The Party of hope again

In Un-Credibles Andrew Sullivan writes

A large part of the pro-Bush vote - especially among blue state residents - was a vote against the left elite and the cultural attitudes it represents in the public imagination. It was a vote not so much for Bush or his often religious policies (or even the war on terror), but against the post 9/11 left, against Michael Moore and political correctness and Susan Sontag and CBS News, among a host of others.

[The moral of "The Incredibles" is letting] the talented earn the proud rewards of their labor, and the fruits of their destiny, harms no one and actually helps those in the greatest need.

...it is pro-talent and pro-opportunity. It is in favor of the urge to get out there and achieve things without apology. Within the right-left rubric of American cultural discourse, the movie is therefore rightward-tilting.

[In "Team America: World Police"] Stone and Parker never lose sight of the fact that...real enemies are out there; or that America is better than many other whiny world powers, paralyzed by fear and inertia and hypocrisy.

...This is what the left has lost sight of. Americans tend to believe that talent needs no apology; that action is often better than complaint; that their own country, despite its many faults, is still a force for great good in the world. The left tends to view things a little differently. The most shocking manifestation was the way in which the far left saw 9/11 as an indictment of America, rather than of Jihadist nihilism...The legitimate criticisms of the Iraq war seemed at times to emanate from a welter of whining, rather than from a determined attempt to win in Iraq, and from righteous, well-deserved anger that Bush had botched it. Facing a world of unprecedented danger, the Democrats still offered little in the way of a constructive message about what they would do proactively to defeat the enemy. For all his faults, Bush did.

At home, the Democrats spoke too easily of people injured by fate or economic transition or social injustice, while scanting the positive things that people can and will do to change their own circumstances, to beat the odds, to rise above their own limitations. They had a trial lawyer as vice-presidential nomninee [sic] and a candidate who had spent a lifetime in politics achieving very little, even by the standards of the U.S. Senate...

The truth is: there is a conservative majority in this country not because the religious right is a majority but because the Republicans have also been able to corner the market on the themes of achievement, individualism, energy, action. And they have also won over those who disdain the politics of resentment, whining and permanent criticism....Democrats...can win over the blueish voters who voted red last time because the pious, do-good, elite whining of Gore and Teresa and Hillary seemd so alien to many Americans' entrepreneurial, anti-p.c. and irreverent popular culture.

(via Will Wilkinson) Since this seems to be turning into the new conventional wisdom, I guess one should take it with a grain of salt (but I've got high blood pressure!)