Anti-Climacus

LINK: One of the elements of Straussianism which I think is probably most open to parody (though I know of no actual Straussians who do such a thing) is the idea that if one can discern the 'hidden meanings' behind what somebody writes, then you can begin to understand what they're really up to. I'm far too much of a literalist to go looking for alternate meanings when perfectly serviceable ones are already available to me.

Not surprisingly, then, I find this entire post rather amusing. Bush mentioned Yalta! Clearly he knew it was a big thing amongst some fringe conservatives in the 40s and 50s (how many of those are still active politically?)! But wait, all those people are dead! So it must be a codeword for something else!

Honestly.

Two notes:

1. If Harry Reid gave a speech which led to some people on the right claiming that he was sneaking in "code phrases" to some unnamed group of people, people on the left would make fun of them and claim they were clearly out of their minds, and would be right to do so.

2. There's a pretty clear surface meaning: Yalta was the culmination of a foreign policy which basically sold out Eastern Europe in exchange for peace. You can think there was no other pragmatic option available, but you really can't argue that a. the United States and Great Britain could have done something and b. intentionally chose not to. Those are the two big conditions for moral responsibility, so it's not out of bounds to suggest the US and UK ought to be held responsible. You can disagree about the end judgment, but not it's being a fit subject to be judged. I very much agree with Anne Applebaum that it's refreshing to see a governmental leader being willing to admit that anything the country had done in the past was morally wrong.

Also, I particularly like the correspondent to Professor Bainbridge who points out that Yalta happened because the US didn't really have a full exit strategy in place at the time. Snap!