Joanna Brooks turns out to be sillier than I thought

[oxcoug]

This piece in the WashPo has so much sophomoric dreck, it's hard to take her seriously outside of her personal commentary on LDS experience.

Among other things, it becomes clear that she has your average lightweight's notion of what "neo-conservatism" is.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...oNcV_blog.html

[New Mexican Disaster]

It is true that she does not agree with you.

[RobinFinderson]

This piece in the WashPo has so much sophomoric dreck, it's hard to take her seriously outside of her personal commentary on LDS experience.

Among other things, it becomes clear that she has your average lightweight's notion of what "neo-conservatism" is.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...oNcV_blog.html

She makes one reference to "neo-conservatism" and bases it in Mitt's selection of advisers. It is impossible to know whether she has a 'lightweight's' notion of the concept without considering whether Mitt's selection of advisers supports that view. Since you didn't address whether Mitt's selection of advisers fit the neo-con mold, all that is really left in your post are a couple of unsupported insults.

But thank you for the link.

[MarkGrace]

Ox, you should have seen this coming based on her simplistic and monolithic view of Mormon women. You have nobody to blame but yourself.

[SeattleUte]

She's not silly. She's a progmo.

[HauteCoug]

She's not silly. She's a progmo.

I feel like Viking would hate me for agreeing with you. I almost hate agreeing with you. And yet, on this, I do.

[SeattleUte]

I feel like Viking would hate me for agreeing with you. I almost hate agreeing with you. And yet, on this, I do.

It was a joke. I think progmos are silly.

[CardiacCoug]

Joanna is the type of very intelligent and educated but politically irrational woman who will vote for Obama over Romney.

I know because I am married to another one of those women.

[HauteCoug]

It was a joke. I think progmos are silly.

I'm glad to know that all is still right with the world.

Joanna is the type of very intelligent and educated but politically irrational woman who will vote for Obama over Romney.

I know because I am married to another one of those women.

I've finally come to the conclusion that voting for Romney makes mildly more sense. It took a little while to get there. Hopefully they come around, too. Not that I'm campaigning for Romney or anything.

[oxcoug]

She makes one reference to "neo-conservatism" and bases it in Mitt's selection of advisers. It is impossible to know whether she has a 'lightweight's' notion of the concept without considering whether Mitt's selection of advisers supports that view. Since you didn't address whether Mitt's selection of advisers fit the neo-con mold, all that is really left in your post are a couple of unsupported insults.

But thank you for the link.

Come on now Robin. You're too smart to not recognize or to pretend to not recognize that passages like this one are fatuous bullshit:

The LDS Church has also made efforts to reach out to and cooperate with Islamic relief agencies. Do Romney’s foreign policy positions and his choice of foreign policy advisors suggest an LDS faith-informed approach to global politics, or one shaped more by neo-conservatism?

She is obviously implying that there is some clear contrast between an "LDS faith-informed approach to global politics" ( - as if such a thing would be sure to be one way or another another way) which reaches out to and cooperates with Islamic relief agencies and "neo-conservatism." It is clear from context that she is buying into the widespread half-assed notion that neo-conservatism is defined by some kind of heartless realpolitik power politics. It isn't, and the belief that it is has become a sort of shibboleth for spotting posers and lightweights.

Neo-conservatism actually contains much that could be read as an "LDS-influenced" foreign policy - particularly its emphasis on human liberty as the summum bonum of politics and seeing a moral imperative in the need to replace autocrats and tyrants with participatory, pluralist governments.

At this point we are at least 10 years into "neo-conservatism" being ingrained in the national political vocab - and if you are commenting on it in a national newspaper and don't have a firm grasp of what it is "lightweight" is what comes to mind.

Of course this is just one of several examples of silliness in this article. I don't have time right now to treat them all.

[ERCougar]

Come on now Robin. You're too smart to not recognize or to pretend to not recognize that passages like this one are fatuous bullshit:



She is obviously implying that there is some clear contrast between an "LDS faith-informed approach to global politics" ( - as if such a thing would be sure to be one way or another another way) which reaches out to and cooperates with Islamic relief agencies and "neo-conservatism." It is clear from context that she is buying into the widespread half-assed notion that neo-conservatism is defined by some kind of heartless realpolitik power politics. It isn't, and the belief that it is has become a sort of shibboleth for spotting posers and lightweights.

Neo-conservatism actually contains much that could be read as an "LDS-influenced" foreign policy - particularly its emphasis on human liberty as the summum bonum of politics and seeing a moral imperative in the need to replace autocrats and tyrants with participatory, pluralist governments.

At this point we are at least 10 years into "neo-conservatism" being ingrained in the national political vocab - and if you are commenting on it in a national newspaper and don't have a firm grasp of what it is "lightweight" is what comes to mind.

Of course this is just one of several examples of silliness in this article. I don't have time right now to treat them all.

It's always interesting to see otherwise very smart and usually reasonable people become so blinded by ideology that they come across as petty and dumb.
I don't have time right now to go into details.

[oxcoug]

It's always interesting to see otherwise very smart and usually reasonable people become so blinded by ideology that they come across as petty and dumb.
I don't have time right now to go into details.

Yeah, I can see what you mean - super excited for you to "go into details"!

I assume that you mean to demonstrate that she did not intend that contrast between an "LDS-influenced" foreign policy which gets chummy with Islamic relief orgs and neo-conservatism? Or do you also hope to demonstrate some fresh perspective on neo-conservatism? Do you "not have time" or have you just not organized those "details" in your head yet?

Postscript: I also you look forward to explaining how providing an accurate characterization of an ideology is evidence of someone being "blinded" by it. TIA.

[ERCougar]

Yeah, I can see what you mean - super excited for you to "go into details"!

I assume that you mean to demonstrate that she did not intend that contrast between an "LDS-influenced" foreign policy which gets chummy with Islamic relief orgs and neo-conservatism? Or do you also hope to demonstrate some fresh perspective on neo-conservatism? Do you "not have time" or have you just not organized those "details" in your head yet?

Postscript: I also you look forward to explaining how providing an accurate characterization of an ideology is evidence of someone being "blinded" by it. TIA.

Yay! You found some time!

Here's what I mean by "blinded". You've reduced an otherwise very articulate and smart woman to a "lightweight" because you didn't like one line of her article. I get that this is your field and that maybe that kind of gloss is therefore a big deal to you, but it's not even close to germane to her point, so to write her off as a "silly lightweight" seems a little...ideologue-ish?

I wouldn't bat an eye if this came from some posters, but I expect better from you. Which is why I said anything.

Carry on. TIA.

[oxcoug]

Yay! You found some time!

Carry on. TIA.

Yes, I found myself on an excruciatingly boring conference call, in which I am only passively participating.

Here's what I mean by "blinded". You've reduced an otherwise very articulate and smart woman to a "lightweight" because you didn't like one line of her article.
Carry on. TIA.

If that were the case I think you'd have a point - but it isn't just that one line and it isn't just this one article - she made an earlier vacuous critique of Romney's private equity history and how it suggested the wrong (i.e. greedy) vision for America's econ future. So I already knew she was a lightweight on economics. Now I know she also has failed to master basic foreign policy theory. Economics and foreign policy: Basically the only two things I care about in national politics, and evidently two things Joanna shld read up on.

But there is plenty abt this article that I dislike:

Yet, whether by dint of his pragmatic personality or official campaign strategy, candidate Romney continues to studiously avoid discussion of his religion, preferring instead to stress only the elements of his faith that align with campaign priorities. Asking what impact Mitt Romney’s practice of Mormonism would have on his presidency is a legitimate question Mormons and non-Mormons alike should want to know.

First, Romney has always been private about his faith in public settings. Close friends attest to that fact and it predates his political career by a long while. Second - he doesn't "stress elements of his faith that align with campaign priorities" - he doesn't stress any elements of his faith. It is, in fact, a source of massive frustration to people close to Romney that he doesn't talk about some faith-related things that would be good PR for the campaign, like the good deeds he has quietly done for decades.

Her suggestion that Romney should feel compelled to make his faith a campaign centerpiece and talk about it in depth runs against recent precedent on faith and the presidency. The only recent president to talk openly abt his religious exercises was W - and he did it badly, in ways that alienated non-religious voters w/o exactly giving comfort to faith voters (i.e. his discussion of how he prays about all decisions).

Did LDS bureaucratic culture shape Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital as a by-the-book decision maker who falls in line with corporate and institutional agendas? Does he consider minority perspectives? How does he relate to people who disagree with him? Who loses when Romney wins?

This is one of the most vacuous paragraphs. "Does he consider minority perspectives?" is a "when did you stop beating your wife?" kind of question. "How does he relate to people who disagree with him?" Um, well - this is already all over the public record and the answer is that he thrives in and promotes differing perspectives and is known (both in his approach to health care in MA and in the study groups he led while at HBS) for synthesizing different points of view. There are probably a dozen articles out there around this topic. Has she not read them?

Is he a "by-the-book decision maker who falls in line with corporate and institutional agendas"? - well, obviously he isn't, but the way she asks the question implies that he probably is. This is the dude who produced the groundbreaking health care solution that set the standard for health care reform nationally (for better or for worse). Again, there is significant literature - including one great article in the NYT - about how Romney is not dogmatic or ideological, but attacks problems on a case-by-case basis without prejudicial theory going into them.

I concede your point on one level - Joanna is a very intelligent and well-intentioned person who is making a major contribution to the national discourse on our religion. It's possible for someone to be a "lightweight" in one category while being a heavyweight in others. They should just know better to not go into print in those categories where they don't know much.

And I suspect - and here am wander into pure conjecture - Joanna wld really love it if he talked more about Mormonism because it would mean more articles for her to write and more relevance for her in this year's election.

Good times, you carry on as well ERC.

[SeattleUte]

I'm doing my part, assuring everyone I talk to about the election that Mitt doesn't believe any of that stuff anyway.