Times columnist David Brooks's spoke to the conservative Young America's Foundation the other day on C-Span. Smart guy. He seemed to get a little teary over John McCain. It sounded more like a eulogy–that the foregone conclusion had taken place, McCain had lost and his era had passed from the stage. He quoted an old column of his: “You know, there’s really only one great man running for president this year, and that’s McCain.”
Brooks also quoted from an off-the-record conversation he'd had with "the current president," noting, "I don't think he would mind." Brooks had asked Bush what a president needs most, "and instead of giving a cynical answer" about the candidates, Brooks said, "he talked about families." How important they are to being president, you never get away from that background. "I do think McCain has that."
It was an insight into the father-loving conservative mind. McCain comes from a great family, yes, but will his old mother or the faith of his fathers really be such a bulwark to him in the White House? I wonder. By implication, Brooks was saying that Obama's broken family background leaves character questions about him–as it obviously weakened Bill Clinton's character.
This is reductive and nostalgic. Yes, Obama arose from the blown dust of the four corners of the earth; but he has built a strong family from the looks of it. And yes, that's important. But there's little question he's a great man. He's a great writer, and a man of uncommon intelligence and presence. His accomplishments so far are staggering, going back to his youth; though yes he's arrogant and cold.
McCain's a great man, too. I changed parties eight years ago to vote for him. He took a period of enormous suffering and transformed it into a commitment to service. I love his strength of character and his sense of humor. In my one brief interview with him, I challenged McCain to do as I had done, and put party aside to stand up for what was right–run all the way to the fall in 2000. Of course McCain didn't accept that challenge; but that was his moment, and what did he do, he folded right into Bush's agenda and pursued a tragic course in the Middle East. McCain's tire gauge stunt is yet another demonstration of the fact, he doesn't have the mind to be president. And as for family life, he left his first wife for his image of the alluring beauty– probably the girl he never thought he could get as a midshipman. I don't judge him for that; I'm a guy. But Cindy's scary. Rumor has it that they don't get along that well.
Bottom line: families are complicated; and there are two great men running for president this year. One's the future, one's the past.
In contrast, Bush came from a broken self, healing into a more successful negligent one.
As a half-Wasp from a Southern family that talks about family a great deal, I hear W's comments on family as meaning "people like us." "The right sort of family." I think he's speaking WASP dog-whistle here.
"You never get away from that background" meaning Obama will never get away from the background of Kenyan, black goatherd. In old WASPy families background is all-important. Why do you think they talk about their ancestors so much? Most of these folks think that their background (the respectability of their ancestors) makes them 'quality' people today, whatever their financial or class circumstances.
I talk about my background a great deal BTW, a habit that may be revealing – I think it's funny that this Boho California housewife with the Arabic name has a "respectable" WASP background almost as good as anybody's. (No Presidents in my lineage but a Senator & Supreme Court Justice, good enough).
And yet background doesn't mean anything. Plenty of criminals come from a nice background. Look at W. He is a buffoon, a drunk, a liar and the worst president ever. Background doesn't matter. (Unless you're really determinist and think that the bootlegging, Nazi-cosseting history of his grandfather affects Bush 43's personality today).
But background matters to people. At the Tikkun Conference in NYC 2002 I heard about six different speakers, including Amy Goodman, refer to ancestors who had been rabbis.
What's new about Obama and reflects our nation's change in the last 50 years is that he's got the WASP background through his mother AND the new immigrant, of-color background through his father. He's the hybrid. He's not 100% immigrant. He is a cousin to Dick Cheney. This is probably what bugs white conservatives the most about him. That man is acting white!
When of course most of our African-American fellow citizens are also our cousins if we have family going back far enough in the USA.
Could somebody remind me of David Brooks' background, and why he gets to pontificate on the respectability of Obama's antecedents? I believe that Brooks may not measure up so well either in the high WASP background-sniffing contest. Most people who play that game get burned eventually.
My oldest WASP ancestor killed a man in a Virginia bar-fight in 1630-something but got off because he claimed to be clergy, and you couldn't imprison clergy in those days. His evidence for being a preacher? He could read. Classy stuff. Almost classy enough to be kin to George W. Bush.
From Wikipedia on David Brooks: "Brooks was born into a Jewish family in Toronto and grew up in New York City in Stuyvesant Town." When I moved to NYC in the early 80s I occasionally encountered people who would turn up their noses at this family background. I'm glad that such distinctions are no longer acceptable today. However, those who would have been excluded a generation ago would do well not to practice the same sort of exclusion upon others.
In the 1970s my family lived across the street from the designated "white trash" family in our Greensboro, NC middle class neighborhood. I was 13 and prattled to my mother of what kids at school were saying about the Iveys. They were colorful characters right out of Faulkner and the local kids excoriated them. My mother brought me up short:
"You ought to be glad the Iveys live across the street, because if they didn't, the neighbors would be talking about *us*. They would be making fun of your father's accent, our name, our cars, the way we dress, my job." (Mom was a psychologist – few Greensboro moms had Ph.D.s in those days)
That shut me up. It was indeed true that old Mr. Ivey was about the only guy on the street who spoke to my dad. The judge's wife down the street only noticed us once she found out my mother went to her ritzy Va. women's college.
Mr. Brooks has made a career out of placing himself in the in-crowd. One wonders if he isn't howling so much about Obama being the outsider in order to cover up his own unease?
Yeah – that McCain's a real knee slapper at times.
Who could, for example, forget the irresistable tummy tickler, "bomb, bomb Iran(oh baby)".
And little question this is really a "great" man. If you're a complete wanker, that is.
Which I didn't think you were, Phil.
What's so "great" about John McCain?
For me the man's an obnoxious toad…..
I don't know what to say here. I don't have any WASP credentials, no minority credentials, and no immigrant credentials. I never went to summer camp as a kid. Does that help or hinder?
I think McCain is certainly no brighter than Bush. I think they match up pretty well with their shared thimbful of lateral imagination and empathy. Compared to them, Obama has at least a bucket.
But, let's face it, affirmative action is in full play and that tends to veil character, and so, guestimates about how he'd handle the reins…
thimblefull
That "family" remark from Bush was bullshit. Leila Abu-Saba is dead on the money in her comments about them.
i too come from an old WASP family, with pounds of ink written about my ancestors that you can call up on the web today. One side was illustrious and literary, legends, on a world scale; the other contained the captains of industry, people who financed and built the first railroads, banks, and insurance companies. I even know the god-I-hate-this-word 'backstory' of people like Pat Taylor, William Buckley's wife, who was the daughter of the top drug dealer in the Golden Triangle before he put on airs to reinvent himself. In my family, you didn't associate with that kind. So say all the family history books. He was just too nouveau-riche.
Brooks knows bupkes about what Bush was saying because he doesn't know the code. Apropos the code: there are three words you can say — doesn't matter whether you are trailer trash, a maid, a manager, a Zoroastrian or a Jew — if you use them properly, you can get the nod within that WASP world. You can stay because you wont be harmful. (One of those words is "charming," but you have to know how to use it. Exactly. And when. And you have to mean it.)
Bush's tripe about 'families' is just what Leila Abu-Saba says it is. And it was derisive to boot. Which went over Brooks' head. [Brooks's ?] Bush was sneering at Brooks. I know the drill.
BTW, one day when I have time I will tell you the family legend about why Jews were deemed personas non grata in a WASP world. It will surprise you. It happened in the 1790s in NYC.
leila, even Phil Weiss, not exactly Mr. accuracy. Said that Brooks was implying something about Obama. And that's in his feverish mind. He didn't actually say anything. but I digress.
McCain is ahead among likely voters. And Obama, being the black candidate is always going to poll higher than where he actually comes in. Secondly, he won the nomination on smaller Republican leaning caucus states. In the big swing states, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, Clinton crushed him. So, the big question is, please tell me that all you guys will either leave the country or kill your selves if McCain wins.
When Brooks says family, he probably means lineage or yichus. Historically, there has been a tendency among especially German Jews and Eastern European ethnic Ashkenazim to overlook differences among non-Jews and to see only an amorphous mass of blood-thirsty Jew-haters.
By serving Jews the small class of shabbesgoyim might achieve a certain amount of affection from Jewish employers.
McCain in the minds of people like Brooks has probably achieved the status of Shabbesgoy and even has yichus (lineage) as Shabbesgoy because his father helped cover up the USS Liberty Affair.
I discuss McCain's status in Money Jews, Brain Jews, Politics and in Followup: Obama vs. Israel Lobby.
There may be an exception to the principle that non-Jews constitute a single amorphous mass of blood-thirsty Jew-haters.
When I was working in Monsey in the late 80s and early 90s, I noticed a color preference with regard to servants and shabbesgoyim. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were mostly Haitian, but afterwards, the Haitians were fired and replaced with Slavs (mostly Poles) — I suppose in order to create a more הײמיש (heymish) feeling of E. European Yiddishkeyt.
In other words, for a certain Yiddish class, שוואַרצעס (niggers) whether Haitian maids or Harvard-trained lawyers like Senator Obama are simply too déclassé to recruit as shabbesgoyim if whites are available.
Mr. W, WASP anti-Semitism – and fear of the Turk or Muslim – certainly goes further back than late 18th century NYC. There have been whole volumes written on the subject. Fear of the Turk is a much more recent area of research and scholarship than anti-Semitism but both have been extensively documented in Restoration plays and society.
The problem with assimilated Western Jews peddling fear of the Turk/Muslim (Islamophobia) is that they don't understand how this racist strain in WASP and European culture is EXACTLY the same virus which fueled anti-Semitism of yore.
I think Phil Weiss is right in his argument that anti-Semitism no longer matters – it has petered out in the USA. But it has been replaced with Islamophobia and generalized fear of ragheads (including Arab Christians, who normally don't wear head coverings, but you all know what I mean).
It is now acceptable in America to caricature and vilify Arabs and Muslims in ways that were once "legal" to use against Jews. My mother's old warning still applies (see comment above) – American Jews should be glad that Arabs exist, because if they weren't there to take the flack, YOU would be the object of local contempt.
Meanwhile, to put the positive face on it – I refuse to tolerate anti-Semitic slurs in my presence. You vilify my cousins, you are vilifying me. I may be angry at Israel's actions but I respect Judaism and people who are Jewish, and I find anti-semitic slurs offensive. Therefore I find some commenters at Mondoweiss troubling in the extreme – but I don't argue with anonymous internet hatemongers.
This is to put everyone on notice – whatever my beef with Israel and the neo-conservatives and right-wingers, however angry I am about the crimes of that State against Arabs, I do not approve of Jew-bashing and will not sign my name to it nor accept it in my friends.
Joechim:
Your an idiot. Even for this crew you stand out. Your not even a happy little Nazi. Is the lovely Karen giving you enough?
It is a characteristic of the undeveloped human being, no matter what his race, class, wealth, religion, or nationality, to set up a pecking order in which he and his group or tribe reigns supreme.
And he and his group or tribe will always produce an 'other' they can look down and spit upon.
Every group does it. Every tribe does it. And every one of them is undeveloped. Throughout history.
"And as for family life, he left his first wife for his image of the alluring beauty– probably the girl he never thought he could get as a midshipman."
Phil, you are wrong on this one. John McCain never had a problem pulling high quality tail. His first wife was a swimsuit model. He dumped her b/c she lost her looks in an auto accident while he was locked up in Hanoi. He then traded in for a newer model.
Leila, I don't understand why you persist in this delusion that ethnic Ashkenazim or German Jews have any sort of Semitic ancestry.
It is just German Nazism in reverse.
It is like believing that Bosnians are of Arabic or Turkic ancestry just because they are Muslims or like believing the British are of ME descent because according to various myths the British church was founded by Joseph of Arimathea.
Ethnic Ashkenazim are descended from indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Southern Russia. German Jews probably have an ancestral Germano-Celtic component from the native population of Alsace-Lorraine and the Rheinland.
Late 19th and early 20th anti-Jewish prejudice is overinterpreted as anti-Semitism.
There is a sort of generalized xenophobia directed towards Southern and E. Europeans in the USA at this time period, and there was an attempt to create a more specifically Judeophobic prejudice, but it really did not take hold.
By the 1850s many Spanish and German Jews had already moved into the American elite both among the Southern slaveholding and Northern banking and entrepreneurial aristocracies.
"McCain in the minds of people like Brooks has probably achieved the status of Shabbesgoy and even has yichus (lineage) as Shabbesgoy because his father helped cover up the USS Liberty Affair."– Joachim Martillo
LOL. But a savvy observation. BTW, what's happening to the ships Liberty and Free Gaza these days?
Joachim,
I have been slogging — a description of my slow process, not your writing — through all your articles. Brilliant job. So well researched.
P.S. Your PDF "JudoniaIIb.pdf" registers corrupted and wont open in Acrobat 9.
I will fix the file.
Judonia Rising (PDF) contains all of section Judonia IIb after section Judonia I.