LIBERTARIANISM: THE BELIEF THAT EVERYTHING IS EITHER PERFECT OR PURE EVIL
Here's a comment from a Paulbot troll named Acadian, found over at Zandar Versus the Stupid:
...Has the Civil Rights Act made racism in this country better or worse since it was passed? Can anyone honestly say that the Civil Rights Act succeeded on that front? if it was such a good bill, how come it had to be changed over and over again?
... Or ar you going to compound your ignorance more and say the Civil Rights Act has actually eliminated racism? It hasn't after 45 years, after all. People understand this....
This, I realize, echoes remarks made by Ron Paul, Rand's daddy, on the floor of the House in 2004:
...contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.
... The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society....
Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act....
It took me a while to grasp the thinking here, but now I get it. To libertarians, there are only two choices: either the Civil Rights Act eliminated all racism whatsoever or it accomplished absolutely nothing. There's no possible middle ground, no chance that it could be part of a process of reversing appalling legal and cultural wrongs, something that's done a great deal of good, even if it hasn't wiped out all racism in America forever.
To libertarians, the thinking on this law must be absolute because libertarian thinking on government and private property is absolute. Government is always purely evil. The marketplace, by contrast, is absolutely perfect -- it heals all wounds and corrects all flaws, even flaws it creates, even flaws as brutal as the forceful repression of one race by another. Left to its own devices, the libertarians say, the marketplace absolutely could have eliminated racism -- all racism, or certainly all racism in the private sphere.
But keep in mind that this kind of absolutism isn't limited to a small group of cranks, one of whom happens to have made his way into the political big time in an unusual election cycle. This thinking is now mainstream Republican -- it's teabag rhetoric.
When teabaggers say that a few government interventions in the marketplace that leave the vast majority of capitalism alone are "socialism," full stop, when they invoke Mao and Stalin to discuss this mix (which is a far less interventionist mix than we were accustomed to under, say, that great commie Dwight Eisenhower), they're engaging in the same sort of all-or-nothing thinking. Capitalism can't withstand any government modification; if it isn't kept pure, it's so delicate it must cease to exist. It's either pure or it's destroyed, they tell us. (This is absurd, of course, as long as we have Medicare and the interstate highway system and corporate tax subsidies and the like, but never mind.)
This rhetoric is nuts when longtime believers make the arguments and it's nuts when a guy in a tricorn hat holding an Obama-as-Joker sign makes them. Nevertheless, this thinking is powerful enough to be driving our politics right now.
Friday, May 21, 2010
I PREDICT SUPPOSEDLY ORDINARY PEOPLE WILL SAY, "WE HATE ORDINARY PEOPLE!"
There's a lot of snickering on our side right now because Rand Paul seems to have put his foot in his mouth again while talking to ABC's George Stephanopoulos about the Gulf oil spill:
What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, you know, "I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP." I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.
What's more, as Betty Cracker notes, "Paul managed to imply that maybe the reaction to the recent mine explosion was a touch too anti-business as well." He said:
I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I've met a lot of these miners and their families. They're very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.
This should really, really hurt him, because, after all, he's a tea party candidate, and that means his supporters are self-reliant people with callused hands who really know the pain of something like a mine disaster.
Right?
Er, maybe not, according to the election results (hat tip: Politico's Jonathan Martin):
...Rand Paul won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate as an all out proponent of the Tea Party, the conservative, small government movement. The Tea Party, conventional wisdom says, is strong in largely white, rural areas.
Yet Rand Paul gathered his lowest vote totals in rural Kentucky....
... As you can see in the chart below, Paul won 63% of the vote in the cities, but only 54% of the vote in rural Kentucky.
Rand Paul got his largest percentages in exurban counties.
So Paul's base is people whose fingernails never get dirty. Because, after all, that's who the teabaggers are.
They don't care if the oceans get brutalized or a few miners die. They just want you to cut their damn taxes.
There's a lot of snickering on our side right now because Rand Paul seems to have put his foot in his mouth again while talking to ABC's George Stephanopoulos about the Gulf oil spill:
What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, you know, "I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP." I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.
What's more, as Betty Cracker notes, "Paul managed to imply that maybe the reaction to the recent mine explosion was a touch too anti-business as well." He said:
I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I've met a lot of these miners and their families. They're very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.
This should really, really hurt him, because, after all, he's a tea party candidate, and that means his supporters are self-reliant people with callused hands who really know the pain of something like a mine disaster.
Right?
Er, maybe not, according to the election results (hat tip: Politico's Jonathan Martin):
...Rand Paul won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate as an all out proponent of the Tea Party, the conservative, small government movement. The Tea Party, conventional wisdom says, is strong in largely white, rural areas.
Yet Rand Paul gathered his lowest vote totals in rural Kentucky....
... As you can see in the chart below, Paul won 63% of the vote in the cities, but only 54% of the vote in rural Kentucky.
Rand Paul got his largest percentages in exurban counties.
So Paul's base is people whose fingernails never get dirty. Because, after all, that's who the teabaggers are.
They don't care if the oceans get brutalized or a few miners die. They just want you to cut their damn taxes.
RAND PAUL: TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD
I'm predicting that Rand Paul is going to come through his Civil Rights Act flap with flying colors, because the right is beginning to coalesce around a message: the incident reveals the virtues of Paul. Paul, we're told, is an honest private citizen. He's not steeped in the evil ways of the politician. And the people trying to lay him low are the loathsome creatures known as professional journalists.
The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto gives us a taste of this:
... Answering the way he did was a rookie mistake--or, to put it more charitably, a demonstration that Paul is not a professional politician.
... Far from being evasive, Paul has shown himself to be both candid and principled to a fault.
...He is honest, perhaps too honest for his own good....
Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner fleshes this out, and says that if you're a tea party candidate, they're coming for you next:
... Washington and New York elites are in a delighted uproar because Paul has conveniently handed them a sledge hammer with which to bludgeon him and by extension all candidates claiming a Tea Party connection.
...Odds are good that Paul is only the first of many Tea Party linked candidates whose inexperience in political combat with the media will spark such bloodbaths in coming months.
... many more of the Tea Party endorsed candidates who will gain visibility in the congressional campaign in coming months will, like Paul, be making their first-ever foray in seeking elective office. Like babes, they will go into brutal hand-to-hand combat with Establishment GOP, then Democratic opponents and their sympathetic journos, all of whom are seasoned veterans.
... For the Washington and New York sophisticates, however, there will be endless opportunities to howl in grinning protest, as there always are for city slickers when the hayseeds come to town and have no idea that those signs saying "Tea Partiers Need Not Apply" are meant for them....
"Need Not Apply" -- yup, asking tough questions of non-career-politician tea party candidates is the new Jim Crow.
Where is this heading? I think it's heading toward a new political world in which, once a candidate (or at least a right-wing candidate) gets a certain amount of traction, he/she won't even bother talking to reporters who aren't sympathizers. In other words, the Sarah Palin approach. Given the Internet, as well as the massive infrastructure of the right-wing print and broadcast media, why should any wingnut candidate with a sufficient following ever again give an interview to a journalist who's not a fan? Just spread your word exclusively through media your side controls -- that's how Palin does it (Berlusconi, too). The haters will come to you -- your Facebook posts, your tweets, your appearances on Hannity.
In the future, we may conclude that Sarah Palin was as much a Net-era campaign visionary as Barack Obama. Eventually, every politician, left, right, and center, may operate this way.
I'm predicting that Rand Paul is going to come through his Civil Rights Act flap with flying colors, because the right is beginning to coalesce around a message: the incident reveals the virtues of Paul. Paul, we're told, is an honest private citizen. He's not steeped in the evil ways of the politician. And the people trying to lay him low are the loathsome creatures known as professional journalists.
The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto gives us a taste of this:
... Answering the way he did was a rookie mistake--or, to put it more charitably, a demonstration that Paul is not a professional politician.
... Far from being evasive, Paul has shown himself to be both candid and principled to a fault.
...He is honest, perhaps too honest for his own good....
Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner fleshes this out, and says that if you're a tea party candidate, they're coming for you next:
... Washington and New York elites are in a delighted uproar because Paul has conveniently handed them a sledge hammer with which to bludgeon him and by extension all candidates claiming a Tea Party connection.
...Odds are good that Paul is only the first of many Tea Party linked candidates whose inexperience in political combat with the media will spark such bloodbaths in coming months.
... many more of the Tea Party endorsed candidates who will gain visibility in the congressional campaign in coming months will, like Paul, be making their first-ever foray in seeking elective office. Like babes, they will go into brutal hand-to-hand combat with Establishment GOP, then Democratic opponents and their sympathetic journos, all of whom are seasoned veterans.
... For the Washington and New York sophisticates, however, there will be endless opportunities to howl in grinning protest, as there always are for city slickers when the hayseeds come to town and have no idea that those signs saying "Tea Partiers Need Not Apply" are meant for them....
"Need Not Apply" -- yup, asking tough questions of non-career-politician tea party candidates is the new Jim Crow.
Where is this heading? I think it's heading toward a new political world in which, once a candidate (or at least a right-wing candidate) gets a certain amount of traction, he/she won't even bother talking to reporters who aren't sympathizers. In other words, the Sarah Palin approach. Given the Internet, as well as the massive infrastructure of the right-wing print and broadcast media, why should any wingnut candidate with a sufficient following ever again give an interview to a journalist who's not a fan? Just spread your word exclusively through media your side controls -- that's how Palin does it (Berlusconi, too). The haters will come to you -- your Facebook posts, your tweets, your appearances on Hannity.
In the future, we may conclude that Sarah Palin was as much a Net-era campaign visionary as Barack Obama. Eventually, every politician, left, right, and center, may operate this way.
HEY, SMIRKING RIGHTIES, THERE'VE BEEN RODENTS AT THE WHITE HOUSE FOR YEARS
Well, it's a nothing story, though it leads Drudge right now (OBAMA DOESN'T TAKE QUESTIONS FROM THE RAT, EITHER), so I guess that means it's The Most Important Story In America -- a rat ran by as the president made a statement to the press about the financial overhaul bill. (Cue the mouth-breathers saying Har har har, now there are two rats in the White House!!!)
Well, there were reports of rodents in the White House press room during the W. years, when the room was refurbished. Also in W.'s tenure, a rat ran past the White House during a live shot by ABC's Martha Raddatz. A Knight-Ridder story from early in Clinton's tenure took note of rats on the White House grounds and noted that "The rat problem is not new with the Democratic administration. Barbara Bush was unnerved by an 'enormous' one sharing the outdoor pool with her. Another one nipped her dog, Millie." And this goes way back -- legend has it that Teddy Roosevelt's rat terrier rid the White House of many rats (the breed is now named for TR).
Yeah, I wasted precious moments of my life Googling all that. The sacrifices I make for you.
Well, it's a nothing story, though it leads Drudge right now (OBAMA DOESN'T TAKE QUESTIONS FROM THE RAT, EITHER), so I guess that means it's The Most Important Story In America -- a rat ran by as the president made a statement to the press about the financial overhaul bill. (Cue the mouth-breathers saying Har har har, now there are two rats in the White House!!!)
Well, there were reports of rodents in the White House press room during the W. years, when the room was refurbished. Also in W.'s tenure, a rat ran past the White House during a live shot by ABC's Martha Raddatz. A Knight-Ridder story from early in Clinton's tenure took note of rats on the White House grounds and noted that "The rat problem is not new with the Democratic administration. Barbara Bush was unnerved by an 'enormous' one sharing the outdoor pool with her. Another one nipped her dog, Millie." And this goes way back -- legend has it that Teddy Roosevelt's rat terrier rid the White House of many rats (the breed is now named for TR).
Yeah, I wasted precious moments of my life Googling all that. The sacrifices I make for you.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
COMPROMISE FOR ME, PURITY FOR THEE
Here's Andrew Sullivan critiquing Rand Paul's take on the Civil Rights Act:
... Paul's entirely abstract intellectual argument wrests pure principles out of an actual society, with actual historical atrocities, violence, oppression and contempt. That's why I cannot be a libertarian the way some others like Paul are. I do not believe you can reify an abstraction like liberty and separate it from the context - historical, cultural, moral - in which it lives and breathes and from which it emerged. I can believe in freedom and believe in equality of opportunity but I should be mature enough to see when there has to be a compromise between the two - and decide....
This is what makes the tea-party movement un-conservative. It is dealing with the world as it would like it to be, not as it is. It has an almost adolescent ideal it cannot compromise.
But that's not really true, is it? Most tea party types and libertarians are all too willing to compromise their abstract lib/tea principles -- when doing so suits their purposes. Rand Paul is an advocate of small government, as is his father, but they're both willing to suspend that smaller-is-better thinking and advocate a very intrusive government on the subject of abortion. Rank-and-file teabaggers, for their part, hate expensive government social programs and "socialized medicine," but God forbid you should take away their Social Security and Medicare.
Libertarians and teabaggers are idealistic and pure on issues that matter to the rest of us. If we want to reduce the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured, or want to use Keynesian stimulus to try to stave off a depression, or simply want it to be possible to pass non-teabag legislation that's supported by a duly elected president and a clear majority of duly elected legislators, that's when the purism kicks in. It's not there all the time. It's only there when we have the temerity to assert a conflicting set of principles.
Here's Andrew Sullivan critiquing Rand Paul's take on the Civil Rights Act:
... Paul's entirely abstract intellectual argument wrests pure principles out of an actual society, with actual historical atrocities, violence, oppression and contempt. That's why I cannot be a libertarian the way some others like Paul are. I do not believe you can reify an abstraction like liberty and separate it from the context - historical, cultural, moral - in which it lives and breathes and from which it emerged. I can believe in freedom and believe in equality of opportunity but I should be mature enough to see when there has to be a compromise between the two - and decide....
This is what makes the tea-party movement un-conservative. It is dealing with the world as it would like it to be, not as it is. It has an almost adolescent ideal it cannot compromise.
But that's not really true, is it? Most tea party types and libertarians are all too willing to compromise their abstract lib/tea principles -- when doing so suits their purposes. Rand Paul is an advocate of small government, as is his father, but they're both willing to suspend that smaller-is-better thinking and advocate a very intrusive government on the subject of abortion. Rank-and-file teabaggers, for their part, hate expensive government social programs and "socialized medicine," but God forbid you should take away their Social Security and Medicare.
Libertarians and teabaggers are idealistic and pure on issues that matter to the rest of us. If we want to reduce the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured, or want to use Keynesian stimulus to try to stave off a depression, or simply want it to be possible to pass non-teabag legislation that's supported by a duly elected president and a clear majority of duly elected legislators, that's when the purism kicks in. It's not there all the time. It's only there when we have the temerity to assert a conflicting set of principles.
RELIGIOSITY: THE FLIP SIDE OF RAND PAUL'S LIBERTARIANISM
Rand Paul to David Brody of Pat Robertson's CBN News, in an interview clip just posted today:
I'm a Christian. We go to the Presbyterian Church. My wife's a deacon there and we've gone there ever since we came to town. I see that Christianity and values is the basis of our society. I think that -- in some ways it's funny, 'cause people talk about laws, and they say, "Well, we have a law against this." Laws really only work because most of us don't even need the laws. You know what I mean? Ninety-eight percent of us won't murder people, won't steal, won't break the law, and it helps a society to have that religious underpinning. You still need to have the laws, I mean, you have to have laws, but I think it helps to have a people who believe in law and order and who have a moral compass or a moral basis for their day-to-day life.
Rand Paul to David Brody of Pat Robertson's CBN News, in an interview clip just posted today:
I'm a Christian. We go to the Presbyterian Church. My wife's a deacon there and we've gone there ever since we came to town. I see that Christianity and values is the basis of our society. I think that -- in some ways it's funny, 'cause people talk about laws, and they say, "Well, we have a law against this." Laws really only work because most of us don't even need the laws. You know what I mean? Ninety-eight percent of us won't murder people, won't steal, won't break the law, and it helps a society to have that religious underpinning. You still need to have the laws, I mean, you have to have laws, but I think it helps to have a people who believe in law and order and who have a moral compass or a moral basis for their day-to-day life.
Uh...No.
No, Matt, "basic free market principles" were not the reason why William F. Buckley opposed the civil rights movement.
Here's the thing: segregation at lunch counters didn't exist because individual privately owned businesses were determining for themselves that they would not serve black people. They relied on the local government to enforce this discrimination. Otherwise it would have been possible for non whites to sue white businesses for physical assault. Just because something isn't statutory doesn't mean that it isn't taking place with government aid. A truly libertarian stance on the Civil Rights Act that wasn't covertly conservative/racist would be to argue that the government must withdraw all legal aid, police help, and rights to sue for damages from discriminatory businesses *and then* leave the business free to discriminate. As I said below, on one of Steve's threads, and as Atrios and others have pointed out when the government liscences a buisiness it performs all kinds of functions for that business that are paid for by all taxpayers, regardless of race, class, creed, and sex. To allow a business to partake in taxpayer paid benefits like firemen, police, social security, medicare, etc...while refusing to serve taxpayers is absurd. The line between public and private property is guaranteed by government action and its something we all pay for and no private business has the right to take our money and then refuse service to us.
Buckley and other wealthy conservatives were conservatives because it was the party of christianity, property, racism and classism. They were and remain revanchistes who use the language of libertarianism because they (and many of their followers) think it washes them of the ugly term bigot and racist since it appears to put the argument on a higher intellectual plane. Rand Paul (and others) explicitly argue that it is their libertarian principles, rather than their personal racist or sexist inclinations, that lead them to certain inescapable economic and political conclusions. But, of course, this is absurd. Modern day American libertarians pick and choose among their principles all the time--Mr. Paul is opposed to a woman's right to choose whether and when to carry a pregnancy to term but I bet if you ask him he will be opposed to men being forced to pay child support for children they have fathered. In one case the imaginary fetal "right to life" trumps the woman's right to bodily autonomy, in the other the man's right to freedom from cost trumps the child's right to a secure living. In Buckley's case he was so far from believing in a free market of ideas that he explicitly demanded protection both for Christianity and for his class of owners against a true free market which was causing them to lose influence (as he saw it) in places of higher learning. Libertarians (with the exception of Arthur Silber) are the farthest thing from merely intellectually rigorous and principled that you can possibly be. How many libertarians have refused, on principle, to sue a private business because they were discriminated against? Bork, anyone?
aimai
aimai
The point to make about Paul, however, is that what he suffers from here is an excess of honesty and ideological rigor not an unusual degree of racism. Basic free market principles really do lead one to the absurd conclusion that government regulation of private business is a greater evil than institutionalized segregation. That’s why Barry Goldwater, William F Buckley, the Young Americans for Freedom, and the other progenitors of the postwar conservative movement all opposed the Civil Rights Act and the civil rights movement.
No, Matt, "basic free market principles" were not the reason why William F. Buckley opposed the civil rights movement.
Under Buckley’s editorship, the magazine featured, besides ideological disagreements to offend any progressive, arguments that would offend anyone who values civil rights. One editorial from the sixties: “The central question… is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes…. National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct…” In other words National Review opposed civil rights legislation. Buckley later characterized that stance regretfully, saying, “I think that the impact of that bill should have been welcomed by us.” Whether this apology exonerates Buckley, and we believe it does not, it is important to recognize that conservatives used support for segregationists pull the South out of the New Deal Democratic coalition, paving the way to the landmark victories of Ronald Reagan in 1980 (who, like Buckley and National Review, was against school busing for integration) and the Republican congress in 1994.
Here's the thing: segregation at lunch counters didn't exist because individual privately owned businesses were determining for themselves that they would not serve black people. They relied on the local government to enforce this discrimination. Otherwise it would have been possible for non whites to sue white businesses for physical assault. Just because something isn't statutory doesn't mean that it isn't taking place with government aid. A truly libertarian stance on the Civil Rights Act that wasn't covertly conservative/racist would be to argue that the government must withdraw all legal aid, police help, and rights to sue for damages from discriminatory businesses *and then* leave the business free to discriminate. As I said below, on one of Steve's threads, and as Atrios and others have pointed out when the government liscences a buisiness it performs all kinds of functions for that business that are paid for by all taxpayers, regardless of race, class, creed, and sex. To allow a business to partake in taxpayer paid benefits like firemen, police, social security, medicare, etc...while refusing to serve taxpayers is absurd. The line between public and private property is guaranteed by government action and its something we all pay for and no private business has the right to take our money and then refuse service to us.
Buckley and other wealthy conservatives were conservatives because it was the party of christianity, property, racism and classism. They were and remain revanchistes who use the language of libertarianism because they (and many of their followers) think it washes them of the ugly term bigot and racist since it appears to put the argument on a higher intellectual plane. Rand Paul (and others) explicitly argue that it is their libertarian principles, rather than their personal racist or sexist inclinations, that lead them to certain inescapable economic and political conclusions. But, of course, this is absurd. Modern day American libertarians pick and choose among their principles all the time--Mr. Paul is opposed to a woman's right to choose whether and when to carry a pregnancy to term but I bet if you ask him he will be opposed to men being forced to pay child support for children they have fathered. In one case the imaginary fetal "right to life" trumps the woman's right to bodily autonomy, in the other the man's right to freedom from cost trumps the child's right to a secure living. In Buckley's case he was so far from believing in a free market of ideas that he explicitly demanded protection both for Christianity and for his class of owners against a true free market which was causing them to lose influence (as he saw it) in places of higher learning. Libertarians (with the exception of Arthur Silber) are the farthest thing from merely intellectually rigorous and principled that you can possibly be. How many libertarians have refused, on principle, to sue a private business because they were discriminated against? Bork, anyone?
aimai
aimai
THROW RAND PAUL AN ANVIL
(updated)
Well, I could call Rand Paul a dumb racist hick for statements he's recently made (in interviews with NPR and the Louisville Courier-Journal) in which he's expressed concern about using the law to desegregate lunch counters:
INTERVIEWER: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I'm all in favor of that.
INTERVIEWER: But?
PAUL: You had to ask me the "but." I don't like the idea of telling private business owners -- I abhor racism. I think it's a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant -- but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership....
But this is less racism than a classic libertarian's belief in the magic fairy dust of the marketplace, which is presumed capable of solving nearly all problems. And you don't have to be from Kentucky to believe that -- The New York Times used to employ a columnist to make similar arguments, until he was shunted off to science reporting:
A 1999 [John] Tierney column used ... selective sourcing, arguing that the worker safety regulations inspired by the 1911 Triangle shirtwaist factory fire did little to protect workers, whose lot only improved as a result of free-market competition. In the sweatshops of early twentieth century New York, Tierney saw a "dynamic economy" in which "a worker could walk across the street to a competing company or a whole new industry." But again, he cherry-picked a single study by a University of Arizona professor who had reached a conclusion he liked, and gave short shrift to the vast body of evidence showing that workers had little job mobility 90 years ago, and that safety improved as a direct result of the labor movement and government legislation.
That's pretty much Rand Paul's argument about lunch counters -- that we could have just used market pressures to make them be nice. It's boilerplate libertarianism. (The John Tierney column is here, by the way.)
Paul went on Rachel Maddow's show last night and tried to get himself out of trouble, but one of his new talking points made no sense whatsoever:
One of the interesting things about desegregation and bringing people together: do you know when it happened in Boston? ... You know when we got rid of the Jim Crow laws and when we got rid of segregation and a lot of the abhorrent practices in the South -- do you know when we got rid of it in Boston? ... Well, it was in 1840. So I think it is sort of a stain on the history of America that it took us 120 years to desegregate the South.... They desegregated transportation in Boston in 1840, and I think that was an impressive and amazing thing....
The problem is, when railroads in Boston were desegregated (in 1843, not 1840), it was partly through tactics that were exactly like the lunch-counter sit-ins, and the arguments against desegregation were quite similar to the one Paul is making now about lunch counters:
There was no place in the United States that allowed African-Americans to travel in the same class as white people.... On September 29, 1841 Fredrick Douglass and his friend James N. Buffum protested their not being allowed to travel in first class with white passengers on the Eastern Railroad Company. These two men, who were well-known as champions of the anti-slavery cause, entered the cars in Lynn, Massachusetts on their way to Newburyport.The conductor of the train approached the two men and ordered them to leave the car. Refusing to do so, two brakemen tried to physically remove the men. Before they could, a fight broke out between the two cars. For several days the train did not make the stop in Lynn knowing in the event that Douglass would come aboard again. Douglass' and Buffum's actions led to similar incidents on the Eastern Railroad....
Railroad executives argued that all Massachusetts corporations had been granted the power to make "reasonable and proper" by-laws for the management of their business, and "the established usage and the public sentiment of this community authorize a separation of the blacks and whites in public places." ...
A law was proposed in 1842. Under this pressure, desegregation of trains began; the law passed in 1843.
I have no doubt whatsoever that Rand Paul, if he were alive then, would have stood with the railroad owners and their insistence that they had the right to decide what was "reasonable and proper" in their accommodation decisions. (He might well argue that, as private businesses, they had the right to make unreasonable and improper accommodation decisions if they damn well felt like it.)
*****
Paul is being asked about anti-black discrimination by businesses, as well as about (in the Maddow interview, at least) anti-gay discrimination and discrimination against those with disabilities. All that's going to paint him into a corner, but I don't know how much harm it's going to do him with Kentucky voters.
I'd ask him about discrimination against women. Dr. Paul, do you believe it's acceptable for a private company to pay women less than men for the same job? As a libertarian purist on these issues, I think he'd feel compelled to say yes. And that really might get him in deep trouble.
I think a certain kind of feminism has taken root in a lot of places where the rest of the liberal agenda is largely rejected. We saw this during Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. We see it with Sarah Palin. There's a lot of respect for women who are seen as tough and capable.
Ask him about women. Ask him if businesses can discriminate. Watch him squirm. And then watch him lose.
*****
UPDATE: Well, here's why I thought Paul might skate by on this -- he went on Fox this morning and blamed the "loony left" for the uproar. I'm not sure if he's sending this message via Fox or receiving it from Fox: Fox Nation already has a thread up with the title "Liberals Play Race Card on Rand Paul." I suspect that this might be a fairly easy sell for Paul with the voters he needs. I still say advocating wage discrimination against working women would be a harder sell.
(updated)
Well, I could call Rand Paul a dumb racist hick for statements he's recently made (in interviews with NPR and the Louisville Courier-Journal) in which he's expressed concern about using the law to desegregate lunch counters:
INTERVIEWER: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I'm all in favor of that.
INTERVIEWER: But?
PAUL: You had to ask me the "but." I don't like the idea of telling private business owners -- I abhor racism. I think it's a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant -- but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership....
But this is less racism than a classic libertarian's belief in the magic fairy dust of the marketplace, which is presumed capable of solving nearly all problems. And you don't have to be from Kentucky to believe that -- The New York Times used to employ a columnist to make similar arguments, until he was shunted off to science reporting:
A 1999 [John] Tierney column used ... selective sourcing, arguing that the worker safety regulations inspired by the 1911 Triangle shirtwaist factory fire did little to protect workers, whose lot only improved as a result of free-market competition. In the sweatshops of early twentieth century New York, Tierney saw a "dynamic economy" in which "a worker could walk across the street to a competing company or a whole new industry." But again, he cherry-picked a single study by a University of Arizona professor who had reached a conclusion he liked, and gave short shrift to the vast body of evidence showing that workers had little job mobility 90 years ago, and that safety improved as a direct result of the labor movement and government legislation.
That's pretty much Rand Paul's argument about lunch counters -- that we could have just used market pressures to make them be nice. It's boilerplate libertarianism. (The John Tierney column is here, by the way.)
Paul went on Rachel Maddow's show last night and tried to get himself out of trouble, but one of his new talking points made no sense whatsoever:
One of the interesting things about desegregation and bringing people together: do you know when it happened in Boston? ... You know when we got rid of the Jim Crow laws and when we got rid of segregation and a lot of the abhorrent practices in the South -- do you know when we got rid of it in Boston? ... Well, it was in 1840. So I think it is sort of a stain on the history of America that it took us 120 years to desegregate the South.... They desegregated transportation in Boston in 1840, and I think that was an impressive and amazing thing....
The problem is, when railroads in Boston were desegregated (in 1843, not 1840), it was partly through tactics that were exactly like the lunch-counter sit-ins, and the arguments against desegregation were quite similar to the one Paul is making now about lunch counters:
There was no place in the United States that allowed African-Americans to travel in the same class as white people.... On September 29, 1841 Fredrick Douglass and his friend James N. Buffum protested their not being allowed to travel in first class with white passengers on the Eastern Railroad Company. These two men, who were well-known as champions of the anti-slavery cause, entered the cars in Lynn, Massachusetts on their way to Newburyport.The conductor of the train approached the two men and ordered them to leave the car. Refusing to do so, two brakemen tried to physically remove the men. Before they could, a fight broke out between the two cars. For several days the train did not make the stop in Lynn knowing in the event that Douglass would come aboard again. Douglass' and Buffum's actions led to similar incidents on the Eastern Railroad....
Railroad executives argued that all Massachusetts corporations had been granted the power to make "reasonable and proper" by-laws for the management of their business, and "the established usage and the public sentiment of this community authorize a separation of the blacks and whites in public places." ...
A law was proposed in 1842. Under this pressure, desegregation of trains began; the law passed in 1843.
I have no doubt whatsoever that Rand Paul, if he were alive then, would have stood with the railroad owners and their insistence that they had the right to decide what was "reasonable and proper" in their accommodation decisions. (He might well argue that, as private businesses, they had the right to make unreasonable and improper accommodation decisions if they damn well felt like it.)
*****
Paul is being asked about anti-black discrimination by businesses, as well as about (in the Maddow interview, at least) anti-gay discrimination and discrimination against those with disabilities. All that's going to paint him into a corner, but I don't know how much harm it's going to do him with Kentucky voters.
I'd ask him about discrimination against women. Dr. Paul, do you believe it's acceptable for a private company to pay women less than men for the same job? As a libertarian purist on these issues, I think he'd feel compelled to say yes. And that really might get him in deep trouble.
I think a certain kind of feminism has taken root in a lot of places where the rest of the liberal agenda is largely rejected. We saw this during Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. We see it with Sarah Palin. There's a lot of respect for women who are seen as tough and capable.
Ask him about women. Ask him if businesses can discriminate. Watch him squirm. And then watch him lose.
*****
UPDATE: Well, here's why I thought Paul might skate by on this -- he went on Fox this morning and blamed the "loony left" for the uproar. I'm not sure if he's sending this message via Fox or receiving it from Fox: Fox Nation already has a thread up with the title "Liberals Play Race Card on Rand Paul." I suspect that this might be a fairly easy sell for Paul with the voters he needs. I still say advocating wage discrimination against working women would be a harder sell.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
ZOMG! THE OBAMAS AREN'T ORDERING TAKEOUT!
From Drudge right now:
Also all over this crucial breaking news story is Rush Limbaugh (damn, why haven't we given that guy a Pulitzer for investigative journalism?):
RUSH: This White House chef. They brought in this guy from Chicago to be chef for the state dinner tonight.... They're trying to hide the opulence of what's going on tonight with the state dinner for Felipe Calderon, the Mexican president....
This chef that they brought in from Chicago started tweeting from the White House kitchen. He started tweeting about himself, about what he was doing, he described a mole, which is a sauce that has 27 or 28 ingredients in it and then he named another dish, and then finally the regime took his tweet machine away from him. The regime said you're not tweeting outta here any more, bud. You come in here, you don't exist here. What makes you think you can come in here and start tweeting all over the place? So the guy has gone to ground. They have duct taped the guy's Twitter account. Now, the reason that that Obama is obsessed with this, the reason he's obsessed with controlling the media, even the chef's tweets, is because he doesn't want the people to see the real Obama.
This is a guy who loves the trappings of office, this is a guy who loves flying Air Force One, probably one of the reasons he wanted to be the leader of the regime. He loves these elaborate dinners, he loves $100 per pound Kobe beef appetizers. He loves the opulence. But we can't be allowed to see the real Obama. It's not a matter of Obama saying on message. It's about perpetuating the false portrayal of Obama as a smart, wise, cool leader. He is none of those things. In fact, we actually know as little about him today as we did when he ran for office. What country do we live in? ...
Yeah, we went from not wanting Bayless to tweet to somehow losing our identity as a nation. I'm not sure how that happened. (All of this, if you care, is based on a Chicago Sun-Times story by Lynn Sweet, as well as this item from the Washington Examiner gossip column.)
The Wagyu beef reference is shameless, of course, because (as I've mentioned several times) Limbaugh used to love the Wagyu at New York's Kobe Club:
How often does Rush come in?
He tends to come in about once a month. He goes for the nice Australian and Japanese steaks. He really likes to indulge in some of our nice wines. He likes to do it up.
Ah, but for his radio audience he's just being a regular guy. More from Limbaugh:
By the way, just a brief little aside here. This chef, the tweeting chef, Rick Bayless, supposedly an expert in Mexican cuisine? Why are they bringing in an expert in Mexican cuisine? Can't Calderon get that every day? If you were...? Ah, never mind.
Um, anyone remember what Bush served for Vicente Fox, a few days before 9/11? It was "a spicy meal of upscale Tex-Mex cuisine ... a blend of Mexican and American foods, many of them laden with hot peppers." While we're on the subject of "opulence," here was the menu from that shindig:
First course: Maryland crab and chorizo pozole, summer vegetables, Mi Sueno Chardonnay Carneros 1999.
Second course: pumpkin-seed-crusted bison, poblano whipped potatoes, fava-bean-and-chanterelle ragout, apple-chipotle sauce, Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select 1994.
Third course: salad of gold and red tomatoes, mache and micro greens, sherry dressing.
Dessert: mango-and-coconut ice cream with peaches and raspberries and accompanied by a red-chile-pepper sauce, tequila sabayon, Schramsberg Cremant 1997.
"Hibiscus flowers with hovering hummingbirds -- made of sugar -- poked out of the ice cream," we're told.
Just down-home chow.
(Compare the Obama menu, which is here.)
From Drudge right now:
Also all over this crucial breaking news story is Rush Limbaugh (damn, why haven't we given that guy a Pulitzer for investigative journalism?):
RUSH: This White House chef. They brought in this guy from Chicago to be chef for the state dinner tonight.... They're trying to hide the opulence of what's going on tonight with the state dinner for Felipe Calderon, the Mexican president....
This chef that they brought in from Chicago started tweeting from the White House kitchen. He started tweeting about himself, about what he was doing, he described a mole, which is a sauce that has 27 or 28 ingredients in it and then he named another dish, and then finally the regime took his tweet machine away from him. The regime said you're not tweeting outta here any more, bud. You come in here, you don't exist here. What makes you think you can come in here and start tweeting all over the place? So the guy has gone to ground. They have duct taped the guy's Twitter account. Now, the reason that that Obama is obsessed with this, the reason he's obsessed with controlling the media, even the chef's tweets, is because he doesn't want the people to see the real Obama.
This is a guy who loves the trappings of office, this is a guy who loves flying Air Force One, probably one of the reasons he wanted to be the leader of the regime. He loves these elaborate dinners, he loves $100 per pound Kobe beef appetizers. He loves the opulence. But we can't be allowed to see the real Obama. It's not a matter of Obama saying on message. It's about perpetuating the false portrayal of Obama as a smart, wise, cool leader. He is none of those things. In fact, we actually know as little about him today as we did when he ran for office. What country do we live in? ...
Yeah, we went from not wanting Bayless to tweet to somehow losing our identity as a nation. I'm not sure how that happened. (All of this, if you care, is based on a Chicago Sun-Times story by Lynn Sweet, as well as this item from the Washington Examiner gossip column.)
The Wagyu beef reference is shameless, of course, because (as I've mentioned several times) Limbaugh used to love the Wagyu at New York's Kobe Club:
How often does Rush come in?
He tends to come in about once a month. He goes for the nice Australian and Japanese steaks. He really likes to indulge in some of our nice wines. He likes to do it up.
Ah, but for his radio audience he's just being a regular guy. More from Limbaugh:
By the way, just a brief little aside here. This chef, the tweeting chef, Rick Bayless, supposedly an expert in Mexican cuisine? Why are they bringing in an expert in Mexican cuisine? Can't Calderon get that every day? If you were...? Ah, never mind.
Um, anyone remember what Bush served for Vicente Fox, a few days before 9/11? It was "a spicy meal of upscale Tex-Mex cuisine ... a blend of Mexican and American foods, many of them laden with hot peppers." While we're on the subject of "opulence," here was the menu from that shindig:
First course: Maryland crab and chorizo pozole, summer vegetables, Mi Sueno Chardonnay Carneros 1999.
Second course: pumpkin-seed-crusted bison, poblano whipped potatoes, fava-bean-and-chanterelle ragout, apple-chipotle sauce, Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select 1994.
Third course: salad of gold and red tomatoes, mache and micro greens, sherry dressing.
Dessert: mango-and-coconut ice cream with peaches and raspberries and accompanied by a red-chile-pepper sauce, tequila sabayon, Schramsberg Cremant 1997.
"Hibiscus flowers with hovering hummingbirds -- made of sugar -- poked out of the ice cream," we're told.
Just down-home chow.
(Compare the Obama menu, which is here.)
AND WHEN WE SAY "THE PEOPLE," WE MEAN, OF COURSE, "THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE"
Whiniest analysis yet of the special election in Pennsylvania, from Conservatives4Palin (seconded by National Review's Jim Geraghty):
The old media has been furiously spinning last night's loss by Tim Burns in PA-12 as proof that the Democrat Party is really in great shape going into the fall mid-terms and that ObamaCare is actually going to help the Democrats. However, a sober analysis of Tim Burn's loss should give the Democrat Party no such solace. Burns loss can be chalked up primarily to Ed Rendell's shrewd move to schedule the special election on the same day as the primary.
... there was no way Tim Burns could win a special election run concurrently with a primary election for the same race.... There was never going to be sufficient Republican votes to overcome the 2-1 Democrat to Republican advantage in the district....
It's difficult to imagine significant numbers of Democrat voters asking for a Democrat ballot upon arrival at the polls, then voting simultaneously for Critz in the primary and Burns in the special....
Really? Why is it difficult?
I could have sworn you guys have been telling us for months that the people desperately want tea party candidates like Burns to "take our country back." I could have sworn you guys said this was a nonpartisan movement. And I could have sworn you said that America, democracy, and freedom itself were all at stake. With so much on the line, and with such broad-based support, and at a time when the only thing keeping the status quo in power is the totalitarianism of the Kenyan usurper, how is it that the huge masses of real Americans in PA-12 who really despise what's going on in America couldn't even get out to vote?
Did President Mao Hussein Capone force true patriots in the district to sit at home on their asses? Did he thuggishly compel Democratic registrants who are real Americans to vote a straight party ticket?
I know, I know: I'm just being a typical obnoxious liberal for thinking that if you want to get rid of the people who are in office you should be required to show up at the freaking polls to vote them out.
Whiniest analysis yet of the special election in Pennsylvania, from Conservatives4Palin (seconded by National Review's Jim Geraghty):
The old media has been furiously spinning last night's loss by Tim Burns in PA-12 as proof that the Democrat Party is really in great shape going into the fall mid-terms and that ObamaCare is actually going to help the Democrats. However, a sober analysis of Tim Burn's loss should give the Democrat Party no such solace. Burns loss can be chalked up primarily to Ed Rendell's shrewd move to schedule the special election on the same day as the primary.
... there was no way Tim Burns could win a special election run concurrently with a primary election for the same race.... There was never going to be sufficient Republican votes to overcome the 2-1 Democrat to Republican advantage in the district....
It's difficult to imagine significant numbers of Democrat voters asking for a Democrat ballot upon arrival at the polls, then voting simultaneously for Critz in the primary and Burns in the special....
Really? Why is it difficult?
I could have sworn you guys have been telling us for months that the people desperately want tea party candidates like Burns to "take our country back." I could have sworn you guys said this was a nonpartisan movement. And I could have sworn you said that America, democracy, and freedom itself were all at stake. With so much on the line, and with such broad-based support, and at a time when the only thing keeping the status quo in power is the totalitarianism of the Kenyan usurper, how is it that the huge masses of real Americans in PA-12 who really despise what's going on in America couldn't even get out to vote?
Did President Mao Hussein Capone force true patriots in the district to sit at home on their asses? Did he thuggishly compel Democratic registrants who are real Americans to vote a straight party ticket?
I know, I know: I'm just being a typical obnoxious liberal for thinking that if you want to get rid of the people who are in office you should be required to show up at the freaking polls to vote them out.
CRITZ LACKED OBAMA'S "APPALACHIAN PROBLEM"
Republicans are in pain because Democrat Mark Critz held John Murtha's seat for the Democrats, despite dismal approval numbers for Obama and the health care law in the district, and despite the fact that the district was the only one in America to flip from Kerry to McCain in 2008.
Somebody else may have already said this, but recall where in America McCain did better in '08 than Bush did in '04. It's the same part of the country where Obama kept getting clobbered by Hillary Clinton in the primaries -- Appalachia. The district in question is at the northeast tip of the Appalachian band where Obama struggled in 2008.
Much of that territory has been trending Republican in presidential elections in recent years, but if Kerry won there in 2004, that means the district (which, after all, has twice as many registered Democrats as registered Republicans) may not have reached the pro-GOP tipping point....
... except under special circumstances. Such as, say, a Democratic decision to put up a nominee with a significant amount of melanin. Y'know, more than Mark Critz has.
Republicans are in pain because Democrat Mark Critz held John Murtha's seat for the Democrats, despite dismal approval numbers for Obama and the health care law in the district, and despite the fact that the district was the only one in America to flip from Kerry to McCain in 2008.
Somebody else may have already said this, but recall where in America McCain did better in '08 than Bush did in '04. It's the same part of the country where Obama kept getting clobbered by Hillary Clinton in the primaries -- Appalachia. The district in question is at the northeast tip of the Appalachian band where Obama struggled in 2008.
Much of that territory has been trending Republican in presidential elections in recent years, but if Kerry won there in 2004, that means the district (which, after all, has twice as many registered Democrats as registered Republicans) may not have reached the pro-GOP tipping point....
... except under special circumstances. Such as, say, a Democratic decision to put up a nominee with a significant amount of melanin. Y'know, more than Mark Critz has.
PRIMARY EVERYBODY FOREVER!
My favorite Specter reaction, from Lucianne.com of all places:
Heh -- indeed.
Meanwhile, Marc Ambinder tries to figure out the meaning of Rand Paul's victory and, well, basically fails:
We still haven't figured out how to distinguish between Tea Partiers and base conservatives. Here's the way I propose it: Tea Partiers are best identified by their media consumption habits (Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity) and whether they adopt a specific variant of conservative populism, one that is rooted in an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, a pastoral view of the past, and a sense that the world is escaping the boundaries of their comprehension. The rest are just plain, average conservatives.
Wait a minute -- "plain, average conservatives" don't watch Hannity and think America was a nation of self-reliant yeoman farmers until the dark day we elected a communist Kenyan? I'm confused. I'm really struggling to grasp this distinction.
David Frum, meanwhile, is fretful:
Rand Paul's victory in the Kentucky Republican primary is obviously a depressing event for those who support ... rational conservative politics....
How is it that the GOP has lost its antibodies against a candidate like Rand Paul? ... despite Paul's self-presentation as "anti-establishment," the D.C. conservative establishment by and large made its peace with him. It is this acquiescence -- even more than Paul's own nomination -- that is the most ominous news from tonight's vote.
Well, "antibodies" is, I think, the wrong metaphor. Look, if you want rational conservative voters (whatever that means), you're baiting your traps wrong. All your side has done for years is wave red meat around -- and then you're surprised when, instead of mice, you get bears showing up. In Kentucky, you just got the candidate who matches the last couple of decades of your own rhetoric.
On the other hand, it's possible that Rand Paul will go to Washington and the Permanent Government will decide that, well, he's not that bad. Here's The Washington Post's Charles Lane:
Which candidate for federal office made this forthright and progressive declaration of policy in a recent debate?
Hint: the same candidate also espoused raising the retirement age under Social Security to 70....
Let me be clear. I am not endorsing Paul. Far from it. His right-wing obsessions with the Federal Reserve, the Department of Education and the like turn me off, big time....
Still, it's depressing that Paul's the only guy who's willing to talk straight about these two obvious problems....
Hell, even I agree on the farm subsidies up to a point. But here's what I fear: a year from now, Rand Paul could be a senator and David Broder could find Senator's Paul's deficit hawkery absolutely delightful and praiseworthy. And life will go on as usual.
On the other hand, JohnHarris and Jim VandeHei at Politico look at last night's elections (as well as the Bob Bennett purge in Utah and other recent events) and conclude that we're looking at a sea change in American politics, one that goes back at least as far as the Obama and Ned Lamont campaigns -- and one that might make governing even harder than it is now:
Challengers don't need help of the Republican National Committee or Democratic National Committee to shake loose small donations anymore. They can simply use the web or email lists of hungry activists. They don't need the RNC or DNC for get-out-the-vote help either. They have MoveOn.org and the Tea Party network.
They also don't need a visit from Barack Obama or Dick Cheney to whip up attention from party activists. They have Rachel Maddow on MSNBC or Glenn Beck on Fox -- a much more efficient way of reaching committed activists.
But the cumulative results of the primaries will likely make a hard-to-govern capital even more treacherous. Politicians now on-notice about the power of activists on their flanks will be less inclined to find compromises in the center, and they barely did even before Tuesday.
That's true. Rand Paul is pledging to "take back the government," as are all the other teabaggers (and most other Republicans). Democrats like Joe Sestak and Bill Halter in Arkansas are running up impressive vote totals out of disgust with the Democrats we've got. And now a whole bunch of angry voters' favorites may go to Washington and ... fight with one another! I'm going to take back the government for the people who elected me! The hell you will! I'm going to take back the government for the people who elected me!
The likely result? Even more gridlock. And then an even angrier electorate.
As Rosham says in the comments to my last post:
So we overthrow Sestak in the next elections or just punk him in this one?
Yeah, that's about it. Dump everybody! Forever!
My favorite Specter reaction, from Lucianne.com of all places:
Heh -- indeed.
Meanwhile, Marc Ambinder tries to figure out the meaning of Rand Paul's victory and, well, basically fails:
We still haven't figured out how to distinguish between Tea Partiers and base conservatives. Here's the way I propose it: Tea Partiers are best identified by their media consumption habits (Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity) and whether they adopt a specific variant of conservative populism, one that is rooted in an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, a pastoral view of the past, and a sense that the world is escaping the boundaries of their comprehension. The rest are just plain, average conservatives.
Wait a minute -- "plain, average conservatives" don't watch Hannity and think America was a nation of self-reliant yeoman farmers until the dark day we elected a communist Kenyan? I'm confused. I'm really struggling to grasp this distinction.
David Frum, meanwhile, is fretful:
Rand Paul's victory in the Kentucky Republican primary is obviously a depressing event for those who support ... rational conservative politics....
How is it that the GOP has lost its antibodies against a candidate like Rand Paul? ... despite Paul's self-presentation as "anti-establishment," the D.C. conservative establishment by and large made its peace with him. It is this acquiescence -- even more than Paul's own nomination -- that is the most ominous news from tonight's vote.
Well, "antibodies" is, I think, the wrong metaphor. Look, if you want rational conservative voters (whatever that means), you're baiting your traps wrong. All your side has done for years is wave red meat around -- and then you're surprised when, instead of mice, you get bears showing up. In Kentucky, you just got the candidate who matches the last couple of decades of your own rhetoric.
On the other hand, it's possible that Rand Paul will go to Washington and the Permanent Government will decide that, well, he's not that bad. Here's The Washington Post's Charles Lane:
Which candidate for federal office made this forthright and progressive declaration of policy in a recent debate?
"I do not think federal subsidies of agriculture are a good idea. These go to things that are not economic, such as ethanol subsidies and large corporate farming, and I'm not in favor of giving welfare to business."
Hint: the same candidate also espoused raising the retirement age under Social Security to 70....
Let me be clear. I am not endorsing Paul. Far from it. His right-wing obsessions with the Federal Reserve, the Department of Education and the like turn me off, big time....
Still, it's depressing that Paul's the only guy who's willing to talk straight about these two obvious problems....
Hell, even I agree on the farm subsidies up to a point. But here's what I fear: a year from now, Rand Paul could be a senator and David Broder could find Senator's Paul's deficit hawkery absolutely delightful and praiseworthy. And life will go on as usual.
On the other hand, JohnHarris and Jim VandeHei at Politico look at last night's elections (as well as the Bob Bennett purge in Utah and other recent events) and conclude that we're looking at a sea change in American politics, one that goes back at least as far as the Obama and Ned Lamont campaigns -- and one that might make governing even harder than it is now:
Challengers don't need help of the Republican National Committee or Democratic National Committee to shake loose small donations anymore. They can simply use the web or email lists of hungry activists. They don't need the RNC or DNC for get-out-the-vote help either. They have MoveOn.org and the Tea Party network.
They also don't need a visit from Barack Obama or Dick Cheney to whip up attention from party activists. They have Rachel Maddow on MSNBC or Glenn Beck on Fox -- a much more efficient way of reaching committed activists.
But the cumulative results of the primaries will likely make a hard-to-govern capital even more treacherous. Politicians now on-notice about the power of activists on their flanks will be less inclined to find compromises in the center, and they barely did even before Tuesday.
That's true. Rand Paul is pledging to "take back the government," as are all the other teabaggers (and most other Republicans). Democrats like Joe Sestak and Bill Halter in Arkansas are running up impressive vote totals out of disgust with the Democrats we've got. And now a whole bunch of angry voters' favorites may go to Washington and ... fight with one another! I'm going to take back the government for the people who elected me! The hell you will! I'm going to take back the government for the people who elected me!
The likely result? Even more gridlock. And then an even angrier electorate.
As Rosham says in the comments to my last post:
So we overthrow Sestak in the next elections or just punk him in this one?
Yeah, that's about it. Dump everybody! Forever!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
D.C. ESTABLISHMENT DEFEATED BY ... UM, THE OTHER D.C. ESTABLISHMENT
Here's a ridiculous passage from the New York Times story about Rand Paul's primary victory in Kentucky:
Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who is chairman of the Senate Conservative Fund, an organization that has been supporting conservative candidates in Republican primaries, hailed the result as a defeat of the Washington political establishment.
"The Washington establishment threw everything they had at him and yet he prevailed," Mr. DeMint said.
Um, excuse me -- "the Washington establishment"? What city do you work in, Senator DeMint?
So Rand Paul wasn't the candidate of one subset of D.C. establishment hacks -- but he was the candidate of another set of establishment hacks, who are no less part of the establishment than Mitch McConnell just because they have indie cred. Of course, the whole damn tea party movement relies on Fox News and lobbyists for nourishment.
Republican primary voters thought Paul was more rad than Grayson, but for all the talk about whether Grayson voters will be too embittered to vote for Paul in the fall, or whether the overall electorate will regard Paul as too extreme, it looks as if there's barely any difference in the general-election polls between Paul and Grayson. Grayson has been doing a few points better than Paul, but really, voters clearly know they're just two flavors of GOP. So please, let's not make too much of this.
Here's a ridiculous passage from the New York Times story about Rand Paul's primary victory in Kentucky:
Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who is chairman of the Senate Conservative Fund, an organization that has been supporting conservative candidates in Republican primaries, hailed the result as a defeat of the Washington political establishment.
"The Washington establishment threw everything they had at him and yet he prevailed," Mr. DeMint said.
Um, excuse me -- "the Washington establishment"? What city do you work in, Senator DeMint?
So Rand Paul wasn't the candidate of one subset of D.C. establishment hacks -- but he was the candidate of another set of establishment hacks, who are no less part of the establishment than Mitch McConnell just because they have indie cred. Of course, the whole damn tea party movement relies on Fox News and lobbyists for nourishment.
Republican primary voters thought Paul was more rad than Grayson, but for all the talk about whether Grayson voters will be too embittered to vote for Paul in the fall, or whether the overall electorate will regard Paul as too extreme, it looks as if there's barely any difference in the general-election polls between Paul and Grayson. Grayson has been doing a few points better than Paul, but really, voters clearly know they're just two flavors of GOP. So please, let's not make too much of this.
GREENWALD IS RIGHT. HE'S ALSO WRONG.
Even when I agree with Glenn Greenwald, I find myself disagreeing with him. Today, in response to this Matt Yglesias post, which argues that progressives have to acknowledge the unfortunate popularity of terrorism policies that infringe on civil liberties, Greenwald argues that this is just pro-Obama excuse-making -- why can't the president use his bully pulpit to try to alter public opinion?
Presidents have numerous tools for influencing public opinion, and Obama has used none for the purpose of fortifying support for the new Terrorism policies he vowed during the campaign to pursue. He's actually done the opposite: by advocating for the continuation of so many Bush/Cheney policies, he's weakened opposition to that approach. In that regard, Matt has it backward: Obama isn't following public opinion on these questions; public opinion is following Obama.
I'm with Greenwald up to the end of that. He's absolutely right that Obama could be trying to make a persuasive case for reversing Bush-era civil liberties assaults; he's absolutely right that Obama could have far better policies. But he's wrong when he says that public opinion is following Obama. It isn't. It's following the loudest voices, namely the Republicans.
Here's Greenwald's view of how this works:
When a party occupies the Oval Office, its position is determined almost exclusively by the President and his administration. Here, Republicans have been vehement in their demand for the continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies. Because the Obama White House has largely been unwilling to engage that debate, and has often affirmatively endorsed the Republicans' central claims, there has been no real "debate" on these issues.
Actually, Republicans haven't "been vehement in their demand for the continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies" -- they now want more than Bush/Cheney terrorism policies. They've actively upped the ante, insisting that Obama withhold Miranda warnings (which were fine under Bush) and demanding that Gitmo remain open (even though Bush ultimately said it should it be closed, as did candidate McCain in 2008). And there has been a debate on these issues -- it's between the GOP and a straw-man version of Obama, one who doesn't take terrorism seriously and is treasonously endangering the nation. Moreover, Republicans have used every Islamicist attack, failed or otherwise, to divide the country in a way Democrats never did in the Bush years.
To Greenwald, all blame for the public's failure to embrace pro-civil liberties policies falls on Obama, or at least it has since Inauguration Day:
By embracing as his own many of the very policies he vowed to uproot, Obama has gutted the core of public opposition to those policies. Is it really a surprise, then, that public opinion on these questions has worsened under Obama [as but one example, compare the CNN poll on whether Guantanamo should be closed: before Obama's inauguration, a majority wanted the camp to be closed (51-47%); now, a year into Obama's presidency and yet another year removed from the 9/11 attacks, a large majority (60-39%) wants it to remain open]?
Clearly, to Greenwald, that's all Obama's fault -- Republicans' incessant invocation of Fort Hood and the underwear wannabomber and the Times Square wannabomber (as well as the notion of unspeakable peril if Gitmo prisoners are tried in U.S. courts or housed in U.S. supermaxes) has nothing whatsoever to do with the shift.
So, yeah, Greenwald's right when he says that Obama has been a real disappointment on these issues. But Republicans have been a disgrace. And Greenwald lets them off scot-free.
Even when I agree with Glenn Greenwald, I find myself disagreeing with him. Today, in response to this Matt Yglesias post, which argues that progressives have to acknowledge the unfortunate popularity of terrorism policies that infringe on civil liberties, Greenwald argues that this is just pro-Obama excuse-making -- why can't the president use his bully pulpit to try to alter public opinion?
Presidents have numerous tools for influencing public opinion, and Obama has used none for the purpose of fortifying support for the new Terrorism policies he vowed during the campaign to pursue. He's actually done the opposite: by advocating for the continuation of so many Bush/Cheney policies, he's weakened opposition to that approach. In that regard, Matt has it backward: Obama isn't following public opinion on these questions; public opinion is following Obama.
I'm with Greenwald up to the end of that. He's absolutely right that Obama could be trying to make a persuasive case for reversing Bush-era civil liberties assaults; he's absolutely right that Obama could have far better policies. But he's wrong when he says that public opinion is following Obama. It isn't. It's following the loudest voices, namely the Republicans.
Here's Greenwald's view of how this works:
When a party occupies the Oval Office, its position is determined almost exclusively by the President and his administration. Here, Republicans have been vehement in their demand for the continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies. Because the Obama White House has largely been unwilling to engage that debate, and has often affirmatively endorsed the Republicans' central claims, there has been no real "debate" on these issues.
Actually, Republicans haven't "been vehement in their demand for the continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies" -- they now want more than Bush/Cheney terrorism policies. They've actively upped the ante, insisting that Obama withhold Miranda warnings (which were fine under Bush) and demanding that Gitmo remain open (even though Bush ultimately said it should it be closed, as did candidate McCain in 2008). And there has been a debate on these issues -- it's between the GOP and a straw-man version of Obama, one who doesn't take terrorism seriously and is treasonously endangering the nation. Moreover, Republicans have used every Islamicist attack, failed or otherwise, to divide the country in a way Democrats never did in the Bush years.
To Greenwald, all blame for the public's failure to embrace pro-civil liberties policies falls on Obama, or at least it has since Inauguration Day:
By embracing as his own many of the very policies he vowed to uproot, Obama has gutted the core of public opposition to those policies. Is it really a surprise, then, that public opinion on these questions has worsened under Obama [as but one example, compare the CNN poll on whether Guantanamo should be closed: before Obama's inauguration, a majority wanted the camp to be closed (51-47%); now, a year into Obama's presidency and yet another year removed from the 9/11 attacks, a large majority (60-39%) wants it to remain open]?
Clearly, to Greenwald, that's all Obama's fault -- Republicans' incessant invocation of Fort Hood and the underwear wannabomber and the Times Square wannabomber (as well as the notion of unspeakable peril if Gitmo prisoners are tried in U.S. courts or housed in U.S. supermaxes) has nothing whatsoever to do with the shift.
So, yeah, Greenwald's right when he says that Obama has been a real disappointment on these issues. But Republicans have been a disgrace. And Greenwald lets them off scot-free.
"RADICAL ISLAM"! SAY IT, PRESIDENT BUSH!
Yesterday, President Obama signed the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, and Commentary's Jennifer Rubin is upset because of what the president didn't say:
Obama Won't Say Who Killed Daniel Pearl
...Obama had this to say:
If you didn't know already, you'd never figure out that he was talking about the Islamic fundamentalists who butchered Pearl....
Or, as Jim Holt of Gateway Pundit put it,
Jennifer Rubin at Contentions Blog pointed out that Barack Obama forgot to mention that Daniel Pearl was murdered by Islamic extremists.
Except that I can't find any record that President Bush ever said that Daniel Pearl was murdered by "Islamic extremists" (or "radical Islam" or whatever phrase Rubin and Holt would prefer). In referring to Pearl, Bush was more inclined than Obama is to talk about "terror" and "terrorism," and to stress that Pearl was killed for being Jewish -- but he seems to have carefully avoided using any form of the word "Muslim" or "Islam" (or even "jihad").
Here was Bush's statement when news of Pearl's death broke:
Laura and I, and the American people, are deeply saddened to learn about the loss of Daniel Pearl's life. And we're really sad for his wife and his parents, and his friends and colleagues, who have been clinging to hope for weeks that he be found alive. We are especially sad for his unborn child, who will now know his father only through the memory of others.
All Americans are sad and angry to learn of the murder. All around the world, American journalists and humanitarian aid workers and diplomats and others do important work in places that are sometimes dangerous. Those who would threaten Americans, those who would engage in criminal, barbaric acts, need to know that these crimes only hurt their cause and only deepen the resolve of the United States of America to rid to world of these agents of terror.
May God bless Daniel Pearl.
No "Islam" or "Muslim" -- the killers are merely "agents of terror." Appalling! Why, they could be agents of any kind of terror, for all we know! Why wasn't Bush more specific? Was it political correctness? (Sorry, I'm just holding him to the same standard that the right uses for the current administration.)
Later, in 2007, the Bushes hosted a Hanukkah reception at the White House at which a menorah belonging to Daniel Pearl's great-grandfather was lit. At that reception Bush said:
While reporting in Pakistan in 2002, Daniel was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists. His only crime was being a Jewish American -- something Daniel Pearl would never deny. In his final moments, Daniel told his captors about a street in Israel named for his great-grandfather. He looked into their camera and he said, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, and I'm Jewish." These words have become a source of inspiration for Americans of all faiths. They show the courage of a man who refused to bow before terror -- and the strength of a spirit that could not be broken.
A strong statement -- but why wouldn't Bush identify the killers as Islamic? Hunh? Hunh?
There was also this in 2007:
The Daniel Pearl Foundation today announced that it has received a Presidential Message from President George Bush extending his appreciation to "all those involved in Daniel Pearl World Music days for promoting the values of tolerance, understanding, and respect." His words of appreciation were expressed in a Presidential Message sent to Judea and Ruth Pearl, Danny Pearl's parents. In his Message the President added that "[S]ince its establishment in 2002, this event has been an opportunity to pay tribute to the memory of Daniel Pearl, a man dedicated to the search for truth. These concerts are a forum for individuals around the world to come together and celebrate the diverse traditions and unifying power of music."
Wow! Not a word about radical Islam?
Look, this is just a ridiculous phallus-measuring contest. But if we're going to engage in it, let's use the same measuring standard across the board.
Yesterday, President Obama signed the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, and Commentary's Jennifer Rubin is upset because of what the president didn't say:
Obama Won't Say Who Killed Daniel Pearl
...Obama had this to say:
All around the world there are enormously courageous journalists and bloggers who, at great risk to themselves, are trying to shine a light on the critical issues that the people of their country face; who are the frontlines against tyranny and oppression. And obviously the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is, and it reminded us that there are those who would go to any length in order to silence journalists around the world.
If you didn't know already, you'd never figure out that he was talking about the Islamic fundamentalists who butchered Pearl....
Or, as Jim Holt of Gateway Pundit put it,
Jennifer Rubin at Contentions Blog pointed out that Barack Obama forgot to mention that Daniel Pearl was murdered by Islamic extremists.
Except that I can't find any record that President Bush ever said that Daniel Pearl was murdered by "Islamic extremists" (or "radical Islam" or whatever phrase Rubin and Holt would prefer). In referring to Pearl, Bush was more inclined than Obama is to talk about "terror" and "terrorism," and to stress that Pearl was killed for being Jewish -- but he seems to have carefully avoided using any form of the word "Muslim" or "Islam" (or even "jihad").
Here was Bush's statement when news of Pearl's death broke:
Laura and I, and the American people, are deeply saddened to learn about the loss of Daniel Pearl's life. And we're really sad for his wife and his parents, and his friends and colleagues, who have been clinging to hope for weeks that he be found alive. We are especially sad for his unborn child, who will now know his father only through the memory of others.
All Americans are sad and angry to learn of the murder. All around the world, American journalists and humanitarian aid workers and diplomats and others do important work in places that are sometimes dangerous. Those who would threaten Americans, those who would engage in criminal, barbaric acts, need to know that these crimes only hurt their cause and only deepen the resolve of the United States of America to rid to world of these agents of terror.
May God bless Daniel Pearl.
No "Islam" or "Muslim" -- the killers are merely "agents of terror." Appalling! Why, they could be agents of any kind of terror, for all we know! Why wasn't Bush more specific? Was it political correctness? (Sorry, I'm just holding him to the same standard that the right uses for the current administration.)
Later, in 2007, the Bushes hosted a Hanukkah reception at the White House at which a menorah belonging to Daniel Pearl's great-grandfather was lit. At that reception Bush said:
While reporting in Pakistan in 2002, Daniel was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists. His only crime was being a Jewish American -- something Daniel Pearl would never deny. In his final moments, Daniel told his captors about a street in Israel named for his great-grandfather. He looked into their camera and he said, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, and I'm Jewish." These words have become a source of inspiration for Americans of all faiths. They show the courage of a man who refused to bow before terror -- and the strength of a spirit that could not be broken.
A strong statement -- but why wouldn't Bush identify the killers as Islamic? Hunh? Hunh?
There was also this in 2007:
The Daniel Pearl Foundation today announced that it has received a Presidential Message from President George Bush extending his appreciation to "all those involved in Daniel Pearl World Music days for promoting the values of tolerance, understanding, and respect." His words of appreciation were expressed in a Presidential Message sent to Judea and Ruth Pearl, Danny Pearl's parents. In his Message the President added that "[S]ince its establishment in 2002, this event has been an opportunity to pay tribute to the memory of Daniel Pearl, a man dedicated to the search for truth. These concerts are a forum for individuals around the world to come together and celebrate the diverse traditions and unifying power of music."
Wow! Not a word about radical Islam?
Look, this is just a ridiculous phallus-measuring contest. But if we're going to engage in it, let's use the same measuring standard across the board.
NAKEDLY IDEOLOGICAL LEFTY PRESS DESTROYS OWN CANDIDATE! NAZI TOTALITARIAN THUG PARTY STAMPS FOOT IN ANGER!
I think most people know the story already: the Democrats were at great risk of losing Christopher Dodd's Senate seat in Connecticut this year, until Dodd announced that he wasn't running and the state's very popular Democratic attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, said he was; Blumenthal instantly took a huge lead in the polls. But now it's all over for Blumenthal: The New York Times has revealed that for years he's misrepresented himself as a Vietnam veteran -- in fact, he obtained multiple student deferments and then served stateside in the Marine Reserves.
I'm addressing this to the right-wingers: please note that Blumenthal's career has been destroyed by the newspaper you regularly describe as the evil flagship of a relentlessly pro-liberal, pro-Democratic elite-media propaganda machine. You tell the rubes -- and many of you actually believe your own words -- that the ideological extremism of talk radio and Fox News is necessary to counter the naked partisanship of the "liberal media," led by the sinister New York Times.
Well? What's your explanation for what's going on in this morning's paper? You want to tell me that Fox or Limbaugh would ever take out a Republican pol in a similar situation with GOP control of the Senate potentially on the line?
And your side has a newer complaint: lately you've been saying that the Democratic Party is a collection of Nazi/commie/Mafia thugs, relentlessly using anti-democratic force to trample on American liberties. Again, this is what you say to the rubes, but quite a few of you actually believe that the activities of the "Democrat Party" rival the worst crimes of Hitler, Mao, and Al Capone. So why did the thugs fail to stop the presses at the New York Times building?
I'll be accused of taking your rhetoric way too seriously; it's just hyperbole to get the yokels worked up. Except that the yokels don't think it's hyperbole -- they think it's literal truth. And they're going to vote in November based on their belief that it's literal truth. That's crazy -- the Times isn't analogous to talk radio or Fox, and there's no thuggery in sight -- but it's a set of belies that's currently driving our democracy.
I think most people know the story already: the Democrats were at great risk of losing Christopher Dodd's Senate seat in Connecticut this year, until Dodd announced that he wasn't running and the state's very popular Democratic attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, said he was; Blumenthal instantly took a huge lead in the polls. But now it's all over for Blumenthal: The New York Times has revealed that for years he's misrepresented himself as a Vietnam veteran -- in fact, he obtained multiple student deferments and then served stateside in the Marine Reserves.
I'm addressing this to the right-wingers: please note that Blumenthal's career has been destroyed by the newspaper you regularly describe as the evil flagship of a relentlessly pro-liberal, pro-Democratic elite-media propaganda machine. You tell the rubes -- and many of you actually believe your own words -- that the ideological extremism of talk radio and Fox News is necessary to counter the naked partisanship of the "liberal media," led by the sinister New York Times.
Well? What's your explanation for what's going on in this morning's paper? You want to tell me that Fox or Limbaugh would ever take out a Republican pol in a similar situation with GOP control of the Senate potentially on the line?
And your side has a newer complaint: lately you've been saying that the Democratic Party is a collection of Nazi/commie/Mafia thugs, relentlessly using anti-democratic force to trample on American liberties. Again, this is what you say to the rubes, but quite a few of you actually believe that the activities of the "Democrat Party" rival the worst crimes of Hitler, Mao, and Al Capone. So why did the thugs fail to stop the presses at the New York Times building?
I'll be accused of taking your rhetoric way too seriously; it's just hyperbole to get the yokels worked up. Except that the yokels don't think it's hyperbole -- they think it's literal truth. And they're going to vote in November based on their belief that it's literal truth. That's crazy -- the Times isn't analogous to talk radio or Fox, and there's no thuggery in sight -- but it's a set of belies that's currently driving our democracy.
Monday, May 17, 2010
WE HEART FAUX
Regarding that damn Dale Peterson ad, I'm with Digby, who disagrees with Salon's Gabriel Winant.
Winant:
It's really difficult to give the Peterson ad an honest viewing and come away thinking that this guy thinks highly of the people whose votes he's after. Besides the arguments being total nonsense, the symbolism is just way too aggressive. Peterson tips his cards when he edges that gun into the frame, as if to say, "Yeah, those idiots will eat this up."
Digby replies:
... I think Winant is dead wrong about this ad. It's exactly the kind of thing that works on the GOP Real American constituency, not because its "angry" but because of all the Real American iconography. They could change this ad's copy to be Morning in America and it would work just as well.
We used to talk about this a lot during the Bush presidency, deconstructing his drawl and all the images of him in cowboy costumes. I came to the conclusion that it didn't matter that he was a blatant phony. What mattered was that he cared enough to present himself to his tribal brethren as one of them. His phoniness was a tribute to their culture and customs.
Peterson's isn't condescending to right-wing real-Amurrican voters any more than teabaggers are condescending to one another when they put on tricorn hats -- in both cases, yes, the iconography is phony, but the intended audience is perfectly content with an obvious simulation. It's not as if most of the people in Peterson's intended audience know a lot of real kick-ass guys who ride the range; what they're comparing Peterson to is the movies. (Same with the teabaggers -- pretty much everything they know about early American patriots they learned from a second-grade school play.) Peterson's not portraying a phony good old boy because he has contempt; his portrayal is phony because phony is what the intended audience wants; phony is better than real because phony is made up of nothing but pure bits of wish fulfillment. Peterson's an idealized tough guy -- a guy who's nothing but tough-guyness. That's better than someone real.
Regarding that damn Dale Peterson ad, I'm with Digby, who disagrees with Salon's Gabriel Winant.
Winant:
It's really difficult to give the Peterson ad an honest viewing and come away thinking that this guy thinks highly of the people whose votes he's after. Besides the arguments being total nonsense, the symbolism is just way too aggressive. Peterson tips his cards when he edges that gun into the frame, as if to say, "Yeah, those idiots will eat this up."
Digby replies:
... I think Winant is dead wrong about this ad. It's exactly the kind of thing that works on the GOP Real American constituency, not because its "angry" but because of all the Real American iconography. They could change this ad's copy to be Morning in America and it would work just as well.
We used to talk about this a lot during the Bush presidency, deconstructing his drawl and all the images of him in cowboy costumes. I came to the conclusion that it didn't matter that he was a blatant phony. What mattered was that he cared enough to present himself to his tribal brethren as one of them. His phoniness was a tribute to their culture and customs.
Peterson's isn't condescending to right-wing real-Amurrican voters any more than teabaggers are condescending to one another when they put on tricorn hats -- in both cases, yes, the iconography is phony, but the intended audience is perfectly content with an obvious simulation. It's not as if most of the people in Peterson's intended audience know a lot of real kick-ass guys who ride the range; what they're comparing Peterson to is the movies. (Same with the teabaggers -- pretty much everything they know about early American patriots they learned from a second-grade school play.) Peterson's not portraying a phony good old boy because he has contempt; his portrayal is phony because phony is what the intended audience wants; phony is better than real because phony is made up of nothing but pure bits of wish fulfillment. Peterson's an idealized tough guy -- a guy who's nothing but tough-guyness. That's better than someone real.
A CONSPIRACY SO SUBTLE...
Wow, the evil Muslims who (the right-wingers tell us) are trying to force our innocent womenfolk into burqas and our men into suicide belts sure have a subtle way of achieving their nefarious aims. Not only did their latest agent of infiltration, newly crowned Miss USA Rima Fakih, appear in the pageant in a bikini and in publicity stills in slinky lingerie, and not only did she once enter a radio contest as a pole dancer ... but MSNBC reports that she attended Catholic schools in both Lebanon and America.
I've doubted the wisdom of the right-wingers, but hey, I'm convinced -- what else could all that possibly be but a super-subtle way to lull us all into submission so the SOBs can force us all to pray to Mecca? Right? Isn't that the most logical explanation?
Wow, the evil Muslims who (the right-wingers tell us) are trying to force our innocent womenfolk into burqas and our men into suicide belts sure have a subtle way of achieving their nefarious aims. Not only did their latest agent of infiltration, newly crowned Miss USA Rima Fakih, appear in the pageant in a bikini and in publicity stills in slinky lingerie, and not only did she once enter a radio contest as a pole dancer ... but MSNBC reports that she attended Catholic schools in both Lebanon and America.
I've doubted the wisdom of the right-wingers, but hey, I'm convinced -- what else could all that possibly be but a super-subtle way to lull us all into submission so the SOBs can force us all to pray to Mecca? Right? Isn't that the most logical explanation?
IN WHICH I TAKE IDIOCY WAY TOO SERIOUSLY
The line of the day from the right is (per Debbie Schlussel and others) that Donald Trump is a "dhimmi" because his Miss USA pageant chose a Lebanese-American Muslim as a winner over the weekend, and (per Gateway Pundit, Fox Nation, and others) that Miss Oklahoma was denied the title in Trump's pageant because she said she supports the Arizona immigration law.
Well, first of all, Trump supports the Arizona law:
...Donald Trump dropped by Larry King Live to talk the topic du jour, Arizona's immigration law, and give it his seal of approval. While he admitted that "there are a lot of great people coming in," he called a boycott on the state "ridiculous" and made the astute observation that, well, "Mexico doesn't have a lot of blonds."
Trump expressed the most concern regarding the increased crime rate in Arizona, noting that there are "killings all over the place, shootings all over the place" there now and that the law was a direct result of "the federal government not coming out with a law." He also expressed dismay at the possible boycotts against Arizona, including that instituted on San Francisco city officials by Mayor Gavin Newsom. And while he stopped short of endorsing racial profiling, he is in favor of "getting them out" if "people come into the country illegally."
And as for terrorism, here's Trump on the Times Square wannabomber:
...I'm a believer with terrorism and what's going on with the death penalty. But death penalty with a faster trial.
You know some of these guys, they wait 25 years, they have 20- year trials, meaning it never even gets started for 15 years. It's a joke. And we're a laughingstock throughout the world. So I think they have to immediately bring back the death penalty for acts such as this.
Sorry to take give this lunacy any credibility, but we live in a ridiculous era, so we can't assume that most Americans understand how ridiculous this all is.
The line of the day from the right is (per Debbie Schlussel and others) that Donald Trump is a "dhimmi" because his Miss USA pageant chose a Lebanese-American Muslim as a winner over the weekend, and (per Gateway Pundit, Fox Nation, and others) that Miss Oklahoma was denied the title in Trump's pageant because she said she supports the Arizona immigration law.
Well, first of all, Trump supports the Arizona law:
...Donald Trump dropped by Larry King Live to talk the topic du jour, Arizona's immigration law, and give it his seal of approval. While he admitted that "there are a lot of great people coming in," he called a boycott on the state "ridiculous" and made the astute observation that, well, "Mexico doesn't have a lot of blonds."
Trump expressed the most concern regarding the increased crime rate in Arizona, noting that there are "killings all over the place, shootings all over the place" there now and that the law was a direct result of "the federal government not coming out with a law." He also expressed dismay at the possible boycotts against Arizona, including that instituted on San Francisco city officials by Mayor Gavin Newsom. And while he stopped short of endorsing racial profiling, he is in favor of "getting them out" if "people come into the country illegally."
And as for terrorism, here's Trump on the Times Square wannabomber:
...I'm a believer with terrorism and what's going on with the death penalty. But death penalty with a faster trial.
You know some of these guys, they wait 25 years, they have 20- year trials, meaning it never even gets started for 15 years. It's a joke. And we're a laughingstock throughout the world. So I think they have to immediately bring back the death penalty for acts such as this.
Sorry to take give this lunacy any credibility, but we live in a ridiculous era, so we can't assume that most Americans understand how ridiculous this all is.
RIGHT-WING CRAZIES, FLYING UNDER THE (BARELY FUNCTIONING) RADAR
Paul Krugman looks at recent events -- the ratification of a tea party platform by Maine's GOP and the rejection of Robert Bennett by Utah's -- and makes an excellent point:
... suddenly, the takeover of the Republican Party by right-wing extremists has become a story.... But why is this happening? And in particular, why is it happening now?
... Republican extremism was there all along -- what's changed is the willingness of the news media to acknowledge it.
... the truth is that the hard right has dominated the G.O.P. for many years. Indeed, the new Maine platform is if anything a bit milder than the Texas Republican platform of 2000, which called not just for eliminating the Federal Reserve but also for returning to the gold standard, for killing not just the Department of Education but also the Environmental Protection Agency, and more.
... Or consider those talk-show hosts. Rush Limbaugh hasn't changed: his recent suggestion that environmentalist terrorists might have caused the ecological disaster in the gulf is no worse than his repeated insinuations that Hillary Clinton might have been a party to murder....
But I don't know if he's quite right in his theory about why this is finally being noticed:
So why has the reporting shifted? Maybe it was just deference to power: as long as America was widely perceived as being on the way to a permanent Republican majority, few were willing to call right-wing extremism by its proper name. Maybe it took a Democrat in the White House to give some observers the courage to say the obvious.
Perhaps, but no one in the mainstream press was particularly alarmed by Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Regnery's book output in the Clinton years, and no one was particularly alarmed by the crazies after Democrats took Congress back in 2006.
I think the crazies were ignored until recently because, yes, the elite media did look down on them -- but instead of actually expressing contempt, media elitists just ignored them. That gave them free rein. They were able to exert a tremendous amount of influence on American politics while not being subjected to the slightest bit of scrutiny or accountability by the old-line press.
I'm not sure what changed. Maybe it wasn't just the election of Obama -- maybe it was the fact that he was elected in the midst of a really huge crisis that genuinely scared even highly paid media elitists (who, of course, were noticing that their own jobs were at risk because of the recession and because of big changes in the media business). Suddenly, politics wasn't just a pleasant little sport, which is what it seemed to be to most mainstream journalists even when (e.g., during Clinton's impeachment) it seemed like a war with real bullets to a lot of us outside the Village. Suddenly it mattered what the government did.
And the elitists may have noticed more crazy talk because it had migrated into "their" world. Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, and the nasty crowds that cheered them on weren't involved in something declasse, like a Texas governor's race or an NRA convention -- the ugliness was taking place in a presidential race, which is elite journalists' turf. The tea parties were promoted by Rick Santelli, a CNBC talking head, and then by Beltway-insider lobbyists and Fox News. This wasn't just on some AM stations in flyover country. So, suddenly, it mattered.
There still isn't enough mainstream parsing of the crazies. It's still not considered alarming that the biggest star of America's most influential news organization is peddling lunatic conspiracy theories. But, yeah, the press has at least turned the radar on and fired it up to low power. That's a start.
Paul Krugman looks at recent events -- the ratification of a tea party platform by Maine's GOP and the rejection of Robert Bennett by Utah's -- and makes an excellent point:
... suddenly, the takeover of the Republican Party by right-wing extremists has become a story.... But why is this happening? And in particular, why is it happening now?
... Republican extremism was there all along -- what's changed is the willingness of the news media to acknowledge it.
... the truth is that the hard right has dominated the G.O.P. for many years. Indeed, the new Maine platform is if anything a bit milder than the Texas Republican platform of 2000, which called not just for eliminating the Federal Reserve but also for returning to the gold standard, for killing not just the Department of Education but also the Environmental Protection Agency, and more.
... Or consider those talk-show hosts. Rush Limbaugh hasn't changed: his recent suggestion that environmentalist terrorists might have caused the ecological disaster in the gulf is no worse than his repeated insinuations that Hillary Clinton might have been a party to murder....
But I don't know if he's quite right in his theory about why this is finally being noticed:
So why has the reporting shifted? Maybe it was just deference to power: as long as America was widely perceived as being on the way to a permanent Republican majority, few were willing to call right-wing extremism by its proper name. Maybe it took a Democrat in the White House to give some observers the courage to say the obvious.
Perhaps, but no one in the mainstream press was particularly alarmed by Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Regnery's book output in the Clinton years, and no one was particularly alarmed by the crazies after Democrats took Congress back in 2006.
I think the crazies were ignored until recently because, yes, the elite media did look down on them -- but instead of actually expressing contempt, media elitists just ignored them. That gave them free rein. They were able to exert a tremendous amount of influence on American politics while not being subjected to the slightest bit of scrutiny or accountability by the old-line press.
I'm not sure what changed. Maybe it wasn't just the election of Obama -- maybe it was the fact that he was elected in the midst of a really huge crisis that genuinely scared even highly paid media elitists (who, of course, were noticing that their own jobs were at risk because of the recession and because of big changes in the media business). Suddenly, politics wasn't just a pleasant little sport, which is what it seemed to be to most mainstream journalists even when (e.g., during Clinton's impeachment) it seemed like a war with real bullets to a lot of us outside the Village. Suddenly it mattered what the government did.
And the elitists may have noticed more crazy talk because it had migrated into "their" world. Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, and the nasty crowds that cheered them on weren't involved in something declasse, like a Texas governor's race or an NRA convention -- the ugliness was taking place in a presidential race, which is elite journalists' turf. The tea parties were promoted by Rick Santelli, a CNBC talking head, and then by Beltway-insider lobbyists and Fox News. This wasn't just on some AM stations in flyover country. So, suddenly, it mattered.
There still isn't enough mainstream parsing of the crazies. It's still not considered alarming that the biggest star of America's most influential news organization is peddling lunatic conspiracy theories. But, yeah, the press has at least turned the radar on and fired it up to low power. That's a start.
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