Ezra Klein:
And this is how it should be. It's a good thing that Iowa and New Hampshire don't simply decree the winner of the presidential race. It's a good thing that more states will participate, and the various candidates will have more time to hone their pitches, broaden their appeals, demonstrate their resonance in different regions and with different demographics. The campaign's been long, but the election remains young.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Ugh
19% of the vote in: Hillary 40%; Obama 36%
This night is proving as dispiriting as last week's was uplifting.
This night is proving as dispiriting as last week's was uplifting.
Now They Tell Us
From DHinMI's DailyKos post:
So, Boren and the other losers waited until now to start preaching bipartisanship?
Yeah. I don't recall any of these folks demanding a bipartisan cabinet when W was elected or re-elected.
[Boren's] correct that during the Cold War the parties worked much more closely and cooperatively on national security issues. But after the Cold War, Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich unleashed a scorched-earth politics, and Karl Rove refined it to the point that former Georgia Democrat Max Cleland's support of union rights for federal employees to be brought under the umbrella of the new Department of Homeland Security was used by the Republican party to run ads linking Cleland with Osama bin Laden. The Republican party no longer accepts opposition as American; for them, domestic opponents can and are demonized as anti-American.
(snip)
To accomplish anything, the next Democratic administration and Congress won't have to work with the Republicans, they will have to prevail over them. To prevail will require people with backbone. We need people who recognize that it was Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol and the Republican party that purposively blocked any attempt at health care reform in 1993 and 1994. It was the Republican party that unanimously opposed Bill Clinton's 1993 budget, which led to the balanced budgets of the late 1990's. It was the Republican party that attacked the foundations of the New Deal and precipitated the government shutdown in 1995. It was the Republican party that in 1998 impeached Bill Clinton, ostensibly because of a blowjob.
I don't recall hearing anything from this crowd when the Project for a New American Century was busy penning its screeds and especially in the lead up to the Iraq war and occupation when anything less than full-throated "support" for "liberating" Iraq was grounds for purging American universities from all dissenters and herding all us liberals into concentration camps. The difference now, obviously, is the Old Guard is spooked that the failed regime is about to be repudiated.
So, Boren and the other losers waited until now to start preaching bipartisanship?
Yeah. I don't recall any of these folks demanding a bipartisan cabinet when W was elected or re-elected.
[Boren's] correct that during the Cold War the parties worked much more closely and cooperatively on national security issues. But after the Cold War, Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich unleashed a scorched-earth politics, and Karl Rove refined it to the point that former Georgia Democrat Max Cleland's support of union rights for federal employees to be brought under the umbrella of the new Department of Homeland Security was used by the Republican party to run ads linking Cleland with Osama bin Laden. The Republican party no longer accepts opposition as American; for them, domestic opponents can and are demonized as anti-American.
(snip)
To accomplish anything, the next Democratic administration and Congress won't have to work with the Republicans, they will have to prevail over them. To prevail will require people with backbone. We need people who recognize that it was Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol and the Republican party that purposively blocked any attempt at health care reform in 1993 and 1994. It was the Republican party that unanimously opposed Bill Clinton's 1993 budget, which led to the balanced budgets of the late 1990's. It was the Republican party that attacked the foundations of the New Deal and precipitated the government shutdown in 1995. It was the Republican party that in 1998 impeached Bill Clinton, ostensibly because of a blowjob.
I don't recall hearing anything from this crowd when the Project for a New American Century was busy penning its screeds and especially in the lead up to the Iraq war and occupation when anything less than full-throated "support" for "liberating" Iraq was grounds for purging American universities from all dissenters and herding all us liberals into concentration camps. The difference now, obviously, is the Old Guard is spooked that the failed regime is about to be repudiated.
Obama and Progressive Politics
Today in Concord, NH:
Obama's speech underwent another subtle shift, too. There was much more emphasis placed on the word "progressive," a much more explicit recognition of Obama's potential meaning to a particular ideological movement. He spoke of "Independents who recognize that the current course we're on is not working, and are ready to form a coalition with Democrats for progressive change," chided the observers who said there was no way all these diverse individuals would turn out "for a progressive Democrat." I've not heard that word so oft-repeated at his rallies before. Indeed, the whole speech seemed the product of Obama's thinking about how he could use his political potency to shift the center in America to the left. "We will send a message," he said, "that we will not only end the war in Iraq, not only bring our troops home, but we will change the mindset that got us into that war in the first place." In some ways, it's that grandeur of ambition that separates Obama from Clinton Even before he said so explicitly, many progressives I know spoke of his ability not to change policies, but to change minds -- to do for progressivism what Reagan did for conservatism. Clinton, they agreed, was competent and well-meaning, but lacked that potential.
This is what I have been waiting for, Hoping for.
Obama's speech underwent another subtle shift, too. There was much more emphasis placed on the word "progressive," a much more explicit recognition of Obama's potential meaning to a particular ideological movement. He spoke of "Independents who recognize that the current course we're on is not working, and are ready to form a coalition with Democrats for progressive change," chided the observers who said there was no way all these diverse individuals would turn out "for a progressive Democrat." I've not heard that word so oft-repeated at his rallies before. Indeed, the whole speech seemed the product of Obama's thinking about how he could use his political potency to shift the center in America to the left. "We will send a message," he said, "that we will not only end the war in Iraq, not only bring our troops home, but we will change the mindset that got us into that war in the first place." In some ways, it's that grandeur of ambition that separates Obama from Clinton Even before he said so explicitly, many progressives I know spoke of his ability not to change policies, but to change minds -- to do for progressivism what Reagan did for conservatism. Clinton, they agreed, was competent and well-meaning, but lacked that potential.
This is what I have been waiting for, Hoping for.
Monday, January 07, 2008
The Problem with Edwards and Hillary
First I read Ezra Klein's post about the emotive Edwards.
Edwards is more likely to tour with the sort of guests you'd see on daytime talk: Ordinary people who have undergone extraordinary hardship. Where the other candidates closed their Iowa campaigns with sincere speeches laying out the arguments for their candidacies, Edwards ran a commercial where a burly Iowan spoke emotionally of the moment when Edwards leaned down, stared his seven-year-old son in the eyes, and promised to fight for his father's job.
This irritates the Press Corps. It's schmaltzy and raw. As Mark Halperin put it in his summary of Edwards' most recent debate performance, "His habit of recounting moving stories about anonymous (and, sorry, random) people sometimes makes him sound like a mayoral candidate in a small Southern hamlet."
Yeah, no kiddin'.
While it's obviously desirable that our candidates at all levels of government have a concern with people "who have undergone extraordinary hardship", should a future president pledge to "fight for his father's job"? I don't know all the context here, but there are some 150 million workers in the U.S. Is a president supposed to "fight" for everyone's job?
Similarly, the cases of the liver patient and the person with a 50-year cleft palate are tragic. But are these individual cases--and the probable millions around the country like them-- these specific cases, the sorts of things that presidents should be pledging to eradicate? Can we be sure that a universal, government financed and managed health care system (which I assume is Edwards' focal point here) would have solved either of these two individual cases--or again the millions around the country like them?
One problem with Edwards' campaign is it has sounded at times very close to a one-issue campaign (health care). That would not necessarily be bad, except Edwards has been regarded as among the top tier of candidates, which should presumably signify that he is devoting somewhat equal time to issues for which the president--and no one else in the country--would be answerable to once in office.
All of this is to suggest--at the risk of sounding cold and indifferent to the very real problems he has been highlighting--that Edwards is campaigning as if he doesn't have a strong grasp of the various responsibilities of the president or that he would be able to prioritize very well. His type of campaign also begs the question of how, after having implied that he would solve every individual citizen's problems, he would deal with the fact that such would not be possible, and that other levels of government and sections of society might be better equiped to handle them.
In the case of the liver transplant and cleft palate patients, is it unreasonable to ask what alternatives were available? If that's my gut reaction--and I'm pretty liberal about these things from a policy perspective--you can be pretty sure that many other people with more conservative political instincts than me might also wonder the same thing? Is it a sure thing that in the case of the liver patient that the insurance company is fully at fault? Could the liver transplant have been performed by the doctors/hospital with an eye towards settling the finances of it later on, after the person's life had been spared? Of course most doctors and hospitals are not in the profession completely from altruism. But neither are the insurance companies. They all want to make money. And again, would a universal health care system of the kind Edwards favors be guaranteed to have worked in this case?
Klein implies that he favors Edward's emotive appeals and sense of purpose.
Maybe. But his very next post examines Hillary Clinton's town hall strategy and finds it lacking:
If every voter in New Hampshire could ask Hillary their special snowflake of a question, she'd win the state. No matter what the query, she gives a long, detailed, comprehensive response. But it is a response specific to the question, to that voter and the six others interested in a disquisition on that issue. The rest of the crowd sort of stares at their feet. Then a new question comes up, and a new set of nine voters are engaged, and the rest of the crowd gets a soup-to-nuts explanation of No Child Left Behind.
Unlike Obama and Edwards, who step before a crowd and try to convert them all at once with a rousing speech, Hillary is trying to convert them all one at a time, with a demonstration of mastery over their issues. As a wonk, I love this tendency to speak in policy. Her answer on NCLB was the best explanation of the policy that I've ever heard. But I also watched voters begin to trickle out after 45 minutes, even as Hillary continued to talk, to answer, to convince. It's too much detail, too overwhelming, too disconnected from themes.
But these individually-focused approaches by Edwards and Clinton are both problematic, no? They sound very similar to me. One candidate appears to show that he would respond to every individual citizen's unique problems and the other candidate appears to show that she would respond to every....you get the idea?
Both Edwards and Hillary seem too lost in specifics, the nuts and bolts of policy or the peculiarities of any individual's situation. I don't think this is necessarily healthy for a presidential candidate. Like Mark Halpern, I can see why some observers are made uneasy by such campaigns.
Edwards is more likely to tour with the sort of guests you'd see on daytime talk: Ordinary people who have undergone extraordinary hardship. Where the other candidates closed their Iowa campaigns with sincere speeches laying out the arguments for their candidacies, Edwards ran a commercial where a burly Iowan spoke emotionally of the moment when Edwards leaned down, stared his seven-year-old son in the eyes, and promised to fight for his father's job.
This irritates the Press Corps. It's schmaltzy and raw. As Mark Halperin put it in his summary of Edwards' most recent debate performance, "His habit of recounting moving stories about anonymous (and, sorry, random) people sometimes makes him sound like a mayoral candidate in a small Southern hamlet."
Yeah, no kiddin'.
While it's obviously desirable that our candidates at all levels of government have a concern with people "who have undergone extraordinary hardship", should a future president pledge to "fight for his father's job"? I don't know all the context here, but there are some 150 million workers in the U.S. Is a president supposed to "fight" for everyone's job?
Similarly, the cases of the liver patient and the person with a 50-year cleft palate are tragic. But are these individual cases--and the probable millions around the country like them-- these specific cases, the sorts of things that presidents should be pledging to eradicate? Can we be sure that a universal, government financed and managed health care system (which I assume is Edwards' focal point here) would have solved either of these two individual cases--or again the millions around the country like them?
One problem with Edwards' campaign is it has sounded at times very close to a one-issue campaign (health care). That would not necessarily be bad, except Edwards has been regarded as among the top tier of candidates, which should presumably signify that he is devoting somewhat equal time to issues for which the president--and no one else in the country--would be answerable to once in office.
All of this is to suggest--at the risk of sounding cold and indifferent to the very real problems he has been highlighting--that Edwards is campaigning as if he doesn't have a strong grasp of the various responsibilities of the president or that he would be able to prioritize very well. His type of campaign also begs the question of how, after having implied that he would solve every individual citizen's problems, he would deal with the fact that such would not be possible, and that other levels of government and sections of society might be better equiped to handle them.
In the case of the liver transplant and cleft palate patients, is it unreasonable to ask what alternatives were available? If that's my gut reaction--and I'm pretty liberal about these things from a policy perspective--you can be pretty sure that many other people with more conservative political instincts than me might also wonder the same thing? Is it a sure thing that in the case of the liver patient that the insurance company is fully at fault? Could the liver transplant have been performed by the doctors/hospital with an eye towards settling the finances of it later on, after the person's life had been spared? Of course most doctors and hospitals are not in the profession completely from altruism. But neither are the insurance companies. They all want to make money. And again, would a universal health care system of the kind Edwards favors be guaranteed to have worked in this case?
Klein implies that he favors Edward's emotive appeals and sense of purpose.
Maybe. But his very next post examines Hillary Clinton's town hall strategy and finds it lacking:
If every voter in New Hampshire could ask Hillary their special snowflake of a question, she'd win the state. No matter what the query, she gives a long, detailed, comprehensive response. But it is a response specific to the question, to that voter and the six others interested in a disquisition on that issue. The rest of the crowd sort of stares at their feet. Then a new question comes up, and a new set of nine voters are engaged, and the rest of the crowd gets a soup-to-nuts explanation of No Child Left Behind.
Unlike Obama and Edwards, who step before a crowd and try to convert them all at once with a rousing speech, Hillary is trying to convert them all one at a time, with a demonstration of mastery over their issues. As a wonk, I love this tendency to speak in policy. Her answer on NCLB was the best explanation of the policy that I've ever heard. But I also watched voters begin to trickle out after 45 minutes, even as Hillary continued to talk, to answer, to convince. It's too much detail, too overwhelming, too disconnected from themes.
But these individually-focused approaches by Edwards and Clinton are both problematic, no? They sound very similar to me. One candidate appears to show that he would respond to every individual citizen's unique problems and the other candidate appears to show that she would respond to every....you get the idea?
Both Edwards and Hillary seem too lost in specifics, the nuts and bolts of policy or the peculiarities of any individual's situation. I don't think this is necessarily healthy for a presidential candidate. Like Mark Halpern, I can see why some observers are made uneasy by such campaigns.
Deep Campaign Thought of the Day
For about the second time in as many days, there's a totally smoking hot picture of Chelsea Clinton in the newspaper. This one's on the front of the Washington Post's print edition (pic not on the paper's website for whatever reason).*
Anyway, Chelsea has blossomed.
So, Rush Limbo...suck. on. that.
*The picture can be seen at gettyimages.com.
Anyway, Chelsea has blossomed.
So, Rush Limbo...suck. on. that.
*The picture can be seen at gettyimages.com.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Going Public
It's possible to read too much into any particular speech, campaign rally or debating point, but I think the contrast between what Obama is saying here and what Hillary is saying here is significant.
What I think Obama is saying here is basically that the kind of change the country needs and is capable of, and which Obama believes he can help deliver, is a comprehensive change built on the back of a new coalition, and built through a process of the nation's leaders appealing over the heads of lobbyists and entrenched interests in Congress to that of the nation's. It is a form of this argument.
Hillary's argument is a more of an insider's being able to game the system.
These arguments are not necessarily mutually exclusive, particularly as it may concern any one policy area (like health care). But this a sense where I think Obama and Hillary are talking past one another. Obama's theory of change is more far-reaching, more comprehensive, and in some ways, perhaps not fully fleshed out, yet open to the future (i.e. more visionary), where Hillary's is more of the policy white paper variety of change, mechanical, not inspirational, rhetorical or worldview encompassing. That I think is the crux of the difference between them and why, at least in the case of Iowa, Obama was able to expand the caucus turnout and win the state.
What I think Obama is saying here is basically that the kind of change the country needs and is capable of, and which Obama believes he can help deliver, is a comprehensive change built on the back of a new coalition, and built through a process of the nation's leaders appealing over the heads of lobbyists and entrenched interests in Congress to that of the nation's. It is a form of this argument.
Hillary's argument is a more of an insider's being able to game the system.
These arguments are not necessarily mutually exclusive, particularly as it may concern any one policy area (like health care). But this a sense where I think Obama and Hillary are talking past one another. Obama's theory of change is more far-reaching, more comprehensive, and in some ways, perhaps not fully fleshed out, yet open to the future (i.e. more visionary), where Hillary's is more of the policy white paper variety of change, mechanical, not inspirational, rhetorical or worldview encompassing. That I think is the crux of the difference between them and why, at least in the case of Iowa, Obama was able to expand the caucus turnout and win the state.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Don't Worry
Jonah Goldberg, Glenn Instapundit Reynolds, and Michelle Malkin, among others, are already worried about all the rioting in the streets by a certain demographic that will occur if the country's racists don't elect the black candidate, Obama.
Well, I don't think they need to worry. Obama won't lose. He's already up by 10 points in NH, according to Rasmussen.
Well, I don't think they need to worry. Obama won't lose. He's already up by 10 points in NH, according to Rasmussen.
Friday, January 04, 2008
About Last Night
Last night was about as inspired as I can recall ever being about American politics, maybe since 1992. The magnitude of Obama's victory, the record caucus turnout and his speech afterwards in particular, made a believer out of me again. Even more than in 1992, it feels like there's something different, possibly transformative, in the political atmosphere. It's not something I can really articulate, but Ezra Klein comes pretty close to capturing my own experience and response:
I've been blessed to hear many great orations. I was in the audience when Howard Dean gave his famous address challenging the Democratic Party to rediscover courage and return to principle. I have heard Bill Clinton speak of a place called Hope, and listened to John Edwards bravely channel the populism that American politics so often suppresses. Some of those politicians mirrored my beliefs better than Obama does. Some of their speeches were more declarative and immediate in their passion. But none achieve quite what Obama, at his best, creates.
Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I've heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.
I continue to have reservations. As E.J. Dionne noted this morning about the campaign:
The Republican race has highlighted ideological divisions within the party -- particularly on taxes, immigration and, to some extent, abortion. By contrast, the Democratic argument has been remarkably free of ideology. Democrats have battled more about how to get things done than about what to do, more about style than content.
I suspect Dionne thinks being "remarkably free of ideology" is good for Obama and the Democrats. I'm not so sure. While I've no doubt Obama's calls for bipartisanship are genuine, when you have a candidate from the other party saying things like this, you can be sure that partisanship, and the ideology that underlies many of our political disputes, is still hanging around, demanding an ideologically valid response. Furthermore, while Huckabee's victory last night seemed less impactful than Obama's, the people who drove his vote totals are people with a cohesive, if frightening, world view. Can Democrats with more of a free-floating, post-modern, post-partisan, non-ideological world view win the war, much less the short term battle, against an opposition more passionate about its ideas than its candidates and their oratory?
Some of my caution is driven by the thought that we've been here before. "Here" as in offering up a candidate pledging to rise above the old partisan strife, to put a competent, new energy into governance, and to create a new coalition to solve America's various problems. Jimmy Carter, in 1976, was such a candidate; a young governor from the New South, the unknown, non-establishment Carter came on the stage after the fall of a corrupt Republican administration and a triumphal Democratic Party victory in Congress two years before. Carter, too, got points for authenticity (even if his style was far inferior to Obama's), and his upstart victory, first in the Iowa caucuses (he actually finished second behind "non-committed"), then ultimately over incumbent President Ford in the general election, seemed a promise of a new era being born with a strong majority party to support him in Congress. As with today, Carter promised a new start in international affairs, making America's foreign policy more driven by human rights concerns than real politik; and ridding America's political life of the corruption and lies that had beset its predecessors.
But obviously all of this came to naught. The seeming crash of the Republican Party in the off-year, post-Watergate elections of 1974, proved the New Deal coalition's last hurrah. The true harbinger of things to come was the Reagan insurgency against Ford in the Republican primaries. 1978 brought the anti-tax revolt in California in Proposition 13, and further economic ills, driven in part by rising fuel prices, inflation, and slow economic growth, helping to pave the way for the anti-tax, anti-domestic spending, anti-government regulation, and anti-Democratic and anti-human rights based foreign policy of Ronald Reagan. Instead of a Democratic rebirth, a new conservative Republican coalition was just beginning.
In 1992, after 12 years of Republican presidential rule, the election of another young governor of the New South again appeared to offer a liberal renewal dressed in the garb of a New Democratic Party, less ideological than that of its much maligned liberal forefathers (see McGovern, George and Mondale, Walter), which instead of raising taxes would cut them for the "middle class", and instead of increasing the size of government, would "end welfare as we know it". The anti-incumbent blowing of the wind was further enhanced by the emergence of Ross Perot's independent campaign for president, which seemed to further augment the fact that a New Age of Reform was upon us.
But this was not to be either, as a conservative Republican tidal wave swept away 40 years of Democratic House rule in 1994 and launched a new era of still more regressive politics, bearing its ultimate fruit in 2000 when the Bush restoration was accomplished. And again, after years of corruption and incompetence, Democrats returned to Congressional power in the off-year elections of 2006.
So you'll understand if by these similarities I am a bit skeptical that another post-ideological Democrat is going to inaugurate a new era that dramatically reshapes American politics.
Having said all this, it should be noted that some things about this year, about this candidate, are remarkably different.
Unlike 1976 and 1992, the Republican opposition Obama faces is nearing the end of a generation of control. And unlike either of those years, Obama's election promises to transcend perhaps the deepest divide of all in American politics--race. Also, unlike Carter, Obama is charismatic; unlike Clinton, Obama doesn't carry a range of generational and moral baggage.
As for Obama's lack of apparent ideological purpose, there is a sense in which Obama should be considered the most progressive candidate in the race. Obama is the most progressive candidate, in the most literal and far-reaching sense of that word, among the offerings Democrats or Republicans will have to consider at least this year. By that I mean Obama is the candidate who least appeals to a better age of yesteryear. Even Edwards--who delivered a great speech last night as well--seems to be appealing in his standard stump speeches to an America of yesteryear when workers were treated better and income and opportunity was more equal. Hillary, naturally, is appealing to a more recent past and name, attempting as George W. Bush before her, to draw capital from and restore another president's legacy. The Republican candidates, meanwhile, are also clearly speaking to old scripts, trying to resurrect the images and coalitions of yester-decades's conservative party.
For these reasons, Obama makes me feel like there really is something genuinely new in the air; that American politics is at an important pivotal time in its history afterwhich an Obama election and administration would forever alter the nation's character and outlook.
I've been blessed to hear many great orations. I was in the audience when Howard Dean gave his famous address challenging the Democratic Party to rediscover courage and return to principle. I have heard Bill Clinton speak of a place called Hope, and listened to John Edwards bravely channel the populism that American politics so often suppresses. Some of those politicians mirrored my beliefs better than Obama does. Some of their speeches were more declarative and immediate in their passion. But none achieve quite what Obama, at his best, creates.
Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I've heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.
I continue to have reservations. As E.J. Dionne noted this morning about the campaign:
The Republican race has highlighted ideological divisions within the party -- particularly on taxes, immigration and, to some extent, abortion. By contrast, the Democratic argument has been remarkably free of ideology. Democrats have battled more about how to get things done than about what to do, more about style than content.
I suspect Dionne thinks being "remarkably free of ideology" is good for Obama and the Democrats. I'm not so sure. While I've no doubt Obama's calls for bipartisanship are genuine, when you have a candidate from the other party saying things like this, you can be sure that partisanship, and the ideology that underlies many of our political disputes, is still hanging around, demanding an ideologically valid response. Furthermore, while Huckabee's victory last night seemed less impactful than Obama's, the people who drove his vote totals are people with a cohesive, if frightening, world view. Can Democrats with more of a free-floating, post-modern, post-partisan, non-ideological world view win the war, much less the short term battle, against an opposition more passionate about its ideas than its candidates and their oratory?
Some of my caution is driven by the thought that we've been here before. "Here" as in offering up a candidate pledging to rise above the old partisan strife, to put a competent, new energy into governance, and to create a new coalition to solve America's various problems. Jimmy Carter, in 1976, was such a candidate; a young governor from the New South, the unknown, non-establishment Carter came on the stage after the fall of a corrupt Republican administration and a triumphal Democratic Party victory in Congress two years before. Carter, too, got points for authenticity (even if his style was far inferior to Obama's), and his upstart victory, first in the Iowa caucuses (he actually finished second behind "non-committed"), then ultimately over incumbent President Ford in the general election, seemed a promise of a new era being born with a strong majority party to support him in Congress. As with today, Carter promised a new start in international affairs, making America's foreign policy more driven by human rights concerns than real politik; and ridding America's political life of the corruption and lies that had beset its predecessors.
But obviously all of this came to naught. The seeming crash of the Republican Party in the off-year, post-Watergate elections of 1974, proved the New Deal coalition's last hurrah. The true harbinger of things to come was the Reagan insurgency against Ford in the Republican primaries. 1978 brought the anti-tax revolt in California in Proposition 13, and further economic ills, driven in part by rising fuel prices, inflation, and slow economic growth, helping to pave the way for the anti-tax, anti-domestic spending, anti-government regulation, and anti-Democratic and anti-human rights based foreign policy of Ronald Reagan. Instead of a Democratic rebirth, a new conservative Republican coalition was just beginning.
In 1992, after 12 years of Republican presidential rule, the election of another young governor of the New South again appeared to offer a liberal renewal dressed in the garb of a New Democratic Party, less ideological than that of its much maligned liberal forefathers (see McGovern, George and Mondale, Walter), which instead of raising taxes would cut them for the "middle class", and instead of increasing the size of government, would "end welfare as we know it". The anti-incumbent blowing of the wind was further enhanced by the emergence of Ross Perot's independent campaign for president, which seemed to further augment the fact that a New Age of Reform was upon us.
But this was not to be either, as a conservative Republican tidal wave swept away 40 years of Democratic House rule in 1994 and launched a new era of still more regressive politics, bearing its ultimate fruit in 2000 when the Bush restoration was accomplished. And again, after years of corruption and incompetence, Democrats returned to Congressional power in the off-year elections of 2006.
So you'll understand if by these similarities I am a bit skeptical that another post-ideological Democrat is going to inaugurate a new era that dramatically reshapes American politics.
Having said all this, it should be noted that some things about this year, about this candidate, are remarkably different.
Unlike 1976 and 1992, the Republican opposition Obama faces is nearing the end of a generation of control. And unlike either of those years, Obama's election promises to transcend perhaps the deepest divide of all in American politics--race. Also, unlike Carter, Obama is charismatic; unlike Clinton, Obama doesn't carry a range of generational and moral baggage.
As for Obama's lack of apparent ideological purpose, there is a sense in which Obama should be considered the most progressive candidate in the race. Obama is the most progressive candidate, in the most literal and far-reaching sense of that word, among the offerings Democrats or Republicans will have to consider at least this year. By that I mean Obama is the candidate who least appeals to a better age of yesteryear. Even Edwards--who delivered a great speech last night as well--seems to be appealing in his standard stump speeches to an America of yesteryear when workers were treated better and income and opportunity was more equal. Hillary, naturally, is appealing to a more recent past and name, attempting as George W. Bush before her, to draw capital from and restore another president's legacy. The Republican candidates, meanwhile, are also clearly speaking to old scripts, trying to resurrect the images and coalitions of yester-decades's conservative party.
For these reasons, Obama makes me feel like there really is something genuinely new in the air; that American politics is at an important pivotal time in its history afterwhich an Obama election and administration would forever alter the nation's character and outlook.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Caucus Update II
With 50% of precincts reporting, CNN is projecting that the University of Kansas will beat the Virginia Tech Hockie's in this year's Orange Bowl college football extravaganza. At the half, KU 17, VT 7.
Oh yeah, Obama winning Iowa by 7%, Edwards and Clinton tied for second with 30% of the vote. And on the GOP side, Pastor Huckabee trounces Mitt Romney 34% to 25%.
I thought David Gergen on CNN made the poignant, if not already well known, point when he noted that Obama won in a state that is 95% White. Bill Bennett later corrected Gergen in saying the state is actually 97% White.
Younger voters, age 17-24, broke over-whelmingly for Obama, but I look forward to seeing (a) what the distribution of participants was by age and (b) how Obama did among older voters, although he apparently did well enough.
With only five days to go before NH, Obama has an excellent chance of adding more delegates to his column.
With Huckabee trouncing Romney, I wouldn't be surprised to see McCain, and maybe even Thompson, pull even or ahead of Romney in NH. McCain is already tied from the last polls I've seen. With a modest third place finish in Iowa, Thompson might live to fight another day.
Oh yeah, Obama winning Iowa by 7%, Edwards and Clinton tied for second with 30% of the vote. And on the GOP side, Pastor Huckabee trounces Mitt Romney 34% to 25%.
I thought David Gergen on CNN made the poignant, if not already well known, point when he noted that Obama won in a state that is 95% White. Bill Bennett later corrected Gergen in saying the state is actually 97% White.
Younger voters, age 17-24, broke over-whelmingly for Obama, but I look forward to seeing (a) what the distribution of participants was by age and (b) how Obama did among older voters, although he apparently did well enough.
With only five days to go before NH, Obama has an excellent chance of adding more delegates to his column.
With Huckabee trouncing Romney, I wouldn't be surprised to see McCain, and maybe even Thompson, pull even or ahead of Romney in NH. McCain is already tied from the last polls I've seen. With a modest third place finish in Iowa, Thompson might live to fight another day.
Caucus Update
I hadn't watched Hardball in quite a while. It hasn't aged well. Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan and Howard Fineman are even more of a Gong Show than I remembered.
Neglected Issues, Neglected Candidates
Dana Goldstein from the American Prospect has a column highlighting some issues and candidates who haven't gotten much attention from the Village Press.
I was particularly pleased to see this item on criminal justice and The War on Drugs:
-----------------
Criminal Justice, Prison Reform, and the Drug War
Mention these issues and you risk sounding more like a stoner college activist than a reasoned progressive adult. But a look at the numbers of our criminal justice system is sobering: Our prisons suck up $40 billion annually and the U.S. drug war costs approximately $20 billion each year. Over half of American inmates are incarcerated on non-violent drug charges. A young black man is more likely to have been in prison than to have graduated from college. And lest you believe our harsh system is stamping out crime, two-thirds of prisoners are eventually re-arrested. All of this is not to mention the inhumane conditions behind bars, including the high incidence of sexual assault and other violent crimes.
Dennis Kucinich is undoubtedly the only member of Congress to devote a section of his website to the "link between animal cruelty and violence against humans." But if you can stop snickering at his earnestness, big ears, and funny voice, you'll find he's right on target when it comes to reforming criminal justice. Kucinich loudly opposes a death penalty that isolates the United States from its developed-world peers and disproportionately targets the poor and the non-white. He tackles police brutality head on and opposes prison terms for nonviolence drug offenders, preferring rehabilitative treatment. He writes on his website:
Only the best and brightest should wear badges and carry guns. There are many, many great law enforcement officers, but low pay and terrible working conditions allow some to slip into the long blue line that should not be there. For example, the 'War on Drugs' has made many in the black community feel as though they live in an occupied territory. Greater minority representation on police forces would help, but a new national policy on nonviolent drug users would also help tremendously.
Progressive crime reform is a tough sell for mainstream candidates. Polls consistently show that about two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty, and although large majorities of Americans would like to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, being "tough on crime" and "tough on drugs" are perennially winning stances in American elections. Just look at Rudy Giuliani.
A good place to start moving in a more reasoned direction could be for at least one brave front-runner to note the absurdity that, under our current federal laws, one minor drug offense can cost a student federal financial aid forever. And of course, such restrictions are biased against less privileged college students with fewer legal recourses. Discussion of substance abuse should also move out from under the crime umbrella and into our robust debate on universal health care. The amount of money we're spending incarcerating non-violent criminals with drug problems speaks for itself. All Americans deserve medical and psychological support in kicking an addiction.
------------
I ventured over to Dennis Kucinich's website and found this further statement about the Drug War:
-------------
Drug War
My position on this issue is to face it directly, though other politicians run away from it.
I agree with the many law enforcement officials and experts in the field that we must find a new way of dealing with illegal drugs.
I have studied the issue for decades and recognize that our "War on Drugs" has failed.
In fact, because our War on Drugs drives up the price, it encourages violence.
Prohibition simply doesn't work. It only creates thousands and thousands of Al Capones.
Prison should be for people who hurt other people, not themselves. We don't jail people for merely drinking. We jail people when they drink and drive or hurt another human.
Drug use can and should be reduced. But a continuation of our current War on Drugs will not do it. Instead, the current policies have only helped increase drug use and foster violence across the country. California was able to cut teenage tobacco use in half with a straightforward ad campaign that was financed by a tax on cigarettes. Not a shot was fired.
The supporters of the drug war have only one solution to this debacle -- more money for law enforcement, more people, more power, more prisons -- with no end in sight. Of course, these happy drug warriors who justify their living hunting down drug users come on TV and promise us that they see light at the end of the tunnel. They promised us a drug-free America by 1995, and instead we see new and more exotic drugs constantly being added to the mix.
I know that proponents of the Drug War will say that I am pro-drugs. I am not. As mayor of Cleveland, I saw first-hand the damage done by addiction to drugs, including alcohol. I also witnessed that the wasted resources and collateral damage did not promote a safe society. It is unconscionable that only one bed exists for every ten people that apply for drug treatment. Our priorities and our resources are being put in the wrong place. The primary job of law enforcement should be protecting our country and its citizens -- not protecting people from themselves.
The shredding of our rights to privacy and property promoted by the Drug War is inconsistent with a free society. Criminalization of private or self-destructive behavior is not acceptable in a free nation.
The racism evident in the Drug War, and the clearly preferential treatment for offenders with connections, undermine our concept of a just society. Draconian prison sentences that dwarf those for violent crimes, like murder and rape, destroy respect for our laws.
The rampant corruption of the criminal justice system spawned by the $400 billion-a-year black market could be ended with the stroke of a pen. So also would be the wholesale devastation we have brought to other countries. Countries like Colombia, where we send billions of dollars of military aid and spray hundreds of thousands of acres of populated land with dangerous herbicides in a country with nearly a million displaced people. And each military campaign or spraying is like squeezing a balloon; production merely shifts to another site or goes into a temporary hiatus.
Drug addiction is a medical and moral problem that should be treated by professionals, not dumped on the criminal justice system. Setting up a national commission of medical professionals to develop an intelligent program, based on the experience of drug experts from around the world, would be a first step. Allowing doctors to treat drug addiction humanely and intelligently, including the prescription of maintenance doses, would allow us to quickly eliminate most of the black market and much of the damage to a safe, free, and just America.
It is time for an honest dialogue on this issue.
Time to stop the documented lies, halftruths, and propaganda that got us into this mess in the first place. It is time to face the facts.
------------
I was particularly pleased to see this item on criminal justice and The War on Drugs:
-----------------
Criminal Justice, Prison Reform, and the Drug War
Mention these issues and you risk sounding more like a stoner college activist than a reasoned progressive adult. But a look at the numbers of our criminal justice system is sobering: Our prisons suck up $40 billion annually and the U.S. drug war costs approximately $20 billion each year. Over half of American inmates are incarcerated on non-violent drug charges. A young black man is more likely to have been in prison than to have graduated from college. And lest you believe our harsh system is stamping out crime, two-thirds of prisoners are eventually re-arrested. All of this is not to mention the inhumane conditions behind bars, including the high incidence of sexual assault and other violent crimes.
Dennis Kucinich is undoubtedly the only member of Congress to devote a section of his website to the "link between animal cruelty and violence against humans." But if you can stop snickering at his earnestness, big ears, and funny voice, you'll find he's right on target when it comes to reforming criminal justice. Kucinich loudly opposes a death penalty that isolates the United States from its developed-world peers and disproportionately targets the poor and the non-white. He tackles police brutality head on and opposes prison terms for nonviolence drug offenders, preferring rehabilitative treatment. He writes on his website:
Only the best and brightest should wear badges and carry guns. There are many, many great law enforcement officers, but low pay and terrible working conditions allow some to slip into the long blue line that should not be there. For example, the 'War on Drugs' has made many in the black community feel as though they live in an occupied territory. Greater minority representation on police forces would help, but a new national policy on nonviolent drug users would also help tremendously.
Progressive crime reform is a tough sell for mainstream candidates. Polls consistently show that about two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty, and although large majorities of Americans would like to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, being "tough on crime" and "tough on drugs" are perennially winning stances in American elections. Just look at Rudy Giuliani.
A good place to start moving in a more reasoned direction could be for at least one brave front-runner to note the absurdity that, under our current federal laws, one minor drug offense can cost a student federal financial aid forever. And of course, such restrictions are biased against less privileged college students with fewer legal recourses. Discussion of substance abuse should also move out from under the crime umbrella and into our robust debate on universal health care. The amount of money we're spending incarcerating non-violent criminals with drug problems speaks for itself. All Americans deserve medical and psychological support in kicking an addiction.
------------
I ventured over to Dennis Kucinich's website and found this further statement about the Drug War:
-------------
Drug War
My position on this issue is to face it directly, though other politicians run away from it.
I agree with the many law enforcement officials and experts in the field that we must find a new way of dealing with illegal drugs.
I have studied the issue for decades and recognize that our "War on Drugs" has failed.
In fact, because our War on Drugs drives up the price, it encourages violence.
Prohibition simply doesn't work. It only creates thousands and thousands of Al Capones.
Prison should be for people who hurt other people, not themselves. We don't jail people for merely drinking. We jail people when they drink and drive or hurt another human.
Drug use can and should be reduced. But a continuation of our current War on Drugs will not do it. Instead, the current policies have only helped increase drug use and foster violence across the country. California was able to cut teenage tobacco use in half with a straightforward ad campaign that was financed by a tax on cigarettes. Not a shot was fired.
The supporters of the drug war have only one solution to this debacle -- more money for law enforcement, more people, more power, more prisons -- with no end in sight. Of course, these happy drug warriors who justify their living hunting down drug users come on TV and promise us that they see light at the end of the tunnel. They promised us a drug-free America by 1995, and instead we see new and more exotic drugs constantly being added to the mix.
I know that proponents of the Drug War will say that I am pro-drugs. I am not. As mayor of Cleveland, I saw first-hand the damage done by addiction to drugs, including alcohol. I also witnessed that the wasted resources and collateral damage did not promote a safe society. It is unconscionable that only one bed exists for every ten people that apply for drug treatment. Our priorities and our resources are being put in the wrong place. The primary job of law enforcement should be protecting our country and its citizens -- not protecting people from themselves.
The shredding of our rights to privacy and property promoted by the Drug War is inconsistent with a free society. Criminalization of private or self-destructive behavior is not acceptable in a free nation.
The racism evident in the Drug War, and the clearly preferential treatment for offenders with connections, undermine our concept of a just society. Draconian prison sentences that dwarf those for violent crimes, like murder and rape, destroy respect for our laws.
The rampant corruption of the criminal justice system spawned by the $400 billion-a-year black market could be ended with the stroke of a pen. So also would be the wholesale devastation we have brought to other countries. Countries like Colombia, where we send billions of dollars of military aid and spray hundreds of thousands of acres of populated land with dangerous herbicides in a country with nearly a million displaced people. And each military campaign or spraying is like squeezing a balloon; production merely shifts to another site or goes into a temporary hiatus.
Drug addiction is a medical and moral problem that should be treated by professionals, not dumped on the criminal justice system. Setting up a national commission of medical professionals to develop an intelligent program, based on the experience of drug experts from around the world, would be a first step. Allowing doctors to treat drug addiction humanely and intelligently, including the prescription of maintenance doses, would allow us to quickly eliminate most of the black market and much of the damage to a safe, free, and just America.
It is time for an honest dialogue on this issue.
Time to stop the documented lies, halftruths, and propaganda that got us into this mess in the first place. It is time to face the facts.
------------
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Reconsidering
I've seen this Obama statement about the '00 and '04 elections bandied about on various blogs with the assertion that Obama is "slamming" Gore and Kerry for alienating half the country and for being divisive.
But I don't necessarily get that from this one statement that's been the object of so much attention. Little context for the statement is provided, much too little to infer that Obama is "slamming" Gore and Kerry for being "divisive" or "polarizing".
Truth is, I'm not sure what Obama is referring to here at all, beyond his evident perception that in some polls Gore and Kerry were opposed by up to half of the sample population at any given moment. And given the little context that's provided, it isn't immediately clear who Obama is blaming for that situation, if anyone.
That being said, as the election season draws near, I am having second thoughts about who I'd like to see win this thing. Maybe my new hesitation stems from ideas about what the media narrative would be after an Obama (or Clinton) win in Iowa. While there's a certain opportunism and superficiality about the importance such a concern should have in a presidential race, particularly at the nominating stage, the fact that it has surfaced for at least some of us is an indication, however rough, that too little genuinely bold and unorthodox things are being said in this campaign.
This isn't to say that Edwards or anyone else running is a suitable alternative. And I still think that, despite the narrative that is being played out in the media, Obama would be (among the Democrats at least) the most dramatic break with the past on the issues that matter most; but my reasons for believing that are dwindling.
But I don't necessarily get that from this one statement that's been the object of so much attention. Little context for the statement is provided, much too little to infer that Obama is "slamming" Gore and Kerry for being "divisive" or "polarizing".
Truth is, I'm not sure what Obama is referring to here at all, beyond his evident perception that in some polls Gore and Kerry were opposed by up to half of the sample population at any given moment. And given the little context that's provided, it isn't immediately clear who Obama is blaming for that situation, if anyone.
That being said, as the election season draws near, I am having second thoughts about who I'd like to see win this thing. Maybe my new hesitation stems from ideas about what the media narrative would be after an Obama (or Clinton) win in Iowa. While there's a certain opportunism and superficiality about the importance such a concern should have in a presidential race, particularly at the nominating stage, the fact that it has surfaced for at least some of us is an indication, however rough, that too little genuinely bold and unorthodox things are being said in this campaign.
This isn't to say that Edwards or anyone else running is a suitable alternative. And I still think that, despite the narrative that is being played out in the media, Obama would be (among the Democrats at least) the most dramatic break with the past on the issues that matter most; but my reasons for believing that are dwindling.
Their Mothers Must Be So Proud
As the Iowa vote looms the leading Democratic contenders are emphasizing Iraq, health care, and the economy.
Meanwhile, the leading candidates of the Know-Nothing Party in Iowa are united in carrying the banner of anti-Hispanic nativism:
-----------------
The imagery of the mailings is designed to pack a wallop: a Mexican flag fluttering above the Stars and Stripes, the Statue of Liberty presiding over a "Welcome Illegal Aliens" doormat, a Social Security card emblazoned with the name "Juan Doe," a U.S. passport proclaiming, "Only one candidate has a plan to STAMP out illegal immigration."
As Republican presidential candidates troll for votes, they have flooded mailboxes in Iowa and New Hampshire with such loaded images. Their campaigns have filled the airwaves, packed their Web sites and taunted their adversaries, proclaiming their concern over porous borders and accusing opponents of insufficient vigilance.
(snip)
Huckabee's "Secure America" plan twins a similar crackdown with a proposal to give all illegal immigrants 120 days to register with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and to leave the country. Those who register would face no penalty if they later applied to immigrate or visit. Those who do not "will be, when caught, barred from future reentry" for a decade, Huckabee's plan states.
Huckabee proved so mindful of the issue that he used last week's assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto to argue for stronger border controls, "to make sure if there's any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country."
Romney would cut federal funds to any city that refuses to comply with federal immigration laws or to cooperate with a crackdown. Giuliani would issue all noncitizen workers and students a single, tamper-proof biometric identity card and create a single database to track all noncitizens in the country.
Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.), who joined the presidential campaign solely to pursue his hard-line agenda on illegal immigration, was so comfortable with the direction that his fellow GOP candidates were taking that he dropped out of the race last month and pronounced the field "Tancredo-ized."
(snip)
Latino and other minority groups see racial codes in many of the words the Republican candidates have used -- for instance, "illegals" rather than "illegal immigrants." And hovering around the campaigns are far more strident figures and organizations. Immigration groups were taken aback when Huckabee accepted the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the border-security Minuteman Project, calling it "providential."
Mothers Against Illegal Aliens recently posted a plea for people to bring their own sheets and utensils to hotels and restaurants because "the person who cooked your meal or made your bed may very well be the one who picked your fruit and vegetables," suggesting that immigrants are spreading disease.
------------------------
Just kinda warms your heart, doesn't it?
Meanwhile, the leading candidates of the Know-Nothing Party in Iowa are united in carrying the banner of anti-Hispanic nativism:
-----------------
The imagery of the mailings is designed to pack a wallop: a Mexican flag fluttering above the Stars and Stripes, the Statue of Liberty presiding over a "Welcome Illegal Aliens" doormat, a Social Security card emblazoned with the name "Juan Doe," a U.S. passport proclaiming, "Only one candidate has a plan to STAMP out illegal immigration."
As Republican presidential candidates troll for votes, they have flooded mailboxes in Iowa and New Hampshire with such loaded images. Their campaigns have filled the airwaves, packed their Web sites and taunted their adversaries, proclaiming their concern over porous borders and accusing opponents of insufficient vigilance.
(snip)
Huckabee's "Secure America" plan twins a similar crackdown with a proposal to give all illegal immigrants 120 days to register with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and to leave the country. Those who register would face no penalty if they later applied to immigrate or visit. Those who do not "will be, when caught, barred from future reentry" for a decade, Huckabee's plan states.
Huckabee proved so mindful of the issue that he used last week's assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto to argue for stronger border controls, "to make sure if there's any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country."
Romney would cut federal funds to any city that refuses to comply with federal immigration laws or to cooperate with a crackdown. Giuliani would issue all noncitizen workers and students a single, tamper-proof biometric identity card and create a single database to track all noncitizens in the country.
Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.), who joined the presidential campaign solely to pursue his hard-line agenda on illegal immigration, was so comfortable with the direction that his fellow GOP candidates were taking that he dropped out of the race last month and pronounced the field "Tancredo-ized."
(snip)
Latino and other minority groups see racial codes in many of the words the Republican candidates have used -- for instance, "illegals" rather than "illegal immigrants." And hovering around the campaigns are far more strident figures and organizations. Immigration groups were taken aback when Huckabee accepted the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the border-security Minuteman Project, calling it "providential."
Mothers Against Illegal Aliens recently posted a plea for people to bring their own sheets and utensils to hotels and restaurants because "the person who cooked your meal or made your bed may very well be the one who picked your fruit and vegetables," suggesting that immigrants are spreading disease.
------------------------
Just kinda warms your heart, doesn't it?
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
New Year
I've been following politics for 20 years and I can't remember a time when anyone in the Republican orbit talked like this:
---------------
But [Romney's] biggest problem is a failure of imagination. Market research is a snapshot of the past. With his data-set mentality, Romney has chosen to model himself on a version of Republicanism that is receding into memory. As Walter Mondale was the last gasp of the fading New Deal coalition, Romney has turned himself into the last gasp of the Reagan coalition.
That coalition had its day, but it is shrinking now. The Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years. Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation. The general public prefers Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy and Iraq by double-digit margins. Republicans’ losses have come across the board, but the G.O.P. has been hemorrhaging support among independent voters. Surveys from the Pew Research Center and The Washington Post, Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University show that independents are moving away from the G.O.P. on social issues, globalization and the roles of religion and government.
If any Republican candidate is going to win this year, he will have to offer a new brand of Republicanism. But Romney has tied himself to the old brand. He is unresponsive to the middle-class anxiety that Huckabee is tapping into. He has forsaken the trans-partisan candor that McCain represents. Romney, the cautious consultant, is pivoting to stress his corporate competence, and is rebranding himself as an Obama-esque change agent, but he will never make the sort of daring break that independent voters will demand if they are going to give the G.O.P. another look.
------------------------
Some Republicans were pretty dispirited in the waning days of the 1992 election as it was becoming clear that George H.W. Bush would lose; even a lot of the press during that summer and fall seemed to be calling for a new script. There was random talk of the problems the social conservative wing of the GOP posed for the Party, etc.
But this seems different.
---------------
But [Romney's] biggest problem is a failure of imagination. Market research is a snapshot of the past. With his data-set mentality, Romney has chosen to model himself on a version of Republicanism that is receding into memory. As Walter Mondale was the last gasp of the fading New Deal coalition, Romney has turned himself into the last gasp of the Reagan coalition.
That coalition had its day, but it is shrinking now. The Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years. Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation. The general public prefers Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy and Iraq by double-digit margins. Republicans’ losses have come across the board, but the G.O.P. has been hemorrhaging support among independent voters. Surveys from the Pew Research Center and The Washington Post, Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University show that independents are moving away from the G.O.P. on social issues, globalization and the roles of religion and government.
If any Republican candidate is going to win this year, he will have to offer a new brand of Republicanism. But Romney has tied himself to the old brand. He is unresponsive to the middle-class anxiety that Huckabee is tapping into. He has forsaken the trans-partisan candor that McCain represents. Romney, the cautious consultant, is pivoting to stress his corporate competence, and is rebranding himself as an Obama-esque change agent, but he will never make the sort of daring break that independent voters will demand if they are going to give the G.O.P. another look.
------------------------
Some Republicans were pretty dispirited in the waning days of the 1992 election as it was becoming clear that George H.W. Bush would lose; even a lot of the press during that summer and fall seemed to be calling for a new script. There was random talk of the problems the social conservative wing of the GOP posed for the Party, etc.
But this seems different.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Away
Dear Bulworth readers:
I'll be hanging out over at No More Mister Nice Blog's pad until about New Year's. Come over for some fine reading and get your New Year's off to a good blogging start.
Senator Jay Billington Bulworth
I'll be hanging out over at No More Mister Nice Blog's pad until about New Year's. Come over for some fine reading and get your New Year's off to a good blogging start.
Senator Jay Billington Bulworth
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Republican Hack: Thy Names are Bill Donohue and the Catholic League
Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog checks out whether Bill Donohue at the Catholic League is being "fair and balanced".
That would apparently be, uh, no.
That would apparently be, uh, no.
Attention: "Harsh Interrogation Treatment" has just entered the building
Andrew Sullivan catches the AP carrying the Administration's water (no pun intended) on torture revisionisms.
Why are they shilling for the Bush administration? Here's their second sentence in a story today:
The destruction in late 2005 of the tapes, showing harsh interrogation treatment of two terrorism suspects, is being investigated by the Justice Department, the CIA itself and by several congressional panels.
No serious source denies that these two individuals were - at the very least - waterboarded. And no serious, reasonable student of history, warfare or basic ethics can deny that waterboarding is now and always has been a torture technique. Why can the AP not use the word clearly in accord with its plain meaning in English? They have to make a choice. And they have decided to enable the Bush administration's Orwellian perversion of the law and the English language. Really: a factual correction is required. This is not a subjective judgment. It is an objective fact.
Why are they shilling for the Bush administration? Here's their second sentence in a story today:
The destruction in late 2005 of the tapes, showing harsh interrogation treatment of two terrorism suspects, is being investigated by the Justice Department, the CIA itself and by several congressional panels.
No serious source denies that these two individuals were - at the very least - waterboarded. And no serious, reasonable student of history, warfare or basic ethics can deny that waterboarding is now and always has been a torture technique. Why can the AP not use the word clearly in accord with its plain meaning in English? They have to make a choice. And they have decided to enable the Bush administration's Orwellian perversion of the law and the English language. Really: a factual correction is required. This is not a subjective judgment. It is an objective fact.
Huck and his kookie friends
Well, Robert Novak's column today was a bit of a revelation, or as much of a revelation as one could expect given what we already know about Mike Huckabee's Christianist beliefs. Novak reveals that Huckabee:
Huckabee's base is reflected by sponsors of Tuesday's fundraising luncheon (requesting up to $4,600 a couple) at the Houston home of Steven Hotze, a leader in the highly conservative Christian Reconstruction movement. State Rep. Debbie Riddle was the only elected official on the host committee, most of whose members were not familiar names in Texas politics. David Welch is executive director of the Houston Area Pastor Council. Jack Tompkins heads a firm providing Internet services to the Christian community. Entrepreneur J. Keet Lewis is an active Southern Baptist.
A better-known committee member was Baptist minister Rick Scarborough, founder of Vision America. In endorsing Huckabee on Nov. 1, Scarborough said, "I acknowledge that Huckabee is not the perfect candidate" but one "who will listen to wise counsel."
If the term "Christian Reconstruction movement" send shivers down your spine, then you probably have some idea of the political and social regression that would occur in America should any of that inclination gain high office. For those unfamiliar, you might want to read a little of this Cato Institute post (via Andrew Sullivan), and the links contained therein:
Christian Reconstructionists, for those unfamiliar with the term, are Religious Right radicals who believe that America, and the rest of the world besides, should be governed in accordance with strict Biblical law. And yes, that includes stoning adulterers. Here’s a snippet from “A Manifesto for the Christian Church,” a 1986 document from an outfit called the Coalition on Revival that was signed by, among others, Steven Hotze:
We affirm that the Bible is not only God’s statements to us regarding religion, salvation, eternity, and righteousness, but also the final measurement and depository of certain fundamental facts of reality and basic principles that God wants all mankind to know in the sphere of law, government, economics, business, education, arts and communication, medicine, psychology, and science. All theories and practices of these spheres of life are only true, right, and realistic to the degree that they agree with the Bible.
For more, check out this audio clip of Hotze from back in 1990. Over the years, Hotze has achieved some prominence for his anti-abortion and anti-gay activism. Also, the good doctor appears to be a total quack.
Meanwhile, Novak reports that among the members of the fundraiser’s host committee was Baptist minister Rick Scarborough. The founder of Vision America and a self-described “Christocrat,” Scarborough made news earlier this year when he argued that the HPV vaccine improperly interferes with God’s punishment of sexual license.
Just when you thought the Huckabee campaign couldn’t get any creepier….
Huckabee's base is reflected by sponsors of Tuesday's fundraising luncheon (requesting up to $4,600 a couple) at the Houston home of Steven Hotze, a leader in the highly conservative Christian Reconstruction movement. State Rep. Debbie Riddle was the only elected official on the host committee, most of whose members were not familiar names in Texas politics. David Welch is executive director of the Houston Area Pastor Council. Jack Tompkins heads a firm providing Internet services to the Christian community. Entrepreneur J. Keet Lewis is an active Southern Baptist.
A better-known committee member was Baptist minister Rick Scarborough, founder of Vision America. In endorsing Huckabee on Nov. 1, Scarborough said, "I acknowledge that Huckabee is not the perfect candidate" but one "who will listen to wise counsel."
If the term "Christian Reconstruction movement" send shivers down your spine, then you probably have some idea of the political and social regression that would occur in America should any of that inclination gain high office. For those unfamiliar, you might want to read a little of this Cato Institute post (via Andrew Sullivan), and the links contained therein:
Christian Reconstructionists, for those unfamiliar with the term, are Religious Right radicals who believe that America, and the rest of the world besides, should be governed in accordance with strict Biblical law. And yes, that includes stoning adulterers. Here’s a snippet from “A Manifesto for the Christian Church,” a 1986 document from an outfit called the Coalition on Revival that was signed by, among others, Steven Hotze:
We affirm that the Bible is not only God’s statements to us regarding religion, salvation, eternity, and righteousness, but also the final measurement and depository of certain fundamental facts of reality and basic principles that God wants all mankind to know in the sphere of law, government, economics, business, education, arts and communication, medicine, psychology, and science. All theories and practices of these spheres of life are only true, right, and realistic to the degree that they agree with the Bible.
For more, check out this audio clip of Hotze from back in 1990. Over the years, Hotze has achieved some prominence for his anti-abortion and anti-gay activism. Also, the good doctor appears to be a total quack.
Meanwhile, Novak reports that among the members of the fundraiser’s host committee was Baptist minister Rick Scarborough. The founder of Vision America and a self-described “Christocrat,” Scarborough made news earlier this year when he argued that the HPV vaccine improperly interferes with God’s punishment of sexual license.
Just when you thought the Huckabee campaign couldn’t get any creepier….
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Theoconic Hypocrisy
I don't know what Kos is thinking with this description of the Christianist wing of the Republican Party:
Theocons
This is the Christian Coalition/Moral Majority crowd, desperate for the wedding of state and religion, desperate to prevent the wedding of same sex couples. Unafraid to spend tax dollars on "faith-based" initiatives, while seeing immigrants as a replenishing source of new converts and religious foot soldiers.
Government spending: Pro
Aggressive foreign policy: Against
Immigration: Pro
Traditional values: Pro
Notables: Mike Huckabee, Pat Robertson, James Dobson
My own description of the Theocons would be:
Government Spending: Against
Agressive Foreign Policy: Pro
Immigration: Against
Traditional Values: Pro
Maybe Kos is only looking at Huckabee and his gubernatorial record, along with some of his campaign statements, relative to the most anti-government spending, pro foreign policy agression, and anti-immigrant Republican in Congress. But I wouldn't depict the Theocons as a base of the party as having the perspectives Kos assigns them.
That in fact also seems to be the observation of this already much referenced op-ed from Harold Meyerson in today's Wash Post:
But it's on their policies concerning immigrants where Republicans -- candidates and voters alike -- really run afoul of biblical writ. Not on immigration as such but on the treatment of immigrants who are already here. Consider: Christmas, after all, celebrates not just Jesus's birth but his family's flight from Herod's wrath into Egypt, a journey obviously undertaken without benefit of legal documentation. The Bible isn't big on immigrant documentation. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him," Exodus says the Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai, "for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
Yet the distinctive cry coming from the Republican base this year isn't simply to control the flow of immigrants across our borders but to punish the undocumented immigrants already here, children and parents alike.
So Romney attacks Huckabee for holding immigrant children blameless when their parents brought them here without papers, and Huckabee defends himself by parading the endorsement of the Minuteman Project's Jim Gilchrist, whose group harasses day laborers far from the border. The demand for a more regulated immigration policy comes from virtually all points on our political spectrum, but the push to persecute the immigrants already among us comes distinctly, though by no means entirely, from the same Republican right that protests its Christian faith at every turn.
We've seen this kind of Christianity before in America. It's more tribal than religious, and it surges at those times when our country is growing more diverse and economic opportunity is not abounding. At its height in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was chiefly the political expression of nativist Protestants upset by the growing ranks of Catholics in their midst.
It's difficult today to imagine KKKers thinking of their mission as Christian, but millions of them did.
Theocons
This is the Christian Coalition/Moral Majority crowd, desperate for the wedding of state and religion, desperate to prevent the wedding of same sex couples. Unafraid to spend tax dollars on "faith-based" initiatives, while seeing immigrants as a replenishing source of new converts and religious foot soldiers.
Government spending: Pro
Aggressive foreign policy: Against
Immigration: Pro
Traditional values: Pro
Notables: Mike Huckabee, Pat Robertson, James Dobson
My own description of the Theocons would be:
Government Spending: Against
Agressive Foreign Policy: Pro
Immigration: Against
Traditional Values: Pro
Maybe Kos is only looking at Huckabee and his gubernatorial record, along with some of his campaign statements, relative to the most anti-government spending, pro foreign policy agression, and anti-immigrant Republican in Congress. But I wouldn't depict the Theocons as a base of the party as having the perspectives Kos assigns them.
That in fact also seems to be the observation of this already much referenced op-ed from Harold Meyerson in today's Wash Post:
But it's on their policies concerning immigrants where Republicans -- candidates and voters alike -- really run afoul of biblical writ. Not on immigration as such but on the treatment of immigrants who are already here. Consider: Christmas, after all, celebrates not just Jesus's birth but his family's flight from Herod's wrath into Egypt, a journey obviously undertaken without benefit of legal documentation. The Bible isn't big on immigrant documentation. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him," Exodus says the Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai, "for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
Yet the distinctive cry coming from the Republican base this year isn't simply to control the flow of immigrants across our borders but to punish the undocumented immigrants already here, children and parents alike.
So Romney attacks Huckabee for holding immigrant children blameless when their parents brought them here without papers, and Huckabee defends himself by parading the endorsement of the Minuteman Project's Jim Gilchrist, whose group harasses day laborers far from the border. The demand for a more regulated immigration policy comes from virtually all points on our political spectrum, but the push to persecute the immigrants already among us comes distinctly, though by no means entirely, from the same Republican right that protests its Christian faith at every turn.
We've seen this kind of Christianity before in America. It's more tribal than religious, and it surges at those times when our country is growing more diverse and economic opportunity is not abounding. At its height in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was chiefly the political expression of nativist Protestants upset by the growing ranks of Catholics in their midst.
It's difficult today to imagine KKKers thinking of their mission as Christian, but millions of them did.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Democratic Chairman of Senate Committee Endorses Republican for President
While I'm not surprised by this announcement, it's worth highlighting the fact that Lieberman is not just a Senate "Independent" Democrat, but he's a Senate "Independent" Democrat who happens to chair (by virtue of the Democratic majority in the Senate which Lieberman's caucusing with the Democrats helps create) an important (in the age of Bush) Senate committee (Governmental Affairs), which has done virtually nothing in the year it and Lieberman have been given.
To revoke Lieberman's chairmanship would probably drive Joe over the edge to caucus with the GOP, thus switching control of the chamber. Leaving Lieberman in his chair would (a) provide a continuous source of embarassment; (b) continue to ensure that the Committee he heads will do nothing and (c) maintain nominal Democratic control of the chamber to allow it to...what?
To revoke Lieberman's chairmanship would probably drive Joe over the edge to caucus with the GOP, thus switching control of the chamber. Leaving Lieberman in his chair would (a) provide a continuous source of embarassment; (b) continue to ensure that the Committee he heads will do nothing and (c) maintain nominal Democratic control of the chamber to allow it to...what?
Friday, December 14, 2007
Sex and the Religious Right
The war against sexual pleasure:
“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign… [T]he only purpose for which government may rightfully exercise power… over anyone is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”- John Stuart Mill, 1859 essay On Liberty
“Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.”- H.L. Mencken
Do you have or want to have sex? If so, are you willing to limit your sexual expression to the missionary position within the confines of state-sanctioned marriage? If your answer to the first question is “yes,” and the second “no,” you ought to read Marty Klein’s book America’s War on Sex as soon as possible.
Since the onset of the second Bush presidency, we’ve all become familiar with the term “culture war.” (Although its roots go back as far as the Reagan era and the Moral Majority. Someone, I forget who, once said, “The Moral Majority is neither moral nor a majority.“) I’d always thought of this “war” in terms of free speech, prayer in the schools, displaying the Ten Commandments in government buildings or nativity scenes in public places, the separation of church and state, and abortion, contraception and family planning controversy.
The culture war has always been framed as the Right vs. the Left, Republicans vs. Democrats, Conservatives vs. Liberals, theocracy vs. democracy, and science vs. faith. It seems that over the last seven years, the conservatives led by George W. Bush and his faith-based initiatives appear to be winning.
It never occurred to me that President Bush wanted to eliminate the right of the American people to acquire dildos. That’s right. Dildos.
According to Klein, “The state of Alabama has been in and out of court, trying to criminalize the sale of vibrators for a decade. When a U.S. district judge ruled against the state ban on sex-toy sales - twice - the state appealed - twice. Finally, a federal court actually ruled that the government has a compelling interest in keeping ‘orgasm stimulating paraphernalia’ out of our hands. Were they concerned that women would stop having sex with their husbands if they could buzz off with a vibrator?”
Klein goes on to write in depth on the various “battlegrounds” the Right has chosen to fight:
1. Sex EducationAbstinence-only programs. Do they work? No.
(snip)
2. Reproductive Rights
Klein wants to know why the right to get pregnant, give birth, or not should be a major concern of the Right, both political and religious, though they don’t always overlap. “Other than your partner - and possibly your mother,” Klein asks, “why would anyone - especially a stranger - care about whether or not you use a condom…?”
The belief underlying the move to limit everyone’s access to contraceptives is that the only legitimate purpose of sex is procreation and marital intimacy. Contraception means that sex can be used for other reasons, that is, pleasure. That is what the battle over reproductive rights ultimately is: limiting sex for pleasure.
If you think it’s really about the right of the fetus to come to term, or the “every sperm is sacred” argument (see song by Monty Python’s Flying Circus), then look at this quote by Joseph Scheidler, national director of the Pro-Life action league. He said, “I would like to outlaw contraception. It is disgusting - people using each other for pleasure.” He really said that. It isn’t often the power brokers of the Religious Right admit the truth behind their political maneuvering.
As a result of this political activity on the part of what Klein calls “erotophobes” (people who hate anything sexy), most states now allow pharmacists to refuse to fill any legal prescription, though they usually refuse to fill RU-486 (the morning-after pill). New laws are being enacted to protect pharmacists who then refuse to refer patients to other pharmacies that will help them.
Klein writes, “Pharmacists do not have this right. Your Aunt Mabel does - in private. Indeed, pharmacists have the same rights as your Aunt Mabel to withhold, cajole, persuade, and bully in order to shape your behavior - in private.” Is refusing to sell medicine to help someone have responsible sex any different than refusing to sell a black family a house in a white neighborhood? No. It’s discrimination, pure and simple.
Klein goes on to ask if there is a limit on people’s right to enforce their morality on others? Could a department store clerk refuse to sell you clothing made in China? Could a physician refuse to give you a blood transfusion because it’s against God’s will? Can a guidance counselor refuse to help a girl get into MIT because girls can’t be scientists?
3. Broadcast “Indecency”
Remember the furor caused by the “accidental” exposure of Janet Jackson’s nipple during the Superbowl halftime show? Organizations like Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, Senators Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Kevin Martin at the Federal Communications Commission have banded together to restrict content they have labeled “indecent” (not allowed on the air from 6 a.m. to midnight) or “obscene” (not allowed ever).
The original purpose of the FCC when it was created in the 1940’s was to 1) encourage diversity of programming, 2) make sure there was programming specifically for children, and 3) assign unique frequencies to radio and television broadcasters from the usable spectrum that was limited by the technology available at that time.
The FCC no longer bothers with its first two mandates, and, with the invention of satellite, cable and broadband, the public airwaves are not the same kind of resource that they once were, thus eliminating the third reason for the FCC.
Perhaps in an effort to justify its ongoing existence and budget, the FCC has assumed the role of government watchdog, policing the content of airwaves. It justified its intrusion because “TV and radio come into the privacy of people’s homes.” According to Klein, “It was a ridiculous argument, but the courts agreed. The rise of satellite radio, cable TV and pay-per-view TV has demolished that audience-as-passive-victim argument,” but the government intrusion continues. Fines imposed by the FCC have risen from $48,000 in 2000 to $7.9 million in 2004.
An example of how far the culture of censorship has taken us is Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. A Kentucky public radio station refused to air an episode in August 2005 because of the word “breast,” meaning “heart,” “soul,” or “conscience.” Klein quotes WUKY station manager Tom Godell as saying, “I don’t question the artistic merit, but I have to question the language. The FCC has been so inconsistent, we don’t know where we stand. We could no longer risk a fine.”
I haven’t got the time or space to describe in detail Klein’s other “battlegrounds”: Adult Entertainment (bookstores and strip clubs closed to expensive court battles over misuse of zoning laws), the Internet (public libraries forced to use filtering software or lose federal funding, software that indiscriminately shuts down sexual health sites and sites that use the name “Dick” for example along with porn sites), the War on Pornography (“In West Germany, rape rates declined once bans on pornography were lifted in 1973 - Philip D. Harvey, The Government vs. Erotica: The Siege of Adam and Eve.), and Sexual Privacy and Sexual Minorities (“It is heartbreakingly ironic that, although victims of domestic violence rarely have their children taken from them, the court’s insistence on treating [practitioners of sadomasochism as victims of domestic violence] provided the rationale limiting [parents contact with their own children].” Klein, p. 168).
The most thought provoking idea in Klein’s book, however, can be found in chapter three “The Most Powerful ‘Minority’ in the United States.” He writes, “I’m confused. Exactly who is this ‘they’ that the Religious Right keep saying has hijacked the country?… And who are the consumers of the cultural products the Religious Right constantly criticizes? Who do they think is watching Desperate Housewives, going to see Maid in Manhattan, buying Cosmopolitan, and downloading Janet Jackson’s half-second nipple?…They have gotten the government and media to support them as defenders of America’s wholesomeness against some mythical, incredibly powerful ’them’… But the Right is like the kid who kills his parents and asks for mercy because he’s an orphan. Somehow, they neglect to mention that it’s the consumer choices and other preferences of their own constituents that are the so-called problem.”
In other words, it is the average, working- and middle-class, Republican voters that are watching porn in private and crying out (and voting) against it in public. The most visible leaders of the Right, including Jimmy Swaggart, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Guiliani and Strom Thurmond had extramarital affairs, visited prostitutes and participated in sexual harassment.
Are they included in the “them” that is hijacking the country from decent folk like you and me?
The central trouble with this war on sex is that early on in the history of Western civilization, sex has been demonized by religious leaders until today it is the norm to be ashamed of any sexual impulse whatsoever.
Who in their right mind is going to stand up for the rights of Americans to get a lap dance? Which of us will be strong enough to battle our own guilt and throw off the oppressive shackles of shame to stand up to these hypocrites? I hope that I can when the time comes, and I’m grateful that Marty Klein and the American Civil Liberties Union does.
h/t Andrew Sullivan
Maybe one or more of our criticism-sensitive candidates could address this concern.
“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign… [T]he only purpose for which government may rightfully exercise power… over anyone is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”- John Stuart Mill, 1859 essay On Liberty
“Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.”- H.L. Mencken
Do you have or want to have sex? If so, are you willing to limit your sexual expression to the missionary position within the confines of state-sanctioned marriage? If your answer to the first question is “yes,” and the second “no,” you ought to read Marty Klein’s book America’s War on Sex as soon as possible.
Since the onset of the second Bush presidency, we’ve all become familiar with the term “culture war.” (Although its roots go back as far as the Reagan era and the Moral Majority. Someone, I forget who, once said, “The Moral Majority is neither moral nor a majority.“) I’d always thought of this “war” in terms of free speech, prayer in the schools, displaying the Ten Commandments in government buildings or nativity scenes in public places, the separation of church and state, and abortion, contraception and family planning controversy.
The culture war has always been framed as the Right vs. the Left, Republicans vs. Democrats, Conservatives vs. Liberals, theocracy vs. democracy, and science vs. faith. It seems that over the last seven years, the conservatives led by George W. Bush and his faith-based initiatives appear to be winning.
It never occurred to me that President Bush wanted to eliminate the right of the American people to acquire dildos. That’s right. Dildos.
According to Klein, “The state of Alabama has been in and out of court, trying to criminalize the sale of vibrators for a decade. When a U.S. district judge ruled against the state ban on sex-toy sales - twice - the state appealed - twice. Finally, a federal court actually ruled that the government has a compelling interest in keeping ‘orgasm stimulating paraphernalia’ out of our hands. Were they concerned that women would stop having sex with their husbands if they could buzz off with a vibrator?”
Klein goes on to write in depth on the various “battlegrounds” the Right has chosen to fight:
1. Sex EducationAbstinence-only programs. Do they work? No.
(snip)
2. Reproductive Rights
Klein wants to know why the right to get pregnant, give birth, or not should be a major concern of the Right, both political and religious, though they don’t always overlap. “Other than your partner - and possibly your mother,” Klein asks, “why would anyone - especially a stranger - care about whether or not you use a condom…?”
The belief underlying the move to limit everyone’s access to contraceptives is that the only legitimate purpose of sex is procreation and marital intimacy. Contraception means that sex can be used for other reasons, that is, pleasure. That is what the battle over reproductive rights ultimately is: limiting sex for pleasure.
If you think it’s really about the right of the fetus to come to term, or the “every sperm is sacred” argument (see song by Monty Python’s Flying Circus), then look at this quote by Joseph Scheidler, national director of the Pro-Life action league. He said, “I would like to outlaw contraception. It is disgusting - people using each other for pleasure.” He really said that. It isn’t often the power brokers of the Religious Right admit the truth behind their political maneuvering.
As a result of this political activity on the part of what Klein calls “erotophobes” (people who hate anything sexy), most states now allow pharmacists to refuse to fill any legal prescription, though they usually refuse to fill RU-486 (the morning-after pill). New laws are being enacted to protect pharmacists who then refuse to refer patients to other pharmacies that will help them.
Klein writes, “Pharmacists do not have this right. Your Aunt Mabel does - in private. Indeed, pharmacists have the same rights as your Aunt Mabel to withhold, cajole, persuade, and bully in order to shape your behavior - in private.” Is refusing to sell medicine to help someone have responsible sex any different than refusing to sell a black family a house in a white neighborhood? No. It’s discrimination, pure and simple.
Klein goes on to ask if there is a limit on people’s right to enforce their morality on others? Could a department store clerk refuse to sell you clothing made in China? Could a physician refuse to give you a blood transfusion because it’s against God’s will? Can a guidance counselor refuse to help a girl get into MIT because girls can’t be scientists?
3. Broadcast “Indecency”
Remember the furor caused by the “accidental” exposure of Janet Jackson’s nipple during the Superbowl halftime show? Organizations like Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, Senators Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Kevin Martin at the Federal Communications Commission have banded together to restrict content they have labeled “indecent” (not allowed on the air from 6 a.m. to midnight) or “obscene” (not allowed ever).
The original purpose of the FCC when it was created in the 1940’s was to 1) encourage diversity of programming, 2) make sure there was programming specifically for children, and 3) assign unique frequencies to radio and television broadcasters from the usable spectrum that was limited by the technology available at that time.
The FCC no longer bothers with its first two mandates, and, with the invention of satellite, cable and broadband, the public airwaves are not the same kind of resource that they once were, thus eliminating the third reason for the FCC.
Perhaps in an effort to justify its ongoing existence and budget, the FCC has assumed the role of government watchdog, policing the content of airwaves. It justified its intrusion because “TV and radio come into the privacy of people’s homes.” According to Klein, “It was a ridiculous argument, but the courts agreed. The rise of satellite radio, cable TV and pay-per-view TV has demolished that audience-as-passive-victim argument,” but the government intrusion continues. Fines imposed by the FCC have risen from $48,000 in 2000 to $7.9 million in 2004.
An example of how far the culture of censorship has taken us is Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. A Kentucky public radio station refused to air an episode in August 2005 because of the word “breast,” meaning “heart,” “soul,” or “conscience.” Klein quotes WUKY station manager Tom Godell as saying, “I don’t question the artistic merit, but I have to question the language. The FCC has been so inconsistent, we don’t know where we stand. We could no longer risk a fine.”
I haven’t got the time or space to describe in detail Klein’s other “battlegrounds”: Adult Entertainment (bookstores and strip clubs closed to expensive court battles over misuse of zoning laws), the Internet (public libraries forced to use filtering software or lose federal funding, software that indiscriminately shuts down sexual health sites and sites that use the name “Dick” for example along with porn sites), the War on Pornography (“In West Germany, rape rates declined once bans on pornography were lifted in 1973 - Philip D. Harvey, The Government vs. Erotica: The Siege of Adam and Eve.), and Sexual Privacy and Sexual Minorities (“It is heartbreakingly ironic that, although victims of domestic violence rarely have their children taken from them, the court’s insistence on treating [practitioners of sadomasochism as victims of domestic violence] provided the rationale limiting [parents contact with their own children].” Klein, p. 168).
The most thought provoking idea in Klein’s book, however, can be found in chapter three “The Most Powerful ‘Minority’ in the United States.” He writes, “I’m confused. Exactly who is this ‘they’ that the Religious Right keep saying has hijacked the country?… And who are the consumers of the cultural products the Religious Right constantly criticizes? Who do they think is watching Desperate Housewives, going to see Maid in Manhattan, buying Cosmopolitan, and downloading Janet Jackson’s half-second nipple?…They have gotten the government and media to support them as defenders of America’s wholesomeness against some mythical, incredibly powerful ’them’… But the Right is like the kid who kills his parents and asks for mercy because he’s an orphan. Somehow, they neglect to mention that it’s the consumer choices and other preferences of their own constituents that are the so-called problem.”
In other words, it is the average, working- and middle-class, Republican voters that are watching porn in private and crying out (and voting) against it in public. The most visible leaders of the Right, including Jimmy Swaggart, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Guiliani and Strom Thurmond had extramarital affairs, visited prostitutes and participated in sexual harassment.
Are they included in the “them” that is hijacking the country from decent folk like you and me?
The central trouble with this war on sex is that early on in the history of Western civilization, sex has been demonized by religious leaders until today it is the norm to be ashamed of any sexual impulse whatsoever.
Who in their right mind is going to stand up for the rights of Americans to get a lap dance? Which of us will be strong enough to battle our own guilt and throw off the oppressive shackles of shame to stand up to these hypocrites? I hope that I can when the time comes, and I’m grateful that Marty Klein and the American Civil Liberties Union does.
h/t Andrew Sullivan
Maybe one or more of our criticism-sensitive candidates could address this concern.
Yes, and?
The Carpetbagger:
I’m obviously not a neutral observer when it comes to ideology, but I like to think I’m objective enough to evaluate the quality of the two sets of presidential hopefuls. And by every measurement I can think of, the Democratic field is more serious, more credible, more knowledgeable, more consistent, more principled, and more dignified.
And I wish those terms were predictive of campaign success.
More seriously, while all that is true from our perspective, a more disinterested examination of the respective party fields might also ponder what the actual electoral attributes and prospects are of the candidates. One Democratic candidate is a racial minority, another is a woman (and spouse of a male president whose partisan hate-club spans over two decades) with her own high negatives. A third main contender hails from the South, which offers the potential to pull in electoral votes Democrats haven't won in over a generation, but has no executive experience.
While I am proud to support Obama, and think the upside of nominating him outweighs the downside of going "safe", let's not get too heady, here.
I’m obviously not a neutral observer when it comes to ideology, but I like to think I’m objective enough to evaluate the quality of the two sets of presidential hopefuls. And by every measurement I can think of, the Democratic field is more serious, more credible, more knowledgeable, more consistent, more principled, and more dignified.
And I wish those terms were predictive of campaign success.
More seriously, while all that is true from our perspective, a more disinterested examination of the respective party fields might also ponder what the actual electoral attributes and prospects are of the candidates. One Democratic candidate is a racial minority, another is a woman (and spouse of a male president whose partisan hate-club spans over two decades) with her own high negatives. A third main contender hails from the South, which offers the potential to pull in electoral votes Democrats haven't won in over a generation, but has no executive experience.
While I am proud to support Obama, and think the upside of nominating him outweighs the downside of going "safe", let's not get too heady, here.
CNN online goes Nation Inquirer
I've been meaning to blog about this for a while now, but this most recent page of CNN online "Latest News" items reminded me again:
Latest News
WDIV: Tots left home alone three days
WPLG: Woman, 26, married to 10 men
Woman chained inside home scrawls 911
Girl, 9, drives dad having a heart attack
Cloned cats glow red in the dark
Digital wanted posters help find fugitives
Eva Longoria denies hubby Tony cheated
There are some legitimate news stories at the top but as the list descends it envelops more and more of the bizarre. And this is pretty typical. I figure we're not too far away from "Two Headed Alien From Mars Stays The Night, Says Family" or "JFK Still Lives, Man Says".
Here's more:
Roaming, thieving monkeys sought in roundup
Christmas card arrives 93 years late
'Baseline Killer' suspect gets 438 years
Lawmaker choked by tie in assembly brawl
Soldier dad pops out of girls' Xmas box
Latest News
WDIV: Tots left home alone three days
WPLG: Woman, 26, married to 10 men
Woman chained inside home scrawls 911
Girl, 9, drives dad having a heart attack
Cloned cats glow red in the dark
Digital wanted posters help find fugitives
Eva Longoria denies hubby Tony cheated
There are some legitimate news stories at the top but as the list descends it envelops more and more of the bizarre. And this is pretty typical. I figure we're not too far away from "Two Headed Alien From Mars Stays The Night, Says Family" or "JFK Still Lives, Man Says".
Here's more:
Roaming, thieving monkeys sought in roundup
Christmas card arrives 93 years late
'Baseline Killer' suspect gets 438 years
Lawmaker choked by tie in assembly brawl
Soldier dad pops out of girls' Xmas box
Thursday, December 13, 2007
At Least Important Republican Legislation is Getting Passed (Updated below)
Glenn Greenwald laments the tidal wave of media attention to Democratic Party "capitulation", "bowing" and "backing down" to various Administration demands in Congress related to the war and various spending measures but balances such distressing news by highlighting the very important, Republican-sponsored legislation the "Democrat"-led Congress did pass recently.
Update: In addition to it's "Democrats Bow to Bush's Demands in House Spending Bill" the Washington Post also graced us with this homage to Democratic Party haplessness in Congress.
Update: In addition to it's "Democrats Bow to Bush's Demands in House Spending Bill" the Washington Post also graced us with this homage to Democratic Party haplessness in Congress.
"secular Sweden is free while religious Iran is not"
That's Roger Cohen's retort to Romney's much quoted “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.”
...The U.S. culture wars have produced what David Campbell of Notre Dame University called: “the injection of religion into politics in a very overt way.”
Much too overt for Europeans, whose alarm at George W. Bush’s presidency has been fed by his allusions to divine guidance — “the hand of a just and faithful God” in shaping events, or his trust in “the ways of Providence.”
Such beliefs seem to remove decision-making from the realm of the rational at the very moment when the West’s enemy acts in the name of fanatical theocracy. At worst, they produce references to a “crusade” against those jihadist enemies. God-given knowledge is scarcely amenable to oversight.
(snip)
Religion informed America’s birth. But its distancing from politics was decisive to the republic’s success. Indeed, the devastating European experience of religious war influenced the founders’ thinking. That is why I find Romney’s speech and the society it reflects far more troubling than Europe’s vacant cathedrals.
(snip)
[Romney] shows a Wikipedia-level appreciation of other religions, admiring “the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims” and “the ancient traditions of the Jews.” These vapid nostrums suggest his innermost conviction of America’s true faith.
--------
Today's surging political religiosity among the party elite is not only irrational, it's highly ahistorical. We could stand for someone, a political candidate perhaps, reminding us of the history of those years when religion--Christian religion--was much more involved with the state and what the effects of that involvement were.
...The U.S. culture wars have produced what David Campbell of Notre Dame University called: “the injection of religion into politics in a very overt way.”
Much too overt for Europeans, whose alarm at George W. Bush’s presidency has been fed by his allusions to divine guidance — “the hand of a just and faithful God” in shaping events, or his trust in “the ways of Providence.”
Such beliefs seem to remove decision-making from the realm of the rational at the very moment when the West’s enemy acts in the name of fanatical theocracy. At worst, they produce references to a “crusade” against those jihadist enemies. God-given knowledge is scarcely amenable to oversight.
(snip)
Religion informed America’s birth. But its distancing from politics was decisive to the republic’s success. Indeed, the devastating European experience of religious war influenced the founders’ thinking. That is why I find Romney’s speech and the society it reflects far more troubling than Europe’s vacant cathedrals.
(snip)
[Romney] shows a Wikipedia-level appreciation of other religions, admiring “the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims” and “the ancient traditions of the Jews.” These vapid nostrums suggest his innermost conviction of America’s true faith.
--------
Today's surging political religiosity among the party elite is not only irrational, it's highly ahistorical. We could stand for someone, a political candidate perhaps, reminding us of the history of those years when religion--Christian religion--was much more involved with the state and what the effects of that involvement were.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Hillary in Iowa
In the middle of this NYT piece on Hillary having trouble in Iowa, is this sentence:
“It’s a unique and difficult dynamic,” said Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor who has become one of Mrs. Clinton’s top Iowa advisers.
Ordinarily, you'd kinda think that having Tom Vilsack--a former two-term governor of Iowa who was once a presidential candidate in this very campaign--endorse you and serve as one of your top state advisors in Iowa would mean that you'd have a pretty good handle on the state. Guess not.
“It’s a unique and difficult dynamic,” said Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor who has become one of Mrs. Clinton’s top Iowa advisers.
Ordinarily, you'd kinda think that having Tom Vilsack--a former two-term governor of Iowa who was once a presidential candidate in this very campaign--endorse you and serve as one of your top state advisors in Iowa would mean that you'd have a pretty good handle on the state. Guess not.
What is "Ethnic Balkanization"?
I know, I should know better than to ask, but this statement from the National Review's endorsement of Mitt Romney for president jumped out at me as being particularly bizzare:
While he has not talked much about the importance of resisting ethnic balkanization — none of the major candidates has — he supports enforcing the immigration laws and opposes amnesty.
Gonna go out on a limb here and conclude that this has something to do with making the country more White again, or something. Maybe the NRO wants a mandatory speak English law established in the name of the "limited government" it also claims to value. But hopefully the folks at NRO will get their wish and the Republican nominee, whoever he is, will run ads about the "importance of resisting ethnic balkanization". I bet it will go over well.
While he has not talked much about the importance of resisting ethnic balkanization — none of the major candidates has — he supports enforcing the immigration laws and opposes amnesty.
Gonna go out on a limb here and conclude that this has something to do with making the country more White again, or something. Maybe the NRO wants a mandatory speak English law established in the name of the "limited government" it also claims to value. But hopefully the folks at NRO will get their wish and the Republican nominee, whoever he is, will run ads about the "importance of resisting ethnic balkanization". I bet it will go over well.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
We Interrupt This Attack Hillary Broadcast...
One of the consequences of the Huckabee surge, of course, is that after trying to make their debates, and potentially any valuable advertising spending, about Hillary, God's Own Party must re-form into a circular firing squad.
"A Return to Normalcy"
David Brooks is making sense:
In Washington, the National Intelligence Estimate was released, suggesting the next president will not face an imminent nuclear showdown with Iran. In Iraq, the surge and tribal revolts produce increasing stability. In Pakistan, the streets have not exploded. In the Middle East, the Arabs and Palestinians stumble toward some sort of peace process. In Venezuela, a referendum set President Hugo Chávez back on his heels.
The world still has its problems, but it no longer seems to be building toward some larger crisis. The atmosphere of fear and conflict has at least temporarily abated. With the change in conditions, the election of 2008 is beginning to feel like a postwar election. American voters are coming out of the shells constructed after Sept. 11th and are looking for a new normalcy. They’re looking for something entirely different.
(snip)
But the more comprehensive difference between a wartime election and a postwar election is that there is a shift in values. In wartime, leadership traits like courage, steadfastness and ruthlessness are prized. Voters are willing to vote for candidates they distrust so long as they seem tough and effective (Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani).
In a postwar election things are different. When Wall Street Journal/NBC pollsters asked voters what qualities they were looking for in the next leader, their top three choices were: the ability to work well with leaders of other countries; having strong moral and family values; bringing unity to the country. Those are cooperative qualities, not combative ones. They require good listening skills, openness and the ability to compromise.
It’s clear that voters are not only exhausted by the war, they are exhausted by the war over the war. On the Democratic side, Obama captured the mood exactly with his Jefferson-Jackson Day speech of a few weeks ago. In that speech, he asked voters to reject fear, partisanship and textbook politics. He asked them to vote instead on the basis of their aspirations for a new era of national unity. As a result, Obama has pulled ahead in Iowa and approached parity in New Hampshire.
The tragedy of the Republican race is that Mitt Romney and Giuliani, who could have offered a new kind of Republicanism, opted to run as conventional Bush-era Republicans. Now Huckabee has emerged as the fresh alternative. Huckabee is socially conservative, but not a partisan culture warrior. He’s a pragmatic gubernatorial Republican, not a rigid creature of the beltway interest groups.
My guess is that this race has a few more twists and turns. Something terrible could happen in the world, in which case the wartime mentality would be back in spades. Obama and Huckabee could beat Clinton and Romney, respectively, in the early states, only to fall victim to their own weaknesses later on. You laugh, but this thing could still spin into the lap of Fred Thompson or John McCain, Chris Dodd or Joe Biden.
-----------
Yeah, I know he talks about how the "surge" has helped "produce increasing stability" and doesn't qualify his statements about the importance of Iraq to voters.
But the theme of a "return to normalcy" doesn't sound all that bad to me.
Now, if Obama would take this idea and apply it to the unnecessary infringements on the Constitution made in the name of fighting a never-ending war on terrorism, a return to normalcy campaign would be substantive as much as rhetorical.
In Washington, the National Intelligence Estimate was released, suggesting the next president will not face an imminent nuclear showdown with Iran. In Iraq, the surge and tribal revolts produce increasing stability. In Pakistan, the streets have not exploded. In the Middle East, the Arabs and Palestinians stumble toward some sort of peace process. In Venezuela, a referendum set President Hugo Chávez back on his heels.
The world still has its problems, but it no longer seems to be building toward some larger crisis. The atmosphere of fear and conflict has at least temporarily abated. With the change in conditions, the election of 2008 is beginning to feel like a postwar election. American voters are coming out of the shells constructed after Sept. 11th and are looking for a new normalcy. They’re looking for something entirely different.
(snip)
But the more comprehensive difference between a wartime election and a postwar election is that there is a shift in values. In wartime, leadership traits like courage, steadfastness and ruthlessness are prized. Voters are willing to vote for candidates they distrust so long as they seem tough and effective (Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani).
In a postwar election things are different. When Wall Street Journal/NBC pollsters asked voters what qualities they were looking for in the next leader, their top three choices were: the ability to work well with leaders of other countries; having strong moral and family values; bringing unity to the country. Those are cooperative qualities, not combative ones. They require good listening skills, openness and the ability to compromise.
It’s clear that voters are not only exhausted by the war, they are exhausted by the war over the war. On the Democratic side, Obama captured the mood exactly with his Jefferson-Jackson Day speech of a few weeks ago. In that speech, he asked voters to reject fear, partisanship and textbook politics. He asked them to vote instead on the basis of their aspirations for a new era of national unity. As a result, Obama has pulled ahead in Iowa and approached parity in New Hampshire.
The tragedy of the Republican race is that Mitt Romney and Giuliani, who could have offered a new kind of Republicanism, opted to run as conventional Bush-era Republicans. Now Huckabee has emerged as the fresh alternative. Huckabee is socially conservative, but not a partisan culture warrior. He’s a pragmatic gubernatorial Republican, not a rigid creature of the beltway interest groups.
My guess is that this race has a few more twists and turns. Something terrible could happen in the world, in which case the wartime mentality would be back in spades. Obama and Huckabee could beat Clinton and Romney, respectively, in the early states, only to fall victim to their own weaknesses later on. You laugh, but this thing could still spin into the lap of Fred Thompson or John McCain, Chris Dodd or Joe Biden.
-----------
Yeah, I know he talks about how the "surge" has helped "produce increasing stability" and doesn't qualify his statements about the importance of Iraq to voters.
But the theme of a "return to normalcy" doesn't sound all that bad to me.
Now, if Obama would take this idea and apply it to the unnecessary infringements on the Constitution made in the name of fighting a never-ending war on terrorism, a return to normalcy campaign would be substantive as much as rhetorical.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Well give you security if you'll give us back the Bill of Rights
Jamie Holly at Crooks and Liars has this to say about the recent shootings in the heartland:
All this has had me thinking about the FISA debate when proponents of the warrantless wiretapping were quick to argue it was necessary to give up freedoms for security. Would these same people apply that argument to the second amendment instead of the fourth? I think we all know the answer on that. Perhaps the next time a Republican Senator says that we should give up freedoms for security when it comes to listening in on phone calls, then he should be asked about giving up the right to bear arms as a way to protect us in church or at the local mall. Let’s see how quickly the subject changes then.
Yes, lets.
All this has had me thinking about the FISA debate when proponents of the warrantless wiretapping were quick to argue it was necessary to give up freedoms for security. Would these same people apply that argument to the second amendment instead of the fourth? I think we all know the answer on that. Perhaps the next time a Republican Senator says that we should give up freedoms for security when it comes to listening in on phone calls, then he should be asked about giving up the right to bear arms as a way to protect us in church or at the local mall. Let’s see how quickly the subject changes then.
Yes, lets.
Tancredo No Show (updated below)
I was surprised to read this morning that the GOP candidates debated on Univision before a Hispanic audience. Give credit where credit is due. They aren't giving up yet. But there was a strange absence. All the GOP candidates showed up except...Tom Tancredo.
Why would that be? Everyone knows that opposition to illegal immigration isn't opposition to immigration generally, and certainly not an opposition to Hispanic immigration specifically. Right?
You might be asking me right about now, why do you say everyone knows these things? Why? Because all the opponents of illegal immigration say so. Lou Dobbs says so. The very patriotic Minutemen say so. I'm sure that the author of Whatever It Takes, who got his ass bounced outta Congress last year, probably said it. Hell, I bet even Tom Tancredo has said so.
So why then would Tancredo be a no show at the Hispanic-sponsored debate? I'm totally stumped.
Update: Uh, Tom, this explanation probably won't help:
All the GOP candidates but Tom Tancredo participated in the debate. Tancredo said he would not attend because the debate was to be conducted in Spanish. "It is the law that to become a naturalized citizen of this country you must have knowledge and understanding of English, including a basic ability to read, write, and speak the language," he said in a release. "So what may I ask are our presidential candidates doing participating in a Spanish speaking debate? Pandering comes to mind."
Why would that be? Everyone knows that opposition to illegal immigration isn't opposition to immigration generally, and certainly not an opposition to Hispanic immigration specifically. Right?
You might be asking me right about now, why do you say everyone knows these things? Why? Because all the opponents of illegal immigration say so. Lou Dobbs says so. The very patriotic Minutemen say so. I'm sure that the author of Whatever It Takes, who got his ass bounced outta Congress last year, probably said it. Hell, I bet even Tom Tancredo has said so.
So why then would Tancredo be a no show at the Hispanic-sponsored debate? I'm totally stumped.
Update: Uh, Tom, this explanation probably won't help:
All the GOP candidates but Tom Tancredo participated in the debate. Tancredo said he would not attend because the debate was to be conducted in Spanish. "It is the law that to become a naturalized citizen of this country you must have knowledge and understanding of English, including a basic ability to read, write, and speak the language," he said in a release. "So what may I ask are our presidential candidates doing participating in a Spanish speaking debate? Pandering comes to mind."
Friday, December 07, 2007
In the public square, part II
Just on the opposite side of the NYT's editorial on Romney's speech this morning is an op-ed by the author of Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Ali's op-ed is prefaced by a quote from the Koran:
The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2)
Hmmm. Wonder what the Judeo-Christian Holy Bible has to say about adultery and fornication?
Leviticus 20:10. "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."
Deuteronomy 22:23-24 "If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you."
Here endeth the lesson.
Ali's op-ed is prefaced by a quote from the Koran:
The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2)
Hmmm. Wonder what the Judeo-Christian Holy Bible has to say about adultery and fornication?
Leviticus 20:10. "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."
Deuteronomy 22:23-24 "If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you."
Here endeth the lesson.
In the public square
As the NYT editorial on the subject pointed out this morning:
The other myth permeating the debate over religion is that it is a dispute between those who believe religion has a place in public life and those who advocate, as Mr. Romney put it, “the elimination of religion from the public square.” That same nonsense is trotted out every time a court rules that the Ten Commandments may not be displayed in a government building.
Is it true, that religion has been eliminated from the public square or that there are people who want to eliminate it from the public square? What is the "public square" and what is religion's role in it?
This got me to thinking about all the hand-wringing that has surrounded the recent release of best-sellers from a spate of New Atheist writers (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens) and the occasional presence of the same on the teevee and in press. The New Atheists are portrayed as particularly angry and why after all are these people trashing religion anyway?
But haven't Harris et al been doing what the New Calvinists say they want? They're putting religious belief front and center in the "public square".
Religionists claim they want their faith, and even faiths they profess not to adhere to, to have a place in the "public square", put on display so that...I don't know. So that people of faith will feel secure? So people will be united (even while excluding those of minority faiths or no faith at all)?
Being in the public square necessarily entails having your ideas the subject of discussion, challenge and debate. But by their shreaks of fear and vitriol, the Christianist religionists are giving ample evidence that they really don't want their faiths challenged or subject to discussion and debate.
Too bad. You want the public square? You got the public square. For better or worse.
The other myth permeating the debate over religion is that it is a dispute between those who believe religion has a place in public life and those who advocate, as Mr. Romney put it, “the elimination of religion from the public square.” That same nonsense is trotted out every time a court rules that the Ten Commandments may not be displayed in a government building.
Is it true, that religion has been eliminated from the public square or that there are people who want to eliminate it from the public square? What is the "public square" and what is religion's role in it?
This got me to thinking about all the hand-wringing that has surrounded the recent release of best-sellers from a spate of New Atheist writers (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens) and the occasional presence of the same on the teevee and in press. The New Atheists are portrayed as particularly angry and why after all are these people trashing religion anyway?
But haven't Harris et al been doing what the New Calvinists say they want? They're putting religious belief front and center in the "public square".
Religionists claim they want their faith, and even faiths they profess not to adhere to, to have a place in the "public square", put on display so that...I don't know. So that people of faith will feel secure? So people will be united (even while excluding those of minority faiths or no faith at all)?
Being in the public square necessarily entails having your ideas the subject of discussion, challenge and debate. But by their shreaks of fear and vitriol, the Christianist religionists are giving ample evidence that they really don't want their faiths challenged or subject to discussion and debate.
Too bad. You want the public square? You got the public square. For better or worse.
Enter Collins
I'm sorry Jason Campbell got hurt last night.
But the only thing he accomplished in the last five weeks was to not win.
And last night's win came with, and despite, a paltry 31 yards rushing. I hope we can begin to dispense now with the idea that Washington must run the ball to be successful. They must punch the ball in the end zone to be successful. And get a few defensive turnovers while they're at it. Shawn Springs' pick at the end of the first half setting up the first TD with 17 seconds to go was huge.
But the only thing he accomplished in the last five weeks was to not win.
And last night's win came with, and despite, a paltry 31 yards rushing. I hope we can begin to dispense now with the idea that Washington must run the ball to be successful. They must punch the ball in the end zone to be successful. And get a few defensive turnovers while they're at it. Shawn Springs' pick at the end of the first half setting up the first TD with 17 seconds to go was huge.
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