A Democrat's inner child

Commenting on President Obama's recent failures, Maureen Dowd concludes (hat tip: Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit and Jennifer Rubin):

He’s so sure of himself and his actions that he fails to see that he misses the moment to be president — to be the strong father who protects the home from invaders, who reassures and instructs the public at traumatic moments.

He’s more like the aloof father who’s turned the Situation Room into a Seminar Room. [Emph. added]

By thinking of the president as their father, as they often do, Democrats turn our system of government upside-down. In a traditional family, the father is the breadwinner and, to the extent that the mother permits, he is in charge of the family. In a democracy, by contrast, we the people are the breadwinners and we the people select our president: we delegate power to him. He works for us, not us for him.

Democrats seem to take comfort in thinking of themselves as infants who will be cared for by their parent, the government. This is why they are so willing to turn their personal health care decisions over to their "father," the government. It also explains why they they suffered from BDS: they couldn't stand to see Pres. Bush as their father.

PREVIOUSLY, on liberal attempts to use inappropriate family analogies:
•CNN: Thinking of states like they are the federal Gov.'s children
•Soldier objects to liberal infantilization: we are not your "sons and daughters"
•Seeing the US president as your father
•US Government as "parent"
•Economic policy by analogy to "standing up" to a bully
•Thinking of an industry as an overindulged "child"
•Dr. Helen Smith on Democrats and their lack of good father figures

Somebody had a bad childhood

On the op-ed pages of the prestigious New York Times, Maureen Dowd offers this bit of sophisticated analysis of Gov. Sarah Palin:

R. D. Levno, a retired school principal, flew in from Fairbanks. “She’s a child, inexperienced and simplistic,” she said of Sarah. “It’s taking us back to junior high school. She’s one of the popular girls, but one of the mean girls. She is seductive, but she is invented.”

The Swedish nanny state

The schools in Sweden have decided that they have the authority to decide who gets invitations to an 8-year boy's birthday party. As reported by the BBC:

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party.

The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament. ....

The boy's father has lodged a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman. ....

The boy handed out his birthday invitations during class-time and when the teacher spotted that two children had not received one the invitations were confiscated. ....

A verdict on the matter is likely to be reached in September, in time for the next school year.

It is a good thing that the Swedish Parliament has nothing more important to do.

Hat tip: Blue Crab Blvd .

When the children are in charge

The (Qatar) Peninsual reports:

Libya's most senior oil official said on Thursday he was studying the possibility of reducing output in response to a US threat to sue OPEC members, although he said the North African country had no concrete plans to do so for now. [emphasis added]

So, the child-like (that is, emotional not rational) threat by the Democrats to sue OPEC gets a child-like response from Libya.

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.

The Big Man of the Democratic Party

The Telegraph (UK) reports:

Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama's victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support. Bill Clinton; Bill Clinton says Barack Obama must 'kiss my ass' for his support. ....

The Telegraph has learned that the former president's rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks damaging his own reputation by his intransigence.

A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could "kiss my ass" in return for his support.

So it goes in the party of peace, love, tolerance, and diversity.

"Ironically," conservatives and their children are happier

Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal reports on a new study of parenting styles regarding teen dating. This is what the study has to say about 'conservative' parents and their children:

Parents who are involved in stable romantic relationships with spouses or partners tend more than other parents to set rules limiting teen dating behavior, such as curfews, minimum ages for dating, limits on places teens can go and explicit rules against sexual activity, says a new study of 169 parents and 102 teens by Stephanie Madsen, an associate professor of psychology at Maryland's McDaniel College. While the reason isn't clear, the author suggests these parents may hold more conservative beliefs in general; many of the rules involved sexuality.

Ironically, in what other researchers have called the "Romeo and Juliet" effect, such rules may tend to drive teenage lovers closer; teens of these parents reported closer, more positive relationships.

So, people with stable, romantic relationships tended to be conservative and their children reported more positive dating relationships. Why does Shellenbarger write "ironically"? Is this one of those things that liberals consider to be a 'paradox'?

Regarding the other group of parents, Shellenbarger reports:

Parents who are unhappy, dissatisfied or insecure in love, however, go beyond limits and try to dictate or control how their teens treat their dates, the study found. These parents try to influence their kids to value certain things and act in specific ways. Parents would tell teens to open doors for dates, "act like a gentleman" (or a lady), or resist letting a date "walk all over" them. The goal may be to launch their teens on a romantic path happier than their own, Dr. Madsen says. But kids often regard this advice as intrusive, and again, it tended to have the opposite effect. The teens affected weren't particularly content with their dating relationships. [all emphasis added]

So, parents in the non-conservative group were unhappy and became control freaks with unhappy results for their children.

PREVIOUSLY, poll results showing that Republicans are happier than Democrats are discussed here and here. This difference in outlook on life likely explains, for example, why Democrats more readily condone unethical behavior (see here). Unhappiness also affects Sen. Obama's rhetoric (see here) and that of Sen. Clinton's supporters (see here).

Thinking like adolescents

In response to gasoline prices that are now over $4/gallon, the Democrats proposed a bill to raise taxes on oil companies. Of course, there is no economic theory under which raising taxes on oil companies causes oil prices to go down. So, what are they thinking? I think that becomes clear when you review their rhetoric. For one:

U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski said it's time for to stand up to the big oil companies and "shout out, dammit, we've had enough."

For another, former Governor and US Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) says:

"We need a United States Senator who will stand up to the big oil companies and fight ...."

Sen. John Edwards says:

"We need to stand up to the big oil companies ...."

When it comes to standing up, Sen. Clinton says she does it better than Sen. Obama:

"When it came time to stand up against the oil companies, to stand against Dick Cheney’s energy bill, my opponent voted for it and I voted against it.”

Schoolchildren who have "had enough" should "stand up to" a bully. Is the Democrats oil policy based on the principle that oil companies should be treated as if they were 'bullies'? Are domestic oil companies raising prices not because, with domestic oil exploration all but forbidden, they are forced to buy crude for record prices on the world market but rather because they are bullies being mean to poor consumers? Is this just another case of Democrats trying to solve adult problems of allocating scarce resources by using inappropriate childhood analogies? That explanation is consistent with this statement from another Democrat governor:

"The President of the United States -- the most powerful man in the world -- is too chicken to stand up to the big oil companies," Governor Jennifer Granholm [D-MI] told the crowd to rousing applause. [as above, emphasis added]

So, according to Gov. Granholm, Pres. Bush's policy decision is not based on reasons of economics or philosophy. No, the reason that Pres. Bush doesn't "stand up to big oil companies" is that he is "chicken"! Again, this points to reasoning via childhood analogy on the part of a Democrat.

PREVIOUSLY, I have noted various uses of inappropriate childhood analogies by Democrats and by ("pro-life liberal") Gov. Huckabee. These childhood analogies often involve either the search for a parent figure or justifications for behaving like children or treating peers as children. Examples are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

RELATED: A comparison of Democrat and Republican approaches to lowering oil prices is here. A look at where the Democrats have forbidden oil exploration is here. For more on Rep. Kanjorski, see here.

Are the presidential candidates merely out-of-control children?

From Scott Whitlock at Newsbusters:

On Friday's "Good Morning America," George Stephanopoulos appeared and pleaded for calm in the increasingly contentious battle between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The ABC journalist and former top aide to Bill Clinton proclaimed, "Well, the bottom line is that it's time for a time-out."

PREVIOUSLY, Sen. Clinton proposed timeouts as an economic policy.

Inside her mind

Camille Paglia has an interesting summary of what is known about Sen. Clinton psyche:

A swarm of biographers in miners' gear has tried to plumb the inky depths of Hillary Rodham Clinton's warren-riddled psyche. My metaphor is drawn (as Oscar Wilde's prim Miss Prism would say) from the Scranton coalfields, to which came the Welsh family that produced Hillary's harsh, domineering father.

Hillary's feckless, loutish brothers (who are kept at arm's length by her operation) took the brunt of Hugh Rodham's abuse in their genteel but claustrophobic home. Hillary is the barracuda who fought for dominance at their expense. Flashes of that ruthless old family drama have come out repeatedly in this campaign, as when Hillary could barely conceal her sneers at her fellow debaters onstage -- the wimpy, cringing brothers at the dinner table.

Hillary's willingness to tolerate Bill's compulsive philandering is a function of her general contempt for men. She distrusts them and feels morally superior to them. Following the pattern of her long-suffering mother, she thinks it is her mission to endure every insult and personal degradation for a higher cause -- which, unlike her self-sacrificing mother, she identifies with her near-messianic personal ambition.

Unpleasant childhoods do seem to be common to the biographies of great liberals.

MORE analysis of Sen. Clinton's anger at DrSanity.

President as parent

Sen. Clinton spoke at the Corinthian Baptist Church in Iowa Sunday. The Boston Globe reports:

The New York senator also highlighted a chapter in her book, "It Takes a Village," that talks about every child needing a champion. She said most children have someone in that role and she'd like to fulfill it for the whole country.

"I think the American people need a president who is their champion. And I've been running to be that champion -- to get up every single day and do all that I can to make sure I provide the tools that every single American is entitled to receive and make the most out of their own lives," Clinton said. [Emphasis added]

Via BotW

Nations: children who won't grow up?

Is foreign policy just like kindergarten? The liberal/left seems to think so. This was discussed here as an explanation of Sen. Clinton's foreign policy pronouncements. Interestingly, a 1923 Sunday New York Times Magazine article explicitly uses the same unruly-child-in-need-of-a-parent analogy to explain foreign policy, at least as seen by the article's author:

WHO'LL BE HEAD OF THE FAMILY?

February 25, 1923, Sunday

By ANNE O'HARE McCORMICK

Section: The New York Times Magazine, Page SM1, 2866 words

THE task of saving the world lies heavy on the heads of statesmen of all nations. They realize that the greatest political opportunity in the outline of history is within the grasp of some bold hand. But whose? And how? In what Parliament hides the harmonizing genius, the Pied Piper who will entrance all the spoiled and snarling children of the world out of their own discordant houses into some peaceful family of nations?

...

Great Britain has never blinked the fact [sic.] that some marriage of convenience, or necessity, would eventually force us all, unwilling and frightened stepchildren, into some kind of family of nations. She has never doubted who would be the head of that family. Experienced in heading a good-sized family of her own, and, with all her mistakes, the most successful stepmother of nations in human history, she had reason to believe that no one in the world seriously question her claims or her qualifications. [emphasis added]

This world-as-family analogy would be merely an amusing rhetorical device except that, 80+ years later, as we have seen, and despite some disastrous consequences, it is still the way that liberals think of foreign policy. Indeed, for 15 years after Ms. McCormick wrote this article, liberal world leaders treated Mussolini and Hitler as children to be placated rather than as serious enemies.

The liberal belief in the concept of an international "head of family" is also unchanged. Now, despite its decades of failures, the United Nations is assigned that role. As Ms. McCormick noted, Great Britain had previously had that role.

Liberals also apply the the child-in-need-of-parent concept to domestic politics, as discussed within this post.

A possible relationship between liberalism and childhood pain was noted here. The connection between the family analogy and foreign policy may have been taken too far by Democratic presidents who, however seriously, make a show of asking their children for foreign policy advice.

Childhood pain and liberalism

It is often observed that Democrats are more depressed/pessimistic than Republicans. Part of this could be due to childhood experiences. Consider Sen. Obama who wrote about his childhood:

I kept finding the same anguish, the same doubt, a self-contempt that neither irony nor intellect seemed able to deflect,

Barack Obama's family situation must have been quite painful, at least if we believe the (UK) Daily Mail's research into Sen. Obama's father:

At 18, [Barack's father, Obama Sr.] married a girl called Kezia. But Obama Snr was more interested in politics and economics than his family and his political leanings had been brought to the notice of leaders of the Kenyan Independence movement. .... At the age of 23 he headed for university in Hawaii, leaving behind the pregnant Kezia and their baby son.

Relatives say he was already a slick womaniser and, once in Honolulu, he promptly persuaded a fellow student called Ann - a naive 18-year-old white girl - to marry him. Barack Jnr was born in August, 1961.

Two years later, Obama Snr was on the move again. He was accepted at Harvard, and left his little boy and wife behind when he moved to the exclusive east coast university....

...Ann divorced her husband after she discovered his bigamous double life. She remarried and moved to Indonesia with young Barack and her new husband, an oil company manager.

Obama Snr was forced to return to Kenya, where he fathered two more children by Kezia. He was eventually hired as a top civil servant in the fledgling government of Jomo Kenyatta - and married yet again.

Now prosperous with a flashy car and good salary, his third wife was an American-born teacher called Ruth, whom he had met at Harvard while still legally married to both Kezia and Ann, and who followed him to Africa.

A relative of Mr Obama says: "We told him[Barack] how his father would still go to Kezia and it was during these visits that she became pregnant with two more children. He also had two children with Ruth."

It is alleged that Ruth finally left him after he repeatedly flew into whisky-fuelled rages, beating her brutally.

Friends say drinking blighted his life - he lost both his legs while driving under the influence and also lost his job.

However, this was no bar to his womanising: he sired a son, his eighth child, by yet another woman and continued to come home drunk.

He was about to marry her when he finally died in yet another drunken crash when Obama was 21.

Alexander Hamilton was also abandoned by his father. Between the ages of 10 and 14, young Alexander was not only abandoned by his father but also his mother died, his cousin, who cared for Hamilton after his parents left, committed suicide. Also during these same years, Alexander's aunt, uncle, and grandmother died. [Src: Ron Chernow's book, p.26]. A conservative might think that abandonment by a father would lead a person to distrust authority. However, both Mr. Obama and Mr. Hamilton adopted a political belief in giving central governments more power and authority.

In contrast, while we know relatively little about the childhood of Hamilton's opponent, Thomas Jefferson, what we do know points to a relatively uneventful childhood in a stable family with none of the pain and instability that either Mr. Obama or Mr. Hamilton endured. Mr. Jefferson was early America's leading advocate of small and decentralized government.