Glenn Ford and I pity Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, as a guest columnist for the NY Times, writes more revealingly than he thinks, about those charmless Republicans: "Among the ranks of bullies, the only fair fight is the one that ends with them laughing and kicking sand."

Mr. Coates, perhaps what you had deeper in mind when writing that line was your own demimonde, for among the ranks of "hip" intellectuals, the only fair column is the one that ends with them brooding and self-righteously brutalizing their best possible hope.

It's a gleaming, orthodox purity thing, as dazzling and unapproachable to compromised mortals as the insufferable virtue of tea partiers. But who are we, Mr. Coates, to question the radiant selflessness of your bottomless egotism?

Well, call me, for one, rude--as rude as Barack Obama is contaminated; and both of us grieve, Mr. Coates, for we shall never attain the liberating, carefree superficiality that you have confused with intellectual toughness and depth:

[F]rom this point forward the presidency means the right to unilaterally declare American citizens to be American enemies, and then kill them.

During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama earned the G.O.P.’s mockery. Now he has earned their fear. It is an ambiguous feat, accomplished by going to the dark side, by walking the G.O.P.’s talk, by becoming the man Dick Cheney fashioned himself to be.

The "feat" you generously qualify as "ambiguous," but the metamorphosis you seem to deem as complete. How you must have thrilled, Mr. Coates, when asked by the Times to pen some guest columns--an unambiguous feat of finally "arriving." Now you must show them, show them all, you devilishly hip intellectual, that you are no toady to the best possible hope. No, you would set compromised minds ablaze; you would torch bland integrity with clever ambition; yes, yes, that's it, you would get tough--you'd compare Barack Obama to Dick Cheney.

There's a great film, Mr. Coates, from 1958, called "Cowboy," in which the experienced Glenn Ford tells the ruthlessly aspiring young hotshot, Jack Lemmon: "You haven't gotten tough. You've just gotten miserable."

Comments

[Jim Milstein]

Give the guy a break!

You, PM, do not shy from the occasional hyperbole. To earn your approval does Coates have to be a cheerleader?

[janicket]

He doesn't have to be a cheerleader; he does have to display some modicum of recognition that yes, there is considerable daylight between the moral worth of President Obama and Darth Cheney.

[PM]

Jim, I don't think much of cheerleading, either. I find, for instance, Obama's Afghanistan policy despicable, and I've said so on numerous occasions, although I understand and (partially) accept the politics of it. But comparing Obama to Cheney is stunningly shallow and beyond the pale and, ultimately, I think, more about Coates than the president--which is what my post addressed.
--PM

[Marc McKenzie]

"To earn your approval does Coates have to be a cheerleader?"

No. Coates should have been fair--because quite frankly, comparing Obama to Cheney is one hell of a major act of plain stupidity.

I'm all for honest criticism of the President--but Coates, at least in this editorial, seems to have drunk from Glenn Greenwald's glass, and has been contaminated with the madness contained therein.

[Jim Milstein]

Once again, I think Coates was making a hyperbolic comparison. Yes, Cheney is a moral monster, and, no, Obama is not, but they are on the same policy continuum in certain regards, and it is not out of bounds to point that out. It certainly got your attention.

As for Coates drinking from Greenwald, try reading a little more of him.

And, furthermore, the coy characterizations of Coates as "hip" &c. function as an ad hominem, just like "latte sipping liberals".

[Marc McKenzie]

Jim,

I did say that "at least in this editorial". I've read Coates, and he's been better, and more reasonable, than this NYT editorial.

And Obama is not Cheney. End of story.

[wtf]

You really don't take criticism of Obama well, do you? Maybe some day you'll explain how it's not Obama's fault that his administration chose not to prosecute a single Wall Street player for the crimes that led up to the crisis. By comparison, George H W Bush in his one term prosecuted thousands of bankers for the much smaller S&L crisis.

[NickT]

Coates has spent too much time creating a little hothouse of his own on the Atlantic blogs. He needs more people like PM to tell him when he is full of it. He shows every sign of following the Slate trajectory towards being a contrarian prick for its own sake. He could also use some stylistic advice, but that's another story.

[Josh]

I strongly disagree with the criticism of Coates here. I understand what he's getting at-- for all the bluster that Cheney put out, Obama has quietly done something Cheney and the W administration wasn't nearly as effective at, which was killing presumed terrorists in a ruthless, efficient way.

Obama is now something of a feared man and politician by the right wing, even if many of them wont' say so out loud. They respect him more as a formidable opponent now, and a lot of it has to do with carrying out the things that his predecessors claimed they did, but didn't really do so well.

[MinneapolisPipe]

Josh is correct. The Obama Administration has been quite effective in cold-bloodily decimating the ranks of Al Qaeda.

This upsets the hard left and the hard right.

[Josh]

The idea of the Republican candidate being more credible on national security and foreign policy is unthinkable this year, and the only people who think that are far right Republicans who would never vote for a Democrat under any circumstances (but who would be glad to get your support for their next war).

Obama may have ended a two-generations long Republican hold on foreign policy and national security.

Was anyone predicting that back in 2008? I think a few smart people saw it as a possibility, but most people just saw an untested candidate and then an untested new president.

I'm surprised that the Navy rescue of pirate hostages doesn't get more play. Obama gave the order for that just as much as the Bin Laden killing.

None of this assigns any moral or ethical judgments, but is just an observation of political realities.

[MinneapolisPipe]

In 2008, Obama said what he was going to do. And then he became president and did it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkAEkA81TUA

Obama's upper hand on national security in a time of war (in addition to his political skills) have him in unusually decent shape for a president with over 8% unemployment.

What do his opponents have? "He leaked the Bin Laden killing!"

That's what they have??? He freakin' KILLED BIN LADEN???

Thanks for reminding us, chump.

[Jim Milstein]

It is reasonable to point out that Obama has done some constitutionally questionable things, just as Lincoln did (I'm a Lincoln Republican!). Those things are in fact on the same policy spectrum as some of the things the loathsome Cheney did or helped W to do.

I am not sure exactly how I feel about this, but I still would very much prefer Obama to R & R, as would, I'm certain, Coates.

Give the guy a break!

[Peter G]

Want an outside view here? I'm going to give it anyway. Many on the left in the United States, particularly the self-styled arch-progressives have a very curious view of American Exceptionalism. They have transferred it, like some religious mantle, to the individual American. Thus, it is no real problem that high value Al Quaida targets are killed as long as they are not American citizen. Apparently American citizens who have a perfect right to set up in caves and plot the murder of Americans and foreigners and even local governments with whom they war. Anything less than the proper service of an arrest warrant and the due process afforded any other American citizen must be a slippery slope which spells the end of Habeas Corpus and the rights of man. When I ask such people, if they feel there is still time, for example, to prosecute McCoy and Martinez for their assassination of Charles Whitman much hilarity ensues. And accusations of false equivalencies that no one can ever quite explain.

[Peter G]

Oh and to answer the question of WTF, the nice thing about deregulation from a perpetrator's view is there are fewer laws to enforce. There is much noise on the left about not prosecuting bankers. It never stops even when you ask them to cite a statute, an accused and the evidence that the accused broke that law. I note that the CDO market, a source of much evil, was completely unregulated. Plenty of civil law applies there but virtually no criminal law.