James Fallows defends the indefensible

James Fallows in the Atlantic has taken the position of defending Chas Freeman - the Obama appointee who (1) is too close to the Saudis (2) seems anti-Israel and (3) thought the Chinese were too lenient in their crackdown on the students in Tiannamen Square who were engaged in a peaceful protests and attacked by TANKS.

His rationale for defending the Obama selection, besides blind allegiance to a leader who made a dubious and questionable selection?

Freeman's longstanding contrarian inclination to challenge conventional wisdom of any sort, far from being an embarrassing liability, was exactly what a president needed from the person in this job.

Overriding any sense of international justice, since it wasn't perpetrated by the 'Bush regime', Fallows throws his weight behind someone who thinks what? More students should have been killed? More arrests should have been made? The suppression of free speech should have been more brutal?

The students were looking to make democratic reform. They were not burning and looting the city. But perhaps that is the precise problem. The people on the left, just as they pay lip service to the men and women in the military, seem to have developed a stance of paying lip service to democracy, all the while despising it. To them there is only one real truth and it is theirs. Socialism is good, capitalism is bad.

Using the most twisted gymnastics of logic seen in some time, James Fallows defends his position;

...For any of those roles, a man like Freeman might not be the prudent choice. But as head of the National Intelligence Council, my friend said, he would be exactly right. While he would have no line-operational responsibilities or powers, he would be able to raise provocative questions, to ask "What if everybody's wrong?", to force attention to the doubts, possibilities, and alternatives that normally get sanded out of the deliberative process through the magic known as "groupthink."

The problem with his logic is that some things are still black and white - cracking down on a sit-in by sending in tanks is a brutal and tyrannical response based on the retention of power, and it has no place in the modern world. This is not China of the Emperor Qin era. There is no 'what if' in this case. And the self-defeating argument of avoiding "groupthink" strays beyond the hypocritical into the realm of absurdity.

Fallows also argues that having contrarians is a good thing, in that they serve as a check and balance to an otherwise established view. True. The problem in this case is that the views he espouses don't seem to be all that contrarian with the President's pro-socialism stance on everything, and that means that Freeman is in fact marching in lock-step with the rest of the far left and therefore offers no alternative viewpoint that

The decision to select Freeman was a bad decision. Admit it. It's something liberals, in their arrogance seem incapable of coming to grips with. While conservatives are not always immune from that, there are plenty of instances where we can take issue with our leaders - Harriet Meyers, and amnesty for illegals spring to mind. Liberals however seem incapable of admitting their guy made (another) bad call.

You're all lemmings.

America, you have become a nation of lemmings. The small furry animals are said to stampede en masse off a cliff into the ocean and die. The herd mentality gone astray, turns out to be a myth with respect to the little creatures. But in the case of the United States, socially and politically, that mythical lemming behavior is proudly on display.

That Obamamania is shameless goes without saying. But the blindness that comes with it is astounding. But the mindless drive towards nation suicide is not without it's harbingers. Popular culture should have given us clues a long time ago. Movies become must see events with a momentum not commensurate with the quality of the underlying story. Titanic was no Shakespeare. The same can be said for music. I'm not one to disparage the musical taste of others, though there is a case to be made that quality entertainment has grown sparse. My point about music is the loathsome imprint it has on societal homogeneity. While there are various types of music, popular music has degenerated into a minimal variety of style musically and with regard to the accouterments associated with it (for example, fashions).

Lest you think the damage has been relegated to those inclined towards teenagerdom, think about some of the other areas that homogeneity has spread into American life, and the associated herd mentality that goes along with it - fads, diets, health concerns, all are embraced with the lightning speed of our Internet age. The trend is self fulfilling. A creative commercial on television is mimicked in style by a dozen others until it is no longer is successful. There's more than one way to be successful.

The stock market is another example of herd mentality that frequently gets out of control. The news in the most of the Mainstream Media, identical in content, identical in style, and increasingly vapid in its delivery. Polling opinion as reportable news is laughable. People think that tomatoes should be banned because they are too acidic. That's not news. Tomatoes proven to be too acidic to be healthy for the lining of a human stomach would be news.

The group think inside the Beltway that sees Senators accept pork-barrelling as a norm to be embraced. The headlong rush into climate change hysteria without so much as a sober second thought is yet more proof - disagree or even question it's validity and you are anti-human scum.

And what of the power of celebrity? The power of Oprah? Do you really need her to tell you what books to read, who to vote for, or that you are unknowingly unhappy with some aspect of your life? Or how to diet?

Political Correctness is another great example of conformity. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Oh, right the Fairness Doctrine 2.0 is coming.

And ironically, those that decry conformity are often the worst offenders by conforming to Groupthink or even fashion dictates.

Those things are all lamentable, but not show stoppers. There is however, a serious degree of danger when conformity is embedded in political direction. Bashing Bush was one thing, but following lockstep down the path toward socializing American industry is a form of national suicide. America did not become a superpower by following the path of European socialism. The United States did not go along to get along. It followed its own path, and that's what made it great. That's what got America to the position of economic, military and freedom embracing superpower. Groupthink about change could toss that all away.

Change is more complex than just changing. There are good changes and bad changes. Each idea needs to be examined on its own merits, not just cheered on blindly.

Obama's change is coming and that change looks to include nationalized banking and health care among other things. Are you excited to see the new line of Americars? These are staggeringly huge changes and they are being foisted on the country with dizzying speed. Some sober second thought is in order and it has to be de-coupled from the stinkulous package panic. Fast.

It's ironic that what's featured in the headlong rush to socialism, that 'lemming gene', is exactly what America managed to avoid so successfully during it's two plus centuries of ascendancy. Obama can invoke the image of Republican President Abraham Lincoln and it appears to hold some merit - but only until you examine it more closely. The truth is that as late as JFK, perhaps even Johnson, and most if not all historical Democrat Presidents would be as aghast at the intended direction of President Obama as would have Reagan or Jefferson or Lincoln.

[In case it's necessary to enunciate for the record - I do not believe all Americans are lemmings, just 53.4% of them.]