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

Government as parent

Energy Secretary Steven Chu says Americans behave like children:

“The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act, The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.”

Democrats try to understand politics through analogies to childhood but this is often not helpful. In this case, the public is responding quite rationally to the low-cost of energy combined with general skepticism of global warmism. The skepticism is fueled not just by scientists but also by the hypocrisy of its most public advocates, including the Dept. of Energy itself.

(Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow tried to backtrack on Chu's analogy: “Secretary Chu was not comparing the public to teenagers. He was saying that we need to educate teenagers about ways to save energy.")

RELATED: Chu expects cap and tax to bring prosperity.

CNN: thinking like children

Pres. Obama's proposed federal mandates have sparked a renewed discussion of the tenth amendment and states rights.  On CNN anchor John Roberts discusses the issue with correspondent Carol Costello:

ROBERTS: Now, you would think- because states’ rights advocates are so strong in their opinions that the opinions- we’ve been asking for comments, right? Therefore, you would think that most people would be in favor of states’ rights, but it’s running, to a large degree, the opposite way.

COSTELLO: Oh, yeah. But my favorite comment so far- you know, ‘asking for states’ rights is asking, you know, the children to be the parents.’

There you have it: in the mind of Correspondent Roberts, states are like "children" and the federal government is like the "parent." This makes sense to liberals because they try to understand all politics with inappropriate family analogies.

PREVIOUSLY, on liberal attempts to use inappropriate family analogies:
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"

Soldier objects to liberal infantilization: we are not your "sons and daughters"

Democrats/liberals often try to understand a situation by analogy to childhood or to a family. A soldier in Afghanistan patiently explains the error in this (hat tip DrSanity and the Corner):

In a column, Mr. Putney has again raised the debate about the sacrifice of America's "sons and daughters" in uniform. Some have argued that we must continue the fight to honor their memory "so that they have not died in vain." Others argue we must stop the wars to save soldiers from this fate. I think an essential understanding of what motivates those of us in uniform is missing in this debate.

We are not your sons and daughters, whom you must protect and defend. We are your sword and your shield. We are men and women who volunteer to place our lives on the line so you do not have to. We do not decide when or where we will be sent. We go. You are our advocates, not our parents.[emph. added]

While liberals may see soldiers as children, they also frequently confuse the role of president with that of father as, for example, here, here, and here.  In a bizarre twist on this, liberals often also sexualize leaders, both their heroes, here and here, and their enemies, such as Gov. Palin.  Does this indicate a disturbed childhood?  It is only anecdotal, but the answer is yes and yes.  (Possibly related, a McDaniel College study found that children of liberal parents were less able to form close positive relationships.)

The importance of the family analogy to liberals was explained by one (liberal) professor as a longing for an "imaginary golden age of well-being and security in the bosom of a harmonious, loving family."  Just because they want such a family to exist does not, however, mean that the role of either soldiers, as explained above, or that of presidents can be understood by analogy to a family.

Democrats and their Sex-Symbol-in-Chief

ABC News reports on Sen. Obama:

The rain pouring down, his jacket off, his white dress-shirt clinging to his body, Barack Obama played to a crowd ....

That does sound more like a romance novel than a news report, doesn't it?

The New York Times wrote a similar sounding report about Al Gore during his 1988 run for the Democratic nomination:

If politics is the art of pleasing different groups of people simultaneously, Senator Albert Gore Jr., Democrat of Tennessee, seems to have chosen the right profession. ....

Mr. Gore is solidly built, dark and indisputably handsome.

In Sept. 2003, the (UK) Independent saw then candidate Sen. John Kerry in the same light:

Construct your identikit Democratic Presidential candidate and you would come up with someone pretty much like John Forbes Kerry. Handsome, tall and intelligent. Jutting jaw and gravitas by the bucketful.

The weird thing about Democrats sexualizing their presidential candidates is that they also see US presidents as 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.”

From OpenLeft: Is liberalism narcissism?

Matt Stoller notes:

There are no forums for respected ideological debate within the Democratic Party, ....

Conservatives are fascinated by ideas and, as for example Wm. Buckley and his Firing Line, enjoy debate. By contrast, how often can a liberal cite the philosophers who influenced him? Liberalism seems more focussed on a cult of personality which might be natural for people who regard a presidential candidate not as a politician but as a potential parent. Continuing on from where Stoller left off, Chris Bowers, also at Openleft, asks "Why should anyone respect the netroots.":

The point is that just doing something beneficial to a politician does not mean that politician will end up respecting you. This is especially the case when you are viewed as a bunch of amateurs ....

What we should aim for is self-respect. If you think that self-starting, people-powered, progressive grassroots activism is good in and of itself, then you should both support it and live it.

So there you have it: the motivating factor on the left is not ideas: it is narcissism.

Hat tip: Instapundit, Ann Althouse, and Big Tent Democrat.

SEPARATELY, examples of narcissism in the environmental movement are here.

"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.

Ask what your country can do for you?

It has often been noted that Democrats see the US president as their parent. Michelle Obama takes this a step beyond in a fascinating speech that she gave and that Ed Morrissey has transcribed:

We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another -- that we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

Who would have thought that a mere politician would have such power? Instead of mere mortal parent, she sees the president's role as closer to that of a heavenly father.

In her speech, Mrs. Obama also summarizes the state of the US economy:

And things have gotten progressively worse throughout my lifetime, through Democratic and Republican administrations, it hasn't gotten better for regular folks. ....

Such a view is counter-factual but is an understandable side-effect of the depression that polling shows that Democrats suffer.

Seeing only what you want to see

Dick Meyer, the editorial director of CBSNews.com, explains Sen. Obama's appeal:

Sen. Obama is a Rorschach test. I see hope! I see brains! I see a whole new kind of politician! I see an amazing life story! I see an orator! I see a natural! I see a hero!

Well, real people aren't Rorschach tests. They aren't blank slates. And by January 2008, Senator Blank Slate, D-Ill., will be a messy chalkboard.

Seeing what you want to see ("a Rorschach test") is common in politics.

A news story that appears to me to be as much a Rorschach test as Sen. Obama is the disappearance of some colonies of bees, dubbed "Colony Collapse Disorder." Some reporters claim the cause is "global warming." Some blame "cell phone radiation." Others blame genetically modified crops. What all these explanations have in common is only that they represent currently popular liberal anxieties. More plausible explanations, such as a new virus (plagues are as old as history), do not appeal to liberal imaginations.

Continuing on the subject of presidential candidates, but touching on a separate theme, Dick Meyer also writes

So tell me how you're feeling about Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. Because I think you are in denial about some very important issues your fellow citizens have in their relationships with these two potential parent figures. [emph. added]

Here we see yet another appearance of the bizarre president-as-parent analogy which is just one member of a larger group of childhood analogies.

Hat tip: Dr. Helen.

Economic reasoning by childhood analogy

The RIAA has been suing people who download copyrighted music to their PCs. Information Week columnist Alexander Wolfe has a solution:

Now that times are tough, though, the record companies have shown they're clueless. Rather than forge a new business model to make money in the age of the Internet, they're fighting a losing battle to hold on to an era that's already passed. OK, if they're unable to handle the copyright benefits they've been like generously awarded, we should do what we do when a child shows they can't handle a privilege they've been granted. We should take it away.

How about we cut the copyright terms down to five years. Retroactively. So now "Stairway to Heaven" is in the public domain. Hey, the ongoing RIAA lawsuit problem is gone in one fell swoop. [emphasis added]

This blogger is fascinated by what politicians try to pass off as thought and logic. Here is a case of a computer columnist making the same reasoning-by-inappropriate-analogy-to-childhood, possibly inspired by childhood trauma, that seems to characterize much of liberal thought (and Gov. Huckabee's).

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

Was it uncle Sam who taught you right from wrong and wrapped your gifts at Christmas?

A letter to the San Francisco Chronicle explains the nature of government:

Editor - I keep reading about the mortgage crisis and the credit card debt Americans keep accruing - and then I remember that we learn from our parents - in this case, the United States government. Why shouldn't Americans continue to purchase luxury items like flat-screen TVs, purchase huge homes and cars they can't afford? The government continues to spend money on a war we can't afford, and our debt is the highest ever. We learn from the best. [emphasis added]

TASHA SCHUMANN Castro Valley, CA

Hat tip: BoTW.

Foreign policy from a child's point of view

One of the themes on this blog is how often people try to understand national or international problems through unsuccessful analogies to children in a family. Usually the perpetrator is a liberal (in the US sense). In this post, the perpetrator of this analogy is Mike Huckabee, current seeking the Republican nomination for president. Here, for example, is Gov. Huckabee explaining his Pakistan policy:

We have no desire whatsoever to ‘invade’ Pakistan, fight its forces, or harm its citizens. But we have an urgent need to pursue non-Pakistani terrorists who have declared war on us into this no man’s land. I greatly prefer to do it with Pakistan’s blessing and cooperation, but, one way or another, it has to get done. If we have to step onto their soil briefly to protect our own, so be it. As a child sometimes goes into a neighbor’s yard to collect a baseball hit over the fence, so we may be forced to go over the fence. [emphasis added]

Invading a foreign country, getting your baseball back: same thing, right?

From the same speech, here is an international-policy-is-just-like-a-family analogy:

We haven’t had diplomatic relations with Iran in almost thirty years, my whole adult life. A lot of good it’s done us! Putting this in human terms, all of us know that when we stop talking to a parent or a sibling or a friend, it’s impossible to accomplish anything, impossible to resolve differences and move the relationship forward. The same is true for countries. [emphasis added]

The reason, of course, that we don't now have diplomats in Iran is that the last ones there were held hostage and tortured. Iran's position has little changed: One of the organizers of that attack is now president of Iran.

Here is another example of foreign policy thinking, although this is a little different because, here, Gov. Huckabee reasons by analogy to medical care before invoking familial obligations:

Cancer treatment can be rough, but the alternative is death. That’s how it is in Iraq: difficult as it is to stay, the consequences of leaving would be disastrous for the Iraqis, for the entire region, and for us. Those who say we don’t owe the Iraqis any more are ignoring what we owe our own children and grandchildren. We have to make our stand against Al Qaeda in Iraq and against Iranian expansionism there, and we have to make it now.

Previously, examples of liberals making national or international policy by analogy to childhood include Sen. Clinton's theory of economics which involves "calling for timeouts", and the New York Times' analysis of pre-World War II foreign policy in which the "children" (nations) needed to search for a "head of the family." Thinking-like-children also explains the appeal to Democrats of claiming victimization. (This may also be a consequence of unusually painful childhoods.)

But Gov. Huckabee is a Republican. On social issues, he is considered conservative. On economic issues, he is not: he opposes school choice and supports big government. This combination puts him closer to what is called 'right' in Europe rather than an American-style conservative.

Today's liberal

Senator and Ms. Edwards spoke at a town hall meeting at the University of New Hampshire on Monday. A student steps to the microphone and starts her question:

Hi. My name is Jenny Ballantine and I'm a senior here. I've kind of been all over the place. I'm going to throw you a little zinger, so it's not so much a question. It's more words of encouragement and inspiration on my behalf. I've been on my own since 14. I am one of those people that you're talking about that is poverty stricken. I made less than 8,000 this past year. Instead of going to school, I could have gone the dirty place, the bad place.

Having been on her own since age 14, it is clear that she has had an exceptionally difficult childhood. This gives her something in common with American liberals from Alexander Hamilton to Barack Obama. She continues:

I need help. I need severe help. I need to be able to look to my leader and see words of encouragement, words of hope. I need to be able to trust that person.

For liberals, the country's president is much more than its politician-in-chief. Liberals expect that person to fill a much broader role, providing "trust," "hope," and "encouragement," as if liberals want a leader to be more of parent than a politician. This sounds like the famous "ponytail guy" of 1992. Ms. Ballentine continues:

I need to be able to know that I'm going to grow in a world that's not going to be full of hate and prejudice and racism and to know that I matter, that I wasn't just dumped in this world for no particular reason whatsoever.

Again, she is looking for more than a president: She wants the chief politician to provide her with a reason to live, to explain why she wasn't "just dumped in this world." Others might pose this question to a pastor or a philospher. Liberals expect the president (chief politician) to fulfill that role. She also seems to expect that, if Sen. Edwards were to become president, he could end "hate and prejudice and racism."

She explains that she is working hard in school and then says:

Oh, Jesus -- and I have no idea what I want to do when I grow up. I don't know what I want to be when I'm an adult. But I'm 22 right now. So people are like, "Honey, you are an adult."

Like ponytail guy, she sees herself as a child wants her president to take care of her. She then concludes her statement:

So (mic feedback) sorry. So I know this isn't a question, but, you know, it's about me. It's about me voting for you or supporting somebody who's going to be the next president. So it's all about me right now. .... So just words of encouragement, something, just give me something. It's been really rough.

The Edwards asked the audience to give her a round of applause and, for a moment, she had her wish: it was all about her.

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.