Aug 11th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Ferguson: Not Only Do I Dislike the President’s Budget Policies, He’s Also Black!
I cannot believe the Financial Times agreed to run this lead:
President Barack Obama reminds me of Felix the Cat. One of the best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, Felix was not only black. He was also very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th president of the US as he takes a well-earned summer break after just over six months in the world’s biggest and toughest job.
I really enjoyed The Pity of War and have spent years being amazed by how nutty Ferguson is as a columnist and pundit.
65 Responses to “Ferguson: Not Only Do I Dislike the President’s Budget Policies, He’s Also Black!”
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August 11th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I guarantee that future jeapardy questions will never be able to say “Who is Barack Obama” when the answer is:
“This American president lucked his way through life and into the Oval Office, then took a lot of vacations.”
Who is….George Bush?
This projection is insane. Such right-wing relativism to assume that the same critiques hurled at Bush can just be turned around and directed at Obama who, well, doesn’t have the flaws that Bush had.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:36 am
100% concur. After I saw his interview on CSPAN Books about how the US should act as an empire it was enough for me.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I theorize that Ferguson really likes attention. The Pity of War is good, but a lot of his more recent emissions seem designed to provoke.
It is also important to remember that Felix was a wonderful, wonderful cat. The GOP should also be aware of his bag of tricks.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Yeah, The Pity of War was a great book and made Ferguson’s reputation as a historian. He’s been coasting ever since.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:43 am
The two-volume Rothschild biography was pretty good too, but I would have thought Ferguson would have shut up about the deficit after the smackdown he received at the hands of Krugman a few months ago. A well, another round for my enjoyment.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Whenever he gets into a fix, he reaches into his bag of moderate reform proposals which protect the corrupt and preserve the status quo rather than solving the underlying problem.
Righty-O!
August 11th, 2009 at 11:50 am
That Felix the cat line is in the second sentence. What idiot proofed that thing?
I also like how he lists off all the successes that Obama has had and basically chalks them up to luck.
Stimulus working: Luck.
Pirates killed: Luck.
Republicans acting like rabid idiots: Luck.
Cairo speech: Luck.
He says that Obama makes his own luck, but the whole thing reads like the worlds longest back-handed complement.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:50 am
@Anthony: “This projection is insane. Such right-wing relativism to assume that the same critiques hurled at Bush can just be turned around and directed at Obama who, well, doesn’t have the flaws that Bush had.”
It’s only insane if you ignore its efficacy. This is Karl Rove territory – accuse your opponent of your own weaknesses. That puts them immediately on the defensive, and no cry of “WTF are you talking about – YOU DID THAT!” will be as effective as the original charge. It works like a charm every time and the #$@%!*@ Democrats still don’t/won’t get it.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I loved Felix the Cat. And it would be cool to have a President with a magical bag of tricks.
But seriously-WTF?
August 11th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Meh, I just can’t find this column very remarkable. Relatively sane and level-headed for a right-winger, but attributing Obama’s successes to luck is exactly what we’d expect from people who disagree with his policies. (The lead in the blockquote is the only mention of Obama’s race.) It’s almost undeniable that right now things are doing better than they were when Obama took office, or at least that they aren’t getting worse as quickly, but if you’re committed to a right-wing worldview there must be some explanation for that other than left-wing policies, so… luck.
If all you see about Obama is that he’s black and lucky, well, that does sound like Felix the Cat. Someday there might be an interesting discussion to be had about whether cartoons like Felix are politically correct because of the strong influence blackface and minstrel shows had on them, but that’s beside the point right now. These days, conservatives are unabashedly photoshopping Obama into “tribal chieftain” garb with a bone in his nose. Comparing him to a cartoon which happens to have blackface influence is really tame compared to how conservatives usually treat racial issues.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:51 am
and have spent years being amazed by how nutty Ferguson is as a columnist and pundit.
’twas ever thus, back when he was writing regular columns for the British press. You could get away with that line in the Telegraph or even the Times.
To my mind, he’s a pretty cynical operator: he donned the pith-helmet as a neo-imperialist when it played well at the AEI, and now that neoconnerie is out of fashion, he’s Global Financial Historian (admittedly, his original speciality) when the market is hot.
(He hasn’t done any proper primary history in ages, even though plenty of the archival research for his primary work in the late 90s was palmed off onto grad students in exchange for cash and networking.)
As for The Pity of War, plenty of Great War historians are deeply unimpressed with the analysis, and that’s not just about defending their patch. When he’s not seeking out the best market for Media History — and he’s definitely a showboater — Ferguson keeps riding his hobby-horse about the avoidability of 1914-18 and his counterfactual vision of a relatively stable German continental hegemony.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Forgot one piece of the puzzle – because Republicans effectively marginalized our original complaints about Bush, and because it was longer than 3 news cycles ago, the GOP can safely rely on this tactic working for them as if these charges have never seen the light of day.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Meh, I just can’t find this column very remarkable. Relatively sane and level-headed for a right-winger, but attributing Obama’s successes to luck is exactly what we’d expect from people who disagree with his policies.
Well if you look objectively at Obama you can say he has been lucky and he has made his own luck, and of course success breeds success.
As an Obamabot I feel this is a good thing, whereas Ferguson may feel it’s a bad thing.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Conceding all that, Cyrus, you’d have to expect that an editor would look at this and say, “um, you’re gonna have to change that first paragraph.”
August 11th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I suppose you could say that Barack Obama is lucky to be intelligent, hard-working, charismatic, driven, politically astute, personally charming and good looking.
He’s also lucky that he was born in America, or else those claiming he wasn’t would be right.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I’ve got nothing to say about the rest of the column (I haven’t read it, and in any case I’m hardly likely to agreee with it), but saying Obama’s like Felix The Cat because they’re both Black and lucky is pretty goldarn stupid, incendiary, and hopefully self-destructive.
After all, lots of cartoon characters are absurdly, humorously lucky, even the losers – how many Acme safes dropping on your head can you survive? If he just wanted to insult Obama and say he’s doing OK by dumb luck, he should have instead invoked Mickey Mouse. After all, Mickey, like Obama, has generously proportioned ears. And I don’t know whether the slangy adjective “Mickey mouse” us used in Ferguson’s native Britain to mean slapdash, poorly conceived, and liable to fail later, but presumably Ferguson’s main audience for his neoconservative musings about the US is within the US. Seems to me Ferguson could have invoked Mickey to make his claims at least as effectively – if only he hadn’t instead fixated on race. Pity.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Ferguson is pretty much a shit historian. Pity of War full of silly speculation sandwiched around grad student research. Cash Nexus was on the stuff I know best, and it was either rehash of others’ stuff or wrong, depending on the part. He made his reputation on the Rothschilds which I admittedly have never read. But his academic cred is largely now with schools who like people who get on TV and have dinner with important people.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
MY, get a grip! Ferguson is a jerk, but he’s not that much of a jerk. This is just a stupid lede meant to be clever, but isn’t.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Just remember that the GOP is a criminal enterprise — it’s not driven by ideas. After that, nothing they do is surprising or even inexplicable.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
MY, get a grip! Ferguson is a jerk, but he’s not that much of a jerk. This is just a stupid lede meant to be clever, but isn’t.
If he
a) wrote this lede
b) thought it was clever
it therefore follows that he is
c) a rather special sort jerk guilty of horrible taste.
Also, the analysis doesn’t make any fucking sense. Since when does taking office in the middle of two failing wars and the worst recession of the last century qualify as very, very lucky?
August 11th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I’m not that concerned with his calling Obama black, since he is black. But I don’t see how you could call someone who’s inherited the problems Obama has and faces the kind of mindless and incompetent opposition he faces “lucky”.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Anything and everything that is negative about barry is decried as racist. EVERYTHING. I don’t believe I can find a single case where he has been criticized that the race card hasn’t been trotted out.
Who gives a hoot anymore. The dude is black, so what.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Its pretty cheeky all right, and if we really lived in a post-racial society it wouldn’t be a problem. But we aren’t. I am surprised too.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Who gives a hoot anymore. The dude is black, so what.
So when you write a column that calls everything he does lucky (and therefore implying he’s not all that skillful or talented), it’s rather odd to specifically compare him with a black cartoon character. And it’s even more odd to specifically point out that that character is black, just like Obama. You’re correct that that should have no relevance whatsoever, so I have no idea why he mentioned it. One explanation is to reinforce the idea that a black leader succeeding is doing so through luck and not skill, because in part of his blackness. Another explanation is that the author is an idiot, or didn’t realize how what he wrote could be construed. I have no idea which is the case.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Anything and everything that is negative about barry is decried as racist.
Well, I don’t do that. But in this case, the guy didn’t even try to hide the ball.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Socrates is a man.
Los Angeles is in California.
Therefore, Socrates surfs.
Ferguson inserted race into an argument that fails for reasons covered in the 2nd day of logic class. (Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle)
The insertion of race was meaningless to the logic but fundamental to the rhetoric. I think calling Ferguson a racist jackass is warranted.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Call it ‘talent’, or ‘athleticism’, not ‘luck’, and you have any one of a million thumbsuckers from the sports section.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
[...] Matt Yglesias: I really enjoyed The Pity of War and have spent years being amazed by how nutty Ferguson is as a columnist and pundit. [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Oh Matt. Don’t you know that vaguely racist remarks are only to be condemned when Americans make them? When upper class British people make off-the-cuff racist remarks we’re supposed to think they’re cute and uninhibited. Because they’re not bound by “political correctness”, don’t you see. So, yes. Right. Just so.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
The alternative hypothesis is that Obama succeeds because he’s right, and, not coincidentally, a majority of Americans recognize this. So, ‘black and magic’ from a conservative is no surprise.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
re: c) a rather special sort jerk guilty of horrible taste.
i.e., a high Tory.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
On the comment about Felix the Cat being related in origin to minstrel shows, I was under the impression that Felix (by the way, my kids when young absolutely loved the really old Felix cartoons I’d got on a two buck tape in a now defunct department store) originated in Germany — how does that relate to minstrel shows? (For all I know, of course, minstrel shows may have been as big on the continent as Buffalo Bill.)
I may, of course, be wrong about the Germany part.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
the kind of mindless and incompetent opposition he faces
What makes you think the opposition is mindless and incompetent? It strikes me as highly organized around a perfectly coherent strategy of infinite obstruction. Which is fine. It’s what the Democrats ought to have done during the Bush administration. And it might work. But it also might not, which is what the President is counting on.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Njorl:
I suppose you could say that Barack Obama is lucky to be intelligent, hard-working, charismatic, driven, politically astute, personally charming and good looking.
He’s also lucky that he was born in America, or else those claiming he wasn’t would be right.
I agree which is why I was for him in the primary. I do think he has been lucky regarding certain events beyond his control, which is lucky for us. Of course he has been unlucky about other things, but really any sort of success in any realm depends on luck.
I do agree the right calls him lucky just in order to diminish him.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Some prominent Right wing luminary is going to slip, and soon, and fire out the N-word. Loud and unambiguously.
I sincerely hope it is Rush. How long can that racist, purple-faced motherfucker sustain euphemism speak with Obama in the White House? Surely, not forever.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
This all about having a n***er in charge of the country.
This rocks their world and their world shouldn’t be rocked, it scares the crap out of them.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I do think he has been lucky regarding certain events beyond his control, which is lucky for us.
He was lucky that Jack Ryan got caught up in a sex scandal. He is lucky that the Republicans are in thrall to their insane base, which makes it harder for them to compete for the middle. He was lucky that Jeff Sessions, who can be safely dismissed because he’s indisputably racist, just happened to be the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. As Ferguson says, Obama was lucky that the rescue mission he ordered of that captain held hostage by Somali pirates went well.
As far as we know, all this was stuff he had nothing to do with, it just turned out well. And there’s a lot of things that might look like luck but in fact were the result of those character traits you quote, and probably just as many instances of the reverse, and times when those traits you quote were needed to take advantage of a lucky break. Et cetera. The point is, I don’t think it’s a defining feature or sufficient to explain his success, but I do think Obama looks unusually lucky.
On the comment about Felix the Cat being related in origin to minstrel shows, I was under the impression that Felix … originated in Germany — how does that relate to minstrel shows?
According to Wikipedia, Felix the Cat’s origin is American. It’s unclear whether most of the credit should go to a New Jersey-born cartoonist named Otto Messner (his name may be where you got the idea that it was German) or an Australian-born film producer who worked with Messner in New York, but in either case, Felix isn’t German.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
(For what it’s worth: Ferguson’s oldest son is called Felix.)
August 11th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
@dude: “I don’t believe I can find a single case where he has been criticized that the race card hasn’t been trotted out.”
Yet you fail to list even a single instance where the race card WAS trotted out. It’s easy to feel the way you do if you’re one of those reverse-racism warriors, but since it hasn’t actually happened I can only assume you weigh the opinions of anonymous internet commenters equally with columnists and elected politicians.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
The point is, I don’t think it’s a defining feature or sufficient to explain his success, but I do think Obama looks unusually lucky.
He was lucky about the economy – relatively speaking – as were we all.
The stimulus could have turned out to be way too small, and/or the failing to nationalize the banks could have been a fatal mistake. Failing to do one or both of those could have meant the economy wouldn’t turn around if we had been unlucky. It was a known unknown.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I’m not even sure that that’s the most offensive part of the article. I mean, I’m not sure because I’m failing to understand what the hell Ferguson is saying. How, exactly, can a speech be the product of luck? Does he think that Obama randomly picked words out of a dictionary, strung them together, and just by chance that speech was produced?
But, wait, no, he says, “In foreign policy, as in economic policy, this is a president who makes his own luck.” Making one’s own luck means, of course, succeeding by hard work and/or skill, rather than by chance. So despite previously saying, “[Obama] was also very, very lucky.”, now he’s saying luck has nothing to do with it?
But, wait, immediately after that he says, “If you still don’t believe this man is lucky, think of those Somali pirates shot dead back in April by Navy Seals rescuing Captain Richard Phillips. If Jimmy Carter had tried a stunt like that, the Seals would have hit Capt Phillips and missed the pirates.”
So he’s saying it is luck? And this weird mystical force would somehow have changed the path of the bullets had Jimmy Carter been sitting in the Oval Office?
To take a highly accomplished black man and casually attribute all his success to luck would be, of course, racist. But Ferguson seems to praise Obama, saying for example that “his stimulus bill has clearly made a significant contribution to stabilising the US economy” and that he “makes his own luck”, and *then* attributes all his success to luck. I’m not even sure what that is. Some kind of newly developed ultra-racism that Ferguson has been experimenting with? It’s mystifying.
(I won’t even add that this column makes absolutely no sense unless one actually believes in luck. Which would be a deeply silly thing to do. Not as deeply silly, I suppose, as writing this column though.)
August 11th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Let’s not forget the insult here to trained military professionals, who can only make a shot if they’re ‘lucky.’
August 11th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I’m going to take a contrarian view here and suggest that maybe “black” is just a reference to the belief that black cats are unlucky, and wasn’t intended as a racial commentary at all. The word “black” doesn’t appear anywhere else in the article.
I’ve never heard any suggestion that Felix the Cat was intended to be a black (in the sense of racial minority) character.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I’m going to take a contrarian view here and suggest that maybe “black” is just a reference to the belief that black cats are unlucky . . . .
That doesn’t make sense. Try:
The construction “not only X but also Y” doesn’t make sense when X and Y directly contradict each other.
The guy was saying Obama reminded him of Felix because Obama is black and lucky. That is really it.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Let’s not forget the insult here to trained military professionals, who can only make a shot if they’re ‘lucky.’
Navy Seals aren’t supermen. Even for trained snipers, it seems like quite an accomplishment to kill three men with only three shots from the deck of a ship, across several hundred yards. I don’t know, maybe that’s routine, I’m no expert, but without any further details I’d call it… lucky. Calling this an insult to America’s Armed Forces (R)(TM), esq. is stupid.
I won’t even add that this column makes absolutely no sense unless one actually believes in luck. Which would be a deeply silly thing to do. Not as deeply silly, I suppose, as writing this column though.
“Actually believes in luck”? What does that even mean? This is getting ridiculous.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Persia: Let’s not forget the insult here to trained military professionals, who can only make a shot if they’re ‘lucky.’
He said nothing about the snipers being lucky. It was the luck (or lack thereof) of the guy sitting in the Oval Office that would be guiding their bullets.
Cyrus: “Actually believes in luck”? What does that even mean? This is getting ridiculous.
Sorry, that came out wrong. I should have said, “actually believes in luckiness” (you can see why I instinctively went for the less clumsy word). Ferguson apparently believes that if Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter were to go to Vegas together and play the slots, Obama would over time do better than Carter with a probability greater than 1/2. I think this is a pretty silly thing to believe. I hope I’m not alone in that.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Nick,
I won’t even add that this column makes absolutely no sense unless one actually believes in luck. Which would be a deeply silly thing to do.
Only spoiled, i.e, unknowingly lucky, people don’t believe in luck.
I’d say progressives take luck into account, whilst glibertarians don’t believe it exists.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
if Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter were to go to Vegas together and play the slots, Obama would over time do better than Carter with a probability greater than 1/2.
That’s not what people have been saying. Anyway I’d wager Ferguson lots of cash that “runaway” deficits won’t test Obama’s luck, which seems to be the point of his column.
Ferguson is an ideologue of the Pete Peterson variety.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
There’s a difference between the luck of being born into the ‘lucky sperm club’ vs the ‘luck’ of giving a presidential order and having it successfully/unsuccessfully carried out. Ferguson, strangely enough, is saying that if Carter had given the order to kill the pirates, the bullets would have missed the pirates and probably have killed a bald eagle to boot.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Oh but the British have a much more “relaxed” view of race relations.
My theory: Ferguson’s books have really good editors.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I think people are getting confused by different meanings of words beginning with “luck”. Of course, their usage is somewhat confused to begin with. “Obama has been really lucky” can just mean that things have happened to work out in ways which favor him, purely by chance. But if we just change the tense to “Obama *is* really lucky”, then we’re saying that somehow chance works differently for Obama than it does for, say, Jimmy Carter. Which is a silly thing to think.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I’ve never heard any suggestion that Felix the Cat was intended to be a black (in the sense of racial minority) character.
Neither have I, all I said was “the strong influence blackface and minstrel shows had on” early cartoons of Felix’s era (and I wouldn’t fight over “strong”), which I don’t think is a controversial statement.
And actually, since I first mentioned it in this thread I’ve tried to find links to what I remember, but have been disappointed. YouTube is blocked at work for me; otherwise, I’d browse around a bit. I know there’s at least one cartoon I’ve seen in included in a sort of history of animation presentation/documentary thing where the influence is unmistakeable. The character is definitely a jolly, dim-witted, black person, dancing and pratfalling to musical accompaniment, drawn in the same rounded style as Mickey and Felix. Maybe this character, but I think it was a different one.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Ferguson can be compared to Bullwinkle. Watch him pull a rabbit out of his ass.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Matt,
Take a couple of Midols and lay down until you get over your fainting spell.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
“I think people are getting confused by different meanings of words beginning with “luck”. Of course, their usage is somewhat confused to begin with”
I don’t think people believe Obama is magically lucky, like the Cooler is unlucky or like Harry Potter after he drinks the lucky potion, however he’s like Michael Jordon or – insert talented hardworking white guy – who are so “clutch” they seem like they are “lucky.”
August 11th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I also used to be a big Ferguson fan despite him being a tory. The Pity of War was great, The War of the World had some great insight but reached some bad conclusions. When I saw the The Ascent of Money documentary where he praised the “Chicago Boys” and seemed to take the view that Pinochet was a nice guy who just went a little too far, I completely gave up on him. It seems he’s a shill for the American libertarian right these days.
August 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Like I said, Poptarts, I have absolutely no idea what the hell Ferguson was saying that thing. I could come up with several interpretations. None of them made much sense.
August 11th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
@45 Cyrus: “Navy Seals aren’t supermen. Even for trained snipers, it seems like quite an accomplishment to kill three men with only three shots from the deck of a ship, across several hundred yards.”
The was no luck involved.
The Bainbridge convinced the one of the four pirates to come on board, which reduced targets to a more manageable three. The Bainbridge also convinced the pirates to allow their boat to be toed. This allowed the Bainbridge to maneuver the pirate boat into calm seas. It also meant the pirate boat would be riding the smooth wake of the Bainbridge. It also meant the kill shots would be taken from no more than 50 yards.
A trained sniper can easily fill a one inch target from one hundred yards. If the shots were difficult, it was only for the pressure of the moment. The shots themselves, were relatively easy. What required great skill was synchronizing the shots, making sure all three targets were visible when the snipers simultaneously squeezed their triggers.
Things could have gone wrong. A sniper could have missed. But the situation had been managed in such a way as to produce the highest possible odds of a favorable outcome. That is pure skill.
August 11th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Fair enough, I obviously didn’t know the details.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Not commenting on the article but just a note on black cats – Ferguson is a brit, British superstition is that Black Cats are lucky, not unlucky
August 11th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Pity of war is right radical prophaganda, endorsing the Dolchstoßlegende that was already a core theme of Adolf Hitler.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Fergusson is nost stupid. He goes as far to the right as he can get away with in Britain. He is completly systematic about it, no matter which subject, he always takes the position of a microscopic small minority under historian when hes not even the first one with any notable status that just “happens” to be the one that was historically mainly endorsed by right radicals and/or backup hardcore conservative politics today.
August 12th, 2009 at 1:25 am
Boy, inheriting this economy, fubar’d occupations, and bat shit insane opposition was sure “lucky”, man I wish I was that lucky.
August 12th, 2009 at 8:18 am
James Wolcott points out in his blog that Ferguson wrongly describes Felix the Cat as lucky; he is, in fact, resourceful and clever:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2009/08/niall-ferguson-the-noted-historian.html
August 12th, 2009 at 8:55 am
for me being an “old European” a black cat associates first of all and exclusively with encountering bad luck
- a black cat crossing the street in front of you etc. –
so the insinuation by the headline here is highly unfair to Ferguson (whom I happen not to admire)
though maybe Ferguson, being a citizen of the world, should have known better, but shouldn’t his presumably sophisticated American readers/commentators also know better, i.e. that black may be used in contexts totally free of any ethnic references?