Ross Douthat Says That He Is Not Now Nor Has He Ever Been a Jesse Helmsian

But we liberal webloggers want more! We will not let Douthat evade the key question: What, exactly, is Ross Douthat's position on "To His Coy Mistress" and "A Horatian Ode Upon Oliver Cromwell's Return from Ireland"?

We will not be denied.

We do, however, wish Ross luck as he tries to construct a decent non-Helmsian anti-Limbaughian right in America:

Ross Douthat: The Case of Jesse Helms: The liberal blogosphere wants to know: Why have conservatives lined up to say kind things about the late Jesse Helms?... [L]argely because Helms was an sometimes-effective, always-steadfast champion of conservative causes for decades, and there's a sense on the right that the liberal case against Helms-the-awful-bigot is really just the latest manifestation of the long-running liberal attempt to argue that... "the essence of conservatism is and always has been Dixiecrat-ism ... [and] that everything that conservatism has accomplished and stood for since 1965--Reagan, the tax revolt, law-and-order, deregulation, the fight against affirmative action, the critique of the welfare state...everything--is the poisoned fruit of the poisoned tree."

Regular readers will know that I... [am] sensitive to the way that liberals cry "racism!" in an effort to disarm conservative arguments.... I should note that I'm not convinced that Helms' famous "white hands" ad merits the sort of outraged denunciations that Andrew and Max Boot have offered up today....

But a specific ad is one thing; Helms himself is another. He simply was an awful bigot, and worse he was an awful bigot who never expressed a shred of remorse, so far as I know, for his toxic approach to issues ranging from civil rights to HIV to foreign affairs. Far from being the sort of politicians who conservatives ought to defend, out of a sense of issue-by-issue solidarity, he's the sort of politician conservatives ought to carefully distance themselves from, because his political style brought (and continues to bring) intellectual disrepute to almost every cause with which he was associated. Inherent to conservatism is the responsibility to stand up and say to bien-pensant opinion: Just because a bigot opposes something doesn't mean it's a good idea. But the necessity (and difficulty) of making that case, whether the issue is affirmative action or "comprehensive" immigration reform or the NEA and Piss Christ, is all the more reason for conservatives to keep their distance from actual bigots, even (or especially) when they're representing the great state of North Carolina in the U.S. Senate....

I'm happy to defend Helms' views on a variety of issues, but the man himself has no business in the right-wing pantheon, and the conservatives who have used his death as an occasion to argue that he does are doing their movement a grave disservice.

Comments

[david]

"he's the sort of politician conservatives ought to carefully distance themselves from, because his political style brought (and continues to bring) intellectual disrepute to almost every cause with which he was associated."

I love the "carefully." Douthat is a stooge, and his role in the world is to enable the Jesse Helms' of the world. But "carefully" let's you know he's a Harvard man...

[john]

"Intellectual disrepute" as opposed to... just plain disrepute? But Douthat's argument is actually that the conservative causes, at least the non-racist ones, were intellectually OK and that Helms brought disrepute to them by a kind of guilt-by-association with his racism. So the disrepute was anything but intellectual.

Facile, but glib, as they say.

John

[Nathan Myers]

when telling the truth does your movement a disservice, it's time to reconsider the movement.

[ed]

Douthat is essentially a David Brooks clone (maybe a smidge less sniveling than Brooks). His job is to soft pedal the Right Wing Agenda.

[Leila Abu-Saba]

I went to high school in North Carolina in the late 70s, and was assigned the Andrew Marvell poem in 10th grade English. The teacher told us about the Helms incident. Glad to see somebody bringing it up.

History matters. His racism was much, much worse than his poetry-bashing, but still. Thanks for instructing us all on this bit of history.

Helms was one reason why I left the state for college and never went back. Even though my parents knew every liberal and most of the lesbians in NC, I could not be convinced that all these good people could outweigh the malign influence of Senator No.

Years later when I settled in California I would hear of 30-somethings moving from CA to NC in pursuit of the good life - nice big houses and good schools. Not me, I said. No freaking way. There are many, many good people and great cultural institutions in NC and it is indeed a fine state that gave us John Edwards and that governor whose name I've forgotten. BUT. Helms. Unh-unh.

[Delicious Pundit]

Also, I found out when I was doing my reading project that the man who wrote this:

A SWEET disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:—

was a parish priest. But I'm not sure the fundamentalists even count Anglicans as Christians.

Also, what's wrong with "Piss Christ?" Wasn't Christ himself mocked? Why does Douthat expect better treatment than that? Is he afraid to suffer for his faith or something? Why can't I stop phrasing things in questions?

[bakho]

"We do, however, wish Ross luck as he tries to construct a decent non-Helmsian anti-Limbaughian right in America"

Conservatives have ceded fiscal responsibility to the Democrats, so they are left with borrow and spend fiscal policy and underinvestment in infrastructure and workforce development. The rest of the agenda is based on resentments and trying to legislate culture. At the state level, conservatives have crippled the ability of governments to provide services with tax limitation policies, making collecting enough revenue problematic and time consuming. The drive to privatization has given us Medicare D and other programs that are more complicated and expensive because a middle man is cut in on the transaction.

Fundamentally, conservatives have rejected the belief in a strong responsible government to a rejection of government and its ability to solve any problems other than military problems. This has the effect of trying to reduce foreign policy problems to military problems (Iraq, Iran, NKorea, etc) in foreign policy and refusing to utilize some of the most important soft power tools. Helms brand of conservatism was especially rejectionist of soft power. On the domestic front conservatism is the "can't do" ideology. Government has ceded its responsibilities to solve domestic problems to corporations and church groups. The outcome is paying overpriced and corrupt business or overwhelmed and understaffed church people too much money for too little result. Conservative ideology has placed its politicians in a box that does not allow them to govern effectively. In its current form, conservatism can offer checks and balances to progressive policies, but it is incapable of governing. The only role for conservatism in our modern state is as a minority "just say no" party. Modern conservatism offers nothing to today's youth which is why youth overwhelmingly identify with progressive policies and reject conservatism.

[rea]

It is, of course essential to the Global War on Terrorism that we stamp out the militant vegetarianism exemplifed in Andrew Marvell's poem, which openly boast of the herbivorous plan for eventual world conquest:

"My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow."

[Kate G.]

Jeezus, don't blame harvard for this guy. We were taught not to split our infinitives so I think it should be "carefully to..." not "to carefully..." But aside from that can anyone tell me what this is supposed to mean ?:

"Inherent to conservatism is the responsibility to stand up and say to bien-pensant opinion: Just because a bigot opposes something doesn't mean it's a good idea."

Uh, maybe that is inherent *in* Conservativism, or maybe he means "conservativism is inherently responsible..." but in either case "bien-pensant" seems out of place here. And is Ross trying to stand up for "it" or is he against "it"? Inquring minds want to know.

And another thing, he might want to check out liberalism, or even progressivism, because we *almost never* find ourselves on the side of the bigots, whatever their ideas or whatever other people think about them. Not defining your ideas by what the "bien pensant" think or don't think is one of the reasons I love being a progressive. It frees up a lot of time to do my own pensee-ing. I recommend it to Ross, if its not too late. In addition, being actively *for* some ideas, rather than just wallowing in the mud with the bigots, standing athwart history and shouting "stop" or trying to figure out new and better ways of saying "n*gger, n*gger, n*gger" while picking the taxpayers pocket, is a stronger argument for stuff.

Here's another thing about Bigots, which might help our thinking on the subject. I can't actually tell from Ross's incoherent statement whether he is for or against stuff that bigots are for, or against, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to waste my time working out what bigots think at all. Because the thing about bigots is they can be right about a lot of stuff *but almost never are they right about the things upon which they are bigoted* since they have chosen that ground from a combination of ignorance, anger, venality, corruption, and loathing of their fellow men. That's the definition of the bigot--his is not a reasoned, thoughtful response to a public policy issue. His is the segregationist anger of the selfish "fuck you buddy, I want to belong to the class or race with the most power" that we have come to know and love in the former dixiecrats, now "conservatives" of movement conservativism.

Kate G.