Reporter Almost Has Idea

This guy, Tom Noah, who apparently writes for Slate.com (you can spell that "p-u-s-s-y") has a beef with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I do, too, as you'll soon see, but his analysis is so childish and so superficial that I think I have to share it with you. Go read it and then come back for my witty rejoinder.

I already published this as a comment on Fagistan, where I saw the original post (go there via the link at right and see the Other Josh's take on it). But this bears repeating. All you filibuster opponents out there, listen up: if you want to be convincing, come up with better arguments. This shit is weak and it will not fly. If you just want to be contrary for the sake of it, then go eat metal shavings--the United States can do without you.

Without further ado, I present my defense of Frank Capra:

"Having just watched the film today--oh mother of all coincidences--I can say that it is fresh in my mind. I must point out that Noah's analysis is fundamentally flawed in that he seems to think that the debate was over whether or not to build a dam; it was not. At issue was the graft that had bought Senator Paine and which would direct this vast moneymaking venture into the pockets of the Taylor machine, a group headed by a man who claimed to be his state's greatest benefactor because he could deliver pork-barrel projects like the Willet Creek Dam. That kind of boosterism still passes for public citizenship today, and thus I would argue that Capra's movie is still relevant today.

Capra's indictment is of machine politics as they survived in the 1930's--and if you think that's reactionary, pick up Lincoln Steffens' The Shame of the Cities from 1904 and you can read more of the same sentiments by someone whose progressive credentials are beyond question.

I would argue that it was precisely by making the object of the crooked politicians' ambition a dam--as you say, a seemingly progressive public works project at the time--that Capra means to suggest the ambiguity involved in the question of "right". There is never any doubt that Senator Smith will, if he succeeds, take away a pile of money from his state, as well as jobs and power (though you shouldn't read too much back into dam-building. Many were not sold on the idea then, either, and what Noah has said about the subject sounds a bit like school textbook reading).

But Stewart's character has a vision that will potentially benefit the entire nation by (and here's the reactionary part that Noah and you could have focused on, but didn't) returning them to nature and the simple, country life that "made our nation great."

Now that, as Smith would say, is hooey. And all the Jackson Lears', Larry Goodwins, and Howard Zinns in the world won't make it true--as you well know from your stated admiration of Hofstadter.

But the point, the point is that the filibuster is quite useful. Capra was filming a fairytale--the film is grotesquely exaggerated in every detail--but he wanted to show that one man, for complicated reasons, could stand up against all odds (and I mean "all", as literally every person in America turns against Smith at one point in the film) and fight the good fight. THAT moral, you might have noticed, WAS lost on the Democrats, who chose safety over principle in accepting the compromise. And, lest you think I am wavering, Smith's WAS a "good fight." It was an utopian scheme he was pushing, pastoral and silly and impossible (and, as I have said, backward-looking and shamefully Populist), and its realization required the cancellation of a big, important federal project. But, it was such a pure vision that it had to be fought for. That's it. It's a simple morality tale--and the dam, believe it or not, is really more of an afterthought.

That kind of thinking--big ideas and such--has largely faded from our political lifestyle. In the age of the New Deal, Capra seems to be offering a critique of the awesome power of the US government to throw around money and privilege, but not to rectify the simple evils of modern life. Have they been remedied yet? Noah might think so, if he thinks about that sort of thing at all. Why else would he see no place for idealism in the Senate? He seems a rather cynical fellow. Perhaps he should take Mr. Smith's words to heart about the press: "If you fellows spent half as much time trying to be right as you do trying to be smart..."

...in other words, I prefer a THINKING journalist over one who just wants to stick out from the bleating pack. Furthermore, and practically speaking, as Noah notes that filibusters have become uncommon due to the ability of majority leaders to count to 60 (as though simple math were a recent invention!), eliminating the filibuster based on this logic would create another, more ominous logic: the absence of any restraint whatsoever, no matter how theoretical, would mean that all policy decisions would effectively be decided on Election Day. If majority rule is what Noah wants--and plenty of "progressives" seem to have convinced themselves that majority somehow equals democracy--then that is what he would get. Everything would be a question of "when" not "if", as the party controlling Congress would have no reason to compromise or even tolerate discussion of its bills--merely push them out rapid-fire without any restraint whatsoever.

In short, Noah is a stupid man and he's making a stupid argument. He's not only wrong on the facts of the movie, but he's just plain wrong about the uses and purpose of the filibuster. His argument relies, too, on guilt by association (eg, Capra's character filibusters a bill, and racists used the filibuster against the Civil Rights Act, etc.), the last resort of a lazy mind. He never once mentioned all the truly vile measures kept OFF the Senate floor by threat of filibuster. I suppose that much research would have taken up too much of his time and he wouldn't have been able to write such a shallow if attention-grabbing column this week. It's not everyday, after all, that one can fill one's contractual obligations without having to do anything more than watch a two-hour classic movie.

By the way, anyone who has ever seen It's a Wonderful Life or You Can't Take It With You (did FDR not also strongly endorse America's business interests? You might as well argue that Capra was a communist!) knows that Capra was no reactionary. He was a moralist. His images reflected his times, and he always puzzled over the transition from the mythical, rural past to the Machine Age present. Wrong as he might have been, his was no great conspiracy to bring down American democracy."

Thank you and goodnight.