The Liberal Century

One of the great pleasures of being alive and having an Internet connection in these slowly-brightening days is to witness the paroxysms of loathing and dismay coming from the dwindling, punchless right side of the blogosphere. Don't they realize these are the early days of The Liberal Century? Why, even their presidential front runner is a liberal (temporarily masquerading, of course, as a Bible-inspired supply-sider to great hilarity on the circuit) - oh, how that must rub, like a pair of itchy woolen undergarments.

And this morning, when the news broke about the Greatest President Who Never Was - a man who will go down in history as a great American historic figure, unlike the unlanced boil currently in the Oval - and his Nobel Prize. Well, it's almost a higher form of cultural entertainment than the Krazee-Eyez Killa episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

To watch concentration camp lovin' doyenne Michelle Malkin sputter on about the "envirozealots" and reduced to quoting the addled current president of the Czech Republic - she turned to a foies gras gobblin' European for crissakes! - was just a fine appetizer to day that started with rain here in New York and is now flooded with the vitamin D goodness of glorious sunlight.

And oh, the joy of watching the dorks at PajamasMedia roll out a whole bash-the-pitiful-Laureate feed. Hee hee, what dopes! To these lemon-suckers, the former Vice-President has a. a large head (I personally find this offensive, given my titanic gourd), b. an even bigger ego, and c. some kind of weird Euro-centric view of the world that's inherently un-American. Writes one wit: "the former US Vice-President has taken over from Michael Moore as the most sanctimonious lardbutt Yank on the planet." So droll. Says Dr. Sanity - known far and side as "the Samuel Johnson of the Right," which is saying something - contributes this: "I'm amazed. I thought Cindy Sheehan had it all sewn up. Or Hugo Chavez." So very clever.

And so angry. I love their anger. I mean, looooooooove it, baby. Wait'll they get a load of the next inauguration.

I was in a great mood, therefore, when I sauntered - yes, sauntered in the sunshine - across town to the Harvard Club for luncheon with the Grameen Foundation, a great bunch of capitalists if ever I've known one. They honored three deserving awardees for supporting the worldwide revolution in microfinances, one of the crucial tools in fighting global poverty. And there, indeed, was last year's Laureate in the flesh.

Muhammad Yunus congratulated Al Gore with great sincerity, calling global warming "another big issues that needs to have the attention of the world. It needs to be addressed and addressed forcefully."

He was right, and he spoke about the impact of the Nobel Peace Prize and the astounding reach of media in advancing causes like world poverty. Gore's cause is already well-known, of course, but I suspect it's just getting rolling. And it leaves the right-winger stuck in the last century with their sarcasm and their fistful of sand.

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NOTES: There has been some reaction to the title of this post, which some have taken for a firm prediction of the next 100 years of political life. Linkmeister's comment is correct - it's somewhat ironic and meant to be provocative. That said, I do believe we're moving in a progressive direction; as, over time, the United States has always moved. We go through periods of shrinking reaction, but our liberalism (lowercase, I don't mean a specific political movement of any given time) always wins out. We try and improve ourselves and our society. That self-improvement is, in fact, the American Way in its proper meaning.

On another note, the right-wing commentators are behind their slow-moving government, which in turn is way behind the very industries that filled the Bush-Cheney political coffers. The current administration has taken a foot-dragging slow step into sort of admitting that man-made carbon emissions are damaging the planet. They still refuse to get into the international treaty arena, of course. But that hasn't stopped Republicans like Charlie Crist, the Governor of Florida who succeeded Jeb Bush, from leap-frogging the standard bearer of his own party. At last month's Clinton Global Initiative, Crist and a consortium of energy companies in the south announced a major alternative energy initiative - that's right, the former Democratic president, the Republican Governor of Florida, and southern energy all way ahead of the Bush Administration and pretty firmly in the Al Gore global warming camp. It makes the Pajamas Media buffoons look that much more out of touch.

Finally, I think Jason has it right in his post The Global Warming Wedgie: the right's opposition to regulation on carbon is breaking apart, as major evangelical leaders splinter with their elders and try to save the planet for their kids.

Comments

[Tom K]

*I mean, looooooooove it, baby. Wait'll they get a load of the next inauguration.

I was in a great mood, therefore, . . ."

To quote Spock,

"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."

As someone who was eager to see the last White House incumbent (and his spear carrier) depart in favor of one of "our guys", I can vouch for the quote's veracity first hand.

And, as I've said before, if you want the US out of foreign wars, and Hillary (or for that matter any of the D candidates but Gravel, Kucinich or Richardson) is elected, you'll know what I mean very quickly.

[Indigowatcher]

Thanks for the post, I can't wait for some good change, our nation needs to heal. However, I find the declaration that "these are the early days of the Liberal Century" to be remarkably short-sighted and foolish. We've seen how the shifting sands of American politics can turn on a dime, and it's obvious that the US government has been infiltrated from the top on down by people with fundementally unAmerican ideals. It's sad, but without taking a stance against political corruption by persuing war crimes trials we the American People will not get any closure over this, and the trust the American people had in their government that BushCo so readily squandered won't return until we see some JUSTICE! ARREST THE WAR CRIMINALS, GIVE THEM AN INTERNATIONAL TRIAL AT THE HAGUE FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY!!!

[Linkmeister]

I suspect that "The Liberal Century" was hyperbole, a play on Henry Luce's "The American Century."

[Rix]

Bulldoodle to Tom K. You voted for Lizard Brain, you got what you voted for.

[Tom K]

Rix:

Whether or not I deserve Bulldoodle is beside the point: the question at hand is whether Tom W should temper his enthusiasm for the expected change of regime.

History shows that he should -- and that's not just my personal history (which I cited because it is most immediate to me), but History writ large.

BTW, someone who thought that Pres. Clinton's foreign policy was too interventionist had two practical choices in 2000: Gore, who openly disagreed with that proposition, and W, who claimed to agree with it.

When (if?) you grow out of your partisan-name-calling stage, you'll see that all Americans -- at least, all who believe in popularly-elected, representative government -- should be united in asking why there is no effective way to convert a vote against intervention into action. Presently, a few options appear at the primary margins, but by the time of the general election, this will once again be true. It is harder to image two more dedicated interventionists, for example, than current frontrunners Hillary and Rudy.

This suggests an interesting question: is the political process flawed or distorted in this regard, or do the American people actually favor armed intervention abroad more that they profess?