Why, if at all, the CBS memo fraud is important

Of course, it isn’t. But so many people have latched on to the story for a couple reasons. To the Kos crowd, who continue to claim that the memos are somehow accurate, it all proves that Bush didn’t show up for his National Guard duty 35 years ago. To the Rush Limbaugh crowd, the fraud is a spectacular vindication of what they’ve been saying for years about media bias. The problem is, we already knew both of these things. Anybody with a brain knew for a long time that of the three major network evening newsanchors, Dan Rather is the most biased toward the Democratic Party, and anyone paying attention has known at least since Alar that 60 Minutes is about as objective as Larry King. True, the whole thing is a fine example of bloggers blowing up a fake story, and it’s important for that reason, I suppose, but again—we already knew that this was going on.

The reason that this memo scandal has been so latched on to is because the campaign isn’t about ideas. The Democrats can’t campaign against Bush on philosophical grounds, because Bush and the Democrats are philosophically indistinguishable. They’re both welfare statists, who believe in stealing money from people who earn it and giving it to people who don’t. On some particular policies, there may be disagreement, but Bush has proposed even more government spending than the Democrats, and the Democratic notion of the war in Iraq is incoherent: should we withdraw immediately? Should we withdraw gradually? Spend more? Spend less? Every day it’s a different story. And the Republicans have refused to stake out any principled position on freedom. Bush gives great speeches about freeing the Arab world, even while he puts his imprimatur on an Iraqi Constitution which forbids freedom of religion and creates a socialist welfare state—and all the while perpetuating and feeding the welfare state here in the United States. When pressed, some Republicans will admit that Bush is as bad as Clinton as far as domestic policy—even worse, in many ways—but they latch onto the “lesser of two evils” argument, which is not very inspiring.

So the election comes down to competing scandals. Kerry lied about Cambodia. Bush lied about the National Guard. CBS clings to forged memos. Bush’s family pulled strings to keep him out of Vietnam. Kerry flipflops on issues. Bush flipflops also. But never do we hear the Republicans give a principled, consistent defense of freedom. A tiny spark came when Cheney spoke in defense of gay rights—but only days later, his lesbian daughter was banned from the stage at the Republican Convention. All of it reminds me of the following, which was written thirty years ago, about Watergate:

[T]he big dilemma for all the pragmatists of the Right, is: what are they to fight and by what means, if principles are inoperative? Politics is a field in which one deals with ideas and it requires the ability to argue, to discuss, to persuade. What does one do in politics if one has discarded the whole realm of ideas? One fights men….

For many years past, the ideological policy and argumentation of most of the political Right has been one solid ad hominem. Republican candidates me-too’d the Democrats, adding only the claim that they, the Republicans, would do the job better because they were better, kindlier, more experienced, or more folksy men…. Since, according to [their] standards, it is futile to think beyond the range of the moment (of the “particular situation,”) the pragmatists of the Right do not see a political job as a means to the achievement of some long-range, ideological end. To them, getting the job is the end…. The seek power, because that is what one is supposed to seek in politics, with no idea of “what for?” Their particular goal is not power for power’s sake—this requires an ideology, even though an evil one—but power without purpose. Their ambition is not to change, enslave, or rule the country—this requires large-scale calculations—but merely to sit in a big office, rule a staff of secretaries, and grant or deny favors to the biggest industrialists, who come begging, hand in hand….

Ideas—[the Republicans and Democrats have] been taught—are impractical, it is only immediate events that count; what is true today may not be true tomorrow; rigid values are childish, cynical “flexibility” is mature. People—[they have] concluded—don’t think; people are not interested in ideas, only in scandal, they do not care about the good, only about some sensational exposé of somebody’s evil….

Ayn Rand, Brothers, You Asked for It! (1973) reprinted in The Ayn Rand Letter 190-192 (1990).

The Republicans have tried to articulate an overriding goal in the context of the war—to liberate the Arab world—and they deserve high praise for that. But as I’ve said, their actions betray the weakness of such goals when based as they are on moral premises that the Republicans share with our enemies. Like our enemies, the Republicans believe that capitalism is vulgar, anti-spiritual, deserving of apology. Their words about freedom are always equivocal, uttered with a quiet shame, because, like the terrorists, they believe that people should serve one another, should be ashamed of the cultural dynamism that “allows” gays to be free, or that encourages the “selfish” pursuit of profit. The terrorists who accuse the Christian conservatives of hypocrisy are right, and the Christian conservatives know it. Yet they go on talking of a freedom they don’t actually believe in—and don’t actually respect in policy terms. It’s awfully hard to fight a war that way!

So the flogging of scandals is the only realm in which the campaign can be run. Personality—not ideology; 30 year old events—not the timeless principles of freedom versus slavery; events and personalities—not ideas. Yes, there are very important and praiseworthy exceptions—people who really are interested in ideas and freedom and winning this war. But they are the exception, and a heavy fraction of them are undermined by their own philosophical inconsistencies.