I know this is so last week, but I'm just now expressing how flabbergasted and appalled I am that Joe Lieberman would actually use the word "jihad" in describing anyone American, and especially law-abiding, grassroots activists in his own party. It should be clear by now that the term "jihad" has a very particular meaning, and is a very inflammatory point of reference, probably second only to the word "terrorist". People who commit or engage in jihad do things like fly airplanes into skyscrapers, killing thousands of innocent civilians in the planes, in the buildings, and on the ground. I've tried to defend Holy Joe, as his critics refer to him, but this remark is just way over the line. Anyone know if Lieberman has apologized for this?
Meanwhile, George Will this morning played some word games, too:
New Jersey voters may just shrug, so inured are they to politics that have produced more than 75 corruption indictments in the past five years. But what is called Menendez's "baggage" muddies the message as Democrats run against Washington's supposed "culture of corruption."
Supposed culture of corruption? Supposed? One congressman from the current session is in jail, another who was indicted has finally resigned. A chief White House aid was also indicted and is facing perjury charges. Another former agency official has been convicted of influence peddling while the ruling regime's uber lobbyist has pled guilty to various fund-raising and bribery scams. The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is under investigation. And just to show how bipartisan I am, another member of Congress was taped taking $90,000 in bribes from an under-cover agent. Supposed culture of corruption?
What does a corrupt Washington, D.C. official or legislator have to do these days to be recognized?
Thursday, June 22, 2006
The Pathologies of Conservatism
This is a very good essay about Why Conservatives Can't Govern.
But it's hard to imagine how any essay of modern conservatism can fail to account for the disproportionate role played in it by the Christian Right.
At first glance the religious component of American conservativism might not seem all that important when trying to understand the scandals, hubris and debacles generated by the first Republican Presidency and Republican Congress in over fifty years. Nevertheless, the GOP's radical Christian base has made its elections--and therefore its bad governance--possible. Just as importantly, it has also either directly or indirectly helped to thwart any attempts to make the Republican regime accountable. Conservative Christians have contributed passionate voices and messianic themes to a conservatism already suffering from delusions of grandeur and have been an important, if somewhat under-recognized influence on and defense of, the Administration's unchecked foreign policy theories and actions, especially and obviously as it concerns the war against and occupation of Iraq.
At the same time, the GOP's Christian conservative base has either stayed silent on such matters as bankruptcy "reform", tort "reform", budget-busting and income inequality increasing tax cuts, fund-raising and lobbying scandals in Congress and in the executive branch, Katrina, Guatanamo and rendition, NSA spying, and the war, or has supported or defended the administration in each case, excusing unjust, corrupt or incompetent policies (and just as importantly, the ruthless politics that enables those policies).
In short, ruling conservatism's inability to govern stemming from its ideological predispositions is highly related to, if not directly driven by, its ties to fundamentalist Christianity, and the latter's otherworldy conceptions of evidence, analysis and logic. It isn't just that conservatism's free market apostles skew the party's ability to support the institutions its elections have made them responsible for, but also that this quasi-free market ideology is closely intertwined with a religious system of belief that is hostile to the most basic assumptions of science, testing and learning, which are necessary for governments to function at even a basic level.
But it's hard to imagine how any essay of modern conservatism can fail to account for the disproportionate role played in it by the Christian Right.
At first glance the religious component of American conservativism might not seem all that important when trying to understand the scandals, hubris and debacles generated by the first Republican Presidency and Republican Congress in over fifty years. Nevertheless, the GOP's radical Christian base has made its elections--and therefore its bad governance--possible. Just as importantly, it has also either directly or indirectly helped to thwart any attempts to make the Republican regime accountable. Conservative Christians have contributed passionate voices and messianic themes to a conservatism already suffering from delusions of grandeur and have been an important, if somewhat under-recognized influence on and defense of, the Administration's unchecked foreign policy theories and actions, especially and obviously as it concerns the war against and occupation of Iraq.
At the same time, the GOP's Christian conservative base has either stayed silent on such matters as bankruptcy "reform", tort "reform", budget-busting and income inequality increasing tax cuts, fund-raising and lobbying scandals in Congress and in the executive branch, Katrina, Guatanamo and rendition, NSA spying, and the war, or has supported or defended the administration in each case, excusing unjust, corrupt or incompetent policies (and just as importantly, the ruthless politics that enables those policies).
In short, ruling conservatism's inability to govern stemming from its ideological predispositions is highly related to, if not directly driven by, its ties to fundamentalist Christianity, and the latter's otherworldy conceptions of evidence, analysis and logic. It isn't just that conservatism's free market apostles skew the party's ability to support the institutions its elections have made them responsible for, but also that this quasi-free market ideology is closely intertwined with a religious system of belief that is hostile to the most basic assumptions of science, testing and learning, which are necessary for governments to function at even a basic level.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Ideas and Voters
I welcome the addition of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas to the public square and land of the Internets. As the Washington Post mentioned this morning, many Democrats share the conviction that:
...for too long Republicans have been winning the battle of ideas (and often campaign strategy) in American politics, in part because conservatives invested in what is now a well-funded infrastructure of organizations that have produced ideas, thinkers, publications, strategists, and politicians who now control the White House, Congress and increasingly the federal judiciary.
So welcome, Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny. And a big Bulworth shout-out to William Galston, Stanley Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira who have founded The Democratic Strategist. We can alway use more ideas, commentary and data to chew on.
While I recognized the founders of The Democratic Strategist and suspect it will look a lot like The Emerging Democratic Majority, with its emphasis on polling data, I hadn't heard of Democracy's founders. So I paid the site a visit.
Appreciated the book reviews by former Congressman Brad Carson of Robert Remini's The House and Michael Lind of Michael Beinert's The Good Fight. Good stuff.
And while I don't object to views that I object to, this was a strange piece.
For example, what does this mean?
The deaths of those on United 93, as well as those who died elsewhere, have not yet been avenged...
What? The 19 men with box-cutters that carried out the attacks killed themselves in the process. It would be pretty hard to avenge their acts since they were incinerated. Meanwhile, the government and country that provided a sort of safe haven for the attackers was bombed, invaded, and overthrown (however incompletely). And the dude who by most accounts engineered the attacks was also captured and is in some secret prison somewhere not in the U.S. Of course Osama bin Forgotten is still at-large. But if Cherny meant Osama, he didn't say so specifically. What else does he want the country to do? Bomb and invade another country that wasn't involved in the attacks?
The reference to United 93 was actually at the tail-end of a reference to the movie United 93, which Cherny is very disappointed that we didn't all go see. Cherny is disappointed and embittered about a lot of things, mostly how let down he feels that his country has failed to rally to the war on terrorism cause like our ancestors did in enlisting to fight Germany and Japan and later in erecting bomb shelters during the Cold War.
Cherny criticizes the president for not calling for national sacrifice after 9/11 and liberals like Kos for counting the number of times Bush and his officials mention 9/11 in speeches and for thinking that the Republicans have been using 9/11 for political gain over the last five years (imagine that).
There is a real agenda to respond to September 11 that neither party has touched: demanding that Americans make sacrifices in a breakneck transition to energy independence; ending America’s game of footsie with anti-democratic Middle Eastern despots, and actively demonstrating to people around the world that democracy and economic opportunity can provide a better future; making the war on terrorism and homeland security a higher priority than either tax cuts or domestic spending programs; asking millions of Americans to volunteer part-time in modern-day civil defense force that would help watch over our vulnerable ports, borders, and chemical and nuclear plants; strengthening our democracy and addressing grave inequalities in opportunity at home to show the world how fair and just a free nation can be for all; and calling on hundreds of thousands of young people to serve in a military whose size must be greatly increased in order to effectively meet the threats we face.
Dude, take a chill pill. And you want "hundreds of thousands of young people to serve in a military whose size must be greatly increased in order to effectively meet the threats we face"? What enemy or country do you propose these extra hundreds of thousands of troops be sent to wreck havic in? And what about you? You were 26 at the time of 9/11? That would make you, what, 30 or 31 now. That would make you young enough to serve. Go for it.
Right now you're just a scold.
OK, enough of that.
Oh yeah, ideas. I welcome more ideas. Ideas are good. But Democrats haven't lost the majority because of a lack of ideas. We have ideas, as so do our members of Congress.
What we're missing us is some voters. The old New Deal was based on two major voting blocs--labor unions and white Southerners. Labor unions are dead and the white Southerners packed up and moved in with the Republicans. On top of that, Republicans added a major voting bloc known as conservative evangelical Christians. Democrats basically don't have anybody like that. What we do have are several inter-related activist groups, like environmentalists, feminists and bloggers, the types that show up at Take Back America conferences. But we activists are a lot less in number than the audiences for these Justice Sunday events, just to give an example. A third type of voter is the one that ain't very active, doesn't know much or anything about politics, but responds primarily to symbols and angry rhetoric about immigrants, gays, and the flag. Democrats don't get most of these voters either.
So what to do? From where and how do Democrats get more voters? I imagine The Democratic Strategist will focus a lot of attention on polling data designed to bring some sort of majority together, but the downfall of this is a fallback on "swing voter" strategies, that vary from election to election and the type of "competency over ideology" politics that has so many people wondering what the party stands for.
...for too long Republicans have been winning the battle of ideas (and often campaign strategy) in American politics, in part because conservatives invested in what is now a well-funded infrastructure of organizations that have produced ideas, thinkers, publications, strategists, and politicians who now control the White House, Congress and increasingly the federal judiciary.
So welcome, Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny. And a big Bulworth shout-out to William Galston, Stanley Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira who have founded The Democratic Strategist. We can alway use more ideas, commentary and data to chew on.
While I recognized the founders of The Democratic Strategist and suspect it will look a lot like The Emerging Democratic Majority, with its emphasis on polling data, I hadn't heard of Democracy's founders. So I paid the site a visit.
Appreciated the book reviews by former Congressman Brad Carson of Robert Remini's The House and Michael Lind of Michael Beinert's The Good Fight. Good stuff.
And while I don't object to views that I object to, this was a strange piece.
For example, what does this mean?
The deaths of those on United 93, as well as those who died elsewhere, have not yet been avenged...
What? The 19 men with box-cutters that carried out the attacks killed themselves in the process. It would be pretty hard to avenge their acts since they were incinerated. Meanwhile, the government and country that provided a sort of safe haven for the attackers was bombed, invaded, and overthrown (however incompletely). And the dude who by most accounts engineered the attacks was also captured and is in some secret prison somewhere not in the U.S. Of course Osama bin Forgotten is still at-large. But if Cherny meant Osama, he didn't say so specifically. What else does he want the country to do? Bomb and invade another country that wasn't involved in the attacks?
The reference to United 93 was actually at the tail-end of a reference to the movie United 93, which Cherny is very disappointed that we didn't all go see. Cherny is disappointed and embittered about a lot of things, mostly how let down he feels that his country has failed to rally to the war on terrorism cause like our ancestors did in enlisting to fight Germany and Japan and later in erecting bomb shelters during the Cold War.
Cherny criticizes the president for not calling for national sacrifice after 9/11 and liberals like Kos for counting the number of times Bush and his officials mention 9/11 in speeches and for thinking that the Republicans have been using 9/11 for political gain over the last five years (imagine that).
There is a real agenda to respond to September 11 that neither party has touched: demanding that Americans make sacrifices in a breakneck transition to energy independence; ending America’s game of footsie with anti-democratic Middle Eastern despots, and actively demonstrating to people around the world that democracy and economic opportunity can provide a better future; making the war on terrorism and homeland security a higher priority than either tax cuts or domestic spending programs; asking millions of Americans to volunteer part-time in modern-day civil defense force that would help watch over our vulnerable ports, borders, and chemical and nuclear plants; strengthening our democracy and addressing grave inequalities in opportunity at home to show the world how fair and just a free nation can be for all; and calling on hundreds of thousands of young people to serve in a military whose size must be greatly increased in order to effectively meet the threats we face.
Dude, take a chill pill. And you want "hundreds of thousands of young people to serve in a military whose size must be greatly increased in order to effectively meet the threats we face"? What enemy or country do you propose these extra hundreds of thousands of troops be sent to wreck havic in? And what about you? You were 26 at the time of 9/11? That would make you, what, 30 or 31 now. That would make you young enough to serve. Go for it.
Right now you're just a scold.
OK, enough of that.
Oh yeah, ideas. I welcome more ideas. Ideas are good. But Democrats haven't lost the majority because of a lack of ideas. We have ideas, as so do our members of Congress.
What we're missing us is some voters. The old New Deal was based on two major voting blocs--labor unions and white Southerners. Labor unions are dead and the white Southerners packed up and moved in with the Republicans. On top of that, Republicans added a major voting bloc known as conservative evangelical Christians. Democrats basically don't have anybody like that. What we do have are several inter-related activist groups, like environmentalists, feminists and bloggers, the types that show up at Take Back America conferences. But we activists are a lot less in number than the audiences for these Justice Sunday events, just to give an example. A third type of voter is the one that ain't very active, doesn't know much or anything about politics, but responds primarily to symbols and angry rhetoric about immigrants, gays, and the flag. Democrats don't get most of these voters either.
So what to do? From where and how do Democrats get more voters? I imagine The Democratic Strategist will focus a lot of attention on polling data designed to bring some sort of majority together, but the downfall of this is a fallback on "swing voter" strategies, that vary from election to election and the type of "competency over ideology" politics that has so many people wondering what the party stands for.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
A Fighting Liberalism
Swung by Borders on the way home from seeing The Lake House (which was pretty cool, by the way) to pick up a copy of Peter Beinert's The Good Fight. I don't imagine any of you thought your Senator would stoop to reading something by the Beinert wing of the party, or anything by Beinert himself in particular.
But your Senator has mellowed a bit. And rather than dismissing folks like Beinert, maybe he deserves a hearing. And as Matt Yglesias has warned, it would be a mistake, and a tragedy, for Democrats to get punked out again on Iraq and national security, however uncorrelated those subjects were before 2003. If Beinert has something important to say for Democrats and the nation's national security agenda, I want to hear what it is, even if its only value is to serve as a point of contrast or as a starting point for a new liberal vision.
Another reason Beinert's book has some interest for me is I just got done reading Five Days in Philadelphia, about the Republican convention that nominated Wendell Wilkie in 1940. The book brought to mind the dangers of that era and the appeal isolationists had, at least until Pearl Harbor, but still continued to have long after the scope of Hitler's agenda and threat seemed pretty clear. I'm not one of those who believes that the threat posed by Islamic-driven terrorism rises to that level, or to the level presented by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But a threat exists nonetheless, particularly given that Iraq has become a more likely spawner of terrorism in the aftermath of its collapse than it was originally. Democrats campaigning this fall and for 2008 will have to respond to that situation regardless of whether we agree or not that the 2003 invasion was justified, or incompetently planned.
Speaking of Wendell Wilkie, I enjoyed the book by Charles Peters, the founder of the Washington Monthly. It was a quick and entertaining read of an important time period. But it was apparently during the 2004 GOP convention that Zell Miller conjured up the memory of Wilkie to castigate Democrats who weren't sufficiently supportive of our commander and chief during war time. At the time, Approximately Perfect came up with a rejoinder from the dearly departed Wilkie himself that was absolutely perfect.
Anyway, I hope to have some comments about The Good Fight soon.
But here's something I've been wondering about in the mean time: most wars usually contain some assessment of the troop size, location, weapon supply, and overall danger presented by the enemy. With Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union this was more or less clear, if sometimes inflated in the case of the latter. But where is the danger or threat assessment posed by Al Qaeda, or whoever it is we are supposedly surrendering our civil liberties to defend ourselves against? They seem to be an enemy at once everywhere and all powerful. But is this true? One of the failures of the Cheney Administration has been its inability or unwillingness to present to the American people at least some semblance of what the danger is we face in real, empirical terms, and how it intends to target it. We've gotten "stay the course" rhetoric in regards to Iraq and secret, NSA surveillance at home, but where is there some formal assessment, however conditional or qualified, that would justify our current "course" or explain our predicament. You might think that that would be among the questions a responsible press might ask of the White House or congressional leaders. If they have some idea, we should know. If they don't, we should know that, too. This I think is the challenge Democratic candidates should pick up. There can be bi-partisan support for foreign policy and international engagements, provided we know what that policy and level of engagement is, and upon what analysis it is constructed. And that's the problem. I somehow doubt that anyone running the store really has any idea. And that's a risk we can't afford either way, whether it's waging a war against a foreign enemy or ensuring our civil liberties at home.
Update I: via Crooks and Liars, here's an important essay by Arthur.
Update II: regarding my complaint above that the administration hasn't provided the public with anything resembling an objective assessment of our enemy's observable forces or assets, Hume's Ghost at Glenn Greenwald's place provides an important perspective. Essentially the problem for civil libertarians, and the American public, is that the "war" as currently spoken of and fought is entirely open-ended and all-encompassing. But that not only poses an unacceptable infringement of civil liberties and of democracy in general, it's also completely unworkable.
Speaking about the warrantless NSA surveillance program Skitolsky explains how Vice President Cheney's contention that the program helps "prevent possible terrorist attacks" is circular totalitarian logic that justifies the program on the grounds that it might prevent a possible attack. She also notes that "in a world where 'all is possible,' facts take a backseat to possibilities, and, since every citizen is a possible terrorist, then every citizen is a possible threat and so also a possible detainee."
The possibility than any citizen might be a terrorist provides the rationale for making every citizen the target of surveillance. And since the world is full of possible, if not actual, threats, preemptive war threatens to turn into perpetual war, perpetually justifying the police state powers claimed by the administration.
But your Senator has mellowed a bit. And rather than dismissing folks like Beinert, maybe he deserves a hearing. And as Matt Yglesias has warned, it would be a mistake, and a tragedy, for Democrats to get punked out again on Iraq and national security, however uncorrelated those subjects were before 2003. If Beinert has something important to say for Democrats and the nation's national security agenda, I want to hear what it is, even if its only value is to serve as a point of contrast or as a starting point for a new liberal vision.
Another reason Beinert's book has some interest for me is I just got done reading Five Days in Philadelphia, about the Republican convention that nominated Wendell Wilkie in 1940. The book brought to mind the dangers of that era and the appeal isolationists had, at least until Pearl Harbor, but still continued to have long after the scope of Hitler's agenda and threat seemed pretty clear. I'm not one of those who believes that the threat posed by Islamic-driven terrorism rises to that level, or to the level presented by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But a threat exists nonetheless, particularly given that Iraq has become a more likely spawner of terrorism in the aftermath of its collapse than it was originally. Democrats campaigning this fall and for 2008 will have to respond to that situation regardless of whether we agree or not that the 2003 invasion was justified, or incompetently planned.
Speaking of Wendell Wilkie, I enjoyed the book by Charles Peters, the founder of the Washington Monthly. It was a quick and entertaining read of an important time period. But it was apparently during the 2004 GOP convention that Zell Miller conjured up the memory of Wilkie to castigate Democrats who weren't sufficiently supportive of our commander and chief during war time. At the time, Approximately Perfect came up with a rejoinder from the dearly departed Wilkie himself that was absolutely perfect.
Anyway, I hope to have some comments about The Good Fight soon.
But here's something I've been wondering about in the mean time: most wars usually contain some assessment of the troop size, location, weapon supply, and overall danger presented by the enemy. With Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union this was more or less clear, if sometimes inflated in the case of the latter. But where is the danger or threat assessment posed by Al Qaeda, or whoever it is we are supposedly surrendering our civil liberties to defend ourselves against? They seem to be an enemy at once everywhere and all powerful. But is this true? One of the failures of the Cheney Administration has been its inability or unwillingness to present to the American people at least some semblance of what the danger is we face in real, empirical terms, and how it intends to target it. We've gotten "stay the course" rhetoric in regards to Iraq and secret, NSA surveillance at home, but where is there some formal assessment, however conditional or qualified, that would justify our current "course" or explain our predicament. You might think that that would be among the questions a responsible press might ask of the White House or congressional leaders. If they have some idea, we should know. If they don't, we should know that, too. This I think is the challenge Democratic candidates should pick up. There can be bi-partisan support for foreign policy and international engagements, provided we know what that policy and level of engagement is, and upon what analysis it is constructed. And that's the problem. I somehow doubt that anyone running the store really has any idea. And that's a risk we can't afford either way, whether it's waging a war against a foreign enemy or ensuring our civil liberties at home.
Update I: via Crooks and Liars, here's an important essay by Arthur.
Update II: regarding my complaint above that the administration hasn't provided the public with anything resembling an objective assessment of our enemy's observable forces or assets, Hume's Ghost at Glenn Greenwald's place provides an important perspective. Essentially the problem for civil libertarians, and the American public, is that the "war" as currently spoken of and fought is entirely open-ended and all-encompassing. But that not only poses an unacceptable infringement of civil liberties and of democracy in general, it's also completely unworkable.
Speaking about the warrantless NSA surveillance program Skitolsky explains how Vice President Cheney's contention that the program helps "prevent possible terrorist attacks" is circular totalitarian logic that justifies the program on the grounds that it might prevent a possible attack. She also notes that "in a world where 'all is possible,' facts take a backseat to possibilities, and, since every citizen is a possible terrorist, then every citizen is a possible threat and so also a possible detainee."
The possibility than any citizen might be a terrorist provides the rationale for making every citizen the target of surveillance. And since the world is full of possible, if not actual, threats, preemptive war threatens to turn into perpetual war, perpetually justifying the police state powers claimed by the administration.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Flattering Us With Their Fuss
Have you noticed the schizophrenic attitude the main stream press and right wing bloggers--but I repeat myself--took towards last weekend's YearlyKos convention?
Among the first out of the box was this blurb negatively contrasting the attendance at YearlyKos with other conventions apparently scheduled for Vegas this month.
Then came columns in Time and the New York Times by Ann Marie Cox and Mo Dowd respectively, which were likewise unimpressed.
Yet despite the low attendance numbers, Kos's supposedly poor track-record at backing winning candidates (which is Kos's job, afterall--he's a well-paid campaign consultant, recruiter, manager, and fundraiser), and the silliness of the attendees and panels, this small, irrelevant gathering somehow managed to attract enough attention to get Cox and Dowd off their duffeses to cover it and also attracted the attention of The King of All Cable TV himself.
So which is it? Small and irrelevant or threat to the Republic?
Among the first out of the box was this blurb negatively contrasting the attendance at YearlyKos with other conventions apparently scheduled for Vegas this month.
Then came columns in Time and the New York Times by Ann Marie Cox and Mo Dowd respectively, which were likewise unimpressed.
Yet despite the low attendance numbers, Kos's supposedly poor track-record at backing winning candidates (which is Kos's job, afterall--he's a well-paid campaign consultant, recruiter, manager, and fundraiser), and the silliness of the attendees and panels, this small, irrelevant gathering somehow managed to attract enough attention to get Cox and Dowd off their duffeses to cover it and also attracted the attention of The King of All Cable TV himself.
So which is it? Small and irrelevant or threat to the Republic?
Thursday, June 15, 2006
"Strategically Nebulous and Morally Obtuse"
"A dumb idea"
"When the country is war-weary, when the violence is still playing out on TV, I don't know why we want to highlight all that"
"This is nothing more or less than really a charade"
These are a sample of statements by Republican members of Congress regarding the upcoming "debate" on the Iraq war Resolution sponsored by the U.S. House of People's Deputies.
...the resolution itself--declaring that the United States will complete the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure and united Iraq and will prevail in the global war on terror--has attracted strong criticism from lawmakers in both parties. Democrats and antiwar Republicans object to the linkage between the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism, while some Republicans have said it sets unrealistic goals.
(snip)
...GOP leaders are trying to make sure today's debate is on Republican terms. The resolution, "declaring that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror [and] the struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary," was introduced with unabashed partisan overtones. The rules of debate will not allow the resolution to be amended, nor will alternative resolutions be allowed on the floor for a vote.
Even with the restrictions imposed on the "debate" for this "resolution", I doubt the "debate" will go according to plan.
The killing (finally) of Zarqawi was indeed a step in the right direction for Iraq's stability and sovereignty, but Bush and his entourage, unknowingly or not, undermined the latter by jetting into Baghdad uninvited by and without the knowledge of, Iraq's new "sovereign" government, a point that a member of the press actually did raise in yesterday's press conference even though Bush dodged the part of the question that contrasted the Iraq government's supposed "sovereign" status with Bush's, how can we put it another way, invasionary five hour tour.
What will the U.S.'s relationship be to an eventual "free", "secure", and "sovereign" Iraq? Will U.S. officials continue to expect or enjoy unfettered access to the country? Will U.S. officials be granted "amnesty" to "invade" the country whenever they want?
And what about American military bases? Will the Iraqi government have a choice about whether permanent bases are established in Iraq?
These are among the many questions House members of good will can raise during this "debate".
"When the country is war-weary, when the violence is still playing out on TV, I don't know why we want to highlight all that"
"This is nothing more or less than really a charade"
These are a sample of statements by Republican members of Congress regarding the upcoming "debate" on the Iraq war Resolution sponsored by the U.S. House of People's Deputies.
...the resolution itself--declaring that the United States will complete the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure and united Iraq and will prevail in the global war on terror--has attracted strong criticism from lawmakers in both parties. Democrats and antiwar Republicans object to the linkage between the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism, while some Republicans have said it sets unrealistic goals.
(snip)
...GOP leaders are trying to make sure today's debate is on Republican terms. The resolution, "declaring that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror [and] the struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary," was introduced with unabashed partisan overtones. The rules of debate will not allow the resolution to be amended, nor will alternative resolutions be allowed on the floor for a vote.
Even with the restrictions imposed on the "debate" for this "resolution", I doubt the "debate" will go according to plan.
The killing (finally) of Zarqawi was indeed a step in the right direction for Iraq's stability and sovereignty, but Bush and his entourage, unknowingly or not, undermined the latter by jetting into Baghdad uninvited by and without the knowledge of, Iraq's new "sovereign" government, a point that a member of the press actually did raise in yesterday's press conference even though Bush dodged the part of the question that contrasted the Iraq government's supposed "sovereign" status with Bush's, how can we put it another way, invasionary five hour tour.
What will the U.S.'s relationship be to an eventual "free", "secure", and "sovereign" Iraq? Will U.S. officials continue to expect or enjoy unfettered access to the country? Will U.S. officials be granted "amnesty" to "invade" the country whenever they want?
And what about American military bases? Will the Iraqi government have a choice about whether permanent bases are established in Iraq?
These are among the many questions House members of good will can raise during this "debate".
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Escape from the Green Zone
The NYTimes today:
Only a handful of Mr. Bush's closest aides knew about the six-hour visit before he departed from Washington on Monday night. Mr. Bush seemed intent on pressing home a message that American military commanders and embassy officials have been urging on the new government since it took office three weeks ago: after two previous Iraqi governments since Saddam Hussein became mired in incompetence and corruption, time is running out for Iraq's politicians to develop an effective government and a common front against the insurgents.
Time is running out for Iraq's politicians? Really? In what sense is that true? That if they don't get their stuff together we're leaving?
Mr. Bush also gave Mr. Maliki a renewed assurance that the United States would not abandon the new government as it struggles to curb the spiraling violence, rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure and put Iraqis back to work in a reviving economy.
"I also have a message to the Iraqi people: that when America gives a commitment, America will keep its commitment," he said, to wild cheers from the 300 American soldiers and civilians gathered in the palace hall.
Of course the U.S. can't "abandon" Iraq or refuse to help (i.e. finance) Iraq's eventual reconstruction. But this also casts doubt on the notion that "time is running out for Iraq's politicians" to get things together. If we're unconditionally committed to the country's reconstruction and well-being (as I believe we are and should be) then it isn't clear to me in what sense "time is running" out for this Iraqi government, or the next one, or the next one after that.
Maybe the "time is running out" theme refers to the anarchy and civil war the government's failure to "get things together" will result in, if those things aren't already present and occuring.
Either way, I don't see how "time is running out" on our mission in Iraq, even if "time is running out" for the administration's war architects and for troops on multiple tours of duty without a ready supply of draftees to back them up.
The other thing about this "secret" trip (note to the media: is there another kind?) is this weird stuff about "looking the Iraqi leader in the eye".
Seated beside Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, in a meeting that included American officials and 17 members of the Iraqi cabinet, Mr. Bush told the prime minister that he had come "to look you in the eye." He repeated the phrase later at the palace, when he told troops and other Americans he had come "to look at Prime Minister Maliki in the eyes and determine whether or not he is as dedicated to a free Iraq as you are."
Mr. Bush added, "
And I believe he is."
Is this what passes for project assessment and policy review in the White House? Look him in the eye? What if the president hadn't liked his "look" into Maliki's "eyes"? Would he order Maliki thrown out of the Green Zone to be devoured in the Other Iraq, like some sort of reverse Escape from New York flick, and then "decide" that yet another Prime Minister would need to be appointed?
Speaking of Snake Pliskin, doesn't this whole "fly into the Baghdad airport and then into the Green Zone with body armor" remind you of Escape from New York? The hoodlums, terrorists and malcontents are thrown into the city of New York--never to leave--while around the city lies the walls, the water barrier, and bomb-laden bridges designed to keep the bad people in. On the rare occasion when the prison has to be invaded, Commissioner Hauk flies in under the cover of darkness with a mini-army only to beat as fast a retreat as possible when their mission is "accomplished" or foiled?
Only a handful of Mr. Bush's closest aides knew about the six-hour visit before he departed from Washington on Monday night. Mr. Bush seemed intent on pressing home a message that American military commanders and embassy officials have been urging on the new government since it took office three weeks ago: after two previous Iraqi governments since Saddam Hussein became mired in incompetence and corruption, time is running out for Iraq's politicians to develop an effective government and a common front against the insurgents.
Time is running out for Iraq's politicians? Really? In what sense is that true? That if they don't get their stuff together we're leaving?
Mr. Bush also gave Mr. Maliki a renewed assurance that the United States would not abandon the new government as it struggles to curb the spiraling violence, rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure and put Iraqis back to work in a reviving economy.
"I also have a message to the Iraqi people: that when America gives a commitment, America will keep its commitment," he said, to wild cheers from the 300 American soldiers and civilians gathered in the palace hall.
Of course the U.S. can't "abandon" Iraq or refuse to help (i.e. finance) Iraq's eventual reconstruction. But this also casts doubt on the notion that "time is running out for Iraq's politicians" to get things together. If we're unconditionally committed to the country's reconstruction and well-being (as I believe we are and should be) then it isn't clear to me in what sense "time is running" out for this Iraqi government, or the next one, or the next one after that.
Maybe the "time is running out" theme refers to the anarchy and civil war the government's failure to "get things together" will result in, if those things aren't already present and occuring.
Either way, I don't see how "time is running out" on our mission in Iraq, even if "time is running out" for the administration's war architects and for troops on multiple tours of duty without a ready supply of draftees to back them up.
The other thing about this "secret" trip (note to the media: is there another kind?) is this weird stuff about "looking the Iraqi leader in the eye".
Seated beside Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, in a meeting that included American officials and 17 members of the Iraqi cabinet, Mr. Bush told the prime minister that he had come "to look you in the eye." He repeated the phrase later at the palace, when he told troops and other Americans he had come "to look at Prime Minister Maliki in the eyes and determine whether or not he is as dedicated to a free Iraq as you are."
Mr. Bush added, "
And I believe he is."
Is this what passes for project assessment and policy review in the White House? Look him in the eye? What if the president hadn't liked his "look" into Maliki's "eyes"? Would he order Maliki thrown out of the Green Zone to be devoured in the Other Iraq, like some sort of reverse Escape from New York flick, and then "decide" that yet another Prime Minister would need to be appointed?
Speaking of Snake Pliskin, doesn't this whole "fly into the Baghdad airport and then into the Green Zone with body armor" remind you of Escape from New York? The hoodlums, terrorists and malcontents are thrown into the city of New York--never to leave--while around the city lies the walls, the water barrier, and bomb-laden bridges designed to keep the bad people in. On the rare occasion when the prison has to be invaded, Commissioner Hauk flies in under the cover of darkness with a mini-army only to beat as fast a retreat as possible when their mission is "accomplished" or foiled?
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
The Zarqawi Paradox
The killing of Al-Zarqawi is the best news war apologists have had for some time. Probably since Saddam was fished out of the spider hole. Whether his death provides the crucial, or even a crucial element in eliminating the strife and chaos in Iraq and thus paving the way for a stable, Democratic state will obviously be a matter of waiting and seeing.
But while previously dispirited war backers woke up rejoicing this morning, the elimination of Zarqawi is, beyond its unknown implications for Iraq, a mixed bag for those on the right dedicated to pumping up the elusive but omniscient and ubiquitous "global war on terror".
While it gives them something to celebrate, and more importantly, a candlestick with which to beat their imagined enemies, a victory in Iraq or anywhere regarding the war on terror implies that something like a total victory should be in sight, or at the least, can be imaged and desired.
But for the budding pseudo-fascists of the right, the "war on terror", like it's Cold War predecessor, isn't supposed to end. In fact, it would be highly desirable that, for right-wing domestic militants, the war on terror never end. This is because the presence of war, particularly an external one, is critical for allowing the right to wage the war it really is committed to, the war against the domestic and internal enemies of its imagination.
In The Anatomy of Fascism, Robert O. Paxton writes:
Enemies were central to the anxieties that helped inflame the fascist imagination. Fascists saw enemies within the nation as well as outside...internal enemies grew luxuriantly in number and variety in the mental landscape as the ideal of the homogenous national state made difference more suspect.
Liberals, Democrats, immigrants, and ultimately citizens of any stripe that appear insuffiently dedicated to the American pseudo-fascist cause which the domestic war on terror militants hold so dear are the enemy.
But this war on domestic enemies requires at least the appearance of an external enemy capable of inflicting great harm on the homeland or on the nation's international aims as imagined by the war fetishists.
The capture or death of a prominent external enemy, while initially inspirational and for a time a useful rhetorical tool against its enemies, shortly becomes a liability if it is assumed that the military victory "over there" is expected to reduce or eliminate the external war that is essential for the pseudo-fascist's domestic war campaign.
And the external war is needed, not just because an external enemy, no matter how remote, may conceivably represent a physical danger to the homeland, but more importantly because, as Chris Hedges has written, war gives us meaning. And out of that meaning flows the domestic militant's sense of values, namely the defense and promotion of the militantly righteous nation state.
And while both the domestic and external wars are obstensibly conducted for and defended on the basis of an abstract sense of moral absolutism, in reality, the proponents of perpetual war--as the war on terrorism is hoped to be by at least some of its most ardent apologists--share only one primal value, as Paxton notes,
...the success of chosen peoples in a Darwinian struggle for primacy. The community comes before humankind in fascist values, and respecting individual rights or due process gave way to serving the destiny of the Volk or razza.
One need only call to mind the endless stream of threats and demands from right-wing spokesman that the media be inprisoned for reporting government activity, that essentially any form of opposition to the administration constitutes treason (especially in what we are continually told is a "state of war"), that undocumented workers coming across the border from Mexico constitute an invasion, and the morally relativistic defenses of military actions in Haditha (and before that Abu Graib) to recognize the moral blindness adhered to by certain partisans of the "war on terror" and the nation's ruling regime.
Morally relativism and dependence on an ever dangerous and omniscient external enemy are the essential ingredients needed (among others) to feed the modern manifestation of fascism. Consequently, the elimination of external enemies, especially highly prominent ones, however over-stated, may ultimately reduce the power domestic supporters of authoritarianism seek.
But while previously dispirited war backers woke up rejoicing this morning, the elimination of Zarqawi is, beyond its unknown implications for Iraq, a mixed bag for those on the right dedicated to pumping up the elusive but omniscient and ubiquitous "global war on terror".
While it gives them something to celebrate, and more importantly, a candlestick with which to beat their imagined enemies, a victory in Iraq or anywhere regarding the war on terror implies that something like a total victory should be in sight, or at the least, can be imaged and desired.
But for the budding pseudo-fascists of the right, the "war on terror", like it's Cold War predecessor, isn't supposed to end. In fact, it would be highly desirable that, for right-wing domestic militants, the war on terror never end. This is because the presence of war, particularly an external one, is critical for allowing the right to wage the war it really is committed to, the war against the domestic and internal enemies of its imagination.
In The Anatomy of Fascism, Robert O. Paxton writes:
Enemies were central to the anxieties that helped inflame the fascist imagination. Fascists saw enemies within the nation as well as outside...internal enemies grew luxuriantly in number and variety in the mental landscape as the ideal of the homogenous national state made difference more suspect.
Liberals, Democrats, immigrants, and ultimately citizens of any stripe that appear insuffiently dedicated to the American pseudo-fascist cause which the domestic war on terror militants hold so dear are the enemy.
But this war on domestic enemies requires at least the appearance of an external enemy capable of inflicting great harm on the homeland or on the nation's international aims as imagined by the war fetishists.
The capture or death of a prominent external enemy, while initially inspirational and for a time a useful rhetorical tool against its enemies, shortly becomes a liability if it is assumed that the military victory "over there" is expected to reduce or eliminate the external war that is essential for the pseudo-fascist's domestic war campaign.
And the external war is needed, not just because an external enemy, no matter how remote, may conceivably represent a physical danger to the homeland, but more importantly because, as Chris Hedges has written, war gives us meaning. And out of that meaning flows the domestic militant's sense of values, namely the defense and promotion of the militantly righteous nation state.
And while both the domestic and external wars are obstensibly conducted for and defended on the basis of an abstract sense of moral absolutism, in reality, the proponents of perpetual war--as the war on terrorism is hoped to be by at least some of its most ardent apologists--share only one primal value, as Paxton notes,
...the success of chosen peoples in a Darwinian struggle for primacy. The community comes before humankind in fascist values, and respecting individual rights or due process gave way to serving the destiny of the Volk or razza.
One need only call to mind the endless stream of threats and demands from right-wing spokesman that the media be inprisoned for reporting government activity, that essentially any form of opposition to the administration constitutes treason (especially in what we are continually told is a "state of war"), that undocumented workers coming across the border from Mexico constitute an invasion, and the morally relativistic defenses of military actions in Haditha (and before that Abu Graib) to recognize the moral blindness adhered to by certain partisans of the "war on terror" and the nation's ruling regime.
Morally relativism and dependence on an ever dangerous and omniscient external enemy are the essential ingredients needed (among others) to feed the modern manifestation of fascism. Consequently, the elimination of external enemies, especially highly prominent ones, however over-stated, may ultimately reduce the power domestic supporters of authoritarianism seek.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Better Learn Them Some English
The President Says:
OMAHA, Neb. - New arrivals to this country must adopt American values and learn English, President Bush said Wednesday, pushing anew for his proposal to overhaul immigration rules.
Yeah. Don't ya just wish today's immigrants assimilated and spoke our language, English, like immigrants did in the good old days? You know, like they did in 1860?
Many German immigrants were Protestant, and many lived in the country. They seemed willing to listen to the Republicans, who devoted great energy to wooing German voters. Franklin (County, PA) Republicans put in the field local speakers who spoke German, and Republican Congressman Edward McPherson requested lists of German men he might write for their support.
In their efforts to reach the Germans, the Republicans benefited enormously from the efforts of Carl Schurz, a famous writer and speaker...Schurz spoke in the afternoon in English, but that evening he was to 'speak in German, his native language, to the citizens of Chambersburg who can understand him. The german portion of our population , who do not fully comprehend the objects of Republicanism, are particularly invited to listen to this great expounder of our political faith; himself a german by birth'...Soon after his appearance a German Republican club formed in Franklin.
from Edward L. Ayers, 2003, In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863, page 79
Can you imagine the demonic head-spinning that would result if there was such a thing as a Mexican Democratic club?
OMAHA, Neb. - New arrivals to this country must adopt American values and learn English, President Bush said Wednesday, pushing anew for his proposal to overhaul immigration rules.
Yeah. Don't ya just wish today's immigrants assimilated and spoke our language, English, like immigrants did in the good old days? You know, like they did in 1860?
Many German immigrants were Protestant, and many lived in the country. They seemed willing to listen to the Republicans, who devoted great energy to wooing German voters. Franklin (County, PA) Republicans put in the field local speakers who spoke German, and Republican Congressman Edward McPherson requested lists of German men he might write for their support.
In their efforts to reach the Germans, the Republicans benefited enormously from the efforts of Carl Schurz, a famous writer and speaker...Schurz spoke in the afternoon in English, but that evening he was to 'speak in German, his native language, to the citizens of Chambersburg who can understand him. The german portion of our population , who do not fully comprehend the objects of Republicanism, are particularly invited to listen to this great expounder of our political faith; himself a german by birth'...Soon after his appearance a German Republican club formed in Franklin.
from Edward L. Ayers, 2003, In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863, page 79
Can you imagine the demonic head-spinning that would result if there was such a thing as a Mexican Democratic club?
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
"A Frigid and Pitiless Dogma"
Sometimes a liberal blog will link to a selected item from a conservative blogger's post, highlighting the conservative blogger's apparent agreement with liberal thinking on something, or in contrast, highlighting the conservative blogger's outrageousness, and when you click the hyper-link you end up in a post that is either less liberal friendly or less outrageous than advertised (no doubt conservative bloggers do the same).
To a certain extent, this could be said for this TAPPED extraction from, and hyper-link to, this John Derbyshire book review of fellow NRO'er Ramesh Ponnuru's Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life.
For example, Garance Franke-Ruta doesn't mention that Derbyshire believes, like Ponnuru, that Roe v. Wade is or was "jurisprudentially preposterous", that this conclusion is "indisputable" and that because the Constitution doesn't say the word "abortion", it's regulation should be "a matter for the states", despite the fact that the Constitution doesn't say anything specific about a lot of things, for example, the right to privacy, but do to other Amendments included in the Bill of Rights, this right has been recognized as superceding the ability of tyrannical majorities from invading.
Nonetheless, the Derbyshire paragraphs that Franke-Ruta does include are, indeed, "shocking":
I wonder again: Who, actually, is the Party of Death? Here I see a woman who, having missed her period and found herself pregnant, has an abortion, comes home, downs a stiff drink, and gets on with her life. With her life. Here I meet a man whose loved wife has gone, never to return, yet her personless body still twitches and grunts randomly on its plastic sheet, defying years of care and therapy. Let her go, everyone begs him, and his own conscience cries; and at last he does, whichever way the law will permit. Here I find a couple who want a lively, healthy child, but who know their genes carry dark possibilities of a lifetime's misery and an early death. They permit multiple embryos to be created, select the one free from the dread traits, and give over the rest to the use of science, or authorize their destruction.
The RTL-ers would tell me that these people, and the medical professionals who help them, are all moral criminals, who have destroyed human lives. They support their belief with careful definitions, precise chains of reasoning, and -- I do not doubt it -- sincere intentions. Yet how inhuman they seem! What a frigid and pitiless dogma they preach! -- one that would take from the living, without any regard to what the living have to say about it, to give to those whom common intuition regards as nonliving; that would criminalize acts of compassion, and that would strip away such little personal autonomy as is left to us after the attentions of the IRS, Big Medicine, the litigation rackets, and the myriad government bureaucracies that regulate our lives and peer into our private affairs.
For RTL is, really, just another species of Political Correctness, just another manifestation of the intellectual pathology, the hypertrophied and academical egalitarianism, the victimological scab-picking, the gaseous sentimentality. that has afflicted our civilization this past forty years. We have lost our innocence, traded it in for a passel of theorems. The RTL-ers are just another bunch of schoolmarms trying to boss us around and to diminish our liberties. Is it wrong to have concern for fetuses and for the vegetative, incapable, or incurable? Not at all. Do we need to do some hard thinking about the notion of personhood in a society with fast-advancing biological capabilities? We surely do. (And I think Party of Death contributes useful things to that discussion.) Should we let a cult of theologians, monks, scolds, grad-school debaters, logic-choppers, and schoolmarms tell us what to do with our wombs, or when we may give up the ghost, or when we should part with our loved ones? Absolutely not! Give me liberty, and give me death!
This is wild, bold ripping from a fellow traveler in the conservative empire. I wish Democrats would talk like this, instead of acting as if any comment on abortion, gay rights, or religion is tantamount to walking on egg-shells. Derbyshire's smackdown on Ponnuru's party of death thesis and counter-attack against the right's culture of privacy invading, liberty reducing, ambiguity ignoring mania is refreshing.
Nonetheless, Franke-Ruta's depiction of Derbyshire's broadside is in some ways understated. For example, right out of the starting gate Derbyshire doesn't hesitate to slap the cult designation on the right to life (RTL) movement:
Can Right to Life (hereinafter RTL) fairly be called a cult? This is a point on which I cannot make up my mind. Some of the common characteristics of culthood are missing--the Fuhrerprinzip, for example. On the other hand, RTL has the following things in common with every cult in the world: To those inside, it appears to be a structure of perfect logical integrity, founded on unassailable philosophical principles, while to those outside--among whom, obviously, I count myself--it seems to some degree (depending on the observer's temperament and inclinations) nutty; to some other degree (ditto) hysterical; and to some yet other degree (ditto ditto) a threat to liberty. My own ratings of RTL on those three degrees are 2, 6, and 4 out of a possible ten each.
The second of those ratings would have been lower before the grotesque carnival surrounding the death of Terri Schiavo last year, when a motley menagerie of quack doctors, bogus "Nobel Prize nominees," emoting relatives, get-a-life monomaniacs, keening mobs of religious fanatics, death-threat-hissing warriors for "life," dimwitted TV presenters straining to keep their very best my-puppy-just-died faces on while speaking of "Terri" as if they had known her personally from grade school, pandering politicians, and shyster lawyers all joined forces in a massive effort to convince the American public that RTL was a thing no sane citizen ought to touch with a barge pole while wearing triple-ply rubber gloves.
On the other hand, the first of those ratings would have been a couple of ticks higher before I read Party of Death. Ramesh Ponnuru is one of the best advocates a cult--cause, movement, whatever--could hope for; so much so that (just to complete the set) the third of my ratings went up by a corresponding amount after setting down his book. With polemical skills and intellectual firepower of this order, it is possible that RTL might break out from its natural habitat in student chapters of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception to attain real influence in the land. A general reduction of our liberties would indeed follow, since RTL is, in its essence, an authoritarian movement, whose ultimate desire is to boss the rest of us around.
Then, highlighting the event that might soon, if it hasn't already, serve as the marker of the right-wing's self destructive over-reach, it's point of no return, the high water mark of the Republican Revolution, Derbyshire let's fly a glorious ripping of the media circus that was the Terri Schiavo case:
Part Two opens with a discussion of euthanasia, with several references to the Schiavo case. To Ponnuru's credit, even he seems a little embarrassed by the freak show that surrounded Mrs. Schiavo's last days, and he spares us most of the details (which are anyway thoroughly covered, from both sides, in at least five recent books). Not that his embarrassment prevents the author from engaging in a dense flurry of those rhetorical sleights of hand I noted earlier. He tells us, to take one example from many, that Michael Schiavo won a $1.1 million settlement in a negligence suit against his wife's doctors, without also telling us that Mrs. Schiavo's parents fought like cats to get their hands on their daughter's estate; or that Mr. Schiavo offered (in writing, in documents deposited with officers of the court) to sign over that estate--which was anyway much diminished by legal bills--to a registered charity if his in-laws would withdraw their lawsuits; or for that matter that Mr. Schiavo was a well-paid working professional well able to support himself, while his in-laws were chronically broke, at least until the big RTL foundations showed up with checkbooks a-flapping. And of course Ponnuru does not mention the few seconds of misleading videotape, carefully selected from over four hours' worth, released (in violation of a court order!) by the in-laws to the media, and endlessly replayed on sensationalist TV news programs.
In fact, Ponnuru has nothing to say at all about the monstrous character assassination, carried out by utterly unscrupulous RTL propagandists, of a decent man who coped humanely and well with a terrible life calamity. Well, not quite nothing: "It cannot be denied that pro-lifers were guilty of some excesses," Ponnuru murmurs. Some excesses? I would say. Here the author sounds like nothing so much as a Soviet Communist Party apparatchik, circa 1960, offering a grudging admission that Stalin and his cronies might, just once or twice, have been a tad over-zealous in dealing with class enemies. Perhaps I should add here that after reading three (Schiavo, Schindler, and Eisenberg) of the above-mentioned five-or-so books, I came away more convinced than ever that Michael Schiavo is a good man criminally traduced by brutal, unprincipled RTL fanatics, from whose number, on the evidence of this chapter, Ponnuru cannot with certainty be excluded.
I'm thankful for Derbshire's recognizing that the bizarre and paradoxical "culture of life" crowd was prepared to sacrifice Michael Schiavo on the nearest alter of burnt offerings, willing to bring death to promote "life". I'm glad someone is finally pointing out the bullying incongruence of the RTL's agenda. And he didn't even mention how RTL's want to end abortion while also outlawing contraception.
As I suggested to Barbara O'Brien, guest posting at Glenn Greenwald's pad, the conservative movement practices an extreme but highly recognizable and decipherable form of psychological projection:
Seems like a classic case of projection to me.
Conservatives celebrate death but accuse of liberals of being the party of death.
Conservatives proclaim a dedication to small government and express contempt for liberal do-gooders but paradoxically defend a power-grabbing presidency and complain that the culture is too crude.
Conservatives complain that Christianity is given short thrift in the "public square" and that liberals are out to destroy it, but by their words and actions, don't appear to even be aware of their religion's basic tenets, spirit and Biblical foundation.
I might have added how peculiar it is to be lectured about the depravity and crudeness of our culture and our supposed moral relativism by a crowd that would allow Ann Coulter to represent them and that as far as I can see practices a form of moral relativism itself in that the only morals it appears to willing to defend, and the only actions it appears willing to justify are those used in the service of advancing a narrow version of America's self-interest.
A few glances at right-wing responses to Abu Graib and the latest reports from Haditha should be enough to demonstrate that the right, or at least a sizable class of it, has no morals whatsoever. The only morals it holds dear are those associated with its fantasies of American exceptionalism and world dominion.
Moreover, the "war-right" and the RTL crowds are not only fellow travelers in the bitter, alternative universe that is American conservativism, they are often and usually the exact same people.
The result is a weird mix of anachronistic, selectively chosen, biblically-based moralizing with an unhealthy dose of fascist privacy invading and nationalist tendencies, all of which serves to produce as Derbyshire notes, A Frigid and Pitiless Dogma, ready to sacrifice individual rights for those of an embryo while celebrating the deaths of people like Rachel Corrie and David Rosenbaum, not to mention willing and eager for others to make Iraq a desolate, wasteland of broken lives and burned bodies so that their country might achieve its glorious destiny.
To a certain extent, this could be said for this TAPPED extraction from, and hyper-link to, this John Derbyshire book review of fellow NRO'er Ramesh Ponnuru's Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life.
For example, Garance Franke-Ruta doesn't mention that Derbyshire believes, like Ponnuru, that Roe v. Wade is or was "jurisprudentially preposterous", that this conclusion is "indisputable" and that because the Constitution doesn't say the word "abortion", it's regulation should be "a matter for the states", despite the fact that the Constitution doesn't say anything specific about a lot of things, for example, the right to privacy, but do to other Amendments included in the Bill of Rights, this right has been recognized as superceding the ability of tyrannical majorities from invading.
Nonetheless, the Derbyshire paragraphs that Franke-Ruta does include are, indeed, "shocking":
I wonder again: Who, actually, is the Party of Death? Here I see a woman who, having missed her period and found herself pregnant, has an abortion, comes home, downs a stiff drink, and gets on with her life. With her life. Here I meet a man whose loved wife has gone, never to return, yet her personless body still twitches and grunts randomly on its plastic sheet, defying years of care and therapy. Let her go, everyone begs him, and his own conscience cries; and at last he does, whichever way the law will permit. Here I find a couple who want a lively, healthy child, but who know their genes carry dark possibilities of a lifetime's misery and an early death. They permit multiple embryos to be created, select the one free from the dread traits, and give over the rest to the use of science, or authorize their destruction.
The RTL-ers would tell me that these people, and the medical professionals who help them, are all moral criminals, who have destroyed human lives. They support their belief with careful definitions, precise chains of reasoning, and -- I do not doubt it -- sincere intentions. Yet how inhuman they seem! What a frigid and pitiless dogma they preach! -- one that would take from the living, without any regard to what the living have to say about it, to give to those whom common intuition regards as nonliving; that would criminalize acts of compassion, and that would strip away such little personal autonomy as is left to us after the attentions of the IRS, Big Medicine, the litigation rackets, and the myriad government bureaucracies that regulate our lives and peer into our private affairs.
For RTL is, really, just another species of Political Correctness, just another manifestation of the intellectual pathology, the hypertrophied and academical egalitarianism, the victimological scab-picking, the gaseous sentimentality. that has afflicted our civilization this past forty years. We have lost our innocence, traded it in for a passel of theorems. The RTL-ers are just another bunch of schoolmarms trying to boss us around and to diminish our liberties. Is it wrong to have concern for fetuses and for the vegetative, incapable, or incurable? Not at all. Do we need to do some hard thinking about the notion of personhood in a society with fast-advancing biological capabilities? We surely do. (And I think Party of Death contributes useful things to that discussion.) Should we let a cult of theologians, monks, scolds, grad-school debaters, logic-choppers, and schoolmarms tell us what to do with our wombs, or when we may give up the ghost, or when we should part with our loved ones? Absolutely not! Give me liberty, and give me death!
This is wild, bold ripping from a fellow traveler in the conservative empire. I wish Democrats would talk like this, instead of acting as if any comment on abortion, gay rights, or religion is tantamount to walking on egg-shells. Derbyshire's smackdown on Ponnuru's party of death thesis and counter-attack against the right's culture of privacy invading, liberty reducing, ambiguity ignoring mania is refreshing.
Nonetheless, Franke-Ruta's depiction of Derbyshire's broadside is in some ways understated. For example, right out of the starting gate Derbyshire doesn't hesitate to slap the cult designation on the right to life (RTL) movement:
Can Right to Life (hereinafter RTL) fairly be called a cult? This is a point on which I cannot make up my mind. Some of the common characteristics of culthood are missing--the Fuhrerprinzip, for example. On the other hand, RTL has the following things in common with every cult in the world: To those inside, it appears to be a structure of perfect logical integrity, founded on unassailable philosophical principles, while to those outside--among whom, obviously, I count myself--it seems to some degree (depending on the observer's temperament and inclinations) nutty; to some other degree (ditto) hysterical; and to some yet other degree (ditto ditto) a threat to liberty. My own ratings of RTL on those three degrees are 2, 6, and 4 out of a possible ten each.
The second of those ratings would have been lower before the grotesque carnival surrounding the death of Terri Schiavo last year, when a motley menagerie of quack doctors, bogus "Nobel Prize nominees," emoting relatives, get-a-life monomaniacs, keening mobs of religious fanatics, death-threat-hissing warriors for "life," dimwitted TV presenters straining to keep their very best my-puppy-just-died faces on while speaking of "Terri" as if they had known her personally from grade school, pandering politicians, and shyster lawyers all joined forces in a massive effort to convince the American public that RTL was a thing no sane citizen ought to touch with a barge pole while wearing triple-ply rubber gloves.
On the other hand, the first of those ratings would have been a couple of ticks higher before I read Party of Death. Ramesh Ponnuru is one of the best advocates a cult--cause, movement, whatever--could hope for; so much so that (just to complete the set) the third of my ratings went up by a corresponding amount after setting down his book. With polemical skills and intellectual firepower of this order, it is possible that RTL might break out from its natural habitat in student chapters of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception to attain real influence in the land. A general reduction of our liberties would indeed follow, since RTL is, in its essence, an authoritarian movement, whose ultimate desire is to boss the rest of us around.
Then, highlighting the event that might soon, if it hasn't already, serve as the marker of the right-wing's self destructive over-reach, it's point of no return, the high water mark of the Republican Revolution, Derbyshire let's fly a glorious ripping of the media circus that was the Terri Schiavo case:
Part Two opens with a discussion of euthanasia, with several references to the Schiavo case. To Ponnuru's credit, even he seems a little embarrassed by the freak show that surrounded Mrs. Schiavo's last days, and he spares us most of the details (which are anyway thoroughly covered, from both sides, in at least five recent books). Not that his embarrassment prevents the author from engaging in a dense flurry of those rhetorical sleights of hand I noted earlier. He tells us, to take one example from many, that Michael Schiavo won a $1.1 million settlement in a negligence suit against his wife's doctors, without also telling us that Mrs. Schiavo's parents fought like cats to get their hands on their daughter's estate; or that Mr. Schiavo offered (in writing, in documents deposited with officers of the court) to sign over that estate--which was anyway much diminished by legal bills--to a registered charity if his in-laws would withdraw their lawsuits; or for that matter that Mr. Schiavo was a well-paid working professional well able to support himself, while his in-laws were chronically broke, at least until the big RTL foundations showed up with checkbooks a-flapping. And of course Ponnuru does not mention the few seconds of misleading videotape, carefully selected from over four hours' worth, released (in violation of a court order!) by the in-laws to the media, and endlessly replayed on sensationalist TV news programs.
In fact, Ponnuru has nothing to say at all about the monstrous character assassination, carried out by utterly unscrupulous RTL propagandists, of a decent man who coped humanely and well with a terrible life calamity. Well, not quite nothing: "It cannot be denied that pro-lifers were guilty of some excesses," Ponnuru murmurs. Some excesses? I would say. Here the author sounds like nothing so much as a Soviet Communist Party apparatchik, circa 1960, offering a grudging admission that Stalin and his cronies might, just once or twice, have been a tad over-zealous in dealing with class enemies. Perhaps I should add here that after reading three (Schiavo, Schindler, and Eisenberg) of the above-mentioned five-or-so books, I came away more convinced than ever that Michael Schiavo is a good man criminally traduced by brutal, unprincipled RTL fanatics, from whose number, on the evidence of this chapter, Ponnuru cannot with certainty be excluded.
I'm thankful for Derbshire's recognizing that the bizarre and paradoxical "culture of life" crowd was prepared to sacrifice Michael Schiavo on the nearest alter of burnt offerings, willing to bring death to promote "life". I'm glad someone is finally pointing out the bullying incongruence of the RTL's agenda. And he didn't even mention how RTL's want to end abortion while also outlawing contraception.
As I suggested to Barbara O'Brien, guest posting at Glenn Greenwald's pad, the conservative movement practices an extreme but highly recognizable and decipherable form of psychological projection:
Seems like a classic case of projection to me.
Conservatives celebrate death but accuse of liberals of being the party of death.
Conservatives proclaim a dedication to small government and express contempt for liberal do-gooders but paradoxically defend a power-grabbing presidency and complain that the culture is too crude.
Conservatives complain that Christianity is given short thrift in the "public square" and that liberals are out to destroy it, but by their words and actions, don't appear to even be aware of their religion's basic tenets, spirit and Biblical foundation.
I might have added how peculiar it is to be lectured about the depravity and crudeness of our culture and our supposed moral relativism by a crowd that would allow Ann Coulter to represent them and that as far as I can see practices a form of moral relativism itself in that the only morals it appears to willing to defend, and the only actions it appears willing to justify are those used in the service of advancing a narrow version of America's self-interest.
A few glances at right-wing responses to Abu Graib and the latest reports from Haditha should be enough to demonstrate that the right, or at least a sizable class of it, has no morals whatsoever. The only morals it holds dear are those associated with its fantasies of American exceptionalism and world dominion.
Moreover, the "war-right" and the RTL crowds are not only fellow travelers in the bitter, alternative universe that is American conservativism, they are often and usually the exact same people.
The result is a weird mix of anachronistic, selectively chosen, biblically-based moralizing with an unhealthy dose of fascist privacy invading and nationalist tendencies, all of which serves to produce as Derbyshire notes, A Frigid and Pitiless Dogma, ready to sacrifice individual rights for those of an embryo while celebrating the deaths of people like Rachel Corrie and David Rosenbaum, not to mention willing and eager for others to make Iraq a desolate, wasteland of broken lives and burned bodies so that their country might achieve its glorious destiny.
Our Religion
So, Ann Coulter has a new book out today, entitled, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (no link). According to the full-page color ad I was subjected to in today's NYT, Godless contends that liberalism has its own churches (government schools); it's own commandments (thou shalt not punish the perp); it's own holy writ (Roe v. Wade); and it's own creation myth (Darwinism).
OK. Maybe so.
But if liberalism is a religion, at least it's one that doesn't burn people at the stake. Sounds like progress to me.
OK. Maybe so.
But if liberalism is a religion, at least it's one that doesn't burn people at the stake. Sounds like progress to me.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Warner and Feingold
C-Span's Road to the Whitehouse showcased Russ Feingold and Mark Warner speaking in NH to that state's Democratic Convention on Saturday.
The short version: I thought Warner was very, very impressive.
Neither speaker mentioned immigration, and neither referred explicitly to gay marriage or abortion. While both speeches managed to hit some similar themes, such as the failure of President Bush to unite the country with a call to shared sacrifice after 9-11, the speeches were remarkably different from one another, a distinction particularly telling given that the Warner speech appeared to immediately succeed Feingold's in order at the convention (although maybe this was a C-Span effect, appearing to make the speeches appear consecutively).
Feingold covered most of the outrage issues: No Child Left Behind; the Iraq War; the abuses of the Patriot Act; the NSA wiretaps and the Constitutional disregards more broadly; the demolition of FEMA and the Katrina debacle; the failure of Senate Democrats to lead on healthcare; a call for redeploying troops in Iraq. His remarks about the Iraq war, his call to redeploy the troops, and a bold statement for universal health insurance got the most cheers. Not a bad speech by any means, but it seemed to lack something. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what.
Then came Warner. He started off with his personal background, college, law degree, tour of duty with the NDC, and then a turn towards an entrepreneurial career that started off poorly before finding success in the car telephone business and then his election as Governor of Virginia. It was a short introduction and life summary that had similarities to that told by John Edwards, but it sounded less syrapy and Warner's transition from up-bringing to public service focused more on his gratefulness for his opportunity to fullfill The American Dream than on Edwards' fight on behalf of the downtrodden.
Warner then covered his single-term as VA Governor (by law, the Governor of Virginia cannot succeed himself), highlighting his approach and successes with taxes, the state budget, education, and technological advancement, specifically the expansion of broadband across the state. Warner closed his Virginia Story with what he said was the highlight of his term in office: bringing software computer jobs to one of the state's backwaters, Lebanon, VA, via a program his state created to help communities hold on to their future resources--their educated children.
From there Warner launched into an analysis of the state of the union, with a particular focus on ensuring the nation's competitiveness in a rapidly changing global economy. This was Warner's unifying theme, what we in the pundit world and political community think of as the Vision Thing. Warner sounds like a man who's beginning to put things together. When he talked about education, he talked about the liabilities of the country's schools falling behind in regards to math and science. The competitive risk inherent in falling math and science know-how helped smooth his transition to the discussion of "wedge issues". Warner called for greater R&D funding, the advancement of stem-cell research, and a bold criticism of those disputing the theory of evolution. The latter was a particularly emphatic line that surprised me, given Warner's reputation as a centrist known for reaching out to rural voters in Virginia. Furthermore, when Warner referred to Americans without health insurance, he did so mostly from a national well-being and competitiveness posture, as opposed to the more moralistic, economically redistributive norms of most candidates now and in the past. This seems like a better appeal to me, one that aims to arouse the country's national concerns and not limit the debate to arguments about dividing and reshuffling the economic pie.
On foreign policy, Warner recognized the differences of opinion on Iraq but stressed the fact that while the Iraq war was not originally about preventing Iranian expansion and containing Al Qaeda, both of those challenges were the result of the Iraq invasion, hinting that simply redeploying the troops wouldn't be a cure-all. Warner also critiqued the current administration for "dividing our friends and unifying our enemies." Expect to hear that line more and more in the days ahead.
Warner got some digs in at the president, but his speech was noted mostly for its forward looking, non-ideological approach. He contrasted Democrats with Republicans by contending that Democrats were the party that were always looking a few years ahead, and were thus best able to lead the country into the future.
Most of what Warner had to say I had heard him say before, or had seen printed somewhere, but it was woven together in a unifying rhetoric that I hadn't recognized before. Both his tone, style and substance were very effective I thought. More than any other candidate I've heard so far, Warner is constructing a visionary campaign. While this is important for Warner's own prospects and the party's in '08, Warner's framework on national competitiveness and facing the challenges of the future, both domestic and internation, were a subtle but strong contrast to that put forward by Republicans and could thus provide an important blueprint for Democrats to follow beyond Warner regardless of his candidacy's outcome.
A few remaining, random thoughts:
Warner's speech and outlining vision bears some similarities to The Common Good debate that circulated among lefty bloggers in April (although Warner did not use that term explicitly). I shared some reservations about that philosophy here. Despite what I think are the philosophy's limitations, in it's Warner rendition, it could be useful for correcting what most political observers think is the Democrat's achilles heal: it's lack of a bold, unifying, national agenda. As I pointed out in the beginning, Warner didn't speak on immigration or mention gay marriage or abortion, issues that will continue to be hot-button ones in the months ahead, so how he approaches the conflicts embedded in those issues will go a long way to influencing his prospective candicacy.
Another thing Warner emphasized was that in Virginia he worked with members of both parties to address the state's problems and was ready to pursue good policy recommendations regardless of whether they came from those with a D or an R besides their names. Now, it should be pointed out that many governors have said this (including the current president) and that in Virginia, Warner had little choice but to make common ground with the Republicans that ran the state legislature. What was different is that Warner said this at a Democratic State Party Convention, where such bipartisanship might be downplayed. I have a hard time envisioning any Republican candidate appearing at a state GOP convention and emphasizing his outreach to the other party. What this suggests to me is that (1) Republicans are much more ideological and partisan than Democrats; (2) that Republican Partisanship stems from either (a) its self-confidence that, occupying the majority, it doesn't need to expand its coalition or reach beyond its conservative identifying partisans and groups to unify the country or (b) it's arrogance that it doesn't need or want Democratic input. We've probably seen, in the form of conference bills and other processes, how the Republicans feel about expanding their appeal and unifying the country.
At the same time, Warner made clear his interest in electing Democrats in NH and across the country. And for those of us worried about Warner's Democratic commitment, his work on behalf of the party's candidates along with his aggressive slapdown of the anti-science forces in the Republican Party are a promising harbinger of positive things to come.
On a side note, and one that may pertain to the 2008 Democratic ticket, another state's Democrat seems to be reaping the rewards of an opposition party beginning to crack-up over its cultural "wedge" issues. Maybe the much feared culture war and warriors are beginning to commit suicide. Warner's approach to wedge issues could bear similar fruit.
The short version: I thought Warner was very, very impressive.
Neither speaker mentioned immigration, and neither referred explicitly to gay marriage or abortion. While both speeches managed to hit some similar themes, such as the failure of President Bush to unite the country with a call to shared sacrifice after 9-11, the speeches were remarkably different from one another, a distinction particularly telling given that the Warner speech appeared to immediately succeed Feingold's in order at the convention (although maybe this was a C-Span effect, appearing to make the speeches appear consecutively).
Feingold covered most of the outrage issues: No Child Left Behind; the Iraq War; the abuses of the Patriot Act; the NSA wiretaps and the Constitutional disregards more broadly; the demolition of FEMA and the Katrina debacle; the failure of Senate Democrats to lead on healthcare; a call for redeploying troops in Iraq. His remarks about the Iraq war, his call to redeploy the troops, and a bold statement for universal health insurance got the most cheers. Not a bad speech by any means, but it seemed to lack something. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what.
Then came Warner. He started off with his personal background, college, law degree, tour of duty with the NDC, and then a turn towards an entrepreneurial career that started off poorly before finding success in the car telephone business and then his election as Governor of Virginia. It was a short introduction and life summary that had similarities to that told by John Edwards, but it sounded less syrapy and Warner's transition from up-bringing to public service focused more on his gratefulness for his opportunity to fullfill The American Dream than on Edwards' fight on behalf of the downtrodden.
Warner then covered his single-term as VA Governor (by law, the Governor of Virginia cannot succeed himself), highlighting his approach and successes with taxes, the state budget, education, and technological advancement, specifically the expansion of broadband across the state. Warner closed his Virginia Story with what he said was the highlight of his term in office: bringing software computer jobs to one of the state's backwaters, Lebanon, VA, via a program his state created to help communities hold on to their future resources--their educated children.
From there Warner launched into an analysis of the state of the union, with a particular focus on ensuring the nation's competitiveness in a rapidly changing global economy. This was Warner's unifying theme, what we in the pundit world and political community think of as the Vision Thing. Warner sounds like a man who's beginning to put things together. When he talked about education, he talked about the liabilities of the country's schools falling behind in regards to math and science. The competitive risk inherent in falling math and science know-how helped smooth his transition to the discussion of "wedge issues". Warner called for greater R&D funding, the advancement of stem-cell research, and a bold criticism of those disputing the theory of evolution. The latter was a particularly emphatic line that surprised me, given Warner's reputation as a centrist known for reaching out to rural voters in Virginia. Furthermore, when Warner referred to Americans without health insurance, he did so mostly from a national well-being and competitiveness posture, as opposed to the more moralistic, economically redistributive norms of most candidates now and in the past. This seems like a better appeal to me, one that aims to arouse the country's national concerns and not limit the debate to arguments about dividing and reshuffling the economic pie.
On foreign policy, Warner recognized the differences of opinion on Iraq but stressed the fact that while the Iraq war was not originally about preventing Iranian expansion and containing Al Qaeda, both of those challenges were the result of the Iraq invasion, hinting that simply redeploying the troops wouldn't be a cure-all. Warner also critiqued the current administration for "dividing our friends and unifying our enemies." Expect to hear that line more and more in the days ahead.
Warner got some digs in at the president, but his speech was noted mostly for its forward looking, non-ideological approach. He contrasted Democrats with Republicans by contending that Democrats were the party that were always looking a few years ahead, and were thus best able to lead the country into the future.
Most of what Warner had to say I had heard him say before, or had seen printed somewhere, but it was woven together in a unifying rhetoric that I hadn't recognized before. Both his tone, style and substance were very effective I thought. More than any other candidate I've heard so far, Warner is constructing a visionary campaign. While this is important for Warner's own prospects and the party's in '08, Warner's framework on national competitiveness and facing the challenges of the future, both domestic and internation, were a subtle but strong contrast to that put forward by Republicans and could thus provide an important blueprint for Democrats to follow beyond Warner regardless of his candidacy's outcome.
A few remaining, random thoughts:
Warner's speech and outlining vision bears some similarities to The Common Good debate that circulated among lefty bloggers in April (although Warner did not use that term explicitly). I shared some reservations about that philosophy here. Despite what I think are the philosophy's limitations, in it's Warner rendition, it could be useful for correcting what most political observers think is the Democrat's achilles heal: it's lack of a bold, unifying, national agenda. As I pointed out in the beginning, Warner didn't speak on immigration or mention gay marriage or abortion, issues that will continue to be hot-button ones in the months ahead, so how he approaches the conflicts embedded in those issues will go a long way to influencing his prospective candicacy.
Another thing Warner emphasized was that in Virginia he worked with members of both parties to address the state's problems and was ready to pursue good policy recommendations regardless of whether they came from those with a D or an R besides their names. Now, it should be pointed out that many governors have said this (including the current president) and that in Virginia, Warner had little choice but to make common ground with the Republicans that ran the state legislature. What was different is that Warner said this at a Democratic State Party Convention, where such bipartisanship might be downplayed. I have a hard time envisioning any Republican candidate appearing at a state GOP convention and emphasizing his outreach to the other party. What this suggests to me is that (1) Republicans are much more ideological and partisan than Democrats; (2) that Republican Partisanship stems from either (a) its self-confidence that, occupying the majority, it doesn't need to expand its coalition or reach beyond its conservative identifying partisans and groups to unify the country or (b) it's arrogance that it doesn't need or want Democratic input. We've probably seen, in the form of conference bills and other processes, how the Republicans feel about expanding their appeal and unifying the country.
At the same time, Warner made clear his interest in electing Democrats in NH and across the country. And for those of us worried about Warner's Democratic commitment, his work on behalf of the party's candidates along with his aggressive slapdown of the anti-science forces in the Republican Party are a promising harbinger of positive things to come.
On a side note, and one that may pertain to the 2008 Democratic ticket, another state's Democrat seems to be reaping the rewards of an opposition party beginning to crack-up over its cultural "wedge" issues. Maybe the much feared culture war and warriors are beginning to commit suicide. Warner's approach to wedge issues could bear similar fruit.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Maybe they DO know what they're doing
from the CarpetBagger Report:
Long-time readers may recall Tracy Henke, the Executive Director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security, was one of 17 Bush cronies to receive controversial recess appointments in January. The Bush White House insisted she had to be on the job immediately, and the Senate wasn't acting fast enough.
Henke, before getting the DHS job, was best known for some "creative editing" to Justice Departments reports in order to remove information about racial-profiling data, and for then forcing an experienced and capable public official who disagreed out of a job.
Yesterday, Henke became infamous again. As Garance Franke-Ruta noted, Henke was the genius who decided to de-fund anti-terrorism efforts in New York and Washington.
We knew that someone at DHS decided that DC is a "low-risk" city and that the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, and Empire State Building are not worthy of "national icon" status — and that person was our old friend Tracy Henke.
And, as Dana Milbank explained, Henke, as the official in charge of DHS's grant-making, also decided to cut counterterrorism money for NYC and the Washington area — "which together have been the targets of 100 percent of al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks on American soil" — by 40% each.
Now, apparently, she's feeling sorry for herself.
"Needless to say, not everybody has nice things to say about me," she said, so "anybody who wants to say something nice, please feel free to do so. You know, it's one of those things where it's occasionally important to have a little bit of that positive affirmation. If nothing else, then I'll have to call my parents, and the reality is they don't give it to me either."
Let this be a reminder to everyone that Bush's fondness for promoting hacks and cronies to key government posts is not just an inconvenient quirk of governing. These people are running the executive branch — and they don't know what they're doing.
I'm not so sure Henke and others like her don't know what they're doing. Maybe they cut funding to NYC and DC because (1) down deep they understand that the ubiquitous "war on terror" really is a "show about nothing" and that no real threat from terrorism or terrorists exists in any meaningful way and because (2) NYC and DC are liberal bastions and the administration would be better off helping its friends rather than its enemies.
Long-time readers may recall Tracy Henke, the Executive Director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security, was one of 17 Bush cronies to receive controversial recess appointments in January. The Bush White House insisted she had to be on the job immediately, and the Senate wasn't acting fast enough.
Henke, before getting the DHS job, was best known for some "creative editing" to Justice Departments reports in order to remove information about racial-profiling data, and for then forcing an experienced and capable public official who disagreed out of a job.
Yesterday, Henke became infamous again. As Garance Franke-Ruta noted, Henke was the genius who decided to de-fund anti-terrorism efforts in New York and Washington.
We knew that someone at DHS decided that DC is a "low-risk" city and that the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, and Empire State Building are not worthy of "national icon" status — and that person was our old friend Tracy Henke.
And, as Dana Milbank explained, Henke, as the official in charge of DHS's grant-making, also decided to cut counterterrorism money for NYC and the Washington area — "which together have been the targets of 100 percent of al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks on American soil" — by 40% each.
Now, apparently, she's feeling sorry for herself.
"Needless to say, not everybody has nice things to say about me," she said, so "anybody who wants to say something nice, please feel free to do so. You know, it's one of those things where it's occasionally important to have a little bit of that positive affirmation. If nothing else, then I'll have to call my parents, and the reality is they don't give it to me either."
Let this be a reminder to everyone that Bush's fondness for promoting hacks and cronies to key government posts is not just an inconvenient quirk of governing. These people are running the executive branch — and they don't know what they're doing.
I'm not so sure Henke and others like her don't know what they're doing. Maybe they cut funding to NYC and DC because (1) down deep they understand that the ubiquitous "war on terror" really is a "show about nothing" and that no real threat from terrorism or terrorists exists in any meaningful way and because (2) NYC and DC are liberal bastions and the administration would be better off helping its friends rather than its enemies.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
What about Biden?
I realized that in my elections post yesterday I was pretty dismissive and not at all comprehensive of Joe Biden's prospects in '08. I should probably clarify things a bit and try to spell some other things out more.
First off, Biden is, like Evan Bayh, more disliked throughout the liberal blogosphere than I think he deserves. He's a decent speaker, seems to relate well at least to his Democratic audiences, and most importantly, has a good understanding of the religious and social forces at work that could and are undermining our civil liberties and the separation of church and state. I believe the emergence of the religious right (as documented by numerous writers but most recently by Kevin Phillips and Michelle Goldberg) is the primary development of our time and represents the greatest risk to pluralism, individual rights, freedom and democratic government in the years ahead. Biden would potentially be a great asset to have in the next campaign to take on these issues, hopefully in a way that helps turn the tide of religious radicalism while assuring mainstream religious voters that the party respects their values; encourages their participation; and will safeguard their liberties.
Most of the complaints about Biden, as far as I can tell are, he's a bit of a media-hound, running a near third probably only to John McCain and Joe Lieberman; too beholden to his state's credit card industry; a lackluster leader on foreign affairs, the other committee on which he serves; and finally just a bit of a schmuck all around. From his 1988 run, he also would inherit the charges of plagiarism, that while pretty mild by most estimations, were enough to torpedo him in that year and would surely be brought up and made to appear a criteria for burning at the stake by the Republican Party and its aspiring swift-boaters.
My reservations about Biden are his age: he's 60 or early 60-ish now and would be almost 70 during a second term. That's not as old as John McCain and isn't terribly old by most objective standards, but the job of president tends to age people pretty fast. An additional concern relates to that: Biden has been in the Senate since the early 1970's--over 30 years. He'd be among my first choices for someone who could, initially at least, be ready to be president from day one. I think he would inspire confidence on the campaign trail and even maybe among members of the media. He wouldn't need much of a learning curve. He's probably as intelligent and as engaged in public policy as anyone in Washington. But he's been on Capital Hill for 30+ years. As a Senator he's only had to face the electorate, an increasingly Democratic one at that, every six years. Add to that all the votes those years have produced and you have the usual drawbacks of a U.S. Senator running for president, but magnified in the case of Biden, who's about as insider as you get.
Granted there's a lot of intuition here with a sprinkling of conventional wisdom thrown in that isn't necessarily conclusive about his prospects especially given the alternatives available. But there will be younger, fresher faces on the campaign trail for Democrats in '08, who might be considered more cutting edge and who might also be more prepared to handle the responsibilities of the office over the long term.
First off, Biden is, like Evan Bayh, more disliked throughout the liberal blogosphere than I think he deserves. He's a decent speaker, seems to relate well at least to his Democratic audiences, and most importantly, has a good understanding of the religious and social forces at work that could and are undermining our civil liberties and the separation of church and state. I believe the emergence of the religious right (as documented by numerous writers but most recently by Kevin Phillips and Michelle Goldberg) is the primary development of our time and represents the greatest risk to pluralism, individual rights, freedom and democratic government in the years ahead. Biden would potentially be a great asset to have in the next campaign to take on these issues, hopefully in a way that helps turn the tide of religious radicalism while assuring mainstream religious voters that the party respects their values; encourages their participation; and will safeguard their liberties.
Most of the complaints about Biden, as far as I can tell are, he's a bit of a media-hound, running a near third probably only to John McCain and Joe Lieberman; too beholden to his state's credit card industry; a lackluster leader on foreign affairs, the other committee on which he serves; and finally just a bit of a schmuck all around. From his 1988 run, he also would inherit the charges of plagiarism, that while pretty mild by most estimations, were enough to torpedo him in that year and would surely be brought up and made to appear a criteria for burning at the stake by the Republican Party and its aspiring swift-boaters.
My reservations about Biden are his age: he's 60 or early 60-ish now and would be almost 70 during a second term. That's not as old as John McCain and isn't terribly old by most objective standards, but the job of president tends to age people pretty fast. An additional concern relates to that: Biden has been in the Senate since the early 1970's--over 30 years. He'd be among my first choices for someone who could, initially at least, be ready to be president from day one. I think he would inspire confidence on the campaign trail and even maybe among members of the media. He wouldn't need much of a learning curve. He's probably as intelligent and as engaged in public policy as anyone in Washington. But he's been on Capital Hill for 30+ years. As a Senator he's only had to face the electorate, an increasingly Democratic one at that, every six years. Add to that all the votes those years have produced and you have the usual drawbacks of a U.S. Senator running for president, but magnified in the case of Biden, who's about as insider as you get.
Granted there's a lot of intuition here with a sprinkling of conventional wisdom thrown in that isn't necessarily conclusive about his prospects especially given the alternatives available. But there will be younger, fresher faces on the campaign trail for Democrats in '08, who might be considered more cutting edge and who might also be more prepared to handle the responsibilities of the office over the long term.
Questioning the War on Terror
The Apostropher:
An important conversation is beginning to emerge on progressive blogs about the War on Terror and it is based on a notion that will prove controversial. Namely, that there is no War on Terror. You can expect the right to seize on this as evidence of the left's essential unseriousness in the face of an existential threat, and probably to win the rhetorical battle in the short run. However, it's past time for progressives to stop fretting about that. The right wing will say that no matter what position you take on any issue. It's a classic case of projection, and it is what they do best (aside from running up record-breaking deficits).
We are not at war. I'm not speaking here of Congressional war declarations; by that metric, we haven't been at war since 1945, though in practice we obviously have. I'm referring to an actual state of warfare. The war in Afghanistan ended when the Taliban fell. The war in Iraq ended when the Ba'ath were driven from power. What remains in both countries is a policing occupation among various Hobbesian conflicts that truly only concern us inasmuch as they affect our access to natural resources, or as long as we continue to proclaim ourselves the policemen of those countries. Not only is it unclear who we are fighting, it's increasingly unclear why we are fighting.
We are not faced with an existential threat. Even if all the violent Muslim extremist groups were working in concert, we still wouldn't be facing an existential threat. They plainly aren't powerful enough to bring down even the creaky government of Egypt, much less the world's last superpower. We are confronting a law enforcement issue, the same as every other government in the world. This reality is beginning to dawn on more and more Americans, which is why the ridiculous notion that we're in danger of losing the Southwest to Mexico has suddenly gained new traction. The right wing has no currency without an enemy, some scary "other"—hippies, blacks, drug users, Muslims, homosexuals, Mexicans—to hold up as a boogeyman to justify consolidating further power in an already too powerful executive. What is cowardly in this situation is not opposing the adventure in Iraq, it's allowing our own government to whittle away our freedoms because you're frightened some swarthy person might set off a bomb somewhere.
As Digby points out, the concept of a war on terror doesn't even make logical sense. It's a "war" that by design can never be won, that has no identifiable endpoint. And its goal isn't destruction of an ideology, but instead an entrenchment of domestic power.
What we do about Islamic fundamentalism is a topic we must deal with. I suspect that it will take a global effort and a willingness to deal intelligently with the impending global oil crisis. There will be other challenges as well, including potential wars and regional strife and any of the other things that have marked civilization from the beginning. All peoples must deal with such things.
But there is no war on terrorism. The nation is less secure because of this false construct. We are spending money we need not spend, making enemies we need not make and wasting lives we need not waste in the name of something that doesn't exist. That is as politically incorrect a statement as can be made in America today. But it's true. [...]
And I suspect, too, that I will be long in my grave before the "war on terrorism" is a thing of the past. It was a terrible accident of history that September 11th happened when the lunatic neocon cabal was in power. Nothing could have been worse. It was more damaging than the attacks themselves. We'll be dealing with the fall out from that strange happenstance for a generation.
Exactly. Feel free to call me unserious. I'm used to it. But so far, we've burned through nearly 2500 of our own troops, tens of thousands more permanently injured, God only knows how many dead or maimed Iraqis, hundreds of billions of dollars, most of our prestige and good will, and for what? For democracy? For freedom? Give me a break. It's the opening shot in a resource war, and everybody knows it, even if they won't admit it to themselves. And, like it or not, they aren't our resources. We don't have any right to insist the world petroleum market be conducted in dollars. We don't have the right to pick and choose other peoples' governments for them.
There is no war on terror. There never has been. It's time to start saying it aloud.
Very well said. The question in my mind, though, is whether the term War on Terror, and the fear and conformity it is meant to inspire, isn't already dying of its own volition. Does it become more ridiculous for its backers to invoke over time, and less central to the basis of campaigning and governing than it was in 2002 and even 2004? Foreign affairs and national security will continue to be staples of political concern and governmental responsibility. But I doubt the bat of national security will be as useful an instrument as it was the last two election cycles, regardless of how Democrats respond to it. But for what it's worth, I'm willing to challenge the ubiquitous assumptions involved in the term and those who employ it to eradicate civil liberties.
Here's another good post on the subject.
And finally, it appears that the federal DHS also agrees that the War on Terror is gobbledygook.
An important conversation is beginning to emerge on progressive blogs about the War on Terror and it is based on a notion that will prove controversial. Namely, that there is no War on Terror. You can expect the right to seize on this as evidence of the left's essential unseriousness in the face of an existential threat, and probably to win the rhetorical battle in the short run. However, it's past time for progressives to stop fretting about that. The right wing will say that no matter what position you take on any issue. It's a classic case of projection, and it is what they do best (aside from running up record-breaking deficits).
We are not at war. I'm not speaking here of Congressional war declarations; by that metric, we haven't been at war since 1945, though in practice we obviously have. I'm referring to an actual state of warfare. The war in Afghanistan ended when the Taliban fell. The war in Iraq ended when the Ba'ath were driven from power. What remains in both countries is a policing occupation among various Hobbesian conflicts that truly only concern us inasmuch as they affect our access to natural resources, or as long as we continue to proclaim ourselves the policemen of those countries. Not only is it unclear who we are fighting, it's increasingly unclear why we are fighting.
We are not faced with an existential threat. Even if all the violent Muslim extremist groups were working in concert, we still wouldn't be facing an existential threat. They plainly aren't powerful enough to bring down even the creaky government of Egypt, much less the world's last superpower. We are confronting a law enforcement issue, the same as every other government in the world. This reality is beginning to dawn on more and more Americans, which is why the ridiculous notion that we're in danger of losing the Southwest to Mexico has suddenly gained new traction. The right wing has no currency without an enemy, some scary "other"—hippies, blacks, drug users, Muslims, homosexuals, Mexicans—to hold up as a boogeyman to justify consolidating further power in an already too powerful executive. What is cowardly in this situation is not opposing the adventure in Iraq, it's allowing our own government to whittle away our freedoms because you're frightened some swarthy person might set off a bomb somewhere.
As Digby points out, the concept of a war on terror doesn't even make logical sense. It's a "war" that by design can never be won, that has no identifiable endpoint. And its goal isn't destruction of an ideology, but instead an entrenchment of domestic power.
What we do about Islamic fundamentalism is a topic we must deal with. I suspect that it will take a global effort and a willingness to deal intelligently with the impending global oil crisis. There will be other challenges as well, including potential wars and regional strife and any of the other things that have marked civilization from the beginning. All peoples must deal with such things.
But there is no war on terrorism. The nation is less secure because of this false construct. We are spending money we need not spend, making enemies we need not make and wasting lives we need not waste in the name of something that doesn't exist. That is as politically incorrect a statement as can be made in America today. But it's true. [...]
And I suspect, too, that I will be long in my grave before the "war on terrorism" is a thing of the past. It was a terrible accident of history that September 11th happened when the lunatic neocon cabal was in power. Nothing could have been worse. It was more damaging than the attacks themselves. We'll be dealing with the fall out from that strange happenstance for a generation.
Exactly. Feel free to call me unserious. I'm used to it. But so far, we've burned through nearly 2500 of our own troops, tens of thousands more permanently injured, God only knows how many dead or maimed Iraqis, hundreds of billions of dollars, most of our prestige and good will, and for what? For democracy? For freedom? Give me a break. It's the opening shot in a resource war, and everybody knows it, even if they won't admit it to themselves. And, like it or not, they aren't our resources. We don't have any right to insist the world petroleum market be conducted in dollars. We don't have the right to pick and choose other peoples' governments for them.
There is no war on terror. There never has been. It's time to start saying it aloud.
Very well said. The question in my mind, though, is whether the term War on Terror, and the fear and conformity it is meant to inspire, isn't already dying of its own volition. Does it become more ridiculous for its backers to invoke over time, and less central to the basis of campaigning and governing than it was in 2002 and even 2004? Foreign affairs and national security will continue to be staples of political concern and governmental responsibility. But I doubt the bat of national security will be as useful an instrument as it was the last two election cycles, regardless of how Democrats respond to it. But for what it's worth, I'm willing to challenge the ubiquitous assumptions involved in the term and those who employ it to eradicate civil liberties.
Here's another good post on the subject.
And finally, it appears that the federal DHS also agrees that the War on Terror is gobbledygook.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Huckabee (and Bayh)
Kos:
When people look at the GOP field for 2008, they worry about McCain or Allen or even Romney.
You want to know who the strongest GOP candidate would be, the one that would make me lose sleep at night?
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
The guy is a scary good politician and the more Republican voters see him around the country, the more support he'll get.
I suggested the same thing last week at Lindsay Beyerstein's place:
Actually Huckabee as a presidential hopeful doesn't surprise me at all. He's a governor, which has historically been a more fruitful breeding ground for presidents than Congress; He's also a religious True Believer. Of the other GOP hopefuls, only Sam Brownback (albeit a new convert to Roman Catholicism and a member of Opus Dei) can lay claim to that. Of course, he's kinda homely looking and being from Arkansas, hasn't been a regular on the talk show circuit (like, say, George Allen). I doubt he'll get his party's nomination. But it wouldn't surprise me if he was a player two years from now.
My original thinking looking ahead to '08 was that Jeb Bush was a shoo-in for the nomination. I had a hard time seeing how it could be anyone else, considering the opposition to McCain and presumably Guliani among the conservative rank and file. Jeb has a conservative rep, and nationally, would have the electoral credentials, being a governor of an important swing state.
But his brother's basement-dwelling poll numbers have probably negated any potential benefit Jeb would have from inheriting his brother's mantel and continuing the Bush dynasty, at least in 2008. Interestingly, Jeb's official "not-running" stance on the nomination has been accompanied lately by a Gore-like revival of interest in his candidacy from the likes of Newt Gingrich, among others who think W's brother would make a fine CiC. For the moment I'm inclined to think Jeb will stay out in '08.
Meanwhile, McCain seems to be enjoying a bit of a rebound among Republicans, making his nomination at least plausible. But this will be interesting to watch play out because despite his appearance at Jerry Fallwell's Liberty University for graduation speech duties, McCain is not, religiously, a True Believer. And given growing discontent among the conservative grass roots with Bush's lack of follow through on their agenda, I'm skeptical about how willing the party's base is going to be to accept somebody like John McCain who probably isn't itching to go to church with them.
Allen hasn't particularly stressed his religiosity, but his state is known as one in which the religious right exercises considerable influence in, if not outright control over, the Republican Party. Romney is Mormon, a religious tradition viewed by most Christian evangelicals as not only heretical but fraudulent, despite its similar stand on social issues.
And while the last six years have demonstrated how far someone of limited intelligence and charisma can go in today's Republican Party, I have a hard time seeing how a virtual doofus like Allen makes the grade.
If McCain and Guliani are out, and if Allen and Romney are suspect, Huckabee might seem like a reasonable alternative.
On the Democratic side, I wrote last week that I didn't think Al Gore would make a very good president. So who would? I don't know that he would be great, but among the prospective contenders, Evan Bayh would probably be most up for the job.
I know to most progressives, Evan Bayh shouldn't be allowed to run for dog-catcher on the Democratic ticket, much less headline the presidential slate. I probably said as much when Bayh voted for cloture on last year's bankruptcy "reform" legislation.
But you go with the Democratic presidential contenders you have, not the ones you wish you had (as we might paraphrase Donald Rumsfield). And when I scan the field, I see inexperience (Edwards, Clark, Feingold, Obama), potential endurance issues (Biden), the charisma challenged (Richardson, Dodd), ideological mushiness (Vilsack, HRC, and Bayh), or been there done that loser reputations (Gore, Kerry, Daschle), not mention geographical deficits (Biden, Dodd, Gore, Kerry). To be fair, most of these candidates have at least some strengths that would be important in either a campaign or presidency. Edwards and Obama would bring the most charisma and energy to a campaign. Biden, Kerry, Gore, and Bayh I would count as being ready for the job starting on day one. Richardson, Bayh and maybe Clark, Edwards and Vilsack could help geographically. Clark, Vilsack, Bayh, Richardson and Gore would bring executive experience. Feingold and Edwards would be the most progressive. Another important attribute would be who among these folks can help build an enduring national party. This is much harder to guage but ideally it would be someone who doesn't regularly denigrate other Democrats (like Vilsack and Bayh).
This is a potpouri of assets and liabilities and I can't say there's some formula that renders any of this reduceable to an index ranking sort of thing. But executive experience, geographical base, and age-endurance are among the factors I consider important in the next Democratic nominee. And when I throw everything together, and in particular when I think about who will best handle the Republicans in Congress and conservatives in the media, Bayh strikes me as a not unreasonable choice, maybe even a pretty good one. As for Bayh's ideological and party building liabilities, ultimately I think that party building will be best accomplished by us, the grassroots, and state and local efforts (such as those being led by David Sirota). Presidents generally help their parties by projecting a positive, winning image, raising money, and influencing public debate. Bayh would probably help a lot on the first two of these, but would have a harder time with the third. But again, looking at our list, I don't see who else would do much better. Beyond that, presidents are too busy with foreign affairs and other responsiblities to hold the party's hand. This means that ultimately, much of the responsibility for the Democratic Party's future success and development will depend on those who take action in their communities and in their party's campaigns. All the rest depends on events and circumstances largely beyond our control.
Anyway, none of this is to say I'm locked into a choice. This is just how I see things shaping up so far. Maybe someone else outside of this group will emerge, or maybe someone within it will step up in the months ahead. Then again, the 2006 elections and developments between now and 2008 will also be of obvious importance for the 2008 campaign.
When people look at the GOP field for 2008, they worry about McCain or Allen or even Romney.
You want to know who the strongest GOP candidate would be, the one that would make me lose sleep at night?
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
The guy is a scary good politician and the more Republican voters see him around the country, the more support he'll get.
I suggested the same thing last week at Lindsay Beyerstein's place:
Actually Huckabee as a presidential hopeful doesn't surprise me at all. He's a governor, which has historically been a more fruitful breeding ground for presidents than Congress; He's also a religious True Believer. Of the other GOP hopefuls, only Sam Brownback (albeit a new convert to Roman Catholicism and a member of Opus Dei) can lay claim to that. Of course, he's kinda homely looking and being from Arkansas, hasn't been a regular on the talk show circuit (like, say, George Allen). I doubt he'll get his party's nomination. But it wouldn't surprise me if he was a player two years from now.
My original thinking looking ahead to '08 was that Jeb Bush was a shoo-in for the nomination. I had a hard time seeing how it could be anyone else, considering the opposition to McCain and presumably Guliani among the conservative rank and file. Jeb has a conservative rep, and nationally, would have the electoral credentials, being a governor of an important swing state.
But his brother's basement-dwelling poll numbers have probably negated any potential benefit Jeb would have from inheriting his brother's mantel and continuing the Bush dynasty, at least in 2008. Interestingly, Jeb's official "not-running" stance on the nomination has been accompanied lately by a Gore-like revival of interest in his candidacy from the likes of Newt Gingrich, among others who think W's brother would make a fine CiC. For the moment I'm inclined to think Jeb will stay out in '08.
Meanwhile, McCain seems to be enjoying a bit of a rebound among Republicans, making his nomination at least plausible. But this will be interesting to watch play out because despite his appearance at Jerry Fallwell's Liberty University for graduation speech duties, McCain is not, religiously, a True Believer. And given growing discontent among the conservative grass roots with Bush's lack of follow through on their agenda, I'm skeptical about how willing the party's base is going to be to accept somebody like John McCain who probably isn't itching to go to church with them.
Allen hasn't particularly stressed his religiosity, but his state is known as one in which the religious right exercises considerable influence in, if not outright control over, the Republican Party. Romney is Mormon, a religious tradition viewed by most Christian evangelicals as not only heretical but fraudulent, despite its similar stand on social issues.
And while the last six years have demonstrated how far someone of limited intelligence and charisma can go in today's Republican Party, I have a hard time seeing how a virtual doofus like Allen makes the grade.
If McCain and Guliani are out, and if Allen and Romney are suspect, Huckabee might seem like a reasonable alternative.
On the Democratic side, I wrote last week that I didn't think Al Gore would make a very good president. So who would? I don't know that he would be great, but among the prospective contenders, Evan Bayh would probably be most up for the job.
I know to most progressives, Evan Bayh shouldn't be allowed to run for dog-catcher on the Democratic ticket, much less headline the presidential slate. I probably said as much when Bayh voted for cloture on last year's bankruptcy "reform" legislation.
But you go with the Democratic presidential contenders you have, not the ones you wish you had (as we might paraphrase Donald Rumsfield). And when I scan the field, I see inexperience (Edwards, Clark, Feingold, Obama), potential endurance issues (Biden), the charisma challenged (Richardson, Dodd), ideological mushiness (Vilsack, HRC, and Bayh), or been there done that loser reputations (Gore, Kerry, Daschle), not mention geographical deficits (Biden, Dodd, Gore, Kerry). To be fair, most of these candidates have at least some strengths that would be important in either a campaign or presidency. Edwards and Obama would bring the most charisma and energy to a campaign. Biden, Kerry, Gore, and Bayh I would count as being ready for the job starting on day one. Richardson, Bayh and maybe Clark, Edwards and Vilsack could help geographically. Clark, Vilsack, Bayh, Richardson and Gore would bring executive experience. Feingold and Edwards would be the most progressive. Another important attribute would be who among these folks can help build an enduring national party. This is much harder to guage but ideally it would be someone who doesn't regularly denigrate other Democrats (like Vilsack and Bayh).
This is a potpouri of assets and liabilities and I can't say there's some formula that renders any of this reduceable to an index ranking sort of thing. But executive experience, geographical base, and age-endurance are among the factors I consider important in the next Democratic nominee. And when I throw everything together, and in particular when I think about who will best handle the Republicans in Congress and conservatives in the media, Bayh strikes me as a not unreasonable choice, maybe even a pretty good one. As for Bayh's ideological and party building liabilities, ultimately I think that party building will be best accomplished by us, the grassroots, and state and local efforts (such as those being led by David Sirota). Presidents generally help their parties by projecting a positive, winning image, raising money, and influencing public debate. Bayh would probably help a lot on the first two of these, but would have a harder time with the third. But again, looking at our list, I don't see who else would do much better. Beyond that, presidents are too busy with foreign affairs and other responsiblities to hold the party's hand. This means that ultimately, much of the responsibility for the Democratic Party's future success and development will depend on those who take action in their communities and in their party's campaigns. All the rest depends on events and circumstances largely beyond our control.
Anyway, none of this is to say I'm locked into a choice. This is just how I see things shaping up so far. Maybe someone else outside of this group will emerge, or maybe someone within it will step up in the months ahead. Then again, the 2006 elections and developments between now and 2008 will also be of obvious importance for the 2008 campaign.
The Problem with Lieberman
I haven't said anything about Ned Lamont's primary campaign to unseat Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, mostly because, although Lieberman is capable of being a pain, his voting record is mostly solid. Add to that the fact that the issue that steams most other Democrats is his support of the Iraq war, something that can't be undone now. Third, the elevation of Ned Lamont to the U.S. Senate would only succeed in replacing one Democrat with another one, albeit a more progressive one. I think our energies would be better directed at electing Democrats where Republicans currently serve, not in replacing other Democrats.
Having said that, I acknowledge that Lieberman is troublesome to many wanting to build a Democratic majority because he has a disturbing nack of stiffing the party at particularly volatile times and on high profile issues, while playing up his moralizing, maverick status in the media (something that other maverick Democrats, like Nebraska's Ben Nelson, tend to avoid). Lieberman is moreover, the worst kind of moralist: the kind seemingly more obsessed with private sexual matters and provocative language in the entertainment industry than about the morals of war and economics.
And while mavericks and moralizers can be useful to a political party, especially in states where the party is weak, they aren't really necessary in states in which the party's presidential standard-bearer typically wins by double-digit margins, as has been the case in Connecticut the last few election cycles. Hence, Lieberman's problem. For Democrats he's a party contrarian from a state that doesn't need one.
Having said that, I acknowledge that Lieberman is troublesome to many wanting to build a Democratic majority because he has a disturbing nack of stiffing the party at particularly volatile times and on high profile issues, while playing up his moralizing, maverick status in the media (something that other maverick Democrats, like Nebraska's Ben Nelson, tend to avoid). Lieberman is moreover, the worst kind of moralist: the kind seemingly more obsessed with private sexual matters and provocative language in the entertainment industry than about the morals of war and economics.
And while mavericks and moralizers can be useful to a political party, especially in states where the party is weak, they aren't really necessary in states in which the party's presidential standard-bearer typically wins by double-digit margins, as has been the case in Connecticut the last few election cycles. Hence, Lieberman's problem. For Democrats he's a party contrarian from a state that doesn't need one.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Tens of Thousands
Baghdad Numb to Reports of Massacre
After three years of war that has been fought in their streets and claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, people in Baghdad could spare little more than subdued expressions of sympathy Sunday after hearing reports of a U.S. Marine massacre of 24 men, women and children in a faraway western town.
"We are tired of this news. I don't want to hear about more killings," said Ismael Abbas, a 37-year-old express-mail courier, chuckling slightly in acknowledgment of the callousness of his words. He added, "The only news I care about is when a car bomb explodes in my neighborhood. I just check if my family is okay."
Like most in Baghdad, he counts his personal toll from the war: a brother and three cousins killed last year when a mortar round -- most likely from insurgents -- fell on their neighborhood in the eastern part of the city.
"So what if more innocent people were killed?" Abbas said of the reported massacre in Haditha. "Dozens of them die daily."
Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment are under investigation for allegedly storming at least three homes in Haditha on Nov. 19, turning their guns and grenades against civilians including a 76-year-old amputee who used a wheelchair, and girls and boys ages 14, 10, 5, 4, 3 and 1. Five men, four college students returning home for the weekend and their taxi driver, were also killed in the rampage, which allegedly came in retaliation for a roadside bombing in the neighborhood that killed a Marine.
U.S. Marine commanders in Washington have warned Congress of grave findings when two military investigations into the killings are concluded in coming weeks. Some U.S. military officials have said they are bracing for a scandal like that surrounding Abu Ghraib, when the disclosure of torture and humiliation of naked Iraqi prisoners disillusioned many Iraqis who had welcomed the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in violence since the U.S. invasion in 2003, many from insurgent bombs and execution-like killings in the intensifying sectarian violence, making TV broadcasts most days a montage of sprawled corpses and weeping families. A fraction of the deaths are caused directly by U.S. fire.
"We have a Haditha every day. We have a Fallujah and Karbala every day,'' said Muhanned Jasim, a local merchant, citing two of the many landmarks for civilian death in the war, the 2004 U.S. offensive in Fallujah and insurgent bombings in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala.
An antiques seller in central Baghdad, Jasim hadn't heard the news of Haditha, he said, because he no longer has electricity to power his television.
"We live in darkness,'' he said, fanning his face as the sweat rolled down. "What's the big news about Iraqis getting killed? We're powerless to change the situation."
Ghasan Jayih, a pharmacist, said he could pinpoint when he stopped caring: in November 2004, when gunmen shot and killed his best friend as the man drove home from his job as an interpreter at a U.S. Army base. "When I lose the friend of my childhood, it means nothing else can matter to me."
"Were they the first . . . Iraqis to be killed for no reason?" Jayih said. "We're used to being killed. It's normal now to hear 25 Iraqis are killed in one day."
There's more from the article but you probably get the point. I just wonder when the Culture of Life folks are going to lament the killing of "tens of thousands" of Iraqi civilians as a result of the U.S. invasion. I wonder when the Party of Life and its ministerial water-carriers are going to deplore the moral relativism that excuses the deaths of "tens of thousands" in Iraq so that our military and political leaders could...um...what exactly? True, most of these deaths are not directly attributable to American soldiers or its sophisticated weaponry, but we're responsible all the same. The massacre in Haditha is a microcosm of the whole war. At the prompting of a few blood-thirsty media personalities and mislead by a political elite bent on demonstrating it's will and war power, U.S. voters permitted, and in many cases if phone calls to C-Span were any indication, lauded the bombing, invasion, and occupation of a country whose citizens harbored us no ill will and with whom we were not at war. Innocents. But whether of rational fear or irrational patriotic fervor run amok, we are now responsible for that country's subsequent disintegration, mayhem and bloodshed. To defend it now and celebrate its executioners on the basis of a supposed aim of "liberation" or on behalf of a good-faith belief in the country's WMD possession, and not admit our country's moral error, is to engage in moral relativism at its worst.
After three years of war that has been fought in their streets and claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, people in Baghdad could spare little more than subdued expressions of sympathy Sunday after hearing reports of a U.S. Marine massacre of 24 men, women and children in a faraway western town.
"We are tired of this news. I don't want to hear about more killings," said Ismael Abbas, a 37-year-old express-mail courier, chuckling slightly in acknowledgment of the callousness of his words. He added, "The only news I care about is when a car bomb explodes in my neighborhood. I just check if my family is okay."
Like most in Baghdad, he counts his personal toll from the war: a brother and three cousins killed last year when a mortar round -- most likely from insurgents -- fell on their neighborhood in the eastern part of the city.
"So what if more innocent people were killed?" Abbas said of the reported massacre in Haditha. "Dozens of them die daily."
Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment are under investigation for allegedly storming at least three homes in Haditha on Nov. 19, turning their guns and grenades against civilians including a 76-year-old amputee who used a wheelchair, and girls and boys ages 14, 10, 5, 4, 3 and 1. Five men, four college students returning home for the weekend and their taxi driver, were also killed in the rampage, which allegedly came in retaliation for a roadside bombing in the neighborhood that killed a Marine.
U.S. Marine commanders in Washington have warned Congress of grave findings when two military investigations into the killings are concluded in coming weeks. Some U.S. military officials have said they are bracing for a scandal like that surrounding Abu Ghraib, when the disclosure of torture and humiliation of naked Iraqi prisoners disillusioned many Iraqis who had welcomed the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in violence since the U.S. invasion in 2003, many from insurgent bombs and execution-like killings in the intensifying sectarian violence, making TV broadcasts most days a montage of sprawled corpses and weeping families. A fraction of the deaths are caused directly by U.S. fire.
"We have a Haditha every day. We have a Fallujah and Karbala every day,'' said Muhanned Jasim, a local merchant, citing two of the many landmarks for civilian death in the war, the 2004 U.S. offensive in Fallujah and insurgent bombings in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala.
An antiques seller in central Baghdad, Jasim hadn't heard the news of Haditha, he said, because he no longer has electricity to power his television.
"We live in darkness,'' he said, fanning his face as the sweat rolled down. "What's the big news about Iraqis getting killed? We're powerless to change the situation."
Ghasan Jayih, a pharmacist, said he could pinpoint when he stopped caring: in November 2004, when gunmen shot and killed his best friend as the man drove home from his job as an interpreter at a U.S. Army base. "When I lose the friend of my childhood, it means nothing else can matter to me."
"Were they the first . . . Iraqis to be killed for no reason?" Jayih said. "We're used to being killed. It's normal now to hear 25 Iraqis are killed in one day."
There's more from the article but you probably get the point. I just wonder when the Culture of Life folks are going to lament the killing of "tens of thousands" of Iraqi civilians as a result of the U.S. invasion. I wonder when the Party of Life and its ministerial water-carriers are going to deplore the moral relativism that excuses the deaths of "tens of thousands" in Iraq so that our military and political leaders could...um...what exactly? True, most of these deaths are not directly attributable to American soldiers or its sophisticated weaponry, but we're responsible all the same. The massacre in Haditha is a microcosm of the whole war. At the prompting of a few blood-thirsty media personalities and mislead by a political elite bent on demonstrating it's will and war power, U.S. voters permitted, and in many cases if phone calls to C-Span were any indication, lauded the bombing, invasion, and occupation of a country whose citizens harbored us no ill will and with whom we were not at war. Innocents. But whether of rational fear or irrational patriotic fervor run amok, we are now responsible for that country's subsequent disintegration, mayhem and bloodshed. To defend it now and celebrate its executioners on the basis of a supposed aim of "liberation" or on behalf of a good-faith belief in the country's WMD possession, and not admit our country's moral error, is to engage in moral relativism at its worst.
Royal Failures
Today is Memorial Day, which this year provides a strange juxtoposition between our annual celebration of glorious victories and worthy warriors past with the ugly spawn of this era's mother of all battles, Iraq II.
But Memorial Day also signals the unofficial beginning of Summer and the game played by the Boys of Summer, baseball. Which begs the question, what awesome games will ESPN provide MLB's ardent fans today? Apparently none. Zippo. Nada. The Style section of my paper indicates that ESPN will be broadcasting Lacrosse and Poker today. Are you kidding me?
What ad wizards in Bristol--home of ESPN--failed to recognize that the NY Yankees were in Detroit today at 1 pm? And you know what else? Randy Johnson is scheduled to pitch for the Yanks today against a Detroit team that three years removed from a 120-loss season is 35-15. 35-15! The best record in baseball. But Bristol wants to broadcast Lacrosse and Poker.
But ESPN isn't the only sports entity that's committing errors these days. Let's talk about the Kansas City Royals. Once the perennial favorite to win the American League West (in the days when each league contained two divisions) and the team once known for having George Brett on its roster, and of participating in the infamous pine-tar game has now replaced the Tigers as baseball's laughing stock. As recently as a few years ago the Royals have had Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran and Jermaine Dye patrolling their outfield and filling out the line-up card. But after dumping those players they endured a 19-game losing streak last year and have already contributed 11 and 13 game losing streaks this year. On Saturday they got blown out by the Yanks 15-4.
Would it surprise you to find out where the Royals' owner, Ed Glass, used to be employed? How about as President of Wal-Mart? That's right. The Royals' benefactor took the cheap-skate, labor cost reduction strategeries he learned at Wal-Mart to the baseball fans of western Missouri.
Since Glass became the chief executive in 1993, the Royals have managed one winning season. Glass, the former president of Wal-Mart, has long been stingy with the payroll and the team has plummeted, dropping 104 games in 2004 and 106 last season. Unless the Royals rebound, they could lose more this season.
Hey, Major League Baseball, here's a tip. Don't let former Wal-Mart executives grow up to be owners of professional baseball teams.
But Memorial Day also signals the unofficial beginning of Summer and the game played by the Boys of Summer, baseball. Which begs the question, what awesome games will ESPN provide MLB's ardent fans today? Apparently none. Zippo. Nada. The Style section of my paper indicates that ESPN will be broadcasting Lacrosse and Poker today. Are you kidding me?
What ad wizards in Bristol--home of ESPN--failed to recognize that the NY Yankees were in Detroit today at 1 pm? And you know what else? Randy Johnson is scheduled to pitch for the Yanks today against a Detroit team that three years removed from a 120-loss season is 35-15. 35-15! The best record in baseball. But Bristol wants to broadcast Lacrosse and Poker.
But ESPN isn't the only sports entity that's committing errors these days. Let's talk about the Kansas City Royals. Once the perennial favorite to win the American League West (in the days when each league contained two divisions) and the team once known for having George Brett on its roster, and of participating in the infamous pine-tar game has now replaced the Tigers as baseball's laughing stock. As recently as a few years ago the Royals have had Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran and Jermaine Dye patrolling their outfield and filling out the line-up card. But after dumping those players they endured a 19-game losing streak last year and have already contributed 11 and 13 game losing streaks this year. On Saturday they got blown out by the Yanks 15-4.
Would it surprise you to find out where the Royals' owner, Ed Glass, used to be employed? How about as President of Wal-Mart? That's right. The Royals' benefactor took the cheap-skate, labor cost reduction strategeries he learned at Wal-Mart to the baseball fans of western Missouri.
Since Glass became the chief executive in 1993, the Royals have managed one winning season. Glass, the former president of Wal-Mart, has long been stingy with the payroll and the team has plummeted, dropping 104 games in 2004 and 106 last season. Unless the Royals rebound, they could lose more this season.
Hey, Major League Baseball, here's a tip. Don't let former Wal-Mart executives grow up to be owners of professional baseball teams.
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