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| REYNOLDS |
Ned
Lamont: Not Just an Empty Suit,
But a Polyester Horror
John Mark Reynolds [author,
academic] 8/18/06 |
My
mother bought it and it lives in my memory like an
evil dream. It was lemon yellow and made of polyester
that would not die. It was a leisure suit
for boys and it could not be destroyed. An Adult Leisure Suit
At
last I outgrew it, but it could have lasted forever
looking just as lemony with orange glowing buttons.
It lives still in my memory, but I may recover with
some fashion therapy. What it could do was throw off
little pills of itself. . . each an indestructible
piece of itself that could not be detached from the
whole without destroying it. But if you did cut it
off carefully with a clever tool that K-Tel would sell
you on late night television, the pill would glow on
its own in the waste can. You can be sure that all
the leisure suit pills in the world still exist buried
out of sight in the dumps of the world.
It
is a frightening thought.
Contributor
John Mark Reynolds
John
Mark Reynolds is the founder and director of
the Torrey Honors Institute, and Associate Professor
of Philosophy, at Biola University. His
personal website can be found at www.johnmarkreynolds.com and
his blog can be found at www.johnmarkreynolds.info. |
It has become fashionable on the blog-o-sphere to call Mr.
Ned Lamont, slayer of Jewish Senators, an empty suit of clothes.
And there is some virtue in it, for Ned Lamont is an empty
suit filled with the hot air blown his way by Michael Moore,
the Daily Kos, and whatever leftist tripe he still remembers
from college days. His thoughts are not just undigested,
for he seems to lack the internal mental organs needed to
digest thought, but almost random. If his wine-and-cheese
crowd friends suddenly supported the War, Ned Lamont would
support it with a change so intellectually effortless that
it would be nearly impossible to notice it.
That is not what is interesting about Ned Lamont since Ted
Kennedy has spent a lifetime without thinking for himself
the scion of a rich family who pretends to have made it on
his own. Half the Democrat Senate consists of rich white
men who are sorry for being rich, white, and male in a superior
self-satisfied way.
No instead what is frightening about Lamont is his potential
staying power. His naive views are ugly, in a world where
anti-Semites run nations they are even dangerous, but come
packaged in a sunny exterior that appears capable of discharging
little mental pills into our political system for decades.
He is young and has the rich kid health and confidence that
means he can go forever. Send Lamont to the Senate this time
and we may see him there for the rest of our lives. . . slowly
evolving into the Teddy Kennedy of the twenty-first century.
He is Leisure Suit Lamont and he may live forever in the
Senate.
Below is one pill discharged from the leisure suit mind
of Ned Lamont. . . with my comments in italics. Long after
his Michael Moore/Daily Kos creed will have been utterly
out grown by the body politic, he will go on glowing in the
Senate discharging his fuzzy warm wisdom to us.
We have but one good chance to stop Leisure Suit Lamont.
If you doubt my picture of him, then keep reading his most
recent editorial in the Journal.
The Democrats Mean Business
Washington needs an entrepreneurial approach.
BY NED LAMONT
Wednesday, August 16, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
In the
past week, my victory in the Connecticut Senate primary
has been labeled everything from the death
knell of the Democratic
Party to the signal of our party’s rebirth. Beneath
all of this punditry is a question that I want to face directly:
how the experience I will bring to the U.S. Senate will help
Connecticut and the Democratic Party during this time of
testing for our country.
How
can his experience help us? He can help us, but his experience
can only be used by Lamont to form
a basis for
his own action. But here we see the fearful passivity of
the Lamont mind, for he will not act his experience will
act. Lamont’s experience will rise up within him and
take control of him. This is a man who does not write in
the passive voice, he lives It.
I ran
at a time when people said “you can’t
beat a three-term incumbent,” because I believed that
President Bush, enabled by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, had weakened
our country at home and abroad. We’re weaker economically,
because we’re more dependent on foreign energy and
foreign capital. Our national security has also been weakened,
because we stopped fighting a real war on terror when we
made the costly and counterproductive decision to go to war
in Iraq.
So
far so good. Lamont now must tell us how he will make
us stronger.
I don’t agree that the economy is “weaker” (what
does that mean?) or that the Iraq War was an error, but let’s
grant Leisure Suit his opening point. One thing to note:
gradually the first person will utterly vanish from Lamont’s
writing. He does not speak. Something else or someone
else speaks for him. He is soon to become all we
with no he. His
empty self will vanish all together.
My confidence that Connecticut was ready for a real debate
and a real choice this year was founded not only on current
events but also past experience. It was my career in business
that shaped my outlook, and helped prepare me to run the
race I did.
Somehow his experience being the heir to a fortune gave
him the confidence to know he would win? Well, yes that seems
likely. After all, Lamont has been handed most of what he
wanted all of his life with little risk, chance of real failure,
or effort.
However,
Lamont remains passive. . . even here. It was “my
career in business” that helped him prepare.
. . evidently it too exists apart from Ned Lamont
ready to take command
of his mind (and since it probably was handed
to him this may be true).
Where
is Ned Lamont in this? Controlled by his “experience
in business” as explained to him by his aides. . .
In 1984,
with a loan from People’s
Bank, I started Campus TeleVideo from scratch. Our offer
was unique: Rather
than provide a one-size-fits-all menu of channels, we let
the customers design their cable system based on the character
of the community being served.
From
the moment I filled out that loan application, I’ve
been in every part of the business–pulling cable, hiring
workers, picking a good health-care plan, closing deals,
listening to customers and fixing problems. It’s been
profitable, and it’s been instructive, a quintessentially
American experience. Here, entrepreneurs have the freedom
to be successful in ways the rest of the world admires.
This sounds good. What did he learn from it?
These defining lessons of my business experience are central
in my campaign: identifying the challenges that face our
state and offering real solutions. Something clearly worked,
because the voters decided to do what our Founding Fathers
envisioned; they put their trust not in a career politician
but in a concerned citizen and experienced businessman who
promises to rock the boat down in Washington.
And
here we have the first pill of wisdom discharged from
the leisure
suit mind of Ned Lamont. Lamont
spent millions
of dollars to learn: you must identify
challenges and offer real solutions. What wisdom! What
Delphic insight! What a
mind! No wonder this rich heir to wealth
could get a loan for his idea! He must have marched right
into that People’s
Bank and hammered his fist down and said, “My
experience tells me cable has a problem
and it needs a real solution!
Give my experience money!”
His being a rich kid had nothing to do with getting the
money. Nobody could doubt his business chops with wisdom
like this. Ned Lamont is going to march to the Senate and
his experience, or aides, will discharge more such wisdom.
Here are the four lessons of my business life that I talked
about every day on the campaign trail, and that have resonated
with Connecticut Democrats:
• First,
entrepreneurs are frugal beasts, because the bottom line
means everything. In Connecticut,
voters
are convinced that Washington has utterly lost touch with
fiscal reality. We talked about irresponsible budget policies
that have driven the annual federal deficit above $300 billion
and the debt ceiling to $9 trillion. Meanwhile, the government
is spending $250 million a day on an unprovoked war in Iraq
while starving needed social investment at home. I am a fiscal
conservative and our people want their government to be sparing
and sensible with their tax dollars.
Lamont’s experience taught Lamont that in business
you have to make money. Wasting money is bad. Thanks be to
Lamont’s experience!
Well,
we are all for a balanced budget
in wartime. I am also for sunny days, world peace, an
Islam
that decides Jews,
women, and Christians are swell,
and a better Packer’s
running game. What will Mr. Lamont
do to get to where he wants to go?
• Second, entrepreneurs invest in human resources.
Our business strives to pay good wages and provide good health
benefits so that we can attract employees that give us an
edge in a competitive marketplace. Well-trained and well-cared-for
people are essential for every business these days, particularly
in a global economy. It’s getting harder and harder
for American businesses to compete on price, but we innovate
and change better than any economy on the planet. The quality
of our work force is one of America’s competitive advantages–if
our education system fails our children and our employers,
we’ll lose the future.
Lamont’s experience speaks: “Well-trained and
well-cared-for people” are good people.
Am I the only one who is growing a bit afraid of Leisure
Suit Lamont? His pills of wisdom teach him that the rest
of us need Lamont to be good to us. We need Lamont and, thank
God, the Founders were right, republican forms of government
worked, and brought forth Lamont and his experience to save
the day, the world, nay perhaps even our souls.
Leisure
Suit Lamont’s experience will train us, he
will care for us, for all I know he will dice and slice and
make Julienne fries for us. Lamont’s
experience will meet all our
needs based on the richness of
his glorious
knowledge.
That’s why I talked about my work as a volunteer teacher
in the Bridgeport public schools, which can’t afford
to be open later than 2:30 p.m., schools that send children
home to an empty house. That’s why my campaign offered
a strong alternative to standardized tests and No Child Left
Behind. That’s why I believe in an employer-based health-care
system that covers everyone, and providing tax benefits to
small businesses so they can provide insurance without risking
bankruptcy.
Lamont’s campaign offered . . . while Lamont? He nodded
his approval. “Thank you campaign,” he murmured, “I
believe in you and in your plans. Thank you.”
• Third,
in a market-driven economy, entrepreneurs can never lose
touch with what customers,
suppliers and workers
are saying. A great strength of our campaign is that we embraced
the grassroots and netroots, suburbs and inner cities, and
used the most advanced technology to empower our door-knockers
and activists. We listened hard and respectfully to what
voters told us, and gave them the confidence to trust someone
new.
Thus
speaks Lamont, “We must hear what our customers
are saying.” What does this mean when applied to government?
What if your core-voting group has anti-Semite beliefs? Will
you speak truth to them? Or will you just listen and give
them confidence by listening. Government is, Lamont’s
experience might note, not a business. Dog’s are the
world’s greatest
experts on what dog food
they like, but voters
in any given group may
not always be right.
That
is why we are a republic
and not a pure democracy.
We expect our elected
officials to hear us,
but also speak to us
about
what they think we should
do. We pay them to rule
us, because they are
(we hope) wiser than
we.
Leisure Suit Lamont will not be wiser than we are. No. Instead
he will listen to his voters, the most radical fringe of
the left, and repeat what they have said to him. He will
hear and repeat.
• Finally, entrepreneurs are pragmatic. Unlike some
politicians, we don’t draw a false strength from closed
minds, and we don’t step on the accelerator when the
car is headed off the cliff.
Lamont
will never draw
false strength from his mind for that would entail the
existence of mind. Instead
voters can
look forward to six
years of the following: “We don’t
refuse a stitch in time! We save nine! We save a penny and
earn a penny! We are early to bed! We are early to rise!
We are the world! We are the children! Let’s
start giving! Rain
drops on Roses! Cute
Kittens! Brown Paper
Packages
Tied Up With String for All!”
By every
available metric, the “stay the course” strategy
in Iraq is not a winning strategy. Changing course is neither
extreme nor weak; it is essential for our national security.
Explain? What is the best course? What is it exactly?
We start
with the strongest, best-trained military in the world,
and we’ll keep it that way.
Good
start.
Where did you get this military? Let’s
see Bush has been President for six years. This is his army
now. But wait, the army is not the product of a man who leads.
Lamont’s experience tells him it exists detached from
all other reality. . . a tool waiting for Lamont to use it.
It too must be well cared for and made happy. . . for Lamont’s
experience
has learned
that is good
for our military
to be strong
and well
trained.
But here’s how we’ll
get stronger by changing course. We must work closely with
our allies
and treat the
rest of the world with respect. We must implement the recommendations
of the 9/11 Commission and put in place real protections
for ports, airports, nuclear facilities and public transit.
That’s it. That’s Lamont’s experience’s
plan. We will work with our allies. What one are we not working
with? France with its one aircraft carrier that never works?
Who is Lamont talking about? How do we work with the “rest
of the world?” Will
we ask
the Sudan
or Kenya
to aid
our fight
against
global
terror?
Will
the Communist
Chinese
leap to help advance liberty around the globe?
We have
not had one major terrorist attack since 9/11. We have
foiled many. Somehow Bush gets no credit
for this since
Lamont knows we should do more. “Doing more” to
protect the homeland is always something we should be doing.
. . like a cry for holiness at a Bible College it is impossible
to disagree with . . . but what exactly should we do? Lamont
has run out of space to tell us, because his experience used
most of it telling Lamont about his own life.
Good judgment is an essential part of good governance.
Read this again. Warning: vote for this man and you will
get at least six more years of this.
But we’re
bogged down in Iraq, and hamstrung in the war against terror,
by leaders who lacked
judgment, historical
perspective, openness to other cultures and plain old common
sense. We offer something different.
Being
in a hard war is being “bogged down”.
. . were we bogged down in the Battle of the Bulge?
A
Lamont pill: We are “hamstrung” by
leaders who lack judgment.
How do they lack judgment?
More
polyester from Lamont: We are “hamstrung” by
leaders who lack historical perspective.
Does this mean that Bush does not anticipate defeating the
terrorists with a single bromide? Does that mean Bush wants
to win a long war while Lamont wants to forget there ever
was one?
Yet another pill: Our leaders are not open to other cultures.
No. They are not. No theocracy here. No Islamic law. No
women banned from higher education. Nasty Mr. Bush thinks
that would be bad.
But in the final analysis, the results of this election
say less about me, and more about the people of Connecticut.
Having spent his entire time avoiding saying anything about
himself or his plans for action, Lamont now blames the people
of Connecticut for his existence.
They turned out in record numbers; they spoke every day
with a simple eloquence and urgency about the country we
love. They oppose the war and the fiscal nightmare crafted
by President Bush and his allies. But their vote, finally,
was one based on pragmatism and reality, on optimism and
hope. And it is to these ideals and values that we plan to
address my campaign in the months until November.
Mr. Lamont won the Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut
last week.
“We,” evidently
Lamont will cease speaking all together, letting his
Experience and Campaign
speak for him, will not even talk to the voters, but
to their ideas and
values. Thus people have disappeared altogether in this
article to be replaced by Experience and Campaign speaking
to Ideas
and Values.
Lamont,
I assume, can go back to golfing at his white’s
only golf course.
The people of Connecticut are warned. There is a Leisure
Suit who wants to go to Washington. You will face years of
this sort of article and speech. Do you want to go this way?
You have an option. You can vote for Joe Lieberman, a man
even his foes respect. He is a real man. . . secure in his
rumpled natural fiber self. You can vote for Joe and send
the Leisure Suit packing. CRO
copyright
2006 John Mark Reynolds
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