SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT
Lee Harris offers a clever yet sober argument that the president is entitled to some mindless support, that "our system that will only work provided that most of the three hundred million people who make it up are spontaneously willing to trust in the authority of a man whom they have never met, and to obey unhesitatingly the commands of a leader that they may personally despise." The part of the article I found most interesting was his depiction of cults of personality and terror:

There are only two choices for a leader placed in this dilemma. He must rule through a cult of personality, or through terror -- or, of course, subtle combinations of these two principles.



The cult of personality is designed to convey a false sense of intimacy with the person in authority: by seeing the friendly and open face of Stalin on every other street corner, or that of Saddam Hussein waving affably from every building, we gradually become convinced that we really know what this man is like, much the way soap opera fans really believe that they know what the actors on their favorite shows must be like at home.



Yet even the most industrious cult of personality cannot make political ends meet unless it holds on to its ultimate trump card, and this is the application of terror as a method of procuring obedience to its authority. Those who do not obey willingly must be forced to obey at their own peril.

This is why a bit of mindless cheerleading is not too high of a price to pay in order to permit our own peculiar system to operate -- because it is a system that will only work provided that most of the three hundred million people who make it up are spontaneously willing to trust in the authority of a man whom they have never met, and to obey unhesitatingly the commands of a leader that they may personally despise.

In short, I have no problem with being called a Bushite cheerleader, provided that those who call me that understand that I will be just as willing to be a Kerry-ite cheerleader if the occasion should arise, and John Kerry were to become our Commander-in-Chief, or even a Hillary-ite cheerleader, if it comes down to that.

Of course, all this assumes that you think our system is beneficent and you want it to work. A lot on the left, perhaps, would like to see the whole system unravel; this column about some Catholic-left pacifists shows an example. I'm schizophrenic. On the one hand, I think America has been an "education to the world" for decades, that free intellectual inquiry, political liberty, economic progress, human rights and the high valuation of human life, exist in the world today largely thanks to us. And yet I disagree with the secular humanist philosophy which elites exploiting "separation of church and state" have installed as America's official ideology, peddled in the public schools to every child. I wonder whether economic growth makes us happier. I think immigration restrictions, a central feature of our constitution and economy, are a transgression against natural law, a crime against humanity so to speak. I can see both sides. Quietist civil disobedience I can respect. The Krugman position, combining a fairly moderate political agenda with fierce partisanship that refuses to concede even mere good intentions to the other side-- this is the untenable position.