RSS Feed MenuMichael Lind has a very smart piece up at Salon.com about Glenn Beck’s polemical reinvention of American history, in which Woodrow Wilson is cast as anti-conservative public enemy #1.
Following Lind, a historian could spend many entertaining hours debunking Glenn Beck. But why bother? Beck is not telling a (wrong) story about the past. He’s telling a story about the present. That’s the story that needs to be understood and assessed.
On first thought, it seems crazy that contemporary Tea Party conservatives would fulminate against Woodrow Wilson of all people. You hate big-spending social welfare programs? Blame Lyndon Johnson or (if you want to go bipartisan) Richard Nixon. You hate government regulation and judges who don’t protect private property? Blame Franklin Roosevelt.
And in fact, Johnson, Roosevelt and (sometimes) Nixon have until recently headed the conservative roll of villains.
But Wilson? That’s just weird. What sins against conservatism did President Wilson commit?
Yes, the Sixteenth (income tax) Amendment was ratified under Woodrow Wilson. But the thing was set in motion long before Wilson entered national politics. If you feel very strongly that the income tax is wrong, you should direct your complaint to William Howard Taft: He was the president who proposed the amendment to Congress. And when the revenues from the tax arrived after 1913, President Wilson and the 63rd Congress used them – not to fund social programs – but to replace tariff revenues. That’s a good thing from a free-market point of view, right?
Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. Until the day before yesterday, that was also a good thing from a conservative point of view. (See Friedman, Milton, collected works of.)
Wilson was less hostile to big business than either Taft or Theodore Roosevelt. His racial views were deplorable, but they were a big improvement over, say, Andrew Jackson’s, of whom most conservatives still think at least moderately well. Certainly you can acquit Wilson of any hint of social radicalism: he hated communism and was even a late convert to women’s suffrage.
For sure there’s a lot to criticize in Woodrow Wilson’s management of the First World War. Wilson failed to prepare adequately for war. His chosen commander, John Pershing, refused to learn from the tragic experience of the British and other allies and thus got a lot of brave soldiers stupidly killed. And Wilson’s bungling of the peace was epic and notorious. Yet none of this is exactly the stuff of urgent current concern. Or is it?
Let me advance a theory as to what’s really going on … Upcoming.
Gramps // Apr 14, 2010 at 3:15 pm
The only thing funnier than Beck by him ownself; is Becky and Billo dishin’ laughter, together…
O’Reilly lies to Senator Coburn
O’Reilly: “Nobody’s ever said’ at Fox you’ll go to jail if you don’t buy health insurance.”
Senator Coburn: “Well Bill… that first question… “Will we be put in jail?”…she had to get that from somewhere, Bill?”
O’ [L]eilly just gets more defensive after that exchange…hehehe…
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/oreilly-lies-coburn-nobodys-ever-sai
“Once you practice to deceive, oh what a tangled web you weave.”…Mr. Bill.
Independent // Apr 14, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Why is it that the farLeft loons and FrumBots so hate Fox News and especially talented, well paid opinion-makers like Beck and OReilly?
I think it’s because they see in those men and in that network the same kind of passionate bloviating and spin-mystering of nearly every issue –as well as a brass knuckle approach to dissenters– that typifies the Obama White House campaign/governing operations.
Beck is really just Obama turned inside out and turned 180 degrees to face the other direction. Toss in Obama’s pathological lying and Beck’s willingness to slide over reality… it’s nearly a match. Two sides to a single coin.
That’s what irritates the farLeft and FrumBots here. They recognize strong character traits Beck shares with the One True Leader.
DFL // Apr 14, 2010 at 5:28 pm
CAPryde, Americans had a hunger for land and a rapidly expanding population while the Indians underutilized their lands, such as they had real property rights. Indians readily bushwacked and massacred Americans who did make use of western lands. If you want a good feel of the 18th and 19th Century frontier east of the Mississippi, let me suggest Faragher’s biography of Daniel Boone, an excellent work. Don’t let your 21st Century sensibilities cloud your understanding of problems of the past.
jakester // Apr 14, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Independent,
Really? You sound like a total right wing robot yourself. Anyone who disagrees with your stuff has to be some sort of far left loon. You sound like a simple minded fanatic. Who is this one true leader you are ranting about, is he the messiah too?
Gramps // Apr 14, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Hey Indy, yer baaack…where have you been…I for one have missed yah…!
It’s not Mr. Beck we’re concerned about; everyone that watches and listens knows he’s on some kinda’ wacky tabacky…
It’s Mr. O’Reilly that concerns me… As a serious journalist isn’t his reputation contingent on his veracity?
Senator Coburn challenges his statements; in my link above and Mr. O’Reilly continues to ignore the obvious.
That to me is a serious problem for a journalist who has won the prestigious Peabody Award or was it a Polk Awardgiven to the Inside Edition… but only after Bill had left the show?
jakester // Apr 14, 2010 at 5:39 pm
I guess they are bashing Wilson cause according to the best seller, “Liberal Fascists”, Wilson was a fascist. Of course any book written by a non academic pastisan has to be an unimpeachable source of wisdom and truth.
But it is true that our un-preparedness for WW l was legendary. Pershing, while an impressive masculine leader figure, was a true dullard. US industries were making almost all the tanks, rifles, machine guns & airplanes for our allies yet the Army refused to use any of those weapons in favor of either using lousy French castoff machine and field guns or none at all. Almost all our planes & artillery were from French & UK. When they finally adopted the Browing Automatic Rifle, after confiscating the proven Lewis Light Machinegun from our troops, braindead Pershing ordered the BAR removed because he was afraid the Germans would copy it. That makes no sense, why have any new weapons at all wiht that thinking. Pershings tactics were even more lamentable, mass charges into German killing zones that the other allies finally learned to abandon.
Independent // Apr 14, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Jakester opines: “Anyone who disagrees with your stuff has to be some sort of far left loon.”
Well, I think most of the commenters on this site –which is supposedly dedicated to rebuilding the conservative movement and restoring the GOP to its rightful majority status as the Party of Progress– are, indeed, on the farLeft Jakester. That they parrot droll talking points from the DemocratUnderground and march to the orders of MoveOn, ACORN or the SEIU is no surprise.
Like you and LeftistNYer and TeaBagged and MinnieDrewl and ottoBS and COProgressive.
That you consider yourself to be center or moderate or anything close to normal says reams about the dysfunction that pervades the Democrat ditch digging Party. Moderate is “right winged reactionaries” to your ilk; left of center is the norm; farLeft is enlightened –at least that’s the lie you’ve been telling yourselves, whilst downing the Kool Aid.
The only one that gets to use “messiah” is Obama and his cult-like following of ObamaBots. Obama Messiah. It comes from that worshipful temple the DNC built for their new god at the convention/coronation in Denver… remember all those columns and greek god, junior college drama department stage props out there?
Obama Messiah. Worshiped by the ObamaBots… part of the loyal, zealot Obami cult.
I’m glad you’re in that mix and not me… I’d have to be insane to last with your version of reality.
Rabiner // Apr 14, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Independent:
“That you consider yourself to be center or moderate or anything close to normal says reams about the dysfunction that pervades the Democrat ditch digging Party. Moderate is “right winged reactionaries” to your ilk; left of center is the norm; farLeft is enlightened –at least that’s the lie you’ve been telling yourselves, whilst downing the Kool Aid.”
Sorry but a political philosophy someone follows has little to do with being ‘normal’. It’s insulting for you to state that you can only be normal if we follow your frame of mind.
To ‘our ilk’ we don’t have a problem with Moderates or even Conservatives who are rational. But irrational arguments, reinterpreting history to fit your viewpoints and saying anyone who disagrees with you is ‘drinking Kool Aid’ is insulting.
Gramps // Apr 14, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Independent // Apr 14, 2010 at 4:31 pm wrote: Why is it that the farLeft loons and FrumBots so hate Fox News and especially talented, well paid opinion-makers like Beck and OReilly?
I donnoe Indy…it would appear; ” well paid opinion-makers like Beck and OReilly can have a very serious and deleterious effect on their watchers and listeners…?
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/iteam&id=7374140
Here’s a caution for you Indy…hehehe…” Yes, feds can trace Magic Jack calls” !
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/harrassing-nancy-pelosi-yes-feds-can-trace-magicjack-calls.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
Yeh never said where you’ve been…on the road with Sarahcuda?
Gramps // Apr 14, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Rabiner // Apr 14, 2010 at 6:30 pm wrote: “To ‘our ilk’ we don’t have a problem with Moderates or even Conservatives who are rational. But irrational arguments, reinterpreting history to fit your viewpoints and saying anyone who disagrees with you is ‘drinking Kool Aid’ is insulting.”
Hey Indy…Rabiner makes some very excellent points…you continuously use phrases like “our ilk” and “drinking the Kool Aid” when referring to posters who don’t agree with you or write posts that upset your formulary of appropriate, political, governance.
I donnoe but; I’ve read another ”winger site ~ S******r” that uses those very same phrases in almost every post…in very monotonous repetition by both the blogger and his two or three tea party respondents.
You wouldn’t be ”Lil’ Markie H.”…would you, Indy?
jakester // Apr 14, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Independent
Like I said, you are totally right wing and you show absolutely no independent thought. It seems that anyone who doesn’t kowtow to your Beck talk radio ideology is the leftist enemy. At one time, intelligent, independent and moderate people were the backbone of the GOP, now you have to be a rabid teabagger, fundy and gun nut spouting vintage 50’s Red Menace paranoia to be taken seriously amongst Conservatives in the GOP these days. Everyone else, including “RINOS”, are the enemy as we all have to conform to FOX’s opinion makers. That is what turns me, a true independent, not some person who is mad at all the LEFTISTS in the GOP, off!
BTW, I never claimed to be a Conservative, which these days means reactionary & ignorant.
Western Academic // Apr 14, 2010 at 8:00 pm
I’m disappointed, Frum. You ought to know better. Even the slightest acquaintance with Wilson’s political thought reveals that he has a deep antipathy for the principles of the American Founding. One can’t accept both the principles of the administrative state, rooted in post-Hegelian German political theory, and the natural rights theory of the Founding. Your distaste for Beck seems to cloud your judgment in regard to the actual, substantive philosophical disagreements between Wilson (and Progressivism generally) and the principles of the Founding.
FL.JD // Apr 14, 2010 at 8:23 pm
“No doubt a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle,” wrote Wilson, attacking the very individual rights that have made America great.
He rejected the principles of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” that are the foundation of American government: “Government does now whatever experience permits or the times demand….” wrote Wilson in The State.
No fan of democracy or constitutional government, he wrote the following in Constitutional Government in the United States: “The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit….” Sounds like a devotee of the imperial presidency.
Indeed, in a disturbing 1890 essay entitled Leaders of Men, Wilson said that a “true leader” uses the masses of people like “tools.” He writes, “The competent leader of men cares little for the internal niceties of other people’s characters: he cares much–everything–for the external uses to which they may be put…. He supplies the power; others supply only the materials upon which that power operates…. It is the power which dictates, dominates; the materials yield. Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader.” – Woodrow Wilson
“Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way,” said Wilson in June 1917 to counter protests to the fascist regime that he created upon entering WW I.
rogersnowden // Apr 14, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Does Frum have no clue about what was wrong with Wilson?
Besides the League of Nations, how about the Palmer Raids?
FL.JD // Apr 14, 2010 at 8:26 pm
“While we are followers of Jefferson, there is one principle of Jefferson’s which no longer can obtain in the practical politics of America. You know that it was Jefferson who said that the best government is that which does as little governing as possible…BUT THAT TIME HAS PASSED. AMERICA IS NOT NOW AND CANNOT IN THE FUTURE BE A PLACE FOR UNRESTRICTED INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND ENTERPRISE?” – Woodrow Wilson
“I do approve of the segregation that is being attempted in several of the departments,” President Wilson wrote in his first year in office. “I think if you were here on the ground you would see, as I seem to see, that it is distinctly to the advantage of the colored people themselves that they should be organized, so far as possible and convenient, in district bureaus where they will center their work.” – Woodrow Wilson, 1913
“Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.” – Woodrow Wilson
“I am an advocate of peace, but there are some splendid things that come to a nation through the discipline of war,” said Wilson and he would seek after those progressive “splendid things” when the opportunity of WW I arose.
Some of Wilson’s highlights:
Segregation
The American Protective League (spied on fellow Americans)
The Federal Reserve
The 16th Amendment
Prohibition
The incarceration of 175,000 “unAmericans” without due process
The Palmer Raids
Committee on Public Information (the first propaganda ministry in the West)
The Sedition Act
Eugenics
War Industries Board, which would endeavor to control all industry in service to the state. It would serve as a precursor to the corporatist policies Mussolini and Hitler
The Versailles Treaty, which led to WWII
The 14 Points
The League of Nations, the precursor to the UN
Fascist, Nanny-State Wilson would love how much his party has “Progressed.”
Gramps // Apr 14, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Western Academic // Apr 14, 2010 at 8:00 pm wrote: “Your distaste for Beck seems to cloud your judgment in regard to the actual, substantive philosophical disagreements between Wilson (and Progressivism generally) and the principles of the Founding.”
WA: I share Mark’s distaste for Beck.
With respect to the principles of one of my favorite founders, big Ben…as an olde soldier I’m entirely fer em’…his principles…!
Ben had an irrepressible spirit of imagination and inquiry; can you imagine holding a kite string in a raging thunder storm?
But as an olde soldier; I can really appreciate his total spirit of adventure as a Founding Father immersed in the debauchery of the French royalty and their consorts, that some say might have even included, an affinity for the heavenly snow…?
Now that’s my kinda’ Founder …”WC”… if yeh know what I mean…
Olde boye…?
CAPryde // Apr 14, 2010 at 10:40 pm
“Don’t let your 21st Century sensibilities cloud your understanding of problems of the past.”
I will repeat my invitation, DFL. To quote myself:
“the author should feel free to explain how Jackson’s policies square with a conservative interpretation of government that abhors excessive power in the executive, celebrates checks and balances in the government, and holds the highest respect for the rights of individuals and believes that government should not restrict their freedoms.”
You may feel that you addressed the question of rights (I would disagree), but you certainly have not addressed the issues of checks and balances in government or the conservative belief that government should be restricted from running over individuals and restricting their liberties (by, for instance, deporting them to concentration-camp style reservations).
I’ll say it again: Jackson’s removal policies are an abomination to conservatives. They not only exemplified everything about government overreach and intrusiveness that conservatives abhor, but they necessarily involved taking from the wealthy (in this case, land-wealthy) in order to redistribute those resources to the poor (in this case, poor farmers) on the theory that government knew who would use those resources in the best way.
You are entitled to think that Federal Big Brother knows best, that the government should be able to take and give as it pleases, that it is okay for the executive to overrule the other branches with military force, that personal rights mean less than “the good of the many,” and that the seizure and redistribution of privately-held resources by the government is okay. But those are not conservative positions, and claiming that the Cherokee underutilized their land does not change that fact.
Rabiner // Apr 15, 2010 at 1:17 am
I think what Frum is saying is that criticizing Wilson as a progressive and then saying that current progressives follow that same point of view is completely a mis-characterization of progressivism in the 21st century. This is very true actually. Democrats do not follow the same political aspersions as Wilson did in the 1910s just like Republicans don’t follow the same political aspersions as Lincoln in the 1850s/1860s. Progressivism is very different even from Wilson to FDR as is pointed out numerous times and it is intellectually dishonest to say otherwise.
nhthinker // Apr 15, 2010 at 6:48 am
Rabiner,
“I think what Frum is saying is that criticizing Wilson as a progressive and then saying that current progressives follow that same point of view is completely a mis-characterization of progressivism in the 21st century. ”
No, that is not what Frum is saying. Actually, that is what Lind was saying. Frum clearly misrepresented what Lind was saying to make a case for not representing Wilson as a significant liberal.
There is no support for Frum’s contention from Lind or any significant scholar.
DFL // Apr 15, 2010 at 7:41 am
CAPryde, the Indians had no American or European concept of property rights. An individual Creek or Cherokee did not have any sort of property deed covering twenty or forty or one hundred acres of land. Do you really think that any American living in the early 1800s- Jackson, Monroe, Van Buren, Clay, Calhoun, Harrison, Tyler, Winfield Scott, Boone, Crockett, Lincoln- would have thought it wise to allow the Creek Indians, numbering maybe 15,000, to own the whole of south Alabama and south Mississippi, lands of hundreds of thousands of acres? They would have laughed outright at your college lecture hall claims.
World history is the story of invasions of one people taking the lands of another by force. Think of the American settlement of a continetal sized nation the process of an invasion of Americans into the nations of Indians. Americans were the stronger. They invaded Indians lands and took those lands just as Americans took the Southwest from Mexico and Puerto Rico from Spain. Should we return those lands? If you wish to criticize Jackson’s policy towards Indian removal, you may as well criticize Jamestown and Plymouth, both of which involved the taking of Indian lands for the benefit of English colonizers.
Independent // Apr 15, 2010 at 9:56 am
Western Academic, like many here, bring the hammer to the nail’s head by saying: “(Frum’s) distaste for Beck seems to cloud (his) judgment in regard to the actual, substantive philosophical disagreements between Wilson (and Progressivism generally) and the principles of the Founding.”
I’d state it a tad differently.
It isn’t that Frum has distaste for Beck –he hates him because it’s convenient for Frum to remind his new-found farLeft friends, he’s one of their gangbangers.
Frum has to continue his quest of appeasing FarLeft pundits because his colleagues and peers have turned their collective back to Frum… he’s a pariah, an outcast, a disloyal, dishonored gun4hire for the MSM elite and liberals. He’s willingly made himself the tool and fool of the Left and Democrats because that’s the only place he could gain some limelight and attention –by speaking outlandishly, outrageously and seemingly-out-of-school from the mainstream GOP and conservative thought. He thinks guys like Larry King, Steve Colbert, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Joy Behar and the ladies on The View love him for it –when they truly don’t, they’re just using him as a counterweight to the rise in power and resurgence of the GOP and conservatives.
So now he’s reduced to bashing Beck and Bush, pounding Palin, chiding Cheney, trying hard to gut Gingrich, go rip on the GOP, trashing the Tea Party and anything else that will help him “sell himself” as the new Tool and Fool of the farLeft.
Mind you, Frum is not a foil for the farLeft –he’s a Fool and Tool of the farLeft. He readily drinks their Kool Aid and they celebrate, encourage him for the venture –and his willing embrace of career suicide. Just like they did Scottie McClellan –until he figured out being a tool is being a fool.
DavidF will get there, too. He’ll come to conclude –probably sitting alone in some vacant airport hallway– that his life is far more shallow now, after his defection and supreme act of betrayal, than the vain glories gained in the limelight of the Left.
Oh the other hand, any guy who thinks Andrew Sullivan is a role model (like DavidF does) may never be able to come the the right conclusion about his betrayal.
Brutus1776 // Apr 15, 2010 at 10:04 am
Michael Lind elucidates some key points along the history of political thought. Where he maked the epic failure is when he steps on the soap box usually occupied by Shadia Drury, Nicholas Xenos, Lyndon LaRouche and countless others in an effort to blow the whistle on “Straussians”. He should have continued his piece along the lines that points out the mischaracterizations of the past, the criticisms from the West Coast and where they are right, and perhaps mentioned names of the countless scholars from all over the country (and his pot-shots at U of Dallas is just stupid, considering the Claremonters had it out with UofD’s very own Mel Bradford some years back, and reeks of a T-sip’s [longhorn] jealousy:). So the point of his article goes from “where the Right is wrong about the Left and the past” to “there is a secretive Straussian network of these highly erudite professors re-shaping history”. Really? I would LOVE to see Michael Lind go toe-to-toe with Matthew Spalding, Tom West, Paul Rahe, the ‘Godfather’ of the West Harry Jaffa, or even Jonah Goldberg which he attacks and places on the level with Glen Beck. Furthermore, but even dragging this whole “Straussian” label through the mud, what does Lind (and indirectly, yourself Mr. Frum) hope to do to those other self described “Straussians” like Pierre Manent, Harvey Mansfield, Walter Berns, or countless others? I am saddened that reputations of highly regarded PhDs in the fields of Political Science, Philosophy and Classics were thrown under the bus as snake-oil salesmen for the masses by two lawyers.
sinz54 // Apr 15, 2010 at 10:59 am
DFL: World history is the story of invasions of one people taking the lands of another by force.
Absolutely.
Look at a political map of the countries of the world.
Except for natural boundaries like the English Channel or the Korea Strait or the oceans, nearly every border was set by conquest and war .
We humans love to fight.
Oskar // Apr 15, 2010 at 11:43 am
My paternal grandfather’s kid brother took a whiff of gas in his lungs as a doughboy in Meester Veelson’s War To Make The World Safe For J.P. Morgan’s Loans.
CAPryde // Apr 15, 2010 at 4:39 pm
I’m assuming that you just don’t understand, DFL, but I’m going to extend you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you got so worked up by the sight of disagreement that you missed the point. I’ll quote myself one last time before letting it go:
“the author should feel free to explain how Jackson’s policies square with a conservative interpretation of government that abhors excessive power in the executive, celebrates checks and balances in the government, and holds the highest respect for the rights of individuals and believes that government should not restrict their freedoms.”
Bizarre screeds about how “might makes right” and random taunting do not qualify as an explanation and application of long-agreed-upon conservative principles apply in this situation. Either you have a real point, or you don’t.