I'm beginning to feel as though we've all been sucked into some grotesque version of the Seinfeld episode that so incisively burlesqued the folly of political correctness. In it there was some question of someone being gay, as I recall, but after each utterance of speculation, Jerry and George felt compelled to add: "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
The joke, of course, was that they did feel compelled to say what everyone already knew, but the philosophical loyalty oath was nevertheless necessary to reconfirm their membership in the hip society of open-minded, modern metrosexuals. Don't want anyone getting the wrong idea. The Thought Police are always ready to pounce; always ready to demonstrate their ideological chastity and denounce, by comparison, what they'll paint as your thoughtless apostasy.
Enter the Obama-Reagan controversy, as much ado about nothing as whatever Shakespeare or Seinfeld ever had in mind. With one critical exception: it's shows, quite painfully, that some progressives are as slavishly devoted to paint-by-numbers ideological dogma as any talk-radio crackpot or bedrock Bushie.
Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin appeared on "Meet the Press" yesterday (video) to echo the bloody obvious: 'Tis a pity, she said, that we live in an age in which a major presidential candidate is scandalized for uttering a simple historical truth.
In what Obama said about the political atmosphere of 1980 there was no good or bad, no right or wrong, no acceptance or rejection either explicit or even implicit. He was merely framing an election and idly observing how Reagan successfully exploited a national mood that he ingeniously cultivated. It was damn brilliant politics, which future politicos took note of and imitated, such as the husband of another of today's candidates who has ridiculed Obama for stating the above-referenced, bloody obvious.
Not that there was anything wrong with that? Au contraire. For Obama committed the politically incorrect sin of failing to immediately dumb down his observation for the ready-to-pounce Thought Police on the left: "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a subscriber to Reagan's economic policies, of course. Let me repeat that, before my opponents' spin machines launch into the distorted strastosphere. In fact, strike it. I never said it. Simple objectivity and straightforward historical narratives are killers in politics, so I'll just play the partisan game of creating our own reality. Let's perpetuate the bullshit."
Which is precisely what, as just one example, the usually estimable Paul Krugman has done this morning in the New York Times. He once again joined in the meretricious piling on, opening with, "Historical narratives matter," then devoting the balance of his column to a slick demonstration of how to knife the actual narrative for cheap political gain.
"Where in his remarks was the clear declaration that Reaganomics failed?" Krugman asked. "Why would a self-proclaimed progressive say anything that lends credibility to this rewriting of history -- particularly right now, when Reaganomics has just failed all over again?"
He didn't, Paul. But you did it for him. Like a dirty cop, you nicely wrapped up the evidence of your preconceived findings of guilt and then planted them in his pocket. You concluded virtually before you got started that "the furor over Barack Obama’s praise for Ronald Reagan" -- catch that?; as in if I write that Hitler amassed the best fighting force ever then I'm praising him -- "is not, as some think, overblown."
Krugman continued: "Progressives have been granted a second chance to argue that Reaganism is fundamentally wrong.... But they won’t be able to make that argument if their political leaders, whatever they meant to convey, seem to be saying that Reagan had it right." Whatever they meant? Seem to be saying? You just told us what Obama meant and what he seemed to be saying, Paul, which is that which he did not say.
Historical narratives do matter, and especially when judgments about them are applied fairly and even-handedly.
I cannot, for instance, find it within me to become agog about Hillary because of her war vote. On that, I can't be shaken. But when she was assaulted for also stating the bloody historically obvious -- that a white president had a little something to do with advancing the civil rights movement -- I, as well as other less-than enthusiastic Hillary-watchers, defended her comment. Let others play the politically correct dogma game. Let the left, that is, mire itself in Thought Policing, if it feels so compelled.
Not that there's anything wrong with that? Sorry, but it so happens there's a lot wrong with it. Just look at what it did to the right.