Why doesn't Harriet have an Ozzie?

The Anchoress -- for whom I have the deepest respect, fallible though she occasionally proves herself to be -- allows one of her readers to start a trail that I think would be much better left untrodden, namely, that conservatives object to Harriet Miers because she is an old maid. Or, rather (since these days we prefer not to raise speculation over sexual history) an unmarried woman of significant cumulative life experience. Not that the Anchoress herself is of that opinion; she doesn't seem to have an opinion one way or the other. She just lets her correspondent raise it; and unfortunately I think it's an issue that would better have been left dormant in this context.

You must understand, though, that I'm not at all sorry Her Anchorship chose to raise the issue -- I just think it was a pretty drastic mistake to raise it in the poisonous Miers context, where at this point no further accusations need to be hurled given the carnage already wreaked; and I wish she had raised it independently. ...continue reading...In my opinion it's a topic that certainly needs to be discussed; but it's very clearly not what's driving conservative reaction against the Miers nomination, and the fact that it's a silly charge in this context may make it harder to take the issue seriously in other, more relevant, contexts. (I repeat that the Anchoress herself does not endorse the accusation.)

How do I strike the right balance here? I think there is, in fact, a certain stigma attached to singleness in evangelical circles, a stigma that I believe strongly is incompatible with Christian charity in general and with I Corinthians 7 in particular. Some time back I wrote (as part of my admittedly extreme idea of "due diligence" for leading a small group Bible study) a translation of and commentary on the first eleven or so chapters of I Corinthians, and I remember summing up my reaction to I Corinthians 7 in the following words:

So I think I’ll close with the following application for Protestant American churches:

If we wish to recapture the New Testament attitude, we have to come to an appreciation, not just of the sacrifices made by those who, for the sake of Christ, have accepted the challenges of singleness in order to devote themselves to God’s service without encumbrance – but also to the very great advantages of the single life. It is ridiculous for a single Christian to feel as though he or she were a second-class citizen (as generally happens in comfortable American Christianity), when Paul says explicitly that he thinks the single state is, at least in his judgment, generally a more blessed state. Whatever else the Church may be, it cannot, without ignoring the sentiments of Paul (who I think also has the mind of Christ), be the Church of the Smug Marrieds.

So is there an issue with evangelical attitudes toward unmarrieds, especially women? Clearly I personally think there is, and the Anchoress's correspondent provides some direct, personal anecdotal evidence. But is that really making a significant contribution to the Miers brouhaha?

Hm. Well, let's just ask this question, shall we? Quick, name the one person who would draw, from the same bloggers who constitute "The Illin'," the broadest support for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination. I'm thinkin'...Condaleeza Rice. You know -- that middle-aged chick who, um, well, has never gotten married. So, um, if you're going to try to say that these same bloggers are out to get Miers because they subconsciously have it in for middle-aged celibate females, you're going to need some pretty damning evidence.

Look, if you're trying to say that Miers's marital status has a small effect on some people, I don't mind that. I would imagine that there are all sorts of things, rationally relevant or not, that have a small effect on some people, including the color of her hair and her admittedly girlish way with birthday card salutations. But that's a far cry from, "I think that is the problem most conservatives have with her." If that's what you think, then you are, quite simply, wrong.

When Her Anchorship's correspondent says, "Please know that I speak from experience on this one" -- well, of course she does, and it's worth paying attention to her experience. But that means...oh, Lord, I have to be gentle here...her personal experience means she is more able to contribute insight, but less capable of maintaining a sound sense of proportion; and her assertion is an assertion of proportion. She isn't saying, "Some conservatives have this problem, along with others," which I think is almost certainly true. She's saying, "This is the problem most conservatives have with her." And that's ridiculous -- especially since the part of the base I would think most likely to have that issue with her (conservative Protestant evangelicals), is not the part of the base that's most up in arms over her nomination.

There is a process called "sharpening" by which our subconscious sorts through all the torrent of input pouring into it all the time, decides what is important, and presents that to our conscious awareness, while not bothering to point out the things it has decided don't matter. And your own experiences shape your subconscious's decisions on what's important and what isn't, based on the natural assumption we all have that what's important to us must be important to everybody else as well. The correspondent is an unmarried woman who has been inconvenienced by this problem; she sees another unmarried woman who is the target of criticism, and identifies with her; then she starts hearing elements of the same old thing she's heard before. So, boom! this must be The Real Problem. She exaggerates the general importance of a problem that has been specifically important to her. And that's what we all do; I'm not slamming her, just saying this is how human beings function, part of how we make sense of our worlds. That's why each blogger's blog has different emphases, after all.

And it's a lot of what determines who trusts Bush and who doesn't, which brings us back to Miers. Michelle Malkin's problem with Miers isn't that Harriet doesn't have an Ozzie. It's that she's being nominated by George Bush with no reasons given, and no reasons ever likely to be given, other than, "You can trust Dubya" -- and Michelle doesn't, and what's more, Michelle doesn't for good reason. The Anchoress trusts the Shrub, but then the Anchoress doesn't have an entire blog devoted solely to the topic of illegal immigration, now, does she? The Anchoress hasn't spent the last five years watching Dubya absolutely...hm, can't find a metaphor that isn't obscene...let's say, show blatant disregard for one of the two or three topics that the Anchoress feels most passionate about, all the while making much (and apparently hypocritical) noise about the importance of that very topic. So when Bush says, "Trust me on this one," Her Anchorship says, “Sure,” but Michelle says simply, "The hell I will." And I'll be blunt about this: Michelle just as much has the right to get mad at Dubya over his failure to live by her agenda, as anybody else (including the Loyalists) has the right to get mad at Michelle for her failure to live by their go-along-with-Dubya agenda.

The President has spent five years giving an enthusiastic middle finger to sizable sections of the Republican Party -- the sections that care about illegal immigration, the sections that care about controlling government spending, the sections that care about local control of education, et alia -- but up until now those sections have put up with it while waiting for the Mother of All Decisions, namely, whom he would choose for the Supreme Court. But the trust stops here. If he wanted to be given carte blanche, unquestioning trust in this, the most important of his decisions, then he should have spent the last five years building up trust rather than tearing it down. And those of you who are mad at the Rebel Alliance for not trusting Bush -- considering how he's already back-stabbed those people on the things they, though not you, consider important, where exactly do you get the chutzpah to demand that they trust him on this one?

What is important to any individual personally, that's what he judges everybody else on. If George W. Bush has given you, to date, the things you have thought were important, and you feel like trusting him here, good on you; but that’s no reason for anybody else with different priorities to trust him. There are conservatives who are conservative for different reasons than yours, and they have been royally screwed by this President, and if you think they're going to trust him on something this important then you need to go cold turkey off of whatever it is you're smokin'. And if you didn't know a long time ago that sizable sections of the conservative household came into the Miers nomination already feeling deeply betrayed by this pseudo-Republican (in their view) President, then you really, really need to get out more. The divisions were already there, and the wounds inflicted by the President were already there. If you didn't know that, and now you're shocked when the Miers nomination makes the wounded conservatives rise up on their hind legs and say, "We have had enough and we're not gonna take it any more," then you have let your own satisfaction with the President's attention to your own agenda, blind you to the pain and frustration he's caused lots of other perfectly well-meaning people.

So, if you go to Michelle Malkin and start accusing her of having a problem with middle-aged single women, you are going to get your eyebrows singed off by the response, and it'll be your own fault because you should know better. Michelle Malkin's problem isn't really Miers at all. It's Dubya. And she has her reasons, and look, by her standards of what's important, they're pretty damn good ones.

And that's why I wish that this issue of prejudice against single people, and especially single women, hadn't been raised in the Harriet Miers context: it's easily refuted in that context, and once people have disposed of an objection in one context, it's hard for them not to feel that it's an invalid objection in all contexts.

Besides, if you want to heal the divisions in the conservative camp, then I'd suggest -- as gently as I can -- that you try understanding the people who feel differently from you, rather than impugning their motives and vilifying their character. Here are two quotes from people who think the Miers nomination is a good one and wish the President were receiving the support they believe he deserves. The first is from Hugh Hewitt, who has been an absolute model of how to wage a discussion on a sensitive topic such as this, and has earned by deep respect in so doing.

Conservatives are deeply split, though the pro-Miers camp is gaining, and the steadiness of the president assures her eventual confirmation. (See this morning's from R. Emmett Tyrrell). But it is an important debate among friends, not an occasion for the sort of vows of eternal enmity that mark the left in its melt-downs.

The anti-Miers caucus is headquartered at NRO, but these are remarkably talented and honorable conservatives, not destroyers of the Republic. Some of their rhetoric was over the top, but that's why we call it rhetoric. When I tease them about being a part of the Bos-Wash Axis of Elitism, it is just that teasing, not a call for their banishment.

And here is a blogger whom, since I'm taking her to task, I won't name, with the f-bombs and other profanities removed:

Y’know, I really do hate the blogosphere, because it’s full of [unwise persons] who have no clue about the real-life Republican base. All this idiotic “he owes us” [folly] is REALLY about “he owes me.” I don’t care if you were ready for a big brawl and are disappointed. I really don’t. What’s pathetic is that you’ve taken that unexpended energy and aimed it inward toward other conservatives, just as many did during the Terri Schiavo brawl.

Fortunately, my party hasn’t changed, but the people in the party have. It used to be that Democrats were the party of infighting and a complete lack of focus on the opposition, but obviously, Republicans have become just like them. “Everyone owes me! Waaaah!” What next, “dissent is the highest form of patriotism?” “Bush lied?” “Impeach Bush?”

Finally, I can’t say I’m terribly surprised by the hysteria. I wrote about the infighting and Bush-bashing a couple of weeks ago, because I was already fed up with all the hand-wringing and whining. Maybe I just need to get [firmly] off the blogosphere or stop reading other blogs, so I won’t have to listen to all the [unfortunate] crying all the time. Bunch of [annoying] whiners. GROW UP.

It appears not to have occurred to the lady (whose blog I generally enjoy, by the way, since I actually like brutal honesty and don't mind profanity) that she is engaging in infighting, a complete lack of focus on the Democratic opposition, crying, and whining; so that it's hard to escape the conclusion that she has, indeed, become just like the Them whom she castigates. But set aside the issue of unintentionally comic dramatic irony, and instead let's ask ourselves about the likely effect of such rhetoric in helping the Other Side see the light. Here are two more quotes, back to back, the first from a complimentary commentor at RedState.org.

I'm a newbie, by the way, dipping my toes into the blogging world because of the Miers nomination. I guess I would qualify myself as a moderate Democrat, but I have to say that I enjoy reading the right/moderate blogs more, if only because I don't come away with the feeling that if I disagree with someone, they will hunt me down and boil my pets.

But now, what about the targets of enraged Miers defenders? Here's one of Michelle Malkin's readers:

Because of the vitriol coming from the Miers supporters aimed at those such as myself who are disappointed with the President's nomination of Miers, I have decided that I am no longer going to be involved in politics.

Which kind of comment do you want to inspire? Which one do you think brings you closer to seeing the fulfillment of your political dreams for the nation?

Look, with my idiosyncratic and iconoclastic political views, I'm a permanent outsider in American politics, doomed always to be an observer, never a participant. Forget the bride stuff, forget being so much as a bridesmaid; it would be a major breakthrough for me even to get invited to the wedding. I'm not bitter like the Kos Kids, because after all they actually think (and have for thirty years thought) that they have a real chance to win, and they keep losing anyway, and that does bad things to you. But I know perfectly well that I have no chance to win; so I never have built up the big emotional investment that turns into bitterness. And as it is with the liberals, so it is with the conservatives, except they've actually won some. And they want to win more, and they let themselves get their hopes up. But you know the trouble with hope? If it's hope that you've placed in human beings, it's gonna nail you sooner or later; and when it does, the chances that you'll respond in charity rather than in outrage are slim indeed. I’m seeing lots of pain. I’m seeing lots of outrage. I'm seeing lots of incredulous disillusionment. What I'm not seeing a lot of, I’m not seeing very much charity, and I’m not seeing a lot of people displaying in their reactions a lot of confidence in Romans 8:28. Sure seems to me a whole lot of unwise trust in people just got exposed as such. And I don’t say that to insult you guys; I say it ’cause I feel for you more than you know – been there, done that, just didn’t happen to get caught in the trap this particular time. My turn will come around again soon enough.

Conservatives are hurting all over the place on this nomination. Malkin and others are deeply hurt and disillusioned by the choice of Miers. Other conservatives (like the Anchoress and my friend Alexandra) are deeply hurt and disillusioned by the actions of the Rebel Alliance. Others don't know what to think about Miers herself; they're just disconsolately hunkering down and wishing it would all end one way or another. But will you guys take some gentle and sincere, albeit admittedly unsolicited, advice from a fellow who's outside your pain looking in, but who understands that you're hurting and is sorry to see it, especially since he finds you all very likable? For your own sake, try going for healing, instead of accusation. For your own sake, try to focus on the pain the Other Side have experienced rather than the pain the Other Side have caused you. For your own sake, try loving your conservative enemies – try to put yourself in their place, and to feel what they're feeling (that's what compassion is, after all), and instead of trying to prove how badly they're behaving, try to empathize with how badly they're feeling. If you could try reaching out to each other without each insisting that the other get with the program, you might start remembering what you have in common, and you might even find a way to move forward together to a solution you can all live with.

Or, of course, you could just keep nuking each other, and then in four years I'll be giving similar advice to my liberal friends when some of them are happy with how President Hilary is doing and others feel betrayed by her. And you can sit around in circles and say to each other, "It's your fault." Won't that be nice?