Marie Gryphon

I watched the New Hampshire returns last night feeling shellshocked by The New Republic’s disclosure that afternoon of racist screeds printed under presidential candidate Ron Paul’s name in the 1980s and 1990s. I was at a gathering of DC journalists and, two beers in, was ventilating about my disappointment to progressive analyst and journalista Ali Savino. She looked at me as though I had just announced my startling discovery that there was a war in Iraq or genocide in Dafur. This has been around for months, she replied quizzically, as though I must never read the news.

“Well, I had read some vague allegations of racism in blogs,” I stumbled, “but I was happy to ignore vague allegations. The New Republic produced documentary evidence!”

It seems that many left-of-center types had read such allegations and believed that they were probably true, while my fellow-travellers had generally brushed them off as baseless. The simple and obvious explanation for this discrepancy is that people tend to believe what they want to believe, but I think there may be more to it.

Free-market types are particularly skeptical of charges of racism, no matter at whom they are levelled, because almost all of us have been the target of such accusations at least once or twice in our lives, usually by college or grad school classmates. Ann Althouse’s bizarre meltdown at a Liberty Fund event, during which she tearfully demanded that everyone at her table prove that they were not racists, was all too familiar and illustriative.

I don’t think that most people with left-of-center political views casually slander those with whom they have reasonable, legitimate disagreements. Most don’t. But the small minority who do have unfortunately undermined the credibility, at least among non-progressives, of all such charges.

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Oh My.

This ought to end the revolution.

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This latest quasi-gaffe mostly demonstrates that everyone is getting very tired, I think. Still, the Mayor remains stubbornly out of touch with the sentiments of the public who, if the Obama surge means anything, thinks that we’ve offended quite enough for the time being.

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The candidates have just received a tape-recorded question, of sorts, from President Bush about the importance of being guided by fundamental principles.

Romney appeals to security Moms: His fundamental guiding principle is “keeping America strong.”

Giuliani appears not to understand the question: he offers a laundry list (12 points!) of policy reforms, from immigration reform to appointing originalist judges.

Huckabee trys to quote from the Declaration of Independence and flubs it — at least he has the right idea. He ruins it, though, by cycling back to the immigration issue (damn that Lou Dobbs).

Thompson laconically weighs in in favor of the Constitution.

Paul does the same, but with far more energy and credibility: “You can’t pay lip service to the Constitution without following it.”

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We’re 15 minutes into the ABC/Facebook Republican debate, and I’m fascinated by the audience reaction, or complete lack thereof, to Mitt Romney’s remark, which went roughly thus:

The President is not arrogant. He does not have a bunker mentality. He has kept us safe, and we all owe President Bush a debt of gratitude for that.

Romney takes a pregnant pause following what was clearly meant to be an applause line at a GOP primary debate. Crickets! Just having tuned in, I wonder whether there is an audience at this one. The camera pans back, and sure enough they are there.

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I’m enjoying the Obama thing, but I think it’s going to hurt Ron Paul in New Hampshire, as Obama inspires young independents to request a Democratic ballot on Tuesday.

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DC-area Metro riders should grab a copy of the Washington Examiner on Wednesday and check out my education reform advice to Mayor-elect Fenty. It’s part of a five-part series running this week.

The libertarian edge of the blogosphere is atwitter this week about Cato veep Brink Linsey’s love letter to the center-left in TNR. Julian (with a helpful roundup of links) likens libs and progressives to two nervous teenagers edging toward a first kiss, but he may wear the rose-colored glasses of a kid with a hopeless crush. Let’s face it: we need a new coalition more than the Democrats need us. I made our case last night to a bouncer who told me we’d be waiting a very long time to get into this particular establishment.

If my grim assessment is true, of course, it leaves us truly out in the cold for a bit. Perhaps intellectual movements, like individuals, can sometimes mature more quickly on their own.

If you haven’t already, read this interesting smidgen of social analysis by Adam Sternberg in New York Magazine. His subject: the novel nature of genX’s ongoing immaturity. He writes:

This is an obituary for the generation gap. It is a story about 40-year-old men and women who look, talk, act, and dress like people who are 22 years old. It’s not about a fad but about a phenomenon that looks to be permanent. It’s about the hedge-fund guy in Park Slope with the chunky square glasses, brown rock T-shirt, slight paunch, expensive jeans, Puma sneakers, and shoulder-slung messenger bag, with two kids squirming over his lap like itchy chimps at the Tea Lounge on Sunday morning. It’s about the mom in the low-slung Sevens and ankle boots and vaguely Berlin-art-scene blouse with the $800 stroller and the TV-screen-size Olsen-twins sunglasses perched on her head walking through Bryant Park listening to Death Cab for Cutie on her Nano.

The victims here are, of course, today’s teenagers, who surely suffer from a generational identity crisis:

This cascade of pioneering immaturity is no longer a case of a generation’s being stuck in its own youth. This generation is now, if you happen to be under 25, more interested in being stuck in your youth.

Sternberg chooses the short but unevocative “grups” to name this emergent social group, but I prefer the more intuitive “yupsters” or “yindies.” Check it out. After all, if you used to read this blog, there’s a 75% or so chance that this article is about you.

Hat tip: The Roth Brothers