In my last post I referred to a David Broder op-ed column that referenced a speech by Maya MacGuineas of the New American Foundation, delivered at a DLC conference. In it, Maya argued that in the face of the country's budget problems, Democrats need to step forward with bipartisan-like solutions, such as the willingness to whack Social Security benefits for future retirees.
Among the dumb ideas parroted by the DLC and like-minded "centrists", this the-budget-deficit-means-we-need-to-cut-Social Security line is close to the worst, in both logic and ultimate effect.
Social Security is running a surplus, and has been for the last two decades. Around 2018, annual benefit payouts from the program will begin to exceed incoming payroll taxes, although the program will still have interest payments due from the general budget fund as the result of the lending by Social Security of its annual surpluses to the general budget since the 1980's. And as everyone knows, Social Security's Trust Fund will become exhausted in or around 2042. That's a pretty long time off, and the date is likely to be continually pushed further out as new economic and demographic assumptions are configured into the Social Security actuary's logorithms.
In any event, since 2042 is a long way off, conservatives have tried to make a big whoop to do about the fact that between 2018 and 2042, the federal government will have to pay back what it's borrowed from Social Security, putting a strain on the rest of the budget. In this doomsday scenario, taxes would have to be raised, spending on other programs cut, or more money borrowed.
Well.
Before you get suckered into that spin, consider the fact that the current budget deficit is in the neighborhood of $400 billion per year. This means the federal budget is right now in exactly the same situation as it would be in the years between 2018 and 2042, give or take a couple hundred billion dollars. So, if conservatives want to be worried about budget deficits in 2018 and beyond, why aren't they upset about them now? And if conservatives were concerned about the retirement of the baby boomers and the needs of an aging population, then maybe they shouldn't have cut taxes as much as they did, and as much as they would like to do by extending the 2001-2004 tax cuts. So when conservatives talk about the looming fiscal problems set to begin around 2018, tell them that yes, it' s a crisis allright, but it's a budget crisis, not a Social Security crisis.
In short, don't be fooled by this shell game. Republicans are doing the same thing they did in the 1980's--cut marginal tax rates and tax revenue dramatically, increase defense spending, explode the deficit, and then blame Democrats and the social safety net of domestic spending programs for the sudden "budget crisis". And so now people like Maya MacGuineas want us to throw Social Security under the bus, hoping we'll be confused by the shell game the Republicans and organizations like hers have been playing.
Social Security is not the problem. It's the taxes and the defense spending (and the war), stupid.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Hangin' with the Wrong Crowd
There's a bizarre op-ed piece by David Broder in today's Wash Post.
The first distressing note is that Broder has apparently been hanging around the wrong crowd (and has also apparently been drinking from the cup of the group's own version of kool-aid). Here's what he has to say about the DLC:
It is not hard these days to find intelligent critiques of the budget policy and fiscal record of the Bush administration. Conservative and liberal think tanks alike grind out fresh analyses of the risks in the chronic refusal of the Republicans who govern the country to pay the bills they are amassing here and overseas.
Nonpartisan budget groups -- especially those with a historical attachment to budgetary prudence -- have been even tougher on the president and his allies on Capitol Hill for their seeming nonchalance in letting the debt of the federal government climb so rapidly on their watch.
What has been harder to discern is what the opposition Democrats would actually do to remedy the situation that may well confront them if their party comes back to power in the 2008 election. The other day, the thinking branch of the opposition -- centered these days in the Democratic Leadership Council and its allied organizations -- offered at least the start of a response.
First, if the DLC is the "thinking branch" of the Democratic Party, we are all in deep trouble indeed.
But it gets worse.
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, another of the DLC panelists, said the principle on which Democrats should approach the next campaign is a simple one: "Anything worth doing is worth paying for." Carper said that implies restoring the old budgetary rule of pay-as-you-go for both tax cuts and spending programs -- something Bush and the congressional Republicans have refused to do.
It also implies a greater readiness on the part of Democrats to reexamine the entitlement spending that poses the long-term danger of unsustainable deficits.
This message was spelled out by Maya MacGuineas, a panelist from the New America Foundation and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. As one who has worked with Republican moderates as often as with Democrats, she was particularly insistent that Democrats must ante up for any bipartisan solutions to become possible.
Specifically, the Democrats who have profited politically this year (as in the past) by opposing any change in Social Security must, she said, recognize the necessity of reforming the country's retirement system before it becomes an impossible economic burden on working-age Americans.
MacGuineas urged the Democrats to begin examining ideas she and others have put forward that would not simply reduce future benefits or postpone the age at which retirees could claim them but would instead adapt the whole social insurance concept of the 1930s to the realities of a new millennium.
Her concepts include mandated programs of individual savings for the predictable expenses of child-rearing, education and retirement; social insurance for the costs of catastrophic but unforeseeable medical bills; and some guarantee of safety-net income for people who, through no fault of their own, lose jobs or retirement benefits because of broad economic changes.
Boys and girls, men, women, children, and pets of all ages, what the blog does Social Security have to do with the current exploding budget deficit? More specifically, what does reducing Social Security benefits (and privatizing the program as conservatives have also been seeking) have to do with the gaping budget hole created by the multiple Bush tax cuts (including the proposed elimination of the "death tax") and the unnecessary war in Iraq?
As you consider your answer to that question, pay special attention to the comment from MacGuineas that I put in bold print: mandated programs of individual savings for predictable expenses of retirement. What does this statement mean? It means that Social Security, the nation's premier public retirement program, shouldn't be thought of as insurance in general, or social insurance in particular. No. It should be thought of as a "predictable expense" for which individuals should be responsible for their own damn selves. And what does that mean? It means MacGuineas thinks Social Security could and should be scrapped. That's what MacGuineas thinks Democrats should be buying into and what Democrats should come to the alter of "bipartisan" bargaining prepared to jettisone in order to help rescue the country from the budget and fiscal catastrophe that the Republicans have spent five years creating. Make sense to you? Didn't think so.
Doesn't make sense to Steve Gilliard either:
MacGuineas is a Vichyite fool. Why the hell [sic] would Democrats endorse plans widely rejected as unpopular? No, personal savings plans don't work if you have a crappy job.
Why would the Dems offer a plan before they hold power to enact it?
We don't need any bipartisan solutions. We need a Democratic House and Senate and offering to screw people over on social security is not going to win any votes.
Bush made this mess, let him clean it up as best he can.
Exactly so.
But back to my original question? What does Social Security, Social Security "reform", or entitlement "reform" have to do with the budget mess the Republicans are creating?
It so happens that the Senator has done some thinking on this, and he'll be back later to discuss the odd and pernicious juxtaposition between Social Security and on-budget operating expenses made by conservatives.
The first distressing note is that Broder has apparently been hanging around the wrong crowd (and has also apparently been drinking from the cup of the group's own version of kool-aid). Here's what he has to say about the DLC:
It is not hard these days to find intelligent critiques of the budget policy and fiscal record of the Bush administration. Conservative and liberal think tanks alike grind out fresh analyses of the risks in the chronic refusal of the Republicans who govern the country to pay the bills they are amassing here and overseas.
Nonpartisan budget groups -- especially those with a historical attachment to budgetary prudence -- have been even tougher on the president and his allies on Capitol Hill for their seeming nonchalance in letting the debt of the federal government climb so rapidly on their watch.
What has been harder to discern is what the opposition Democrats would actually do to remedy the situation that may well confront them if their party comes back to power in the 2008 election. The other day, the thinking branch of the opposition -- centered these days in the Democratic Leadership Council and its allied organizations -- offered at least the start of a response.
First, if the DLC is the "thinking branch" of the Democratic Party, we are all in deep trouble indeed.
But it gets worse.
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, another of the DLC panelists, said the principle on which Democrats should approach the next campaign is a simple one: "Anything worth doing is worth paying for." Carper said that implies restoring the old budgetary rule of pay-as-you-go for both tax cuts and spending programs -- something Bush and the congressional Republicans have refused to do.
It also implies a greater readiness on the part of Democrats to reexamine the entitlement spending that poses the long-term danger of unsustainable deficits.
This message was spelled out by Maya MacGuineas, a panelist from the New America Foundation and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. As one who has worked with Republican moderates as often as with Democrats, she was particularly insistent that Democrats must ante up for any bipartisan solutions to become possible.
Specifically, the Democrats who have profited politically this year (as in the past) by opposing any change in Social Security must, she said, recognize the necessity of reforming the country's retirement system before it becomes an impossible economic burden on working-age Americans.
MacGuineas urged the Democrats to begin examining ideas she and others have put forward that would not simply reduce future benefits or postpone the age at which retirees could claim them but would instead adapt the whole social insurance concept of the 1930s to the realities of a new millennium.
Her concepts include mandated programs of individual savings for the predictable expenses of child-rearing, education and retirement; social insurance for the costs of catastrophic but unforeseeable medical bills; and some guarantee of safety-net income for people who, through no fault of their own, lose jobs or retirement benefits because of broad economic changes.
Boys and girls, men, women, children, and pets of all ages, what the blog does Social Security have to do with the current exploding budget deficit? More specifically, what does reducing Social Security benefits (and privatizing the program as conservatives have also been seeking) have to do with the gaping budget hole created by the multiple Bush tax cuts (including the proposed elimination of the "death tax") and the unnecessary war in Iraq?
As you consider your answer to that question, pay special attention to the comment from MacGuineas that I put in bold print: mandated programs of individual savings for predictable expenses of retirement. What does this statement mean? It means that Social Security, the nation's premier public retirement program, shouldn't be thought of as insurance in general, or social insurance in particular. No. It should be thought of as a "predictable expense" for which individuals should be responsible for their own damn selves. And what does that mean? It means MacGuineas thinks Social Security could and should be scrapped. That's what MacGuineas thinks Democrats should be buying into and what Democrats should come to the alter of "bipartisan" bargaining prepared to jettisone in order to help rescue the country from the budget and fiscal catastrophe that the Republicans have spent five years creating. Make sense to you? Didn't think so.
Doesn't make sense to Steve Gilliard either:
MacGuineas is a Vichyite fool. Why the hell [sic] would Democrats endorse plans widely rejected as unpopular? No, personal savings plans don't work if you have a crappy job.
Why would the Dems offer a plan before they hold power to enact it?
We don't need any bipartisan solutions. We need a Democratic House and Senate and offering to screw people over on social security is not going to win any votes.
Bush made this mess, let him clean it up as best he can.
Exactly so.
But back to my original question? What does Social Security, Social Security "reform", or entitlement "reform" have to do with the budget mess the Republicans are creating?
It so happens that the Senator has done some thinking on this, and he'll be back later to discuss the odd and pernicious juxtaposition between Social Security and on-budget operating expenses made by conservatives.
The Inmates are Running the Asylum
Myers forced to withdraw due to conservative groups' litmus tests (of course she didn't help her own cause with the incomplete questionaire or the fawning notes to Bush).
In any event, now I guess we'll get one of the wingnut judges the conservatives have been salivating for.
In any event, now I guess we'll get one of the wingnut judges the conservatives have been salivating for.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Tuesday Morning Quarterback
But before we talk about football, let's talk about baseball. In particular, the Fox Sports coverage of the first two World Series games. Dear Mr. Fox Sports, DURING the first game on Saturday night you were having an interview with one of the pitching coaches WHILE the game was going on, in the MIDDLE of one of the actual innings. While you were not paying attention to the game that was actually GOING on, one of the White Sox batters preceded to launch a homerun, which the broadcasters were only able to get to after the ball had gone over the fence. Hey, do you think you can actually cover the game and save the interviews for some other time, like during commercials? And then, on Sunday, game two, you didn't get back from commercials soon enough to see another home run. You guys stink.
49'ers 17
Skins 52
Yes yes, I know. The 49'ers are terrible. But the Skins scoring 52 points? I didn't think the Skins were capable of scoring more than 25 against any team. Heck, the Skins couldn't score 30 if they had the field all to themselves.
Broncos 23
Giants 24
Eli Manning with a game winning touchdown pass with 5 seconds left on the clock after the Giants had been down 23-10. One of many close games with outcomes decided at the buzzer.
Cowboys 10
Seahawks 13
Cowboys led 10-3 with 42 seconds left. Seahawks scored a touchdown and then on the following Dallas possession, Drew Bledsoe threw an interception which was run back into field goal position for the Seahawks. Think Bill Parcels is in a good mood?
Brett Favre 20
Vikings 23
Vikings down 17-0 at the half. ESPN radio was preparing a Vikings funeral before Minnesota rallied to win.
Chargers 17
Iggles 20
Iggles saved by blocked punt returned for touchdown.
Ravens 6
Da Bears 10
This was the only Sunday game I saw anything of, and that only the fourth quarter. Not a pretty sight.
Saints 17
Rams 28
Another come from behind game and another fluke play where the Rams recovered a "fumble" and returned it for a touchdown, only replays clearly showed the Saints player was already down when the ball was stripped, but there was more than 2 minutes left on the clock (under two minutes and the officials make the replay challenges) and the Saints were out of timeouts and therefore couldn't challenge. Hey Hasslet, how do you not have any timeouts at the end of the game?
49'ers 17
Skins 52
Yes yes, I know. The 49'ers are terrible. But the Skins scoring 52 points? I didn't think the Skins were capable of scoring more than 25 against any team. Heck, the Skins couldn't score 30 if they had the field all to themselves.
Broncos 23
Giants 24
Eli Manning with a game winning touchdown pass with 5 seconds left on the clock after the Giants had been down 23-10. One of many close games with outcomes decided at the buzzer.
Cowboys 10
Seahawks 13
Cowboys led 10-3 with 42 seconds left. Seahawks scored a touchdown and then on the following Dallas possession, Drew Bledsoe threw an interception which was run back into field goal position for the Seahawks. Think Bill Parcels is in a good mood?
Brett Favre 20
Vikings 23
Vikings down 17-0 at the half. ESPN radio was preparing a Vikings funeral before Minnesota rallied to win.
Chargers 17
Iggles 20
Iggles saved by blocked punt returned for touchdown.
Ravens 6
Da Bears 10
This was the only Sunday game I saw anything of, and that only the fourth quarter. Not a pretty sight.
Saints 17
Rams 28
Another come from behind game and another fluke play where the Rams recovered a "fumble" and returned it for a touchdown, only replays clearly showed the Saints player was already down when the ball was stripped, but there was more than 2 minutes left on the clock (under two minutes and the officials make the replay challenges) and the Saints were out of timeouts and therefore couldn't challenge. Hey Hasslet, how do you not have any timeouts at the end of the game?
Mo Dowd and Judy
It's a bit late, but for those of you who haven't already seen it, here is the Maureen Dowd op-ed column in the NYT on Judy Miller.
I've always liked Judy Miller. I have often wondered what Waugh or Thackeray would have made of the Fourth Estate's Becky Sharp.
The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy - her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur - have never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types.
Once when I was covering the first Bush White House, I was in The Times's seat in the crowded White House press room, listening to an administration official's background briefing. Judy had moved on from her tempestuous tenure as a Washington editor to be a reporter based in New York, but she showed up at this national security affairs briefing.
At first she leaned against the wall near where I was sitting, but I noticed that she seemed agitated about something. Midway through the briefing, she came over and whispered to me, "I think I should be sitting in the Times seat."
It was such an outrageous move, I could only laugh. I got up and stood in the back of the room, while Judy claimed what she felt was her rightful power perch.
She never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers. She more than earned her sobriquet "Miss Run Amok."
Judy's stories about W.M.D. fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber that Senator Bob Graham, now retired, dubbed "incestuous amplification." Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr. Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists.
Even last April, when I wrote a column critical of Mr. Chalabi, she fired off e-mail to me defending him.
When Bill Keller became executive editor in the summer of 2003, he barred Judy from covering Iraq and W.M.D. issues. But he acknowledged in The Times's Sunday story about Judy's role in the Plame leak case that she had kept "drifting" back. Why did nobody stop this drift?
Judy admitted in the story that she "got it totally wrong" about W.M.D. "If your sources are wrong," she said, "you are wrong." But investigative reporting is not stenography.
The Times's story and Judy's own first-person account had the unfortunate effect of raising more questions. As Bill said yesterday in an e-mail note to the staff, Judy seemed to have "misled" the Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, about the extent of her involvement in the Valerie Plame leak case.
She casually revealed that she had agreed to identify her source, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, as a "former Hill staffer" because he had once worked on Capitol Hill. The implication was that this bit of deception was a common practice for reporters. It isn't.
She said that she had wanted to write about the Wilson-Plame matter, but that her editor would not allow it. But Managing Editor Jill Abramson, then the Washington bureau chief, denied this, saying that Judy had never broached the subject with her.
It also doesn't seem credible that Judy wouldn't remember a Marvel comics name like "Valerie Flame." Nor does it seem credible that she doesn't know how the name got into her notebook and that, as she wrote, she "did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby."
An Associated Press story yesterday reported that Judy had coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project.
Judy refused to answer a lot of questions put to her by Times reporters, or show the notes that she shared with the grand jury. I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.
Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover "the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country." If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.
I've always liked Judy Miller. I have often wondered what Waugh or Thackeray would have made of the Fourth Estate's Becky Sharp.
The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy - her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur - have never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types.
Once when I was covering the first Bush White House, I was in The Times's seat in the crowded White House press room, listening to an administration official's background briefing. Judy had moved on from her tempestuous tenure as a Washington editor to be a reporter based in New York, but she showed up at this national security affairs briefing.
At first she leaned against the wall near where I was sitting, but I noticed that she seemed agitated about something. Midway through the briefing, she came over and whispered to me, "I think I should be sitting in the Times seat."
It was such an outrageous move, I could only laugh. I got up and stood in the back of the room, while Judy claimed what she felt was her rightful power perch.
She never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers. She more than earned her sobriquet "Miss Run Amok."
Judy's stories about W.M.D. fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber that Senator Bob Graham, now retired, dubbed "incestuous amplification." Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr. Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists.
Even last April, when I wrote a column critical of Mr. Chalabi, she fired off e-mail to me defending him.
When Bill Keller became executive editor in the summer of 2003, he barred Judy from covering Iraq and W.M.D. issues. But he acknowledged in The Times's Sunday story about Judy's role in the Plame leak case that she had kept "drifting" back. Why did nobody stop this drift?
Judy admitted in the story that she "got it totally wrong" about W.M.D. "If your sources are wrong," she said, "you are wrong." But investigative reporting is not stenography.
The Times's story and Judy's own first-person account had the unfortunate effect of raising more questions. As Bill said yesterday in an e-mail note to the staff, Judy seemed to have "misled" the Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, about the extent of her involvement in the Valerie Plame leak case.
She casually revealed that she had agreed to identify her source, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, as a "former Hill staffer" because he had once worked on Capitol Hill. The implication was that this bit of deception was a common practice for reporters. It isn't.
She said that she had wanted to write about the Wilson-Plame matter, but that her editor would not allow it. But Managing Editor Jill Abramson, then the Washington bureau chief, denied this, saying that Judy had never broached the subject with her.
It also doesn't seem credible that Judy wouldn't remember a Marvel comics name like "Valerie Flame." Nor does it seem credible that she doesn't know how the name got into her notebook and that, as she wrote, she "did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby."
An Associated Press story yesterday reported that Judy had coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project.
Judy refused to answer a lot of questions put to her by Times reporters, or show the notes that she shared with the grand jury. I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.
Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover "the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country." If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Conservatives are on Crack
Here are two conservative pundits talking about Harriet Miers:
The most useful way of discovering a nominee's views is through "litmus tests." One question would yield the maximum information about a nominee's judicial philosophy (without requiring a commitment as to any future ruling): "What do you think of Roe vs. Wade"? The answer could explain her theory of constitutional interpretation, her views on the judicial invention of rights not set forth in the Constitution, her views on when courts should follow precedent, and her views about the judiciary's role in our constitutional system.
I know it isn't anything new to the readers of this blog that the "right" feels this way about our Constitutional rights and it isn't anything new to this blog's readers that there's this little thing in the Constitution known as the Ninth Amendment which reads:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
This Amendment sounds to me, as it has sounded to many observers, that the Framers didn't want a specific Bill of Rights to result in those rights not being specified being subjected to government infringement. This was in fact one of James Madison's stated reservations about inserting a Bill of Rights in the Constitution.
But as if you didn't require any further confirmation, carefully consider this statement by our conservative bretheran once again:
"...the judicial invention of rights not set forth in the Constitution..."
Conservatives are again making plain their antipathy towards freedom, individuality and human rights. They don't like "rights". Rights from whom? Themselves, the government, the ruling powers. They don't believe the individual is sovereign over her or himself. That is the thrust of their ideology and "movement". And I would submit that this issue, more than any other, including wars, budgets, corruption and cronyism, is the most important matter facing the electorate in 2006 and beyond.
The most useful way of discovering a nominee's views is through "litmus tests." One question would yield the maximum information about a nominee's judicial philosophy (without requiring a commitment as to any future ruling): "What do you think of Roe vs. Wade"? The answer could explain her theory of constitutional interpretation, her views on the judicial invention of rights not set forth in the Constitution, her views on when courts should follow precedent, and her views about the judiciary's role in our constitutional system.
I know it isn't anything new to the readers of this blog that the "right" feels this way about our Constitutional rights and it isn't anything new to this blog's readers that there's this little thing in the Constitution known as the Ninth Amendment which reads:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
This Amendment sounds to me, as it has sounded to many observers, that the Framers didn't want a specific Bill of Rights to result in those rights not being specified being subjected to government infringement. This was in fact one of James Madison's stated reservations about inserting a Bill of Rights in the Constitution.
But as if you didn't require any further confirmation, carefully consider this statement by our conservative bretheran once again:
"...the judicial invention of rights not set forth in the Constitution..."
Conservatives are again making plain their antipathy towards freedom, individuality and human rights. They don't like "rights". Rights from whom? Themselves, the government, the ruling powers. They don't believe the individual is sovereign over her or himself. That is the thrust of their ideology and "movement". And I would submit that this issue, more than any other, including wars, budgets, corruption and cronyism, is the most important matter facing the electorate in 2006 and beyond.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
With Friends Like These, part 56
From MyDD:
"...what I would like to discuss in this post is not conservative code, but instead Democratic hawk code. This is a code that is starting to rise to the surface more and more as the country turns in favor of withdrawal, against the Iraq war, and all the dreams of Democratic hawks are crashing down around them.
For example, look at this code-laden excerpt from Amy Sullivan (emphasis mine):"
'The conclusion in many liberal circles seems to be: We just need to talk about those issues more. Voters don't seem to realize what our positions are. No, voters know damn well what you stand for. They simply aren't listening to you because you haven't satisfied their initial conditions: credibility on national security and on culture. It doesn't matter that you'd prefer to talk about domestic issues. If you can't pass the threshold of convincing them that you can be trusted on those other two fronts, they're not going to listen to a word you say about the other stuff.
This doesn't mean Democrats have to make their campaigns all about national security and culture. Far from it. But they do need to suck it up and accept something Republicans realized a long time ago: You can't tell Americans they must care about what you want to discuss; you must discuss what they care about.'
"This is an amazing excerpt. It contains what strikes me as the ultimate piece of Democratic hawk code in the first quoted paragraph: "credibility on national security." If you don't believe that this is Democratic hawk code, just plug "credibility on national security" into Google and here is what you get, in order:
1. Evan Bayh on Fox stating that Democrats lack "credibility on national security.
2. The "Progressive" Policy Institute (aka the DLC) arguing that Democrats need to re-establish "credibility on national security."
3. Democracy Corps arguing that Democrats must cross the threshold of "credibility on national security."
4. A post from the Left Coaster about a New Yorker piece that quotes Democrats with the most "credibility on national security," but actually only seems to be about Kerry and Lieberman railing against "blogger types."
5. A Washington Monthly blog post about Howard Dean lacking "credibility on national security."
6. An article from the National Review discussing how the Bush campaign successfully raised questions about Kerry's "credibility on national security."
7. A piece from Mathew Yglesias about how Democrats have never had "credibility on national security" since he Vietnam era.
And on and on and on. The pattern here is obvious. The vast majority of uses of the term "credibility on national security" come from people who fit all of the following characteristics:
-They are self-identified Democrats.
-They have strong ties to center-right Democratic organizations.
-They were openly in favor of invading Iraq.
-They are vehemently opposed to withdrawal from Iraq.
"Credibility on national security" is actually DLC-type code for "continue neo-con military policies, especially in Iraq." The majority of people who seem to be trumpeting that Democrats are lacking "credibility on national security" are Democrats. They are, without fail, Iraq hawks. "
As Chris Bowers accurately notes, public opinion is on the side of us lefties here. So we don't need no damn national security credibility. But even if public opinion wasn't on our side, or was more muddled, the "Democrats lack credibility on national security" rhyme being put out by the DLC and other pseudo-Democratic neocons would still be nonsense. With the administration finally on the ropes after enduring four post-911 years of being labeled traitors, Democrats and the left have an opportunity to reassert ourselves, change the debate, and ultimately change policy. Instead, the DLC is chirping in with their favorite past-time activity--bashing other Democrats.
Lest we think maybe the DLC is just engaging in some much deserved tough love and forget the DLC's lack of committment to the Democratic Party's cause, consider these statements from Rick Perlstein:
"After the 1994 elections Joel Kotkin, a senior fellow of the DLC's Progressive Policy Institute, called for New Democrats to cut Clinton loose in favor of a primary challenger in 1996 or even think about leaving the Democratic Party alltogether. The DLC's Progressive Foundation put out feelers to begin a third-party movement--'a new approach' according to the PPI board chairman, Michael Steinhardt, 'to separate ourselves from the Democratic Party'.
taken from The Stock Ticker and the SuperJumbo by Rick Perlstein, page 111.
As Iraq continues to crumble into anarchy, and the administration that propagated the rational for becomes bogged down in the corruption of its own making, let's not let the DLC force the Democratic Party to carry the baggage of this botched invasion around in 2006 or 2008 because the DLC doesn't have our best interests at heart.
"...what I would like to discuss in this post is not conservative code, but instead Democratic hawk code. This is a code that is starting to rise to the surface more and more as the country turns in favor of withdrawal, against the Iraq war, and all the dreams of Democratic hawks are crashing down around them.
For example, look at this code-laden excerpt from Amy Sullivan (emphasis mine):"
'The conclusion in many liberal circles seems to be: We just need to talk about those issues more. Voters don't seem to realize what our positions are. No, voters know damn well what you stand for. They simply aren't listening to you because you haven't satisfied their initial conditions: credibility on national security and on culture. It doesn't matter that you'd prefer to talk about domestic issues. If you can't pass the threshold of convincing them that you can be trusted on those other two fronts, they're not going to listen to a word you say about the other stuff.
This doesn't mean Democrats have to make their campaigns all about national security and culture. Far from it. But they do need to suck it up and accept something Republicans realized a long time ago: You can't tell Americans they must care about what you want to discuss; you must discuss what they care about.'
"This is an amazing excerpt. It contains what strikes me as the ultimate piece of Democratic hawk code in the first quoted paragraph: "credibility on national security." If you don't believe that this is Democratic hawk code, just plug "credibility on national security" into Google and here is what you get, in order:
1. Evan Bayh on Fox stating that Democrats lack "credibility on national security.
2. The "Progressive" Policy Institute (aka the DLC) arguing that Democrats need to re-establish "credibility on national security."
3. Democracy Corps arguing that Democrats must cross the threshold of "credibility on national security."
4. A post from the Left Coaster about a New Yorker piece that quotes Democrats with the most "credibility on national security," but actually only seems to be about Kerry and Lieberman railing against "blogger types."
5. A Washington Monthly blog post about Howard Dean lacking "credibility on national security."
6. An article from the National Review discussing how the Bush campaign successfully raised questions about Kerry's "credibility on national security."
7. A piece from Mathew Yglesias about how Democrats have never had "credibility on national security" since he Vietnam era.
And on and on and on. The pattern here is obvious. The vast majority of uses of the term "credibility on national security" come from people who fit all of the following characteristics:
-They are self-identified Democrats.
-They have strong ties to center-right Democratic organizations.
-They were openly in favor of invading Iraq.
-They are vehemently opposed to withdrawal from Iraq.
"Credibility on national security" is actually DLC-type code for "continue neo-con military policies, especially in Iraq." The majority of people who seem to be trumpeting that Democrats are lacking "credibility on national security" are Democrats. They are, without fail, Iraq hawks. "
As Chris Bowers accurately notes, public opinion is on the side of us lefties here. So we don't need no damn national security credibility. But even if public opinion wasn't on our side, or was more muddled, the "Democrats lack credibility on national security" rhyme being put out by the DLC and other pseudo-Democratic neocons would still be nonsense. With the administration finally on the ropes after enduring four post-911 years of being labeled traitors, Democrats and the left have an opportunity to reassert ourselves, change the debate, and ultimately change policy. Instead, the DLC is chirping in with their favorite past-time activity--bashing other Democrats.
Lest we think maybe the DLC is just engaging in some much deserved tough love and forget the DLC's lack of committment to the Democratic Party's cause, consider these statements from Rick Perlstein:
"After the 1994 elections Joel Kotkin, a senior fellow of the DLC's Progressive Policy Institute, called for New Democrats to cut Clinton loose in favor of a primary challenger in 1996 or even think about leaving the Democratic Party alltogether. The DLC's Progressive Foundation put out feelers to begin a third-party movement--'a new approach' according to the PPI board chairman, Michael Steinhardt, 'to separate ourselves from the Democratic Party'.
taken from The Stock Ticker and the SuperJumbo by Rick Perlstein, page 111.
As Iraq continues to crumble into anarchy, and the administration that propagated the rational for becomes bogged down in the corruption of its own making, let's not let the DLC force the Democratic Party to carry the baggage of this botched invasion around in 2006 or 2008 because the DLC doesn't have our best interests at heart.
Iraq
From TPM Cafe:
Secretary Rice traveled to Capitol Hill today to testify, for the first time ever, on the biggest foreign policy issue confronting our nation: Iraq. In her opening statement, Rice said this about our objectives:
We know our objectives. We and the Iraqi Government will succeed if together we can:
-- Break the back of the insurgency so that Iraqis can finish it off without large-scale military help from the United States.
-- Keep Iraq from becoming a safe haven from which Islamic extremists can terrorize the region or the world.
-- Demonstrate positive potential for democratic change and free expression in the Arab and Muslim worlds, even under the most difficult conditions.
-- And turn the corner financially and economically, so there is a sense of hope and a visible path toward self-reliance.
Now, read that again, and tell me if this is serious.
Let's remember, there was no insurgency in Iraq before we invaded the country and then totally bungled the aftermath. And there was little chance of Iraq becoming a safe haven for terrorists before we invaded the country and then totally bungled the aftermath. In other words, our first two objectives in Iraq are to undo the disaster our own actions and inactions created!
As for the remaining objectives, demonstrating the "positive potential for democratic change and free expression" is a very long cry from establishing a viable democracy in the heart of the Arab world, which a couple of years ago was declared the official aim of our continued involvement in Iraq. And "turning the corner financially and economically," though difficult, doesn't strike me as setting the bar terribly high.
Which leaves me with this thought: the limited nature of these objectives suggests that the administration may finally be realizing the extraordinary disaster we're in and is trying, desperately, to find a way to declare victory so we can get out.
Secretary Rice traveled to Capitol Hill today to testify, for the first time ever, on the biggest foreign policy issue confronting our nation: Iraq. In her opening statement, Rice said this about our objectives:
We know our objectives. We and the Iraqi Government will succeed if together we can:
-- Break the back of the insurgency so that Iraqis can finish it off without large-scale military help from the United States.
-- Keep Iraq from becoming a safe haven from which Islamic extremists can terrorize the region or the world.
-- Demonstrate positive potential for democratic change and free expression in the Arab and Muslim worlds, even under the most difficult conditions.
-- And turn the corner financially and economically, so there is a sense of hope and a visible path toward self-reliance.
Now, read that again, and tell me if this is serious.
Let's remember, there was no insurgency in Iraq before we invaded the country and then totally bungled the aftermath. And there was little chance of Iraq becoming a safe haven for terrorists before we invaded the country and then totally bungled the aftermath. In other words, our first two objectives in Iraq are to undo the disaster our own actions and inactions created!
As for the remaining objectives, demonstrating the "positive potential for democratic change and free expression" is a very long cry from establishing a viable democracy in the heart of the Arab world, which a couple of years ago was declared the official aim of our continued involvement in Iraq. And "turning the corner financially and economically," though difficult, doesn't strike me as setting the bar terribly high.
Which leaves me with this thought: the limited nature of these objectives suggests that the administration may finally be realizing the extraordinary disaster we're in and is trying, desperately, to find a way to declare victory so we can get out.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Liberals and Conservatives
Paul Waldman:
There was a time when a "liberal" was something most people -- even some conservatives -- wanted to be. On the stump in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower said "we need in Washington liberal and experienced members of Congress." Eight years later, Richard Nixon quoted FDR's definition of a liberal as "a man who wants to build bridges over the chasms that separate humanity from a better life," and said, "It is a wonderful definition, and I agree with him."
But when Republicans began to go after liberalism, Democrats cowered in fear, not only trying to distance themselves from the term but embracing the idea that a "conservative" is a great thing to be. Few Republicans would claim to be "social liberals" -- even if they are -- but Democrats are always claiming to be "fiscal conservatives," saying they have "conservative values" or chiding Republicans for not holding to the principles of conservatism on issues like the deficit. The message this sends to Americans who don't know much about politics is that, regardless of the details of policy, it's good to be conservative and bad to be liberal.
Which brings us to what may be the most important feature of ideological competition in America today: Unlike liberals, conservatives don't simply criticize specific candidates or pieces of legislation, they attack their opponents' entire ideological worldview. Tune into Rush Limbaugh or any of his imitators, and what you'll hear is little more than an extended discourse on the evils of liberalism, in which specific events are merely evidence that the real problem is liberal ideology. Liberals may write best-selling books about why George W. Bush is a terrible president, but conservatives write best-selling books about why liberalism is a pox on our nation (talk radio hate-monger Michael Savage, for instance, titled his latest book Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder).
Indeed, large portions of the conservative movement can be understood as an effort to crush liberalism in all its manifestations. Conservatives understand that their main enemy is not a law, government program, or social condition they don't like. Their main enemy is a competing ideology, and that is what they spend their time fighting.
In contrast, liberals spend very little time talking about conservatism. They talk about their opposition to President Bush or the policies proposed by the Republican Congress, but they don't offer a critique of conservatism itself. When was the last time you saw a book-length polemic against conservatism? Liberals have failed to understand that a sustained critique of the other side's ideology not only defines your opponents, it helps to define you by what you are against.
As a consequence, while there are "movement conservatives," there are no "movement liberals" for the simple reason that there is no coherent entity we could call the "liberal movement." Instead, there are a dozen liberal movements -- a pro-choice movement, an environmental movement, a labor movement, and so on. Whether cause or consequence, the conservative campaign against liberalism has been accompanied by a sharpening of conservative identity, not only in the public mind but in the hearts of conservatives themselves.
There is no doubt that the difference between the number of people who tell pollsters they are conservatives and those who say they are liberals should be a matter of concern for Democrats. But if they respond to that concern by "moving" to an imagined "center" -- in other words, by making their positions on issues more conservative -- they will find themselves in an even worse hole than they are now. The Democrats' "liberal" problem isn't about issues, it's about identity.
As part of a solution, many on the left have decided to start with a clean slate, ditching "liberal" in favor of "progressive." As a strategic move, this has much to commend it. Recent American political history has made it hard to argue that the root of "liberal" -- liberty -- belongs more to the left than to the right. In contrast, liberals can legitimately claim that they and not conservatives are the advocates of progress. They can argue that with their desire to conserve, conservatives are stuck in the past, while progressives want to achieve social and economic progress. Any number of different issues can be understood through this prism.
But the rebranding of the left through the substitution of "progressive" for "liberal" can only succeed if all on the left agree that they are in fact progressives, and proclaim it loudly. If they accompany that proclamation with a critique not just of conservative policies and politicians but of conservatism itself, they'll find more and more moderates calling themselves progressive. Otherwise, they'll be right back where they started.
I think this is exactly right, and suggests the idea that rather than running from the liberal label, Democrats would do better, over the long run, of resuscitating the word liberal (or progressive if you prefer) and begin the process of competing for voters on the basis of ideology, rather than personality or even specific issues.
Thanks to Atrios for the link.
There was a time when a "liberal" was something most people -- even some conservatives -- wanted to be. On the stump in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower said "we need in Washington liberal and experienced members of Congress." Eight years later, Richard Nixon quoted FDR's definition of a liberal as "a man who wants to build bridges over the chasms that separate humanity from a better life," and said, "It is a wonderful definition, and I agree with him."
But when Republicans began to go after liberalism, Democrats cowered in fear, not only trying to distance themselves from the term but embracing the idea that a "conservative" is a great thing to be. Few Republicans would claim to be "social liberals" -- even if they are -- but Democrats are always claiming to be "fiscal conservatives," saying they have "conservative values" or chiding Republicans for not holding to the principles of conservatism on issues like the deficit. The message this sends to Americans who don't know much about politics is that, regardless of the details of policy, it's good to be conservative and bad to be liberal.
Which brings us to what may be the most important feature of ideological competition in America today: Unlike liberals, conservatives don't simply criticize specific candidates or pieces of legislation, they attack their opponents' entire ideological worldview. Tune into Rush Limbaugh or any of his imitators, and what you'll hear is little more than an extended discourse on the evils of liberalism, in which specific events are merely evidence that the real problem is liberal ideology. Liberals may write best-selling books about why George W. Bush is a terrible president, but conservatives write best-selling books about why liberalism is a pox on our nation (talk radio hate-monger Michael Savage, for instance, titled his latest book Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder).
Indeed, large portions of the conservative movement can be understood as an effort to crush liberalism in all its manifestations. Conservatives understand that their main enemy is not a law, government program, or social condition they don't like. Their main enemy is a competing ideology, and that is what they spend their time fighting.
In contrast, liberals spend very little time talking about conservatism. They talk about their opposition to President Bush or the policies proposed by the Republican Congress, but they don't offer a critique of conservatism itself. When was the last time you saw a book-length polemic against conservatism? Liberals have failed to understand that a sustained critique of the other side's ideology not only defines your opponents, it helps to define you by what you are against.
As a consequence, while there are "movement conservatives," there are no "movement liberals" for the simple reason that there is no coherent entity we could call the "liberal movement." Instead, there are a dozen liberal movements -- a pro-choice movement, an environmental movement, a labor movement, and so on. Whether cause or consequence, the conservative campaign against liberalism has been accompanied by a sharpening of conservative identity, not only in the public mind but in the hearts of conservatives themselves.
There is no doubt that the difference between the number of people who tell pollsters they are conservatives and those who say they are liberals should be a matter of concern for Democrats. But if they respond to that concern by "moving" to an imagined "center" -- in other words, by making their positions on issues more conservative -- they will find themselves in an even worse hole than they are now. The Democrats' "liberal" problem isn't about issues, it's about identity.
As part of a solution, many on the left have decided to start with a clean slate, ditching "liberal" in favor of "progressive." As a strategic move, this has much to commend it. Recent American political history has made it hard to argue that the root of "liberal" -- liberty -- belongs more to the left than to the right. In contrast, liberals can legitimately claim that they and not conservatives are the advocates of progress. They can argue that with their desire to conserve, conservatives are stuck in the past, while progressives want to achieve social and economic progress. Any number of different issues can be understood through this prism.
But the rebranding of the left through the substitution of "progressive" for "liberal" can only succeed if all on the left agree that they are in fact progressives, and proclaim it loudly. If they accompany that proclamation with a critique not just of conservative policies and politicians but of conservatism itself, they'll find more and more moderates calling themselves progressive. Otherwise, they'll be right back where they started.
I think this is exactly right, and suggests the idea that rather than running from the liberal label, Democrats would do better, over the long run, of resuscitating the word liberal (or progressive if you prefer) and begin the process of competing for voters on the basis of ideology, rather than personality or even specific issues.
Thanks to Atrios for the link.
Democrats: Show Us The Voters
I found this over at MyDD:
Growing the Democratic Party is perhaps the most crucial task we can commit ourselves to over the next year. If we're successful, we have a very serious chance to win back control of Congress. Two stories in particular have brought the issue to my attention today. Mathew Gross, commenting on the latest polling and strategy memo from Democracy Corps highlights Carville and Greenberg's suggestion that "Democrats should revisit the Perot voters and their concerns" if they want to "become the party of change" in 2006. Meanwhile, at CQ Weekly (subscription only), the cover story "New Heaven, New Earth" examines the political branching out of evangelical Christians into areas outside of anti-abortion activism.
(snip)
Here's how Carville and Greenberg define Ross Perot's natural base, which they view as up for grabs in 2006.
His voters were the most anti-political and anti-elitist, anti-big government and big corporations, anti-free trade and anti-immigration. They were pro-military but anti-foreign entanglements. They were libertarian and secular, pro-gun and pro-choice. The Perot voters were younger, more blue collar and rural, and economically pressed and uneasy in the new economy. They were also angry with the political and economic elites that failed to represent them.
They argue that this was the group that helped shift the House to the Republicans in 1994 as well as breaking for Bush in 2000. Examining this list point-by-point, it's easy to see how this group could be swayed to the Democrats in next year's midterms.
...Democrats created a near majority with their coalition of suburban and more secular voters, the best educated and more cosmopolitan, union households, and the growing number of minority voters, particularly African Americans and Hispanics. But that has been more than offset by their dramatic decline among white rural and blue collar voters - the consequence of the values issues but also of Democrats not figuring out how to incorporate the dislodged Perot voters.
Hey, I like Carville. And as far as 2006 goes, maybe he's even onto something. But this form of "strategery" concerns me. It sounds like pretty much what the party's been trying for the last twenty years in some form or another. And it just sounds very lacking of anything like consistency, principles, or values. It's a strategy that just wants to know how this year's voters can be appealed to. But it doesn't clarify what the party stands for, and it doesn't seem interested in responding to the very real crisis that I think modern conservatism presents us with.
Scott Shields seems to be wary of this himself as he says:
My fear is that many of the Perot voters are simply anti-government and therefore anti-incumbent. Though they very well could vote for Democrats in 2006, can we really count on them to stick with the party over the long haul?
My answer to that is, probably not. And that's the problem.
Meanwhile, even as we Democrats are getting a kick out of the conservatives' infighting amongst themselves over the Mier's nomination, I can't help but be bothered by the fact that at the root of their in-house bickering, lies an ideological dispute about their movement and what they want government to do and society to look like. Democrats don't seem to have arguments like this.
The Washington Post today has another article of how conservative ideologues and interest groups are reacting to the Mier's nomination and what the import is for the conservative movement.
In the Godfather II, Michael Corleone is in Cuba prior to the revolution on a business trip and witnesses the capture of a number of Castro rebels, one of whom blows himself up rather than be captured. This intrigues Corleone who reasons with Hyman Roth, an associate who wants Michael to put up 2 million dollars in cash in a hotel deal. Corleone notes that the soldiers of the Cuban government are paid to fight but the rebels are not. What does that tell you, Roth asks? Corleone responds by saying that It Tells Me They Can Win.
The conservative movement, complete with its inflexible, dogmatic interest group bosses, reminds me of this movie's scene and the drive of the rebels. They don't much care whether a majority of people agree with them or like them. They're going to do what they want anyway. Or die trying.
Democrats, on the other hand, show too many signs of trying to align themselves with voters rather than giving voters a reason to align themselves with us. In the case of the Carville-Greenberg memo, it's the elusive Perot-voter, which is another way of saying "the center". But this group is either non-existent, or isn't going to buy into what Democrats are selling because they are not selling something consistent.
Now, obviously, parties need to reach beyond a base of voters to win, and winning elections is what parties are all about. But the problem has become that the strategy of reaching beyond the base is the entire Democratic strategy, and there is very little base upon which to expand into the world of a governing majority.
As Robert Reich has noted:
We failed because we failed to build a political movement behind us. Americas newly ascendant radical conservatives do have such a movement, which explains a large part of their success. They have developed dedicated sources of money and legions of ground troops who not only get out the vote but also spend the time between elections persuading others to join their ranks. They have devised frames of reference that are used repeatedly in policy debates (among them: its your money, tax and spend, political correctness, class warfare). They have a system for recruiting and electing officials nationwide who share the same world view and who will vote accordingly. And they have a coherent ideology uniting evangelical Christians, blue-collar whites in the South and West, and big business, an ideology in which foreign enemies, domestic poverty and crime, and homosexuality all must be met with strict punishment and religious orthodoxy.
Democrats have built no analogous movement. Instead, every four years party loyalists throw themselves behind a presidential candidate who they believe will deliver them from the rising tide of conservatism. After the election, they go back to whatever they were doing before. Other Democrats have involved themselves in single issue politics, the environment, campaign finance, the war in Iraq, and so on, but these battles have failed to build a political movement. Issues rise and fall depending on which interests are threatened and when. They can even divide Democrats, as each advocacy group scrambles after the same set of liberal donors and competes for the limited attention of the news media.
This isn't to say that among most Democrats there aren't a core group of principles and issues we support. Abortion rights, the social welfare safety net, and opposition to the war in Iraq constitutes a pretty sizable section of the Democratic electorate. But many among the Democratic leadership have been backpedaling on their support for abortion rights, and most of the Democratic leadership supported the war in Iraq, as well as the president's series of tax cuts that have made the financing of social security and health care precarious.
So, yes, let's appeal to today's version of the Perot voters where we can. But let's not get sidetracked by trying to appeal to a whole new group of voters every two years. Let's articulate the agenda that we believe to be important, and work on selling the American people on it over the long haul.
Growing the Democratic Party is perhaps the most crucial task we can commit ourselves to over the next year. If we're successful, we have a very serious chance to win back control of Congress. Two stories in particular have brought the issue to my attention today. Mathew Gross, commenting on the latest polling and strategy memo from Democracy Corps highlights Carville and Greenberg's suggestion that "Democrats should revisit the Perot voters and their concerns" if they want to "become the party of change" in 2006. Meanwhile, at CQ Weekly (subscription only), the cover story "New Heaven, New Earth" examines the political branching out of evangelical Christians into areas outside of anti-abortion activism.
(snip)
Here's how Carville and Greenberg define Ross Perot's natural base, which they view as up for grabs in 2006.
His voters were the most anti-political and anti-elitist, anti-big government and big corporations, anti-free trade and anti-immigration. They were pro-military but anti-foreign entanglements. They were libertarian and secular, pro-gun and pro-choice. The Perot voters were younger, more blue collar and rural, and economically pressed and uneasy in the new economy. They were also angry with the political and economic elites that failed to represent them.
They argue that this was the group that helped shift the House to the Republicans in 1994 as well as breaking for Bush in 2000. Examining this list point-by-point, it's easy to see how this group could be swayed to the Democrats in next year's midterms.
...Democrats created a near majority with their coalition of suburban and more secular voters, the best educated and more cosmopolitan, union households, and the growing number of minority voters, particularly African Americans and Hispanics. But that has been more than offset by their dramatic decline among white rural and blue collar voters - the consequence of the values issues but also of Democrats not figuring out how to incorporate the dislodged Perot voters.
Hey, I like Carville. And as far as 2006 goes, maybe he's even onto something. But this form of "strategery" concerns me. It sounds like pretty much what the party's been trying for the last twenty years in some form or another. And it just sounds very lacking of anything like consistency, principles, or values. It's a strategy that just wants to know how this year's voters can be appealed to. But it doesn't clarify what the party stands for, and it doesn't seem interested in responding to the very real crisis that I think modern conservatism presents us with.
Scott Shields seems to be wary of this himself as he says:
My fear is that many of the Perot voters are simply anti-government and therefore anti-incumbent. Though they very well could vote for Democrats in 2006, can we really count on them to stick with the party over the long haul?
My answer to that is, probably not. And that's the problem.
Meanwhile, even as we Democrats are getting a kick out of the conservatives' infighting amongst themselves over the Mier's nomination, I can't help but be bothered by the fact that at the root of their in-house bickering, lies an ideological dispute about their movement and what they want government to do and society to look like. Democrats don't seem to have arguments like this.
The Washington Post today has another article of how conservative ideologues and interest groups are reacting to the Mier's nomination and what the import is for the conservative movement.
In the Godfather II, Michael Corleone is in Cuba prior to the revolution on a business trip and witnesses the capture of a number of Castro rebels, one of whom blows himself up rather than be captured. This intrigues Corleone who reasons with Hyman Roth, an associate who wants Michael to put up 2 million dollars in cash in a hotel deal. Corleone notes that the soldiers of the Cuban government are paid to fight but the rebels are not. What does that tell you, Roth asks? Corleone responds by saying that It Tells Me They Can Win.
The conservative movement, complete with its inflexible, dogmatic interest group bosses, reminds me of this movie's scene and the drive of the rebels. They don't much care whether a majority of people agree with them or like them. They're going to do what they want anyway. Or die trying.
Democrats, on the other hand, show too many signs of trying to align themselves with voters rather than giving voters a reason to align themselves with us. In the case of the Carville-Greenberg memo, it's the elusive Perot-voter, which is another way of saying "the center". But this group is either non-existent, or isn't going to buy into what Democrats are selling because they are not selling something consistent.
Now, obviously, parties need to reach beyond a base of voters to win, and winning elections is what parties are all about. But the problem has become that the strategy of reaching beyond the base is the entire Democratic strategy, and there is very little base upon which to expand into the world of a governing majority.
As Robert Reich has noted:
We failed because we failed to build a political movement behind us. Americas newly ascendant radical conservatives do have such a movement, which explains a large part of their success. They have developed dedicated sources of money and legions of ground troops who not only get out the vote but also spend the time between elections persuading others to join their ranks. They have devised frames of reference that are used repeatedly in policy debates (among them: its your money, tax and spend, political correctness, class warfare). They have a system for recruiting and electing officials nationwide who share the same world view and who will vote accordingly. And they have a coherent ideology uniting evangelical Christians, blue-collar whites in the South and West, and big business, an ideology in which foreign enemies, domestic poverty and crime, and homosexuality all must be met with strict punishment and religious orthodoxy.
Democrats have built no analogous movement. Instead, every four years party loyalists throw themselves behind a presidential candidate who they believe will deliver them from the rising tide of conservatism. After the election, they go back to whatever they were doing before. Other Democrats have involved themselves in single issue politics, the environment, campaign finance, the war in Iraq, and so on, but these battles have failed to build a political movement. Issues rise and fall depending on which interests are threatened and when. They can even divide Democrats, as each advocacy group scrambles after the same set of liberal donors and competes for the limited attention of the news media.
This isn't to say that among most Democrats there aren't a core group of principles and issues we support. Abortion rights, the social welfare safety net, and opposition to the war in Iraq constitutes a pretty sizable section of the Democratic electorate. But many among the Democratic leadership have been backpedaling on their support for abortion rights, and most of the Democratic leadership supported the war in Iraq, as well as the president's series of tax cuts that have made the financing of social security and health care precarious.
So, yes, let's appeal to today's version of the Perot voters where we can. But let's not get sidetracked by trying to appeal to a whole new group of voters every two years. Let's articulate the agenda that we believe to be important, and work on selling the American people on it over the long haul.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Just Wait Till Next Time!
George Will dismisses the importance of Tom DeLay's indictment and even suggests, with a clever silver lining in the cloud analogy, that the turnover in House leadership will help the conservative cause of good--read, less-- economic government. Will points out the excess of pork in the recent transportation bill and notes the explosion of lobbyists in Washington since 2000, who are not committed, as Will is, to the goal of "less government". He points fondly, instead, to conservative purists, like Indiana's Mike Pence, who leads something called the republican study committee as a shining example of the kind of representative who will duly help turn the direction of government back to the agrarian days of yesteryore.
Will seems to think the demise of DeLay will finally usher in the dawn of true conservative governance, complete with relentless budget slashing, except for defense spending for which the sky is the limit, and further tax cutting utopia.
I don't think Will gets it. DeLay was a cog in The Machine. He'll be replaced by sojmeone else and business will remain the same. Conservative Republicans may have helped create the monster, but they're no longer driving the ship of state. Chopping government down till it can be "drowned in a bathtub" is the holy grail of "movement" conservatives. But it doesn't work in practice. It's unpopular, it's dysfunctional for the service of power, and its ultimately unrealizable.
Nonetheless, conservatives will continue to believe that THIS time, they really mean it. Just wait till they get THEIR man in as the Majority leader; Just wait until they get THEIR man elected president; just wait until THEIR man is confirmed to the Supreme Court. Just wait till THIS tax reduction package is approved. And on and on.
Will seems to think the demise of DeLay will finally usher in the dawn of true conservative governance, complete with relentless budget slashing, except for defense spending for which the sky is the limit, and further tax cutting utopia.
I don't think Will gets it. DeLay was a cog in The Machine. He'll be replaced by sojmeone else and business will remain the same. Conservative Republicans may have helped create the monster, but they're no longer driving the ship of state. Chopping government down till it can be "drowned in a bathtub" is the holy grail of "movement" conservatives. But it doesn't work in practice. It's unpopular, it's dysfunctional for the service of power, and its ultimately unrealizable.
Nonetheless, conservatives will continue to believe that THIS time, they really mean it. Just wait till they get THEIR man in as the Majority leader; Just wait until they get THEIR man elected president; just wait until THEIR man is confirmed to the Supreme Court. Just wait till THIS tax reduction package is approved. And on and on.
Please Nominate This Man
The NYTimes today has a piece on Kansas Senator Sam Brownback. The Senator is making an appearance in New Hampshire--an obligatory trip for all prospective presidential candidates. Should he run in 2008, Brownback would no doubt campaign on what has got him here so far--his religion or religions (once an evangelical protestant, he converted to Roman Catholicism a few years ago and on Sundays hits both churches), his new found committment to saturating political and social life with even more religion than it already has or can endure, and ultimately, his apparent thirst to propogate a "culture war":
At the Republican National Convention in 2004 he rallied a closed-door meeting of Christian conservatives with calls for a "cultural war."
The call for a "culture war" was a number one hit for Republicans in 1992. If most of the public is as tired of wars, culture and otherwise, as I suspect they are, a Brownback candidacy would be a most helpful boost to the next Democratic presidential nominee.
Really Off Center
From Christopher Hayes' review of Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson:
The second half of Off Center describes in detail how the Republican Machine works, how it rewards friends and punishes enemies, and how it has neutered or annihilated the moderates in its midst. Broken up into clear subsections with apt coinages like backlash insurance, the ways party leaders protect legislators from constituent disgust with the partys radical direction, Hacker and Pierson lay out in sober detail the various ruses the New Power Brokers employ: robbing committee chairs of their independence by instituting term limits, using the House Rules Committee (which has nine Republicans and four Democrats) to quietly kill threatening amendments, utilizing obscure administrative rules to institute broad policy changes, holding floor votes open while arms are twisted to pass legislation, shutting Democrats out of conference committees where corporate pork can be larded onto already passed legislation away from the minority partys prying eyes, tightly coordinating different factions of the right, and, as Nicholas Confessore first reported in these pages, bullying lobbying firms into hiring only Republicans.
(snip)
As lurid as the details are, one cant help but ask: Why didnt previous majorities do this sort of thing? Tip O'Neill was a smart guy. Why didnt he provide his members with backlash insurance, or change the Ethics Committee rules so that the majority party could single handedly stop an investigation? While Off Center never explicitly addresses this question, the implicit answer is a simple as it is disturbing. Much of what kept prior governing coalitions in check were informal, generally agreed-upon norms rather than black letter law or immutable rules. Consider that for years state legislatures have, as a matter of custom, redistricted congressional districts only every 10 years, following new census data. There was nothing stopping a majority party from engineering a mid decade redistricting for its own partisan advantage other than a generalized sense it would be cheating to do so. Such considerations mean little to Tom DeLay and Karl Rove.
This seems about right. But consider Democratic threats to filibuster ideologically radical judges. Republicans cried using the filibuster in this way was abusing this time-honored instrument. With the exception of the Republican-led filibuster of Abe Fortas in the 1960's, maybe they were right (although during the Clinton Administration many nominees never even got to committee). And ultimately, Republican counter-threats to scuttle the filibuster intimidated Democrats into compromising. So be it. But how come Republicans have not been made to pay for the Texas redistricting? How come Democrats haven't threatened (at least to my knowledge) to open up redistricting decisions in Democratic states? I think under the current circumstances, Democrats should consider all bets off. If the Miers nomination is withdrawn or defeated, and a more reactionary nominee is offered, Democrats should give no quarter. The Republicans have shown no concern for congressional or political norms. Or for recognizing the prerogatives of the minority party. Democrats should respond in kind. If Republicans threaten to filibuster nominees in a future Democratic Administration, Democrats should say they'll be happy to reopen redistricting cases in Democratic states. Until there is a substantive change in the Republican leadership, Democrats shouldn't feel obligated to play by rules that Republicans have long since abandoned.
The second half of Off Center describes in detail how the Republican Machine works, how it rewards friends and punishes enemies, and how it has neutered or annihilated the moderates in its midst. Broken up into clear subsections with apt coinages like backlash insurance, the ways party leaders protect legislators from constituent disgust with the partys radical direction, Hacker and Pierson lay out in sober detail the various ruses the New Power Brokers employ: robbing committee chairs of their independence by instituting term limits, using the House Rules Committee (which has nine Republicans and four Democrats) to quietly kill threatening amendments, utilizing obscure administrative rules to institute broad policy changes, holding floor votes open while arms are twisted to pass legislation, shutting Democrats out of conference committees where corporate pork can be larded onto already passed legislation away from the minority partys prying eyes, tightly coordinating different factions of the right, and, as Nicholas Confessore first reported in these pages, bullying lobbying firms into hiring only Republicans.
(snip)
As lurid as the details are, one cant help but ask: Why didnt previous majorities do this sort of thing? Tip O'Neill was a smart guy. Why didnt he provide his members with backlash insurance, or change the Ethics Committee rules so that the majority party could single handedly stop an investigation? While Off Center never explicitly addresses this question, the implicit answer is a simple as it is disturbing. Much of what kept prior governing coalitions in check were informal, generally agreed-upon norms rather than black letter law or immutable rules. Consider that for years state legislatures have, as a matter of custom, redistricted congressional districts only every 10 years, following new census data. There was nothing stopping a majority party from engineering a mid decade redistricting for its own partisan advantage other than a generalized sense it would be cheating to do so. Such considerations mean little to Tom DeLay and Karl Rove.
This seems about right. But consider Democratic threats to filibuster ideologically radical judges. Republicans cried using the filibuster in this way was abusing this time-honored instrument. With the exception of the Republican-led filibuster of Abe Fortas in the 1960's, maybe they were right (although during the Clinton Administration many nominees never even got to committee). And ultimately, Republican counter-threats to scuttle the filibuster intimidated Democrats into compromising. So be it. But how come Republicans have not been made to pay for the Texas redistricting? How come Democrats haven't threatened (at least to my knowledge) to open up redistricting decisions in Democratic states? I think under the current circumstances, Democrats should consider all bets off. If the Miers nomination is withdrawn or defeated, and a more reactionary nominee is offered, Democrats should give no quarter. The Republicans have shown no concern for congressional or political norms. Or for recognizing the prerogatives of the minority party. Democrats should respond in kind. If Republicans threaten to filibuster nominees in a future Democratic Administration, Democrats should say they'll be happy to reopen redistricting cases in Democratic states. Until there is a substantive change in the Republican leadership, Democrats shouldn't feel obligated to play by rules that Republicans have long since abandoned.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Those CD case stickers
I came across this post over at Approximately Perfect the other day. First, I laughed, because it was hilarious. I am usually many minutes in my car, engine running, trying to pry my new CD's from their tightly sealed, plastic wrap, and then from that annoying sticker over the top of the CD cover that always comes off in little sticky pieces.
Fortunately, commenter Pinko Punko has a solution for the sticker on top problem:
Here's the trick with the sticker over the top. unhook the jewel case from the other side, and use the whole half of the case to peel the sticker off, then hook the jewel case back together. that should do it.
Thanks, Pinko Punko. I'll try it next time.
Fortunately, commenter Pinko Punko has a solution for the sticker on top problem:
Here's the trick with the sticker over the top. unhook the jewel case from the other side, and use the whole half of the case to peel the sticker off, then hook the jewel case back together. that should do it.
Thanks, Pinko Punko. I'll try it next time.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Is the Conservative Movement Worth Emulating?
Even when it is judged on its own terms--as a struggle over values, patriotism, national honor, and the correct way to worship the Almighty, the (conservative) backlash has pretty much been a complete bust. Culturally, it has achieved almost nothing in the past three decades. TV and movies are many times coarser than they were in 1968. Traditional gender roles continue to crumble. Homosexuality is more visible and more accepted than ever.
This is a basic earmark of the phenomenon, absolutely consistent across its decades-long history. Abortion is never halted. Affirmative action is never abolished. The culture industry is never forced to clean up its act.
This is vexing for observers, and one might expect it to vex the movement's true believers even more. Their grandstanding leaders never deliver, their fury mounts and mounts, and nevertheless, they turn out every two years to return their right-wing heroes to office for a second, a third, a twentieth try. The trick never ages; the illusion never wears off.
Thomas Frank, What's The Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, p. 121; pp. 6-7.
Since George Washington ran for reelection in 1793, there have been 53 presidential elections...twenty-nine of those elections involved incumbents running for reelection, of which the incumbent won 20, or 69 percent. The other 24 elections were open races with no incumbent, and in half of them, the party out of power won the election. In other words, if you take incumbents out of the picture, a party has a 50-50 chance of winning the next presidential election. I take this to mean that winning elections is a random sort of thing and not something that parties have much control over. Any sort of effort to rethink the Democratic Party and what it stands for is a rather futile proposition because events will outrun even the most perspicacious observers.
Philip Klinkner, "The Winds of Change", in The Stock Ticker and the Super Jumbo: How the Democrats Can Once Again Become America's Dominant Political Party; pp. 98-99.
There is more I intend to say about these references, but for now, I think it's enough to use them as a bit of context as Democrats look to 2006 and beyond. In surfing liberal blogs, there's an almost unstated awe and fear one finds on the part of liberals when assessing the Conservative Movement. They have big, well funded Think Tanks. They have a stable of wealthy, conservative financiers. They have a monopoly on Talk Radio. Now they have Fox "News". They have the TV evangelists, mega-churches, and "family" advocate groups on their side, completely dedicated to them and committed to eradicating us. Many liberal bloggers, and even this blog from time to time, have expressed an interest in replicating the conservative success, of restoring Democracy's golden era, much as down and out conservatives once teared up and plotted to restore their own heritage.
But is the conservative movement successful and is it worth emulating? The above quotations provide some evidence that the answer to these two questions is no. First, because despite its nominal hold on federal power, the conservative movement has not come close to achieving its aspirations, a fault line that has been at least partially exposed in the Harriet Miers nomination. Two, because despite all their money, organization, and rhetoric, they're success rate isn't much better than 50-50. And given that the last century was a liberal era, both politically and socially, it stands to reason that even if only by chance, Republicans were bound to win a period of elections at some point.
So what I conclude, at least part of the time, is that the conservative movement isn't all its cracked up to be. Liberals shouldn't necessarily fear it, and shouldn't worship it. On the other hand, that doesn't mean Democrats shouldn't confront conservatism's excesses and warn the voters of the harmful choices the Republican Party and its sponsors are offering.
This is a basic earmark of the phenomenon, absolutely consistent across its decades-long history. Abortion is never halted. Affirmative action is never abolished. The culture industry is never forced to clean up its act.
This is vexing for observers, and one might expect it to vex the movement's true believers even more. Their grandstanding leaders never deliver, their fury mounts and mounts, and nevertheless, they turn out every two years to return their right-wing heroes to office for a second, a third, a twentieth try. The trick never ages; the illusion never wears off.
Thomas Frank, What's The Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, p. 121; pp. 6-7.
Since George Washington ran for reelection in 1793, there have been 53 presidential elections...twenty-nine of those elections involved incumbents running for reelection, of which the incumbent won 20, or 69 percent. The other 24 elections were open races with no incumbent, and in half of them, the party out of power won the election. In other words, if you take incumbents out of the picture, a party has a 50-50 chance of winning the next presidential election. I take this to mean that winning elections is a random sort of thing and not something that parties have much control over. Any sort of effort to rethink the Democratic Party and what it stands for is a rather futile proposition because events will outrun even the most perspicacious observers.
Philip Klinkner, "The Winds of Change", in The Stock Ticker and the Super Jumbo: How the Democrats Can Once Again Become America's Dominant Political Party; pp. 98-99.
There is more I intend to say about these references, but for now, I think it's enough to use them as a bit of context as Democrats look to 2006 and beyond. In surfing liberal blogs, there's an almost unstated awe and fear one finds on the part of liberals when assessing the Conservative Movement. They have big, well funded Think Tanks. They have a stable of wealthy, conservative financiers. They have a monopoly on Talk Radio. Now they have Fox "News". They have the TV evangelists, mega-churches, and "family" advocate groups on their side, completely dedicated to them and committed to eradicating us. Many liberal bloggers, and even this blog from time to time, have expressed an interest in replicating the conservative success, of restoring Democracy's golden era, much as down and out conservatives once teared up and plotted to restore their own heritage.
But is the conservative movement successful and is it worth emulating? The above quotations provide some evidence that the answer to these two questions is no. First, because despite its nominal hold on federal power, the conservative movement has not come close to achieving its aspirations, a fault line that has been at least partially exposed in the Harriet Miers nomination. Two, because despite all their money, organization, and rhetoric, they're success rate isn't much better than 50-50. And given that the last century was a liberal era, both politically and socially, it stands to reason that even if only by chance, Republicans were bound to win a period of elections at some point.
So what I conclude, at least part of the time, is that the conservative movement isn't all its cracked up to be. Liberals shouldn't necessarily fear it, and shouldn't worship it. On the other hand, that doesn't mean Democrats shouldn't confront conservatism's excesses and warn the voters of the harmful choices the Republican Party and its sponsors are offering.
O No
Looks like the Baltimore Orioles are going to keep Sam Perlozzo on as their skipper next year. Perlozzo became the interim manager when the O's let Lee Mazilli go on August 4. But Perlozzo didn't exactly endear himself in the win column.
The O's went 22-32 under Perlozzo, but faired particularly poorly against the Red Sox and the Yankees down the stretch, leading one commentator to wonder if the O's weren't guilty of fraud in not putting up more of a game against the contenders. The Orioles lost nine straight games towards the end of September, and went 12-18 for the month, a record greatly enhanced by the team's final weekend sweep of the Devil Rays.
Sam's a good guy, everybody likes him, but the O's needed to clean house this off-season, and with the exception of letting one of their two general managers go, they don't appear to be doing that.
The O's went 22-32 under Perlozzo, but faired particularly poorly against the Red Sox and the Yankees down the stretch, leading one commentator to wonder if the O's weren't guilty of fraud in not putting up more of a game against the contenders. The Orioles lost nine straight games towards the end of September, and went 12-18 for the month, a record greatly enhanced by the team's final weekend sweep of the Devil Rays.
Sam's a good guy, everybody likes him, but the O's needed to clean house this off-season, and with the exception of letting one of their two general managers go, they don't appear to be doing that.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Monday Morning Quarterback (Special Columbus Day Edition)
Ravens 17
Lions 35
Ravens flagged for 21 penalties and 2 ejections during the game; after the game, additional penalties were handed out for the following infractions: Neon Deon Prime Time Sanders actually on Ravens' roster--and playing--15 yard penalty; Brian Billick once known as "offensive genius"--10 yards; False start, Ravens' bus driver--5 yards.
Redskins 19
Denver 21
Redskins caught looking ahead to 49'ers game in two weeks.
Saints 3
Pack 52
Gee, ya think the Pack was pissed about its 0-4 start, and Favre about rumors of his retirement?
Pats 31
Falcons 28
Michael Vick a last minute scratch and Pats still have to barely hold on against somebody named Matt Mauck.
Bucs 12
Jets 14
Vinnie Testaverde returns and the Jets recover their ground game.
Texas Tech 34
Nebraska 31
Nebraska defense intercepts Texas Tech pass deep in its own end in final seconds to preserve certain victory, BUT THEN forgets to just down the ball, electing instead to RUN with the thing, resulting in a fumble back to Texas Tech and a last second Texas Tech toughdown pass to seal the game.
Braves 6
Roger Clemens 7 (18 innings)
I turned this game off in the ninth inning, Braves ahead 6-5, went out to do yard work, returned three hours later, AND THE GAME WAS STILL ON.
Lions 35
Ravens flagged for 21 penalties and 2 ejections during the game; after the game, additional penalties were handed out for the following infractions: Neon Deon Prime Time Sanders actually on Ravens' roster--and playing--15 yard penalty; Brian Billick once known as "offensive genius"--10 yards; False start, Ravens' bus driver--5 yards.
Redskins 19
Denver 21
Redskins caught looking ahead to 49'ers game in two weeks.
Saints 3
Pack 52
Gee, ya think the Pack was pissed about its 0-4 start, and Favre about rumors of his retirement?
Pats 31
Falcons 28
Michael Vick a last minute scratch and Pats still have to barely hold on against somebody named Matt Mauck.
Bucs 12
Jets 14
Vinnie Testaverde returns and the Jets recover their ground game.
Texas Tech 34
Nebraska 31
Nebraska defense intercepts Texas Tech pass deep in its own end in final seconds to preserve certain victory, BUT THEN forgets to just down the ball, electing instead to RUN with the thing, resulting in a fumble back to Texas Tech and a last second Texas Tech toughdown pass to seal the game.
Braves 6
Roger Clemens 7 (18 innings)
I turned this game off in the ninth inning, Braves ahead 6-5, went out to do yard work, returned three hours later, AND THE GAME WAS STILL ON.
Friday, October 07, 2005
What's an Evangelical?
Well, you really have to feel for these conservative evangelicals, especially the ones down south. They've got their man in the oval office. They claim Tom DeLay, warts and all, as their own. James Dobson has the president's ear. And now they've gotten one of their charter members nominated for the supremes.
But.
Is she really evangelical enough? Is she the "right" kind of evangelical? Wasn't the evangelical label supposed to guarantee a certain political correctness of the conservative variety? I mean, baptize them, and they're supposed to come up out of the water opposing all forms of abortion, attacking gays, and demanding coerced prayer in the public schools. And, naturally, they shouldn't have any problem with an apartheid South America.
But while Harriet may be the president's best bud, and for all anybody knows, might be as harshly conservative as Edmund Burke, there's a little doubt. Her "pro-life" credentials are questionable. She apparently isn't afraid of gay people. She started up a women's group of some kind that invited liberal speakers. And back in the day, but after her conversion, she though the Dallas City Council needed to be better represented by minorities, and she even advocated the council divest any of its South African holdings while apartheid remained the law of the land there.
What the blog is going on here? No wonder George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Ann Coulter and William Kristol are throwing her under the bus.
Is it possible that "evangelical" might not mean true-blue, minority-bashing, homophobic, fire-breathing, poor people-hatin', political conservative?
But.
Is she really evangelical enough? Is she the "right" kind of evangelical? Wasn't the evangelical label supposed to guarantee a certain political correctness of the conservative variety? I mean, baptize them, and they're supposed to come up out of the water opposing all forms of abortion, attacking gays, and demanding coerced prayer in the public schools. And, naturally, they shouldn't have any problem with an apartheid South America.
But while Harriet may be the president's best bud, and for all anybody knows, might be as harshly conservative as Edmund Burke, there's a little doubt. Her "pro-life" credentials are questionable. She apparently isn't afraid of gay people. She started up a women's group of some kind that invited liberal speakers. And back in the day, but after her conversion, she though the Dallas City Council needed to be better represented by minorities, and she even advocated the council divest any of its South African holdings while apartheid remained the law of the land there.
What the blog is going on here? No wonder George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Ann Coulter and William Kristol are throwing her under the bus.
Is it possible that "evangelical" might not mean true-blue, minority-bashing, homophobic, fire-breathing, poor people-hatin', political conservative?
Conservative and Liberal
A new book and a recent report raise anew the issue of Democratic liberalism vs Democratic centrism.
The difference between the two positions, more liberalism or more centrism, hinges, it seems to me, on what one believes about the country's "conservatism". As public opinion polls indicate, more Americans identify as conservatives rather than liberals, some polls showing almost a
2-to-1 conservative advantage.
But here is what I want to know: did Republicans adopt an overtly conservative rhetoric and agenda beginning in the 1950's and 1960's in order to cater to the public that it perceived as already inherently conservative, or did Republicans "create" a conservative majority in the public by the use of the conservative "brand name"?
It should be easy enough to find out what the conservative to liberal ratio was during the post-war years when the ideological split between the parties began to be more distinct. While this might be instructive, it's also the case that an investigation of this kind would be mired in conceptions of just what exactly constitutes "conservative" and "liberal".
But the basic point is, do you think that a "liberal brand name" can be "created"? I think this is the position that most of us on the left take. That Republicans have succeeded in no small degree by staking their claims unapologetically to a "conservative brand name" while Democrats have basically chosen to avoid ideological labels (think Michael Dukakis' "competence not ideology" based campaign) or to try to position themselves as the "moderates" or the "centrists".
But in any event, as I, and I think many on the left believe, whatever the realities of public opinion and ideological self identification among the public might be at any point in time, or whatever the public's perception of conservative-liberal dichtomies, the Democratic Party's avoidance of ideology in general, and its retreat from liberalism in particular, has been a disaster.
By shrinking from the liberal label, Democrats have embolded Republicans to be more "conservative" and to push the country's politics and policy further to the extreme right. Democratic acquiencense to the Republican conservative talking points has allowed Republicans and its media institutions to marginalize and in many ways demonize the word "liberal" itself, those wishing to move the country in a more liberal and humane direction, important institutions, such as the ACLU(again remember 1988) and more recently, groups like Moveon and people such as Michael Moore, and perhaps most importantly, liberal "values" such as reproductive choice, the right to privacy, the separation of church and state, and the freedom of expression both in war time and in other times.
And of course, ultimately, liberal Democrats believe that the public's embrace of liberal Democratic values on health care, social security and the right to choose, put it in a more favorable position to campaign as "liberals" than a superficial reading of conservative vs. liberal self identifiers might indicate.
The difference between the two positions, more liberalism or more centrism, hinges, it seems to me, on what one believes about the country's "conservatism". As public opinion polls indicate, more Americans identify as conservatives rather than liberals, some polls showing almost a
2-to-1 conservative advantage.
But here is what I want to know: did Republicans adopt an overtly conservative rhetoric and agenda beginning in the 1950's and 1960's in order to cater to the public that it perceived as already inherently conservative, or did Republicans "create" a conservative majority in the public by the use of the conservative "brand name"?
It should be easy enough to find out what the conservative to liberal ratio was during the post-war years when the ideological split between the parties began to be more distinct. While this might be instructive, it's also the case that an investigation of this kind would be mired in conceptions of just what exactly constitutes "conservative" and "liberal".
But the basic point is, do you think that a "liberal brand name" can be "created"? I think this is the position that most of us on the left take. That Republicans have succeeded in no small degree by staking their claims unapologetically to a "conservative brand name" while Democrats have basically chosen to avoid ideological labels (think Michael Dukakis' "competence not ideology" based campaign) or to try to position themselves as the "moderates" or the "centrists".
But in any event, as I, and I think many on the left believe, whatever the realities of public opinion and ideological self identification among the public might be at any point in time, or whatever the public's perception of conservative-liberal dichtomies, the Democratic Party's avoidance of ideology in general, and its retreat from liberalism in particular, has been a disaster.
By shrinking from the liberal label, Democrats have embolded Republicans to be more "conservative" and to push the country's politics and policy further to the extreme right. Democratic acquiencense to the Republican conservative talking points has allowed Republicans and its media institutions to marginalize and in many ways demonize the word "liberal" itself, those wishing to move the country in a more liberal and humane direction, important institutions, such as the ACLU(again remember 1988) and more recently, groups like Moveon and people such as Michael Moore, and perhaps most importantly, liberal "values" such as reproductive choice, the right to privacy, the separation of church and state, and the freedom of expression both in war time and in other times.
And of course, ultimately, liberal Democrats believe that the public's embrace of liberal Democratic values on health care, social security and the right to choose, put it in a more favorable position to campaign as "liberals" than a superficial reading of conservative vs. liberal self identifiers might indicate.
Was Rove "summoned" or did he "offer" to come back to the grand jury?
After reading this yesterday I thought I had a pretty good handle on what was going on in the Plame investigation:
WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation.
Then, this morning, I read this:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - The special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case has summoned Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to return next week to testify to a federal grand jury in a step that could mean charges will be filed in the case, lawyers in the case said Thursday.
Maybe these reports are not as inconsistent as they sound: maybe the special prosecutor "summoned" Rove after Rove "offered" to come back in. But it sounds like a contrast to me. Maybe one of you can help me clear it up.
WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation.
Then, this morning, I read this:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - The special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case has summoned Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to return next week to testify to a federal grand jury in a step that could mean charges will be filed in the case, lawyers in the case said Thursday.
Maybe these reports are not as inconsistent as they sound: maybe the special prosecutor "summoned" Rove after Rove "offered" to come back in. But it sounds like a contrast to me. Maybe one of you can help me clear it up.
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