Brookhiser Begets Boredom at the Ath

Disclaimer: I am a liberal. That being said, Richard Brookhiser’s speech at the Athenaeum on Tuesday was terrible.His speech was the first time I have ever left an Athenaeum event early. The large number of people who left before the Q&A session seemed to confirm that my opinion was shared by others.

Most of the speech consisted of Mr. Brookhiser reading from or summarizing his book Right Place, Right Time. I hate when speakers do this because it makes the whole presentation less organic and interesting (remember Thomas Friedman’s speech a few years ago when he simply summarized The World is Flat?). In fact, the whole event seemed designed for Mr. Brookhiser to sell more copies of his book.

In addition to being boring, Brookhiser’s speech was very self-aggrandizing. He bragged about being published in the National Review at age 15, attending a dinner party at Henry Kissinger’s swanky New York apartment, and other accomplishments he really wanted us to know about. Although his book and speech supposedly focused on Brookhiser’s relationship with William F. Buckley Jr., surprisingly little was revealed about the father of modern conservative movement. We were told that Buckley was aggressive and funny, not the most original of insights. Worse, an anecdote meant to describe Buckley’s wit was terribly unfunny. I won’t even bore you with a description. I have a lot of respect for Buckley and was curious to learn more about the man.

The speech also contained a trite and basically useless lesson to young conservatives: if you think 2009 is a bad time to be a conservative, the 1970’s were even worse. During the course of this lesson, he took an unnecessary pot shot at Jimmy Carter, calling him “not a decent man.” I’m not a huge fan of Carter either, but a man who brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and established Habitat for Humanity can hardly be considered an indecent man. Brookhiser’s personal attack on Carter should be contrasted with his apologetic treatment of President Bush. While bemoaning the lot of conservatives during the end of the Bush era, Brookhiser had the audacity to claim that both of the wars of this decade were out of the President Bush’s control. When the commander in chief of the United States of America decides to wage war and has control over the strategy of those wars, one can hardly say that they were “out of his control.”

The Salvatori Center, which sponsored Mr. Brookhiser’s visit to CMC, should demand a refund. The students of Claremont Mckenna learned very little, if anything, from this pompous lecture. The one positive thing that can be said about this Ath event, in the words of a CMC conservative who left early, “At least the food was good.”

Charlie Sprague

I love to debate, but I hate it when people take arguments about their politics personally. I love to travel for free. It's one of the best things I've gotten from my CMC education. Sunday is often the most frustrating day of my week (I'm a 49ers fan).

http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

I found the evening entirely agreeable and will be putting it up on my YouTube channel later today, so you can make your own judgments about what he said.

I wonder about the Forum publishing something by someone who didn’t even stay for the entire talk. (Is this the practice of a responsible publication?)

In the Question and Answer session, he was a lot more free flowing and talked about some of the darker bits of Buckley’s legacy.

Jimmy Carter is not a decent man at all. That supposed peace that exists between Egypt and Israel is paid for every year with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. It is tantamount to a bribe between the two countries not to fight — and they know it.

His anti-Israel (bordering on anti-Semitic) screed, Peace, Not Apartheid, has been debunked.

Aside from that, he’s a rather pleasant fellow who continues to embolden dictatorships.

Most recently, Jimmy Carter has said that the overwhelming majority of the opposition to Barack Obama comes from him being a black man.

Of course, Carter has a very awful history when it comes to race. When Carter returned to Plains, Georgia after WW2, he became a member of the Sumter County School Board. This school board refused to implement Brown v. Board of Education decision handed down by the Supreme Court. Instead, the board continued to segregate school children on the streets of Carter’s hometown. In addition, he stopped the building of a black school near the white school because it was “too close” to the white children.

There’s more, which a future Ath guest, Steve Hayward has written on regarding Carter’s racist past.

* Carter’s top campaign staffers were spotted distributing grainy photographs of Sanders arm-in-arm celebrating with two black men. Sanders was a part-owner of the Atlanta Hawks, and in the photograph he was celebrating a victory with two players who were pouring champagne over his head. Carter’s leaflet was intended to depress Sanders’s white vote.
* “The Carter campaign also produced a leaflet noting that Sanders had paid tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.”
* Carter criticized Sanders, a former governor, for preventing Alabama Gov. and notorious segregationist George Wallace from speaking on Georgia state property. “I don’t think it was right for Governor Sanders to try to please a group of ultra-liberals, particularly those in Washington, when it means stifling communication with another state,” said Carter.
* “‘I have no trouble pitching for Wallace votes and black votes at the same time,’ Carter told a reporter. Carter also said to another reporter, ‘I can win this election without a single black vote.’”
* Upon receiving the endorsement of former Democratic Gov. Lester Maddox, Carter responded by praising the life-long segregationist: “He has brought a standard of forthright expression and personal honesty to the governor’s office, and I hope to live up to his standard.” Maddox had not only refused to serve blacks in the restaurant he once owned, but he had also greeted civil rights protestors with a gun, and made sticks available to his white customers with which to intimidate them.
* “The campaign paid for radio ads for a fringe black candidate, C.B. King, in an effort to siphon black votes away from Sanders.”
* “Then there was the radio commercial in which Carter said he would never be the tool of any ‘block’ vote, slurring over the word ‘block’ so that it could be mistaken for ‘black.’

So no, Jimmy Carter is not a decent man at all. And there’s a lot more where that came from.
http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

I found the evening entirely agreeable and will be putting it up on my YouTube channel later today, so you can make your own judgments about what he said.

I wonder about the Forum publishing something by someone who didn’t even stay for the entire talk. (Is this the practice of a responsible publication?)

In the Question and Answer session, he was a lot more free flowing and talked about some of the darker bits of Buckley’s legacy.

Jimmy Carter is not a decent man at all. That supposed peace that exists between Egypt and Israel is paid for every year with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. It is tantamount to a bribe between the two countries not to fight — and they know it.

His anti-Israel (bordering on anti-Semitic) screed, Peace, Not Apartheid, has been debunked.

Aside from that, he’s a rather pleasant fellow who continues to embolden dictatorships.

Most recently, Jimmy Carter has said that the overwhelming majority of the opposition to Barack Obama comes from him being a black man.

Of course, Carter has a very awful history when it comes to race. When Carter returned to Plains, Georgia after WW2, he became a member of the Sumter County School Board. This school board refused to implement Brown v. Board of Education decision handed down by the Supreme Court. Instead, the board continued to segregate school children on the streets of Carter’s hometown. In addition, he stopped the building of a black school near the white school because it was “too close” to the white children.

There’s more, which a future Ath guest, Steve Hayward has written on regarding Carter’s racist past.

* Carter’s top campaign staffers were spotted distributing grainy photographs of Sanders arm-in-arm celebrating with two black men. Sanders was a part-owner of the Atlanta Hawks, and in the photograph he was celebrating a victory with two players who were pouring champagne over his head. Carter’s leaflet was intended to depress Sanders’s white vote.
* “The Carter campaign also produced a leaflet noting that Sanders had paid tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.”
* Carter criticized Sanders, a former governor, for preventing Alabama Gov. and notorious segregationist George Wallace from speaking on Georgia state property. “I don’t think it was right for Governor Sanders to try to please a group of ultra-liberals, particularly those in Washington, when it means stifling communication with another state,” said Carter.
* “‘I have no trouble pitching for Wallace votes and black votes at the same time,’ Carter told a reporter. Carter also said to another reporter, ‘I can win this election without a single black vote.’”
* Upon receiving the endorsement of former Democratic Gov. Lester Maddox, Carter responded by praising the life-long segregationist: “He has brought a standard of forthright expression and personal honesty to the governor’s office, and I hope to live up to his standard.” Maddox had not only refused to serve blacks in the restaurant he once owned, but he had also greeted civil rights protestors with a gun, and made sticks available to his white customers with which to intimidate them.
* “The campaign paid for radio ads for a fringe black candidate, C.B. King, in an effort to siphon black votes away from Sanders.”
* “Then there was the radio commercial in which Carter said he would never be the tool of any ‘block’ vote, slurring over the word ‘block’ so that it could be mistaken for ‘black.’

So no, Jimmy Carter is not a decent man at all. And there’s a lot more where that came from.
Johnson’s a JOKE

This is probably the most ludicrous response yet. You can poke all kinds of holes in any President, or politician for that matter. Furthermore, politics is a dirty game and to believe otherwise is plainly ignorant. Carter was trying to get elected in the South in the early 70′s; remember how them country boys were totally stoked about the Civil/Voting Rights Acts? I’ll let you connect dots.

It’s no different than Reagan’s borderline facist rhetoric on UC students during the ’66 and ’70 campaigns for Governor of California. You say/do what you need to in order to get elected.

Trying to back up the statement that Jimmy Carter is “not a decent man” is a useless exercise. You wanna know his response??? CHECK OUT MY NOBEL F’ING PEACE PRIZE.

And, you’re right, none of the opposition to Obama is race-based. Obviously, since there are no more racists in America, no one that opposes him could possibly be a racist. Right.

http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

Be that as it may, there were many good men from the South who opposed segregation. Jimmy Carter was not among them.

What’s a “facist”? Ronald Reagan wanted the students of the UC system to get, well, an education. I know it’s a shocking thing for many people, but there you have it.

Yeah, and Yassir Arafat also won a Nobel Prize. Big whoop.

Johnson’s a JOKE

This is probably the most ludicrous response yet. You can poke all kinds of holes in any President, or politician for that matter. Furthermore, politics is a dirty game and to believe otherwise is plainly ignorant. Carter was trying to get elected in the South in the early 70′s; remember how them country boys were totally stoked about the Civil/Voting Rights Acts? I’ll let you connect dots.

It’s no different than Reagan’s borderline facist rhetoric on UC students during the ’66 and ’70 campaigns for Governor of California. You say/do what you need to in order to get elected.

Trying to back up the statement that Jimmy Carter is “not a decent man” is a useless exercise. You wanna know his response??? CHECK OUT MY NOBEL F’ING PEACE PRIZE.

And, you’re right, none of the opposition to Obama is race-based. Obviously, since there are no more racists in America, no one that opposes him could possibly be a racist. Right.

http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

Be that as it may, there were many good men from the South who opposed segregation. Jimmy Carter was not among them.

What’s a “facist”? Ronald Reagan wanted the students of the UC system to get, well, an education. I know it’s a shocking thing for many people, but there you have it.

Yeah, and Yassir Arafat also won a Nobel Prize. Big whoop.

Groan

Thanks, Charles. The poster before you seems to be a loon. Reagan’s “borderline fascist rhetoric”? Only a diehard liberal could say something like that with any seriousness–kinda like Carter himself, who thinks those of us who oppose Obamacare all secretly racists.

But then again, I don’t know any liberal (or conservative) who casually writes off supporting segregation.

But hey, Carter did win a Nobel Prize for the one semi-success that he can partially claim credit for amid a sea of failures. He has joined the ranks of Le Duc Tho, Yasser Arafat, Kofi Annan, Al Gore, and other prophets of the future. So I guess that makes him a decent man! At least he didn’t waterboard the 9/11 plotters–that would make him a real barbarian in Sprague’s book.
Groan

Thanks, Charles. The poster before you seems to be a loon. Reagan’s “borderline fascist rhetoric”? Only a diehard liberal could say something like that with any seriousness–kinda like Carter himself, who thinks those of us who oppose Obamacare all secretly racists.

But then again, I don’t know any liberal (or conservative) who casually writes off supporting segregation.

But hey, Carter did win a Nobel Prize for the one semi-success that he can partially claim credit for amid a sea of failures. He has joined the ranks of Le Duc Tho, Yasser Arafat, Kofi Annan, Al Gore, and other prophets of the future. So I guess that makes him a decent man! At least he didn’t waterboard the 9/11 plotters–that would make him a real barbarian in Sprague’s book.
Unfair Review

“Terrible,” really? Don’t you think this a slight exaggeration? Having seen dozens and dozens of truly terrible Ath talks (mostly from the left), I find it telling that when one conservative gives a talk that isn’t dazzling, you come riding in on your high horse to wip him down.

I’ll grant that the talk was light, but the point, I think, was just to tell some amusing stories about a man he greatly admired. (And for those of us with a sense of humor, many of those stories were quite funny and worth the evening.)

The point was most certainly not to just sell his book. Nor was he bragging at all. So what if he got published at 15 or went to a party with Kissinger? It was very obvious that neither of those details were the reasons he told those stories.

And no Brookhiser does not think that Iraq and Afghanistan were somehow out of Bush’s control and magically thrust upon him. Right or wrong, he was just arguing (very briefly), as many people do, that Iraq and Afghanistan presented problems that the president could not ignore.

That you walked away with such a cheap interpretation of the lecture reflects more on you than on Brookhiser. It seems like a bitter partisan lens turns everyone you disagree with into a hack. But who’s really being the hack?

Max Mautner

And no Brookhiser does not think that Iraq and Afghanistan were somehow out of Bush’s control and magically thrust upon him. Right or wrong, he was just arguing (very briefly), as many people do, that Iraq and Afghanistan presented problems that the president could not ignore.

The line you and Charlie refer to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqJ4RNuk7Ec#&t=4m49s
It’s a pretty ambiguous moment in his speech but it sounded like Brookhiser was referring to the Iraq and Afganistan wars as political events towards the end of Bush’s administration that were “outside of his control” when they very obviously were initiated in the first half of his presidency and were certainly “inside his control.” If you think that interpretation is just too unrealistic which I’m guessing you will, you’re left with Brookhiser insinuating that the two middle east wars Bush left us with were mistakes.

http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

Well, no, the public demanded that we enter Afghanistan and there was intelligence that went all the way to the top of Saddam’s regime that indicated he may have weapons of mass destruction. Certainly still an open question, and yes, I would say events forced his hand.

Unfair Review

“Terrible,” really? Don’t you think this a slight exaggeration? Having seen dozens and dozens of truly terrible Ath talks (mostly from the left), I find it telling that when one conservative gives a talk that isn’t dazzling, you come riding in on your high horse to wip him down.

I’ll grant that the talk was light, but the point, I think, was just to tell some amusing stories about a man he greatly admired. (And for those of us with a sense of humor, many of those stories were quite funny and worth the evening.)

The point was most certainly not to just sell his book. Nor was he bragging at all. So what if he got published at 15 or went to a party with Kissinger? It was very obvious that neither of those details were the reasons he told those stories.

And no Brookhiser does not think that Iraq and Afghanistan were somehow out of Bush’s control and magically thrust upon him. Right or wrong, he was just arguing (very briefly), as many people do, that Iraq and Afghanistan presented problems that the president could not ignore.

That you walked away with such a cheap interpretation of the lecture reflects more on you than on Brookhiser. It seems like a bitter partisan lens turns everyone you disagree with into a hack. But who’s really being the hack?

Max Mautner

And no Brookhiser does not think that Iraq and Afghanistan were somehow out of Bush’s control and magically thrust upon him. Right or wrong, he was just arguing (very briefly), as many people do, that Iraq and Afghanistan presented problems that the president could not ignore.

The line you and Charlie refer to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqJ4RNuk7Ec#&t=4m49s
It’s a pretty ambiguous moment in his speech but it sounded like Brookhiser was referring to the Iraq and Afganistan wars as political events towards the end of Bush’s administration that were “outside of his control” when they very obviously were initiated in the first half of his presidency and were certainly “inside his control.” If you think that interpretation is just too unrealistic which I’m guessing you will, you’re left with Brookhiser insinuating that the two middle east wars Bush left us with were mistakes.

http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

Well, no, the public demanded that we enter Afghanistan and there was intelligence that went all the way to the top of Saddam’s regime that indicated he may have weapons of mass destruction. Certainly still an open question, and yes, I would say events forced his hand.

http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

For those who want to make up their own minds about the article in question, watch it on YouTube here. http://www.claremontconservative.com/2009/10/richard-brookhiser-speaks-at-claremont.html
http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

For those who want to make up their own minds about the article in question, watch it on YouTube here. http://www.claremontconservative.com/2009/10/richard-brookhiser-speaks-at-claremont.html

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