justice. Neoliberalism was, for some of these folks, an attitude first and an ideology second.
Exactly. BTW, if you want to get a better appreciation of the preternatural disgust that is at the core of the neoliberal attitude, read the non-fiction novella Mau-Mauing The Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe. It's usually combined in a volume with Radical Chic, and by itself can be read in a couple of hours. Wolfe himself is of course not a neolib, but you can picture someone like Kaus nodding in agreement with every page. The main characters in the story: a band of fuming, blustering community activists, and a feckless, emasculated government worker, are straight out of neolib central casting.
Posted by: kth | Mar 16, 2007 12:50:13 PM
"Their ideology is underpinned by a grudge, not a belief system. It's aesthetic, characterological, and above all, personal."
Exact same with Chris Matthews, who is another liberal apostate like Mickey.
Posted by: Petey | Mar 16, 2007 12:56:01 PM
The post and comments above reflect my view of Kaus: he's living his historical resentments - including his greatest resentment that he is so widely ignored or ridiculed.
The best cure for people with this bent is obscurity. Ignore the troll! Deprived of attacks and commentary, he reveals himself as the gas bag that he is.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Mar 16, 2007 1:03:28 PM
a breathing, walking, balding example
Oh, very nice.
Posted by: FMguru | Mar 16, 2007 1:19:48 PM
"The best cure for people with this bent is obscurity."
Kaus is smart about many, many things. He just has some absolutely enormous blind spots.
Posted by: Petey | Mar 16, 2007 1:24:20 PM
Kaus has painted himself into a corner over the past decade; I think the realization of that is sinking in. I suspect there is more than a little envy in his dissing of you as he feels his own irrelevancy creeping up on him.
Posted by: idlemind | Mar 16, 2007 1:32:14 PM
I've not read Jon, but you, Ez, are the future of health care punditry--and the present. Am kinda awed by your smarts and erudition.
Posted by: jimmmm | Mar 16, 2007 1:36:16 PM
I've not seen Mickey Kaus - or the broad class of punditry he represents - summed up so perfectly or succinctly before. Well done.
Posted by: Christmas | Mar 16, 2007 1:50:26 PM
petey quoted this: "Their ideology is underpinned by a grudge, not a belief system. It's aesthetic, characterological, and above all, personal."
Then petey commented:
"Exact same with Chris Matthews, who is another liberal apostate like Mickey."
Boy, that's the truth. Policy almost doesn't exist to Matthews, and he's apparently bored when he talks of it without some caricature to attach it to.
Matthews also has some psychosexual stuff going on that's really bizarre, too. I'd bet Kaus has some himself (from comments I've read about his homophobia), but I don't read him so can't be sure.
Posted by: blatherskite | Mar 16, 2007 1:54:05 PM
I don't know if you're "far left", (although in a world where communism is barely a credible belief system, the goalposts may deserve some moving) but I would say your world view is characterized by an almost zealous desire to adhere to a "labor-liberal" orthodoxy, whencever you judge it, your style & method of concern is very much like what used to be called a "bleeding-heart" before that term was lost forever to right-wing pejorativists, and as matters of policy go, you have a tremendous faith in the ability of Government to solve problems and do so competently, the likes of which haven't been seen in well known liberal opinion punditry in quite awhile, and for which I didn't even know such opinions were allowed. Your radio discussion with George Lakoff comes to mind where you characterize yourself & Bill Clinton as adhering to different ideologies because he is "skeptical of government on some level" a skepticism, which you don't apparantly share.
In fact, the only notable times I've noticed you break from "Kuttnerism" as Kaus would define it, is where you take a leftier route, like on immigration & trade with China as opposed to Kuttner's economic nationalism on those two issues.
In short, you're fairly leftish, and I think I've seen you moving that direction since I started reading you about a year and a half ago.
Perhaps it's more to do with style than substance. You & Yglesias' opinions probably aren't that different despite the fact that you both come off very different in your writing. Perhaps it's a shift from the old E.J. Dionne model of a "liberal who writes like a moderate", you're a liberal, an orthodox "labor-liberal" who writes like a full throated progressive leftist. And perhaps it's that style that leads the old fogeys like Kaus to dismiss you in their reactionary zeal toward your confident style as some "young punk towing the Kuttner line"
Posted by: DRR | Mar 16, 2007 1:55:31 PM
...but isn't that really "neoliberalism" in a nutshell? Along with "neoconservatism" both seem to have devolved into idiosyncratic definitions driven mainly by the person or people self identifying with the term (or a definition determined by those who are not to frame others they think are). It's why I think the terms - and the debate around who's on top now - are so pointless. I don't think Kaus is "neo" anything - I think he's a fine example of that Boomer Democrat who hated the Reagan years, thought Clinton was the second (or possibly first) coming, and now that the revolution has passed him by is just mad about the whole thing. Though nothing particularly explains his weird fascination with Ann Coulter or his creepy homophobia. I truly think the Kausfiles moment has passed - up until Dems regained Congress, Kaus appeared to be an interesting voice helping to develop an interesting lefty conversation; but now with lefties actually in a position to do things, he's suddenly annoyed that they're not doing just the things he wants the way he wants. Adapt or die, that's pretty much how things shake out, and he seems particularly resistant to adapting (or broadening his worldview) at this point.
PS I would add this though, and it's not entirely criticism, but Ezra and a number of other DC blogging types are young, and it does show in their writing and their views, and a certain natural rejection of those of us with some age and some experience. I was there once, as were a number of other commentors, I think; and it's fine, but it's worth keeping in mind that occasionally that critique is not a mistaken one.
Posted by: weboy | Mar 16, 2007 2:03:52 PM
But that just shows how odd the characterization of "far-left" is in the neolib lexicon. I'd submit that almost every non-cultural position I hold is currently a majority opinion. I'm for universal health care and willing to preserve -- though reform -- the insurance industry, for an increase in the minimum wage, for addressing inequality by levying higher taxes on the rich, for heavy investment in innovation industries, etc.
That doesn't make them right, but it's a bit odd to call them far-left. I don't support turning over the means of production, or federally micormanaging the economy, or robust protectionist policies to protect the manufacturing sector, or radically restructuring the tax code to create true economic egalitarianism.
As for the government, I'm pretty skeptical of its efficiency except when it comes to health care, where I believe market failures and perverse incentives are fundamentally damning to the private market. But given that Mickey is all about Cohn, he apparently agrees!
Posted by: Ezra | Mar 16, 2007 2:05:26 PM
Great summary of Kaus, Ezra - I have to ditto the others there.
Petey: "Kaus is smart about many, many things. He just has some absolutely enormous blind spots."
Kaus is smart about one thing, and that's how to make a living by being an 'even the liberal Kaus...' trash-talker about liberalism.
I've said it before, but it bears repeating:
Kaus is one of those guys who became non-liberal, maybe for good reasons, but even if so, those reasons are obsolete. Not that you'd know it from listening to him. He makes a living as a quisling, somebody internal who betrays.
Posted by: Barry | Mar 16, 2007 2:16:39 PM
where you take a leftier route, like on immigration & trade with China
On trade he's cited lefty reasons for what are essentially neo-lib policies. On immigration I don't think he's that much further left than Chris Cannon and George Bush. Ezra's more mixed in his ideology than many of his readers. Maybe style enters into it sometimes, but he also approvingly cites folks like Megan McArdle and Joe Klein from time to time and does other things that would point the other way.
it does show in their writing and their views, and a certain natural rejection of those of us with some age and some experience
I don't know so much about the other young ones you have in mind, but I haven't noticed Ezra rejecting anything based on age. He's got his share of natural defensiveness, but he controls it as well as most, on the whole, no matter the ages involved.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 16, 2007 2:34:23 PM
Ezra, you are probably correct in all of that. Which is why I added the caveat that it may be more a matter of aesthetics than anything else, which may explain why Lee, bloggingheads commenters & now Mickey, act as if you are a naive idealist college activist so out of your league discussing politics with serious, bald men, who used to eat dinner with Paul Tsongas.
And I wouldn't sell the Govt short. There's market failure in a lot more than just Healthcare where the Govt can (and does) make up the difference.
My favorite moment in Ezra punditry was when he flatly called programs like medicare & medicaid "models of bureaucratic efficiency" compared to their private counterparts. This statement was like a lightinging bolt thru parts of conservative/libertarian blogosphere because it went completely against their assumptions, yet when comparing the overhead of the comparative systems, they really had no way to refute the claim. Anger without a means for ventilation. Comedy gold.
Posted by: DRR | Mar 16, 2007 2:40:23 PM
i don't know about Kaus but for many pundits like Matthews, the population of the US is not the benchmark used to compare views. instead it is the range of views they get from tehir friends and fellow pundit class members, and Ezra does seem pretty far left compared to that group.
Posted by: BillCross | Mar 16, 2007 2:49:40 PM
Mickey can't dislike Ezra for his health care position because Mickey agrees! See: http://www.slate.com/id/2160585/&#obamacard
Kaus is a contrarian, not a reactionary; a Clintonite, not a Republican. His ideology is largely coherent even if it's disagreeable to people further to the left. At the same time, his comment on BHTV was a cheap shot.
Posted by: ACD | Mar 16, 2007 3:09:25 PM
... breathing, walking, balding ...
Not to mention schizophrenic. [Are not! - ed Are too! Are not! - ed Are too!]
Posted by: Media Glutton | Mar 16, 2007 3:42:52 PM
Call Sadly No! Balding is a worse insult than fat!
Posted by: From one who know | Mar 16, 2007 5:47:59 PM
You're not cringing and apologetic for your insufficient ass-kissing to the interests of the aristocracy, and it bugs.
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | Mar 16, 2007 7:21:55 PM
I'd submit that almost every non-cultural position I hold is currently a majority opinion.
It's Kaus's job, along with every pseudo-liberal, particularly those who take jobs with Fox, to characterize majority positions in this country as "far left".
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | Mar 16, 2007 7:25:00 PM
Marcotte kills another thread.
Posted by: Marcotte is a thread killer | Mar 16, 2007 8:50:20 PM
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