The Belgravia Dispatch: Brooks on Santorum

October 30, 2006

Brooks on Santorum

I must say, I was rather surprised to see an op-ed writer of David Brooks' repute engaged in panegyrical paeans to Rick Santorum at this, shall we say, advanced hour:

I could fill this column, if not this entire page, with a list of ideas, proposals and laws Santorum has poured out over the past dozen years. It’s hard to think of another politician who has been so active and so productive on these issues.
Like many people who admire his output, I disagree with Santorum on key matters like immigration, abortion, gay marriage. I’m often put off by his unnecessarily slashing style and his culture war rhetoric.

But government is ultimately not about the theater or the light shows of public controversy, it’s about legislation and results. And the substance of Santorum’s work is impressive.

David, not even a word about the desperate demagoguery (see below, for instance, where Santorum reports Hugo Chavez is creating the "largest Spanish-speaking armed force in history"!), grotesquely over-simplified worldview (Iran as Nazi Germany), and gross distortions (we found WMD in Iraq!) of Santorum's foreign policy views? Our country is confronted by major geopolitical challenges at this stage, and we need serious leaders to redress some of the many failures of these past years. You would think a not infrequent observer of international politics like Brooks would at least deign to broach Santorum's views on these topics some (beyond heralding his anti-poverty initiatives) in an op-ed penned in the leading paper in the land just a week before his electoral contest. But apparently not, alas.

Brooks aside, however, does anyone think I'm exaggerating Santorum's cartoonish views? Read this speech, for instance. It's one for the time capsule--showcasing how brittle societies are--where one devastating terror attack can actually have sentient human beings imbibing such hokum with anything approaching credulity. A sampler:

Ahmadinejad, like Hitler and Mussolini, intends to conquer the world. This is not a hidden agenda. His goal is to establish a Caliphate. Like Khrushchev, he wants a nuclear arsenal, and he is building the same sort of frightening global alliances that enabled the Soviet Union to put missiles near us.
Look again at the Iranians' strategy. A couple of months ago Ahmadinejad signed a mutual defense pact with his pal, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Two dictators, awash in petrodollars, and besotted with hatred for the United States.

President Chavez, who called President Bush "a devil" at the podium of the U.N., spoke to the applause of those in attendance as he decried America. Calling America an "imperialist power," he says his ambition is to become leader of global alliance of nations to "radically oppose the violent pressure that the (American) empire exercises." This summer Chavez honored Ahmadinejad at a gala and plans to visit North Korea, at which an "oil-for-missiles deal" may be on the agenda.

The same North Korea that has been building nuclear weapons to put on missiles that can reach our soil.

Did you know that Venezuela is the leading buyer of arms and military equipment in the world today? Did you know that Chavez is building an army of more than a million soldiers and the most potent air force in South America-the largest Spanish-speaking armed force in history?

Did you know that Venezuela will shortly spend thirty billion dollars to build twenty military bases in neighboring Bolivia, which will dominate the borders with Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil? The bases will be commanded by Venezuelan and Cuban officers. This is what the brilliant Carlos Alberto Montaner-a survivor of Castro's bloody regime-calls "a delirious vision of history," and it is driven by a new alliance of dictators from Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.

It is part of the grand design so proudly announced by Ahmadinejad: the destruction of our civilization...

...We were part of that moment of folly, and we paid a terrible price for it on the battlefields of that war. We are running the same risk today, and we are again acting carelessly, unwisely and we are permitting the wicked to grow stronger and stronger.

Just as we refused to recognize we were at war with a great evil, the European fascists and Japanese imperialists in the late nineteen thirties, so today we shrink from the recognition that we are once again under attack from evil forces - Islamic fascists led by Iran, and the Socialist and Communist rulers of Venezuela and North Korea.

Ahmadinejad is often treated as if he were a stand-up comedian on a late night TV show, some wacko character from far away who really doesn't affect us. This is a way of avoiding the life and death challenge of the war.

We have seen it before. Hitler and Mussolini were also ridiculed-the house painter with the funny moustache, and the bald guy with the fat neck-until the bombs fell in Hawaii and hundreds of thousands of Americans died in Nikita Khrushchev was ridiculed as a peasant who pounded his shoe on the table at the United Nations, until Soviet nuclear missiles showed up in Cuba, less than a hundred miles from our shores. Then we realized he wasn't so funny. This is not funny business.

Portraying Ahmadi-Nejad as some Hitler bestriding the globe (all the way to Caracas!) reads like the desperate last act of a political pygmy, a huckster fighting to save his seat, one more than willing to gin up fictitious threats to keep his tenuous clutch on power. His electorate having ferreted out his essential fraudulence, he must resort to hoping against hope they will vote for him because of fear that a new fascism is stalking the planet--perhaps coming soon to a suburb of Philadelphia. It's sad to behold, and also disappointing that opinion leaders don't focus on such reckless imbecility more critically--so as to help provide the public serious historical perspective and intellectual guidance--rather than cheerleading such discredited alarmist buffoons. Regardless, Santorum is right about one thing. This is not "funny business." That the third ranking member of the US Senate, representing one of the two major political parties of the world's reigning superpower, that he can engage in such outrageous fear-mongering and not be brought to task and challenged on it more often, not least because our media has too often proved overly supine, ignorant and provincial, yes it's true, it's not funny business at all.

Posted by Gregory at October 30, 2006 04:31 AM

Comments

When small men cast long shadows, it is a sign that the sun is setting.

Posted by: David A. Crossman at October 30, 2006 05:09 AM | Permalink to this comment

When big men shout murder and have nasty weapons but are dismissed by the cognoscenti, it is sign that the sun is setting.

Posted by: neill at October 30, 2006 06:55 AM | Permalink to this comment

We aren't dismissing Bush/Cheney at all. They've proven they're deadly dangerous.

Posted by: J Thomas at October 30, 2006 01:11 PM | Permalink to this comment

As a PA voter I can say Santorum is toast. He is so out of touch with the majority of people in this state.

I’m sure his cushy new job is all lined up for January.

Posted by: jeff at October 30, 2006 02:52 PM | Permalink to this comment

Somebody's gonna say it, so it may as well be me: David Brooks' "repute" is right up there with Max Boot's "capability". Discreetly ignoring inconvenient, planet-sized facts that conflict with his rosy worldview is Brooks' specialty. This laughable Santorum piece fits squarely in that tradition. Brooks' column in the NYT says much, much more about the decline of that paper than anything else.

Posted by: sglover at October 30, 2006 02:53 PM | Permalink to this comment

Just two points Greg:

First, It seems that the people of Pennsylvania, in whose hands the decision lies, will shortly be delivering their judgment on Rick Santorum and what passes for his "policies": and, in the opinion of most pollsters, it is going to be to relegate him, and his "reckless imbecility" to retirement. Good riddance. One can only hope that this is a sign that the American electorate can, occasionally, see through the fearmongering demagoguery "political pygmies" like Santorum have gotten away with for so long. One can only hope.....

Second: just a suggestion, but it will really save you a lot of time, - which you can devote to keeping your loyal BD readership educated about foreign-affairs - if you follow a simple rule of blogging, and never EVER, under any circumstances, waste more than a minimal effort responding to anything David Brooks writes in his NYT Op-Ed columns. It is truly astounding: for an obviously intelligent and erudite sociologist, who can write rather well; his NYT pieces are, way more often than not, utter piffle - occasionally (as with his Santorum column) veering right off into Bizarro World. I don't know whether it is the format, the deadlines, New York Times Derangement Syndrome, or what - but his Op-Eds are mainly good only for scorn. Sad.

Posted by: Jay C at October 30, 2006 03:02 PM | Permalink to this comment

"utter piffle"

Love it.

I am stealing it.

A Big Fat Slob

Posted by: A Big Fat Slob at October 30, 2006 03:48 PM | Permalink to this comment

BFS:

OK by me - steal it, use it - with my compliments!

Posted by: Jay C at October 30, 2006 04:07 PM | Permalink to this comment

"When small men cast long shadows, it is a sign that the sun is setting."

My god, that's a wonderful turn of phrase. It sounds like something Kipling or Churchill would say. Is it original with you?

Posted by: CaseyL at October 30, 2006 04:21 PM | Permalink to this comment

Both Brooks and Santorum are idiots.

I know Brooks publishes regularly in the NY Times (which is one of many reasons I don't pay for their "premium" content, if Brooks is considered premium by their editors, how good can the rest of it be?), but does anybody else really take him seriously? He does only a mediocre impression of an intellectual, but you don't have to read very far into any of his columns to see that he's just posing as an intellectual. He's high-school-paper-editor caliber, and that's putting it kindly. It irks me to no end that he gets prime real estate in a major newspaper.

And why do the Republicans (and some Democrats) take the blustery BS of our enemies so damn seriously? I'm not saying we have nothing to fear at all from Iran et al, but why do Republicans repeat everything Iran, N. Korea, etc. say as if we are in imminent danger at all times? Are Republican voters really that stupid? I know that itself seems like a stupid question at this late date, but seriously... enough with the Hitler comparisons and if I see a reference to Neville one more time, I'm gonna go medieval on somebody's buttocks.

I hope the person from PA is right. Santorum has been a senator for far too long. It would be nice to see his towering stupidity punished instead of rewarded, for once. Unfortunately, he probably will get a nice, cushy think tank job (the irony of that is almost too much) or a consultant gig and be rolling in cash and perks for the rest of his miserable career.

Posted by: LL at October 30, 2006 06:21 PM | Permalink to this comment

Sen. Santorum is actually Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the third-ranking position in the Republican leadership, not in the Senate as a whole. In this position he is responsible for the communications operation of the Senate Republican caucus.

Additionally and for what it is worth, Santorum's limited grasp of foreign policy is reflected in his having no committee assignments touching on that subject. I personally would be delighted if Senators generally took a sober and responsible approach to foreign policy whether they devoted much time to it or not. Some of them do, but in the campaign season especially a lot of them don't.

Posted by: Zathras at October 30, 2006 07:28 PM | Permalink to this comment

"and it is driven by a new alliance of dictators from Iran, Cuba and Venezuela."

Last time I checked Chavez was elected in 1998. That outright lie should be enough to convince any sane person Santorum's demagogury is worthless tripe not worthy of adult attention.

Since Santorum can't even get simple facts straight how could he ever expect to succeed in the convoluted and nuanced sphere of geo-politics?

Posted by: brandX at October 30, 2006 08:25 PM | Permalink to this comment

I wonder if Brooks will fill his next column with Santorum's public accusation today that Casey "is aiding and abetting terrorism and genocide": http://www.yorkdispatch.com/pennsylvania/ci_4574074 .

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at October 30, 2006 10:44 PM | Permalink to this comment

What does it say about Santorum that all Casey has going for him is a well respected last name. Santorum has spent somewhere close to $20,000,000 and the polls have barely moved at all. As a PA resident, I'll be glad when Little Ricky gets cashiered.

Posted by: Ghost of Tom Joad at October 30, 2006 10:59 PM | Permalink to this comment

Do you think that Santorum will foam at the mouth before next Tuesday's election?

Posted by: David All at October 30, 2006 10:59 PM | Permalink to this comment

Dear CaseyL:

Although the quote is attributed to someone named "Venita Cravens" (i.e. "When small men cast long shadows the sun is going down."), no one seems to know why it was attributed to "Venita Cravens" or when or where or in what context that comment was made. Apparently "Venita Cravens" never said anything else worth noting, and never did anything else, other than, supposedly, make that clever comment, if, indeed, the attribution is correct. No one seems to know anything at all about "Venita Cravens", including when or where "Venita Cravens" lived, if, indeed, "Venita Cravens" ever actually existed.

I first ran across the quote about forty years ago, in a comic volume entitled "The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro Agnue". The quote appeared at the beginning of the volume, and was, purportedly, a motto appearing at the beginning of Agnue's high school yearbook. Thereafter, there followed a book of blank pages, which, apparently, constituted the sum and substance of the wit and wisdom of the former vice president.

If you can track down this "Venita Cravens", or find some one else to whom this quote can be attributed, you will have solved one of the minor mysteries of our time.

Posted by: David A. Crossman at October 30, 2006 11:08 PM | Permalink to this comment

David Crossman:

Thanks for the update: I too looked up "Venita Cravens" (or "Craven"), and found nothing except the credit for that quotation - which is too bad, since it is a splendid epigram.

Oh, PS: the former Vice-President's name was Spiro AGNEW (nee Spiros Anagnostopoulos) - notorious in his time for his general lack of of political and intellectual quality (since eclipsed by Dan Quayle in the Dumbest Veep sweepstakes), and whose sleazy history (he resigned after being indicted for graft while Governor of Maryland)turned out to be a boon to the nation: he might have become President - an "alternative history" too awful to contemplate!

Posted by: Jay C at October 31, 2006 12:27 AM | Permalink to this comment

"The variation of this quotation is "When a small man casts a long shadow darkness is near." We don’t have a source but we have this from the Forward to The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro T. Agnew by David Dinnerstein (1969): " . . . to paraphrase Nathaniel Lee, that when small men cast large shadows, it’s a sure sign that the sun is setting." Lee (1649-1692) was an English playwright."

http://www.chesterton.org/qmeister2/qmeister.htm

Posted by: Russ at October 31, 2006 12:42 AM | Permalink to this comment

It may seem like pedantry, but when people talk about a regime made up of Twelver Shi'ites wanting to re-establish a Caliphate, it's like fingers on a chalkboard.

Posted by: Andrew R. at October 31, 2006 04:20 AM | Permalink to this comment

If we're down to pedantry, I want to add that small men can cast long shadows also right after a new dawn. But there's nobody awake to see them....

Posted by: J Thomas at October 31, 2006 06:50 AM | Permalink to this comment

"an obviously intelligent and erudite sociologist"

uh--he has never struck me as either intelligent or erudite. And he's no sociologist.

Mr. Brooks joined The Weekly Standard at its inception in September 1995, having worked at The Wall Street Journal for the previous nine years. His last post at the Journal was as op-ed editor. Prior to that, he was posted in Brussels, covering Russia, the Middle East, South Africa and European affairs. His first post at the Journal was as editor of the book review section, and he filled in for five months as the Journal's movie critic.

Mr. Brooks graduated from the University of Chicago in 1983, and worked as a police reporter for the City News Bureau, a wire service owned jointly by the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times.

just a hack scribbler.

Posted by: kid bitzer at October 31, 2006 02:28 PM | Permalink to this comment

An alliance of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and N Korea... Senator Santorum clearly hasn't played much Risk.

Posted by: Antiquated Tory at October 31, 2006 04:03 PM | Permalink to this comment

Perhaps, Antiquated Tory, your Risk game hasn't been updated for nuclear war and nuclear blackmail. The key ingredients may well be shared halfway around the world.

Posted by: Mannning at November 1, 2006 03:55 AM | Permalink to this comment

More "panegyrical paeans to Rick Santorum" here:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/FrankJGaffneyJr/2006/10/30/the_american_churchill

So, in addition to "Iran as Nazi Germany", "Ahmadi-Nejad as some Hitler...", we have Santorum as "The American Churchill". So, it's 1938 all over again. Thanks, Frank and David.

Some calmer, more rational analysis (of the Iran situation & WWII analogy, not of Santorum) here:

http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/091106.html

Posted by: Jeremy M at November 1, 2006 04:33 PM | Permalink to this comment