Hullabaloo

Thursday, November 30, 2006

 
Political Constraints

by digby


Josh Marshall is chronicling the rapidly emerging rightwing "stab in the back" meme in which George W. Churchill was betrayed by both the American and Iraqi people. Big surprise. It's an interesting series of posts and I urge you to read them all. Here's an excerpt from one:

Stanley Kurtz's excuse: "The underlying problem with this war is that, from the outset, it has been waged under severe domestic political constraints. From the start, the administration has made an assessment of how large a military the public would support, and how much time the public would allow us to build democracy and then get out of Iraq. We then shaped our military and "nation building" plans around those political constraints, crafting a "light footprint" military strategy linked to rapid elections and a quick handover of power. Unfortunately, the constraints of domestic American public opinion do not match up to what is actually needed to bring stability and democracy to a country like Iraq."

It may be a form of literary grade or concept inflation to call it irony. But the irony of this ludicrous statement is that from the outset it has been the American political opposition (the Democrats) and the internal bureaucratic opposition (sane people in the US government and military, not appointed by George W. Bush) who've pushed for a much larger military footprint in Iraq and much more real nation-building. These weren't 'domesic political constraints'. These were ideological constraints the adminstration placed on itself.

That's true enough for those who thought the war was even feasible from the get --- and there were plenty of us who didn't think so, which Josh acknowledges. But to the extent Democrats supported the war they certainly believed that Bush should have gotten UN backing, created a large coalition, put more boots on the ground and hired smart people who knew something about nation building, none of which he did.

I had actually assumed during the run-up that Bush thought he could get a large international coalition to join him simply because he was the president of the United States and when he told countries to join us, he meant it --- and they would be so impressed with his mighty codpiece and magnificent "gut" they would do as they were told. I had long believed that it was when that failed that the large scale occupation force was no longer possible. That turned out to be wrong. Bush never gave a damn about a coalition, he wanted to use Rummy's light force and he thought that democracy would magically happen because people everywhere just wanna be free. He has been revealed to be even more of an idiot than we previously thought.

But if the current stab-in-the-back argument is that the American people should have supported the war more, perhaps the people who are making that argument should go back and look at what the American people actually thought at the time we went in. It's not something that couldn't have been anticipated. A majority backed the war if the US could get an international coalition together. Throughout the run-up polls said over and over again that Americans expected Bush to get UN backing. He did not feel he needed to do that, he lied repeatedly, invaded anyway and once the invasion began most Americans rallied because they felt they had no choice. They hung in longer than they had any reason to.

So Kurtz is essentially right. The public had never fully approved of the war in the first place. But I don't know why this translates to some sort of failure on the part of the public. It's Bush's fault for going ahead anyway and then making the whole mid-east FUBAR. His job --- and the job of his followers -- was to get the public on-board. They didn't make an honest case and now they have to deal with the consequences.

I'm sorry that these starry-eyed neocons who looked at George Bush and saw a genius are disappointed that the rest of the country didn't support their vision. They were given more of a chance to prove themselves than dreamers and fools usually are --- and they failed on a grand scale. This is what the Bushites deserve and what they should expect for ram-rodding through a war without real public support and then screwing it up royally. The families of all these dead and wounded soldiers, unfortunately, didn't deserve this and neither did the poor Iraqis who didn't know they were going to be guinea pigs in a 7th grade neocon thought experiment based on cartoons and psycho-babble.

Blaming the American people is an excellent political strategy, however, and I hope these conservatives keep it up. There's nothing that betrayed voters like more than to be called stupid, cowardly and traitorous. (I know I've been enjoying it for the last couple of decades.) I'm sure all those independents and moderates who now see through Bush and the Republicans are going to love it too. It really clarifies your thinking.

This isn't the 1970's. They aren't going to get away with blaming the cowardly public this time. There are no hippies to hate ---- just millions of average, taxpaying, middle class Americans who know damned well when they've been lied to. And if they don't, there are many of us out here who will remind them.


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digby 11/30/2006 07:43:00 PM |

 
Gooble Gobble, Gooble Gobble, We Accept Him, We Accept Him, One Of Us, One Of Us!

by tristero

Recent photo of Joshua M. Marshall courtesy T. Browning.

The scales have fallen yet farther from Josh Marshall's eyes:

It really does seem as though the cardinals of DC punditry are constitutionally incapable of believing that George W. Bush has ever -- in the real sense -- gotten anything wrong or that they, the Washington establishment, has gotten anything wrong over the last six years.

I don't like to use such words but I can only think to call the denial and buck-passing sickening. I can't think of another word that captures the gut reaction...

...Let's first take note that the 'blame the American people for Bush's screw-ups' meme has definitely hit the big time. It's not Bush who bit off more than he could chew or did something incredibly stupid or screwed things up in a way that defies all imagining [assert the DC punditocracy]. Bush's 'error' here is not realizing in advance that the American people would betray him as he was marching into history. The 'tragedy' is that Bush "bit off more than the American people were willing to chew." That just takes my breath away...

...This is noxious, risible, fetid thinking. But there it is. That's the story they want to tell. The whole place is rotten down to the very core.

Indeed it is. And many us found DC conventional wisdom sickeningly corrupt long before nearly 3,000 American troops died and countless tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. Had Josh truly comprehended, say, what Somerby's been writing for years and years and years, it wouldn't have taken Josh 1/10th so long to join us reality-based freaks. Still, welcome to the club.

tristero 11/30/2006 05:35:00 PM |

 
The Taming Of The Upstart

by digby


Jesus H Christ. I'm watching some "Democratic strategist" named Rich Masters agree with Joe Scarborough that Jim Webb had made a rookie mistake by failing to kiss George W. Bush's ass when the jerk got snippy with him. Scarborough and whichever GOPbot they have on there agrees that it really reflects badly on the democratic party as a whole and Webb should apologise.

When these Democrats go on TV and fail to correct the record they turn these ridiculous manufactured flaps into news stories for the benefit of of the kewl kidz and the Republicans alike. I don't know what it will take to get them to stop doing it. They are making Jim Webb into one of the "crazy" guys like they made Gore and they made Dean. Don't they get that whenever a Democrats stands up to a republicans the establishment turns around and says they are nuts. Why are they helping them?

But there is more to this story than meets the eye. George Will got the vapors and called for the smelling salts this morning over Webb's allegedly boorish behavior, which is what's fueling the story today. But Will completely misrepresented what was said. George W. Bush acted like a prick, not Webb.

Here's Greg Sargent:

Will writes:

Wednesday's Post reported that at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress, Webb "tried to avoid President Bush," refusing to pass through the reception line or have his picture taken with the president. When Bush asked Webb, whose son is a Marine in Iraq, "How's your boy?" Webb replied, "I'd like to get them [sic] out of Iraq." When the president again asked "How's your boy?" Webb replied, "That's between me and my boy."

Will says the episode demonstrates Webb's "calculated rudeness toward another human being" -- i.e., the President -- who "asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another."

But do you notice something missing from Will's recounting of the episode?

Here's how the Washingon Post actually reported on the episode the day before Will's column:

At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia's newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn't long before Bush found him.

"How's your boy?" Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

"That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

See what happened? Will omitted the pissy retort from the President that provoked Webb. Will cut out the line from the President where he said: "That's not what I asked you." In Will's recounting, that instead became a sign of Bush's parental solicitiousness: "The president again asked `How's your boy?'"

Will's change completely alters the tenor of the conversation from one in which Bush was rude first to Webb, which is what the Post's original account suggested, to one in which Webb was inexplicably rude to the President, which is how Will wanted to represent what happened.

It's virtually impossible to see how that could have been the result of mere incompetence on Will's part. Rather, it's very clear that Will cut the line because it was an inconvenient impediment to his journalistic goal, which was to portray Webb as a "boor" who was rude to the Commander in Chief, and to show that this new upstart is a threat to Washington's alleged code of "civility and clear speaking" (his words). On that score, also note that in the original version, Webb said "Mr. President" twice -- and neither appeared in Will's version.

George Will is a liar, pure and simple. But, for some reason (I have my suspicions) certain Democrats are also blaming Webb. The flap really got started with some unnamed Democratic staffer idiot who said yesterday "I think Webb is going to be a total pain. He's going to do things his own way." (I wonder if his initials are Marshall Wittman?) That was what got the storyline rolling.

But it wasn't seen as a Webb gaffe originally. Yesterday, CNN had characterized the exchange entirely differently:

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Jim Webb became a Democrat and ran for the Senate for one big reason, Iraq.

JIM WEBB (D), VIRGINIA SENATOR-ELECT: I was an early voice warning against the implications of invading and occupying Iraq.

SCHNEIDER: Webb has special credibility on Iraq. He was a military officer who served in Vietnam, a former secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, and he has a son serving in Iraq.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

SCHNEIDER: He wore his son's old combat boots during the campaign.

WEBB: I have tremendous admiration for my son and for everyone else who is serving there that they need to be led properly.

SCHNEIDER: Webb took on President Bush directly.

WEBB: But the keyword is leadership, which has been a scarce commodity among this administration and its followers.

SCHNEIDER: President Bush saw Webb at a White House reception for new members of Congress this month. Webb had this exchange with the president which he confirmed to "The Washington Post."

How's your boy, Bush asked? I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President, Webb replied. That's not what I asked you, Bush said. How's your boy? That's between me and my boy, Mr. President, Webb said.

The White House incident is costing a lot of tut-tutting in Washington. A Democratic Senate staffer told "The Post", I think Webb is going to be a total pain. He's going to do things his own way -- shock, horror. Webb reassures his colleagues...

WEBB: I've spent four years as a committee counsel in the Congress. I know how the process works.

SCHNEIDER: Webb's confrontation is a striking contrast to the pictures of Democrats meeting with President Bush and pledging cooperation and bipartisanship. It's also not the way things usually get done in Washington, but it is what a lot of people voted for.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: Webb did not run as a typical politician. And it doesn't look like he's about to change now that he's gotten elected -- Wolf.

I can't help but wonder why Democratic spokespeople are out there today portraying this as a "mistake" when Schneider had seen it as a sign of Democratic spine just yesterday afternoon. Unless they are literally taking their marching orders from the lying George Will, this seems to me to be a public spanking from the establishment of both parties.

The fact is that George W. Bush acted like an ass when a US marine, war hero, father and US Senator said that he'd like to see his son brought home from Iraq. We've all seen how he acts when he gets snippy. In fact, it's legendary. Here's one of my favorites:

The American people must understand when I said that we need to be patient, that I meant it. And we're going to be there for a while. I don't know the exact moment when we leave, David, but it's not until the mission is complete. The world must know that this administration will not blink in the face of danger and will not tire when it comes to completing the missions that we said we would do. The world will learn that when the United States is harmed, we will follow through. The world will see that when we put a coalition together that says "Join us," I mean it. And when I ask others to participate, I mean it.

Here's another one:

A lesson for correspondents covering Mr. Bush: When abroad, stick to English in the president's presence.

Offenders might otherwise find themselves in the situation David Gregory, an NBC News White House correspondent, who appeared to raise Mr. Bush's ire Sunday afternoon at Élysée Palace when he asked a rather in-your-face question to a tired president, then broke into French to seek Mr. Chirac's opinion.

Perhaps Mr. Bush thought the French question was directed at him, or perhaps he thought Mr. Gregory was showing off. Whatever the case, Mr. Bush, his voice dripping with sarcasm, said "Very good, the guy memorizes four words, and he plays like he's intercontinental." (Mr. Gregory offered to go on in French, but that only made things worse.)

"I'm impressed ?que bueno," said Mr. Bush, using the Spanish phrase for "how wonderful." He added: "Now I'm literate in two languages."

Or this:

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States.

Webb replied to him in a serious fashion and Bush snapped at him. It's what he does. He doesn't like being challenged and he rarely is. Look what he said about Karl Rove on the day after the election: "I obviously was working harder in the campaign than he was." Sure it was a joke, but it was a nasty thing to say --- especially to his longtime political partner --- whom he calls "turdblossom."

The man is a rude prick. Webb doesn't seem inclined to put up with rude pricks, even when they are president of the United States. And somebody in the Democratic party apparently doesn't like that. Now why is that?



Update: One of the Webb-sites writes that he has heard the exchange was even worse than reported. Webb's kid came under heavy fire a couple of weeks ago and three of his comrades died. Bush is said to have approached him with a snotty tone, like "nice boy you have there --- be a shame if anything happened to him" sort of thing. I have no way of knowing if this is true. But it is, at least, believable. Bush has a very nasty sense of humor and there's no doubt he could say something in that tone with crude intent. This is the guy who mocked Karla Faye Tucker begging for her life. He doesn't have a lot of limits.


Update II: This is Rich Masters. Now I get it.



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digby 11/30/2006 01:28:00 PM |

 
The Forgotten War

by tristero

[UPDATE: The tall man in comments wrote, in response to this post: "Please provide one instance of contemporary American Christians being this bloody, you delusional moron." He would be, of course, entitled to his opinion of my mental state, had he only read what I wrote. But he didn't.

I wrote that christianists, NOT Christians, CAN get this bloody. Some recent examples, mentioned in comments are, of course, Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh. David Neiwert also has an example of some christianist terrorists caught a few years ago with an enormous arsenal, apparently within weeks of deployment. This is not to mention those christianists, eg the Phelps family and Christian Reconstruction followers of Rushdoony who are perfectly prepared to execute men who have consensual sex relations with other men (ditto women), and others.

And that's for starters.

These people are an insult to genuine Christians. That is why I insist upon distinguishing between political activists and extremists who exploit the symbols of Christianity and Christianity itself.]

To those who thought the Taliban was gone, driven out by the "successful" US invasion of Afghanistan, think again. This is also an object lesson in what happens when political extremists use religious texts to drive their will to power. This is why America's christianists who, Rushdoony teaches us, can get just as bloody, must be fought:

The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy.

The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over, he was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes, the remains put on display as a warning to others against defying Taliban orders to stop educating girls.

Mr Halim was one of four teachers killed in rapid succession by the Islamists at Ghazni, a strategic point on the routes from Kabul to the south and east which has become the scene of fierce clashes between the Taliban and US and Afghan forces.

h/t Daou Report
tristero 11/30/2006 09:57:00 AM |

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

 
President Unbound

by digby


Last week tristero approvingly linked to this exceptional essay in the NY Review of Books by Mark Danner in which he synthesizes certain aspects of recent books on the Bush administration and tells a very straighforward tale of what went wrong with the Iraq war.

Now, I have long agreed with the thesis that the chances of success were nil no matter how well the "plan" (whatever it was) was carried out. And I am fully prepared to wade through the many comments that will inevitably come stating that this is all part of a grand plan for oil or permanent bases or world domination or whatever, which will all be true to some extent or another. But as word finally begins to trickle out from this previously leak-proof administration, it's becoming clear that John DiUlio's early observations of the Mayberry Machiavellis was spot on. There was no "plan." There was just wishin' and hopin' and competing visions and magical thinking. It was as bad as any of us imagined in our craziest blog posts.

This was an unusually incompetent group at everything but domestic electoral politics (and it turns out that they weren't even all that good at that.) They may have had big plans and big ambitions, but they never had even the first clue about how to implement them. And they were led by a man of such shallow character and dim intellect that they could not learn.

This all proves that it really matters who the president is. It matters a lot. We will be electing a new administration in less than two years and it's important to try to learn from this, beyond ideology, beyond partisanship. The Bush administration debacle is not, after all, confined to Iraq. There was Katrina as well, along with untold numbers of domestic, economic and foreign policy crises that have been put into motion and haven't yet come to fruition. The malfeasance wasn't confined to Don Rumsfeld or Doug Feith.

Here's a rather long excerpt from Danner's piece that I think begins to explain just how important the choice of president is, no matter how many "grown-ups" you surround him with. (I urge you to read the wholething however for the full flavor of the dysfunction and ineptitude of the Bush White House) :

Rumsfeld's war envisioned rapid victory and rapid departure. Wolfowitz and the other Pentagon neoconservatives, on the other hand, imagined a "democratic transformation," a thoroughgoing social revolution that would take a Baathist Party–run autocracy, complete with a Baathist-led army and vast domestic spying and security services, and transform it into a functioning democratic polity—without the participation of former Baathist officials.

How to resolve this contradiction? The answer, for the Pentagon, seems to have amounted to one word: Chalabi. "When it came to Iraq," James Risen writes in State of War,

the Pentagon believed it had the silver bullet it needed to avoid messy nation building—a provisional government in exile, built around Chalabi, could be established and then brought in to Baghdad after the invasion.

This so-called "turnkey operation" seems to have appeared to be the perfect compromise plan: Chalabi was Shiite, as were most Iraqis, but he was also a secularist who had lived in the West for nearly fifty years and was close to many of the Pentagon civilians. Alas, there was one problem: the confirmed idealist in the White House "was adamant that the United States not be seen as putting its thumb on the scales" of the nascent Iraqi democracy. Chalabi, for all his immense popularity in the Pentagon and in the Vice President's office, would not be installed as president of Iraq.

Though "Bush's commitment to democracy was laudable," as Risen observes, his awkward intervention "was not really the answer to the question of postwar planning." He goes on:

Once Bush quashed the Pentagon's plans, the administration failed to develop any acceptable alternative.... Instead, once the Pentagon realized the president wasn't going to let them install Chalabi, the Pentagon leadership did virtually nothing. After Chalabi, there was no Plan B.

An unnamed White House official describes to Risen the Laurel-and-Hardy consequences within the government of the President's attachment to the idea of democratic elections in Iraq:

Part of the reason the planning for post-Saddam Iraq was so nonexistent was that the State Department had been saying if you invade, you have to plan for the postwar. And DOD said, no you don't. You can set up a provisional government in exile around Chalabi. DOD had a stupid plan, but they had a plan. But if you don't do that plan, and you don't make the Pentagon work with State to develop something else, then you go to war with no plan.

Woodward tends to blame "the broken policy process" on the relative strength of personalities gathered around the cabinet table: the power and ruthlessness of Rumsfeld, the legendary "bureaucratic infighter"; the weakness of Rice, the very function and purpose of whose job, to let the President both benefit from and control the bureaucracy, was in effect eviscerated. Suskind, more convincingly, argues that Bush and Cheney constructed precisely the government they wanted: centralized, highly secretive, its clean, direct lines of decision unencumbered by information or consultation. "There was never any policy process to break, by Condi or anyone else," Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, remarks to Suskind. "There was never one from the start. Bush didn't want one, for whatever reason." Suskind suggests why in an acute analysis of personality and leadership:

Of the many reasons the President moved in this direction, the most telling may stem from George Bush's belief in his own certainty and, especially after 9/11, his need to protect the capacity to will such certainty in the face of daunting complexity. His view of right and wrong, and of righteous actions— such as attacking evil or spreading "God's gift" of democracy—were undercut by the kind of traditional, shades-of-gray analysis that has been a staple of most presidents' diets. This President's traditional day began with Bible reading at dawn, a workout, breakfast, and the briefings of foreign and domestic threats.... The hard, complex analysis, in this model, would often be a thin offering, passed through the filters of Cheney or Rice, or not presented at all.

...This granted certain unique advantages to Bush. With fewer people privy to actual decisions, tighter confidentiality could be preserved, reducing leaks. Swift decisions—either preempting detailed deliberation or ignoring it—could move immediately to implementation, speeding the pace of execution and emphasizing the hows rather than the more complex whys.

What Bush knew before, or during, a key decision remained largely a mystery. Only a tiny group—Cheney, Rice, Card, Rove, Tenet, Rumsfeld—could break this seal.

This says it all. Bush had been this way when he was governor of Texas. We knew, for instance, that he'd had his aides read him short abstracts of death penalty reports rather than reading them himself --- and he never questioned their assumptions. The man had not ever been truly interested in the job of governance, nor did he take it particularly seriously.

Still, one would have thought that when it came to running the most powerful nation in the world he would have grown in the job. He didn't. He and Cheney created a small,insular circle of incompetent advisors that fed his ego and his tiny mind. What wasn't clear until now is how well they controlled him. It turns out --- not so much.An amazing amount of power resides in the person of the president, regardless of how dim or ill informed he is, and as that anecdote shows, when the president speaks, even if he has no idea of the consequences of his decision, people obey.

His romantic and childlike belief in the magical "democracy" that was created for public consumption by the greeting card poets on the rightwing welfare rolls led him to make a fateful decision that was both right and wrong at the same time. But he made it and there was no other plan and neither he nor anyone else seemed to think that was a problem. The tinker bell strategy in full effect.

Danner continues:

Suskind describes how many of those in the "foreign policy establishment" found themselves "befuddled" by the way the traditional policy process was viewed not only as unproductive but "perilous." Information, that is, could slow decision-making; indeed, when it had to do with a bold and risky venture like the Iraq war, information and discussion—an airing, say, of the precise obstacles facing a "democratic transition" conducted with a handful of troops—could paralyze it. If the sober consideration of history and facts stood in the way of bold action then it would be the history and the facts that would be discarded. The risk of doing nothing, the risk, that is, of the status quo, justified acting. Given the grim facts on the ground—the likelihood of a future terrorist attack from the "malignant" Middle East, the impossibility of entirely protecting the country from it—better to embrace the unknown. Better, that is, to act in the cause of "constructive instability"—a wonderfully evocative phrase, which, as Suskind writes, was

the term used by various senior officials in regard to Iraq—a term with roots in pre-9/11 ideas among neoconservatives about the need for a new, muscular, unbounded American posture; and outgrowths that swiftly took shape after the attacks made everything prior to 9/11 easily relegated to dusty history.

The past—along with old-style deliberations based on cause and effect or on agreed-upon precedents—didn't much matter; nor did those with knowledge and prevailing policy studies, of agreements between nations, or of long-standing arrangements defining the global landscape.

What mattered, by default, was the President's "instinct" to guide America across the fresh, post-9/11 terrain—a style of leadership that could be rendered within tiny, confidential circles.

America, unbound, was duly led by a President, unbound.

I blame the media for this. After 9/11 they lost their minds and became unthinking hagiographers and adminstration cheerleaders to an absurd extent. The man's halting, incoherent first press conference after 9/11 scared me more than the attacks and yet the press corps behaved as if they were in the presence of a God whose stuttering, meandering gibberish were words uttered from on high. He was called a genius and compared to Winston Churchill. Paeans to his greatness were turned into best sellers. His "gut" was infallible. It was patently obvious that he was in over his head and yet this bizarre, almost hallucinogenic image of the man emerged in the media that actually made me question my sanity at times. It took years for this trance to wear off with a majority of the public and even longer in the media. It was one of the strangest phenomenons I've ever observed.

Until recently, however, I was never quite sure if Bush himself believed it. It appears that he did. Big time. And that belief in his own hype created a completely dysfunctional organization. I suspect that what started out as a shield by Cheney and Rove to narrow the influences upon him may have morphed into a bubble designed to keep him from completely spinning out of control. But it couldn't keep him from making decisions, and make them he did, without thought or analysis or knowledge. His belief in his "gut" and God's anointment has been leading this nation since 9/11. Combined with Cheney's megalomaniacal belief in untrammelled executive power it has been a disaster.(In fact, Cheney could not have chosen a better subject to more thoroughly discredit his theory than Junior.)

I understand that it is difficult to know in advance what constitutes a real leader. A resume isn't enough to make one (although it's certainly better than not having one at all) and depending on personality or symbols isn't enough either. I don't know what the magic formula is. I do know that when someone speaks like a fool and acts like a spoiled child and appears to be "intellectually uncurious" and has never done anything in life that would give you a clue that he knows how to govern or lead -- well, it's not a good idea to make that person the most powerful person on the planet. If we've learned nothing else, I hope we have learned that.

The president matters. But whether or not we want to have a beer with him or whether or not we approve of his private life is not what matters about him or her. These are false hueristics and they don't add up to leadership any more than years of political experience translates into great political skills. Citizens need to think a little bit harder about this choice, look a little deeper, ask some serious questions. Part of the job is certainly PR and a president does have to be the star of the national TV show for four years. But it's a lot more than that and Americans need to rediscover a healthy sense of the requirements of this particular job.

Most importantly, the people who work in politics and the media need to take this more seriously. Presidential politics isn't American Idol, it's a contest for the leadership of the United States of America and putting together an "electable" package cannot be the only focus. And it goes without saying that this kewl kidz and mean girls nonsense from the press has to stop. The past six years have been a tragedy and we desperately need some thoughtful, intelligent, competent leadership to set this right.


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digby 11/29/2006 09:43:00 PM |

 
Bloggy Fun

by tristero

I agreed to participate in an academic survey of political blogs. The people doing it are interested also in hearing from blog readers so if you are interested in participating, you can go to this link and take the survey. If they ask, choose tristero, as Hullabaloo is not listed.
tristero 11/29/2006 04:47:00 PM |

 
Bush's Compassion

by tristero

Talk about stunted social skills:

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

"I didn't ask you that, I asked how he's doing," Bush retorted, according to the source.

I've omitted Webb's response, which you are more than welcome to read about at the link, because I want to focus entirely on the unspeakable callousness Bush displayed here.

Folks, political enemy or friend, that is no way - ever- for anyone to talk to the father of a kid who's in a combat zone.

This is the same man who reminisced about his hell-raisin' during a speech at the worst natural disaster in American history. This is the same man who, when, asked to name his greatest achievement while president, "joked" that it was when he caught a large fish in his fake pond on his Crawford estate - sorry, ranch. This is the same man who, when informed that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center in less than 10 minutes, sat reading "My Pet Goat" in a children's classroom. This is the same man who, in front of a supporter who he assumed wouldn't report it, mockingly imitated a woman about to be executed in his state.

Sickening.

h/t, Josh Marshall

tristero 11/29/2006 06:57:00 AM |

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

 
Talking To The Hand

by digby

NEWSWEEK: Your grandfather was Muslim, but you are a Christian. What did you think of the pope’s original comments about Islam and how the reaction played out?

Barack Obama: Well, I think that we live in a time where there are enormous religious sensitivities, and I have no doubt that the pope did not intend to offend the Muslim faith any more than many of us sometimes say things in a different context that aren’t intended to cause offense. But I think all of us, particularly religious leaders, have to be mindful that there are a lot of sensitivities out there. Now, the flip side is that there are those in the Muslim community who are looking to take offense and are constantly on the lookout for anything that would indicate that the West is somehow antagonistic toward Islam.

Did he say anything that he needed to apologize for?

You know, I leave it up to the pope. He made an apology and I wouldn’t challenge his judgment on it.

Did you read what he said?

I read what he said. And, as I said, I think he is mindful that he did not want to cause offense or pain, and to the extent that he did, I think he felt it necessary to apologize. My point, I guess is that all sides in the current environment have to be very careful how we talk about faith. I gave a speech recently in which I said that Democrats, for example, should not be afraid to talk about faith. But I think we’ve got to do so in a way that admits the possibility that we are not always right, that our particular faith may not have all the monopoly on truth, and we’ve got to be able to listen to other people. You know I think one of the trends we are seeing right now, and which I think is causing so much political grief both domestically and internationally, is that absolutism has become sort of the flavor of the day.

And lukewarm water will dilute it, I guess. He's completely right that Democrats need to get with the program and recognise that we don't have a monopoly on truth. All this absolutism has got to stop. It's a big problem for us:

Barack Obama's efforts to reach out to evanglical Christians in preparation for his possible Presidential campaign is running into very stiff resistance from the Christian right. As the Chicago Tribune reported recently, Obama is set to attend a huge evangelical gathering in California on Dec. 1, at the invitation of megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, the evangelical superstar who wrote The Purpose-Driven Life. Analysts have interpreted Obama's scheduled appearance as a sign he's working much harder than Dems ordinarily do to win over Evangelicals.

But the appearance is now provoking an intense backlash from leaders of the Christian right. They are calling on Warren to disinvite Obama from the event because of his liberal positions, especially abortion rights — or as one of those leaders put it, Obama's support of "the murder of babies in the womb."

Obama's efforts are running into fierce resistance. For instance, an open letter from a group of Christian-Right figures — including Phylis Schlafly, Tim Wildmon and others — criticizes the invitiation by citing Obama's pro-choice stance and his support for condom distribution in answer to the AIDS epidemic, "not chaste behavior as directed by the Bible."

Then there's this press release from the National Clergy Council, an umbrella group representing various conservative denominations. In the release, Rob Schenck, president of the group, did not mince words: "Senator Obama's policies represent the antithesis of biblical ethics and morality, not to mention supreme American values."

Obama's attempted inroads with evangelical voters may end up being successful, but not without a significant struggle from leading figures in that movement.

Not a problem. Democrats just need to stop being so absolutist about abortion, birth control, free speech, civil rights and religious freedom and then everyone will be Democrats. (Except liberals, but who wants to be in the same party with those losers anyway?)

Let me be clear about this. I do not dislike Obama nor do I think his conciliatory tone is necessarily incorrect. There is utility in showing the religious right's fundamental intolerance if nothing else. I do find his split-the-difference, triangulation tiresome, however, in the same way I find the news media's he said/she said analysis lazy. It does not clarify anything, it obscures reality and it makes it difficult for Democrats to take a stand on the social justice issues that might just inspire some people of faith. You will notice that in his statement above about absolutism he only calls out two groups by name --- Democrats and Muslims. Yet, there is no more intolerant group of people in this entire country than the religious right. By failing to "include" them by name in his call for conciliation he validates their phony argument that they are the victims of intolerance.

I don't have any sense that he really understand what he's up against with the right, but it looks as though he's going to find out. I will be very impressed if he goes into the belly of the beast at Warren's church and resists the temptation to trash secular liberals to make cheap points before a hostile crowd. I'll be even more impressed if he takes it as an opportunity to challenge their assumptions about themselves.

Show us the money, Obama. Psycho-babble platitudes about "listening" are not going to carry you to the White House. Start talking.


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digby 11/28/2006 08:38:00 PM |

 
Profiles In Cowardice

by tristero

After reading all about Arlen Specter and the Military Commisions Act, which revokes habeas corpus and permits evidence obtained by torture to be admissible if the military, without oversight, says it doesn't violate Geneva, I was truly hoping the article would end with an exciting statement from the Dems that they would make reversing this montrosity a major priority. Hah!

Leahy, the incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, voted against the Military Commissions Act and denounced its habeas provisions in especially harsh terms. But there are no signs that the new Democratic majority will take on habeas corpus anytime soon. Few Democratic politicians seem enthusiastic about proposing legislation that will principally benefit accused Al Qaeda terrorists, and, in the unlikely event that Democrats passed such a bill, it would face a certain veto from President Bush. The Supreme Court - not Congress - is likely to be the only hope for a change in the law."This is definitely not going to be the first thing out of the box for us," one Democratic Senate staffer said. "We make fun of Specter, but we're basically leaving it up to the Courts, too."

"Principally benefit accused Al Qaeda terrorists?" Exactly what are they accused of doing? Oh, sorry, that's right, I have no business asking that question, do I? And by the way, why do I want to know? Better turn myself in now...

This is a time bomb, ladies, gentlemen, and Republicans.

tristero 11/28/2006 02:46:00 PM |

 
Just How Sick Is The Discourse In This Country?

by tristero

This sick. The influential right sez, "Fine, just blow the place up." A leading liberal hawk sez, "Bring back Saddam Hussein!"

And there you have it, specific proposals from the right and the left about what to do in the Middle East. Blow it up? Or put it back the way it was? Let's put on our most somber mien and discuss it!

And they call those of us who knew this thing was crazy from the start "third-rate minds."

No wonder "sober centrists" congeal around adding 20,000 troops and waiting one more Friedman Unit to see what happens. If these are the only alternatives on the table - because the people who were right all along are all but entirely excluded from the mass media and the government - is it any wonder that the middle position between two stupid ideas is an equally stupid idea?

Special note to the cognitively impaired who read the above and concluded I think Chait somehow represents the left or liberals. I am well aware that while Limbaugh accurately represents the right in all its Cro-Magnon stupidity, Chait is speaking only for himself. However, in the msm, Chait is the prototypical liberal hawk. So his semi-serious - according to him - proposal to return Saddam to power will be considered as a liberal idea, and denounced as, you've got it, a perfect example of how unserious and dictatorial liberals are. Kee-rist, what a fucking moron.

tristero 11/28/2006 06:29:00 AM |

Monday, November 27, 2006

 
Gut Bomb

by digby


Following up on my post below, I just noticed that Kevin Drum has cautioned the liberal blogosphere not to rely too heavily on populist gut instinct just because the tiresome punditocrisy has lifted "centrism" to some position of worship. He's right, of course.

But as I write below, I would actually posit that the real problem is the liberal punditocrisy which reflexively rejects anything that is tainted by its association with grassroots populist sentiment. Particularly now, when many experts were marginalized because they failed to support the war and many liberals of both the netroots and grassroots were proven right, it behooves the establishment to open its minds to thinking from outside the usual suspects in the beltway. That doesn't mean they should trust us liberal bloggers' "guts." We would not ask them to. It means they should stop trusting their own. Their guts, like Bush's, are defective.


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digby 11/27/2006 05:59:00 PM |

 
Straw Strongmen

by digby


When I read Jonathan Chait's piece in the LA Times from yesterday, I assumed he was making a Swiftian modest proposal. I read his piece to be a satirical left hook to the notion that the Baker Commission was going to find some magical solution to the Iraq quagmire and conclude that the only formula that would work would be to put Saddam back in charge.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I just saw him on Matthews explaining that he was engaging in "a little bit of hyperbole but I think there's something to it" and "maybe we should put it back where we found it."

Chait said "almost everyone with a brain says we shouldn't have gone in the first place" but later admits that he was for the war but on different grounds than the neocons who were delusional about spreading democracy. He was for the war because he thought "weapons of mass destruction were the rationale" and said "I didn't pay attention to, I confess, I didn't pay much attention to the possibility of a completely failed state. When the Bush administration talked about democracy I thought they were lying they way they lie about everything else that they do."

Matthews reminded him that in 1991 Baker and Powell had warned about the break up of Iraq if the US invaded and admitted that he got tired of hearing about that and now knows they were right. Chait, however, disagrees. He says that the post war was "bungled as badly as you could have, they had no plan, Rumsfeld threatened to fire the next general who said, 'what do we do about Iraq' in the post war. They didn't have enough troops, they broke up the Baathist bureaucracy, they broke up the army, they did it as badly as you couldn't have, so you know, I think what they could have had was a stable, you know ... last vicious dictatorship.

Matthews asked if he would have gone with the INC and Chait responds, "No, no, I thought what they would do all along was keep the Baath Party in place, get rid of Saddam, get rid of his sons..."

Matthews interrupted as he always does and moved on to another point, so perhaps Chait had something else to say, but I have to admit I was astonished by his point of view throughout the exchange. I had thought his op-ed a rather unsubtle piece of satire and it turns out that it was only barely exaggerated version of what he thought should have happened to begin with and what he still thinks should happen now. He's making a real argument.

Jonathan Chait, you'll remember, wrote the seminal essay on why liberals should support the war in October of 2002 in TNR. Apparently he forgot to mention what he "really" thought the Bush administration was going to do. (That's probably because it was as illiberal as it's possible to be and even Henry Kissinger would have found it to be beyond our ken.)

Here's what Chait had to say back then:

When asked about war, they [liberals] typically offer the following propositions: President Bush has cynically timed the debate to bolster Republican chances in the November elections, he has pursued his Iraq policy with an arrogant disregard for the views of Congress and the public, and his rationales for military action have been contradictory and in some cases false. I happen to believe all these criticisms are true (although the first is hard to prove) and that they add more evidence to what is already a damning indictment of the Bush presidency. But these are objections to the way Bush has carried out his Iraq policy rather than to the policy itself. (If Bush were to employ such dishonest tactics on behalf of, say, universal health care, that wouldn't make the policy a bad idea.) Ultimately the central question is: Does war with Iraq promote liberal foreign policy principles? The answer is yes, it does.

Liberals and conservatives share many foreign policy values in common: encouraging democracy and capitalism, responding to direct aggression, and so on. That is why, for instance, both overwhelmingly supported overthrowing the Taliban and hunting down Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. In the post-cold-war era, though, liberals have centered their thinking around certain ideals with which conservatives do not agree. Writing in these pages in 1999, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer identified three distinctly liberal principles: advancing humanitarian (rather than merely national) interests; observing international law; and acting in concert with international institutions, such as the United Nations. Krauthammer cited these three principles in order to dismiss them. I disagree. Underlying all three is an understanding that American global dominance cannot last unless it is accepted by the rest of the world, and that cannot happen unless it operates on behalf of the broader good and on the basis of principles more elevated than "might makes right."

This article was widely discussed at the time and many of us chewed it over in some detail. I remember his argument quite well. (The bit about international law was particularly incoherent.)So you can imagine how startling it was to hear Chait say today that he always thought the Bush administration was lying about what it planned to do in Iraq --- and that he backed an invasion that would result in the installation of a friendly dictator. All in the name of liberal values.

Wolfowitz said long ago that WMD was the argument they could all agree upon, but the "liberal" argument was not completely ignored. We certainly got it from TNR and in the pages of the major newspapers. Indeed, it was the official liberal argument in favor of the war. Only realist misanthropes and dirty hippie throwbacks argued that the democratic domino theory was a crock. We were borderline racist and hated America for even suggesting that it might be just a tad unrealistic.

To be sure, Chait based his argument most fully on the WMD threat, but for all his skepticism about Bush's honesty in other areas, it apparently didn't cross his mind that they might lie about that. Neither did it occur to him and all the other liberal hawks that Saddam might have had good reason to exaggerate his arsenal for regional or domestic purposes, something that the thin gruel Powell presented to the UN and the continuous debunking of "proof" (as with the aluminum tubes and the drone planes) should have made thinking people at least consider.

But now we find out that certain liberal hawks (or Chait at least) always had their own "cakewalk" fantasy. The US was going to invade, get rid of the WMD, install our own friendly dictator and then get out. Who knew?

Matthews rather acidly asked him if we shouldn't just pick sides now that the whole mess had devolved into civil war -- or maybe just back Moqtada al Sadr for president of Iraq and let it go at that --- and Chait looked flummoxed. (Of course, it was Matthews incoherently shouting, so you can't really judge from that alone.)

But it does raise the question: do liberal hawks think that this is still a solution to the problem? Chait indicated that he was exaggerating to get people "thinking." But perhaps his "bring Saddam back" was as serious a piece of advice as his earlier exhortations that liberals should support the war. I would suggest that it has just as much merit.

Update: Chait just appeared on Tucker and expanded on his thesis:

We've learned that there are worse things than totalitarianism and one of them is unending chaos...My argument is not an entirely cynical argument... One of the things that foments chaos is the expectation of chaos, when people's behavior changes, when they don't see any established order, and one of the few things we'll be able to do, I was sort of supposing, would be the return of Saddam Hussein --- he has high name recognition, people know who he is, they know what he's capable of doing and you have, it's still a recent enough that he was in charge of the state, that you still have the Baath army units and the infrastructure to put in place. So I was hypothesizing that this may be the only force capable of actually ruling the country, not that we want that by any means, it was horrendous, but simply that you have order, I mean it might be the best of some very, very, bad alternatives.

TC: Best for us. It seems to me the one thing about Saddam, as deranged as he may have been, he did have something to lose, he didn't want to die, and he wasn't a religious nut, he was incredibly brutal. Does that tell us something about what we would need to do in order to secure Iraq. I mean, he killed people with poison gas, Was that something he had to do? Was that required?

Chait: No I don't think so. But look, he's psychotic so you can't assume that anything a psychotic man does is something he rationally had to do. And he would still be psychotic if he was in power. There would be no doubt about it. I mean, it certainly would be better for us,

We wouldn't have the Iranian influence and you wouldn't have Iraq becoming a potential terrorist haven, both things that threaten us a great deal, if we had Saddam in power. You would have someone who would brutalize his own population but again you're getting that right now anyway and you might be getting less of it if he returned.

TC: Obviously we're not... because there is a civil war, and according to NBC it officially begins today, that kind of implies we ought to pick a side. And in fact pick a strongman to preside over the country in a less brutal way than Saddam did, but in a brutal way nonetheless and keep that place under control? Should we pick a side?

Chait: I don't know. I think I'm probably like you. You read all these proposals about what to do with Iraq and there all people who specializing in the topic and know more about it than I do and probably more than you do and it just doesn't sound that convincing and when they pick apart the other guy's proposal, when they say "here's why we need a strongman and here's why partition won't work" and you say "that makes a lot of sense" and the other person says "here's why we need partition and why the strongman won't work" and that seems right also, so that sort of the mode I'm in. I just don't know what to do. The only time anyone seems convincing is when they say why everything else won't work.

I hate to be a profane blogofascist, but that is just chickenshit nonsense. This guy makes a living as a pundit. He wrote an extremely provocative article saying that we should re-install Saddam (or some other strongman.) And then he cops out by saying he's confused because the "experts" don't have any easy answers.

This kind of thinking has permeated the establishment from day one. Plenty of people said in advance that the war was a mistake for exactly the reasons that Chait is now so surprised by. Nobody listened to them then and nobody is listening to them now. In fact, they were and are derided and marginalized. Today allegedly liberal pundits are rather seriously discussing the merits of installing friendly dictators now that their fantasies failed to become reality. How ridiculous.


Update II: One thing that should be noted is that Chait, like many of his DC brethren, has what seems to be temperamental aversion to the dirty hippies of the left. During the Bush years he has gone slightly cuckoo over Deaniacs, anti-war protesters, Lieberman ousters and grassroots troublemakers in general. I don't know the guy, but from reading his stuff it appears to be the result of a reflexive emotional reaction.

This is one of the fault lines that exists in liberalism today --- the knee jerk assumptions by the elites about the grassroots populists and vice versa. The problem for the party, however, is that opinion makers like Chait are taken seriously by policymakers while the grassroots troublemakers are not and the result is that their visceral dislike of our ilk comes into play in important ways. I happen to think that Chait's disgust with the activist left leads him to make incorrect decisions. He's not in the same league as someone like Richard Cohen, but then Richard Cohen has become something of a joke, whose inexplicable sinecure on the op-ed pages of the Washington Post mostly serves as fishwrap. TNR, on the other hand, is listened to by Democratic policymakers and Chait's overheated reactions to the grassroots should be addressed.

He and others -- he's far from alone --- should try to see things with clearer eyes. This is not the early 70's and grassroots progressivism in 2006 isn't a youth or a social movement. It is passionate and it is populist, at least in a stylistic sense but it is not radical or anti-intellectual. The liberal pundit class is making a number of errors in judgments at least in part because they are emotionally recoiling from being associated with what they see as dirty hippies. This is a problem.

At the end of his interview with Chait, Matthews said something like "what's going on with you guys at "The New Republic?" You're going liberal." Chait responded, "we've always been liberal."

Mark my words, soon it will be said that when the going got tough the liberals said we should bring back Saddam Hussein. Everybody knows that the left are totalitarians from way back.

Chait sticks in the shiv coming and going.



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digby 11/27/2006 04:35:00 PM |

 
Christianism

by tristero

Recently, the term "christianism" seems finally to have caught on to describe the political movement that exploits Christian symbols for secular gain. And with its acceptance has come the usual denials and attacks from the right.

Glenn Greenwald, for example, takes on Ann Althouse who claims to find the term offensive as well as Glenn Reynolds who calls it "a variety of bigotry." In an update, Glenn notes that Hugh Hewitt characterizes "christianism" as "hate speech."

I can't improve on Glenn's summary of the issue and his rebuttals but I would like to add this:

Now you know why I wrote "Voices of Light."

My respect, even admiration, for many religious traditions is deep and genuine. I find much that is beautiful and even true in these traditions. "Voices of Light" is, among many other things, an expression of that admiration. And it's not limited merely to Catholicism, the specific religion within which the events of "Voices of Light" take place. I've used texts from many different traditions in other works.

Naturally, when you take the time and effort to write a large piece of music, you have many reasons to do so. One reason that was very important to me was that I felt that I had something to contribute to the American discussion of religion and spirituality, namely that there is a huge difference between the desire to understand what is meant by God and political acts undertaken in the name of God. Failure to discern the two can be, and events have shown, is, very dangerous for American democracy.

However, I well knew that the public discourse on religion was overrun with hateful ideologues who would rather beat you to death with a Bible (metaphorically speaking) than practice the mercy of Christ (literally speaking). I wanted to make sure that before anyone presumed to speak up for what I stood for, I had made it crystal clear that my respect for religious tradition is deep and sincere. I think that even if you don't like "Voices of Light," it is hard to argue that the person who wrote it didn't take Joan seriously and with great respect, as well as respect the religious traditions she practiced.

Regarding my possible personal beliefs, or possible lack of same, I felt then, and still feel, they are irrelevant to a serious discussion of religion in a public space. What is important, the only thing that is important as far as I'm concerned, is that it is clear that I have no interest in undermining religious beliefs (or unbelief) but totally respect them and try to learn what I can of many different traditions. By the same token, I have zero interest in promoting any religious system (or lack of same).

I have a very different attitude towards the political exploitation of religious symbolism and belief. To be blunt, I find it immoral that anyone would dare to corrupt the religious impulse - which, for so many, is crucial to their understanding of their lives - for cheap, secular, partisan gain. I'm talking Pat Robertson here, Jerry Falwell,followers of Rousas Rushdoony, Joseph Morehead, Randall Terry and the whole sick crew of sleazy political operatives eagerly working to wreck the American system of government and establish a theocracy.

They deserve no respect, no quarter, whatsoever. It is very important to understand that whatever their personal beliefs - which are all but unknowable - they have made it clear through their public statements that they are dangerous political extremists who have celebrated the virtue of their intolerance on numerous occasions. Some have gone out of their way to excuse, advocate or even perpetrate murderous violence in the name of their utterly sick beliefs. They have generously funded elaborate efforts to undermine science with sophisticated marketing campaigns to teach cruddy lies to science students.

And they have blasphemously used the cross and other religious symbols as if they were trying to ward off vampires in a cheesy horror film. They degrade the cross, a symbol beloved and honored by millions who have nothing in common with these people. And they do so not to affirm their religious beliefs, whatever they may be, but in the most cynical fashion, merely to counter legitimate expressions of outrage at their hateful behavior or ideas.

For all these reasons, I think it is crucial that a distinction be made between the expression of religion and its political exploitation. Therefore, a few years ago, I proposed the term "christianism" to distinguish the political movement from Christianity. I urged others to adopt it. Other terms have been proposed such as Michelle Goldberg's "Christian Nationalism" but I like the parallels between "christianism" and "islamism."*

One word about the provenance of the term, which I would like to be clear about. I'll post the links tonight, when I have more time. When I wrote the 2003 post, I was completely unaware, because I have, with rare exceptions, never read him, that Andrew Sullivan had used the exact same term with a similar definition a few days before I did. The first I learned about the Sullivan post was when William Safire discussed the term "christianism" about a year or so ago in the New York Times Magazine. Actually, the word has been used for centuries, I believe.

While it is more than possible that I used the term in comments on other blogs long before I wrote that June, '03 post, I'll cheerfully concede precedent to Sullivan (and when Dave Neiwert credited me at one point, I wrote to tell him that Sullivan preceded me). What is far more important is that finally, finally, American public discourse on religion has begun to acknowledge the important difference between genuine religious expression and the dangerous political operatives that are operating with impunity behind the robes of priests. If I have had even a small role in helping people make that distinction, then I'll feel that all the dozens of blog posts I've written on the subject was well worth the effort.


*As my original post made clear, there are differences not only between Christianity and christianism but also christianism and radical christianism. And, of course, there are many kinds of christianisms, those that emphasize Catholic symbolism as well as those that focus on Protestant evangelical traditions.

PS Those of you familiar with Joan of Arc's story surely realize that religious faith and its relationship to politics are central to that story. I am quite aware that Joan's story poses very disturbing questions that often seem at odds with my personal values. It was partly because the story was so deep and ambiguous that I found it so irresistible a subject. Art, as I see it, is not supposed to tell you how to feel, but should provide an opportunity for you to examine and contemplate your feelings and those of others, including the artist. Art does much more, of course, but that is another subject for another time (grin).

tristero 11/27/2006 10:19:00 AM |

Sunday, November 26, 2006

 
Cheney Agrees To Cooperate Fully With Democratic Congress And Abide By All US Laws

by tristero

I know, I know. That headline was a really bad joke:

A close look at key moments in Cheney's career -- from his political apprenticeship in the Nixon and Ford administrations to his decade in Congress and his tenure as secretary of defense under the first President Bush -- suggests that the newly empowered Democrats in Congress should not expect the White House to cooperate when they demand classified information or attempt to exert oversight in areas such as domestic surveillance or the treatment of terrorism suspects.

Peter Shane, an Ohio State University law professor, predicted that Cheney's long career of consistently pushing against restrictions on presidential power is likely to culminate in a series of uncompromising battles with Congress.

The real issue is not going to be serving subpoenas. Oh, they'll serve them all right. Nor will the issue be whether or not the White House will obey them. They won't.

No, the real issue is what will happen when the White House refuses to respond to nearly any subpoenas. One thing is for sure: Bush and Cheney are prepared to bring down the the US government rather than comply. What will Congress do then? And how far will Congress be willing to push?

[UPDATE: A question for all of you: Does anyone remember any article like this in the mainstream press or media back in 2000, that Dick Cheney has a long history of advocating replacing the president with an emperor and breaking the law? I don't. Would've been nice for the American people to know that back then....]

tristero 11/26/2006 01:22:00 PM |

 
Questions For The Iraq Study Group

by tristero

Dear Iraq Study Group,

How many of you folks speak Arabic? I count three, maybe four based on your names. Let's be generous and say ten members are fluent in Arabic.

As for the rest of you, easily the majority, that don't speak Arabic, how the fuck do you think you can contribute any truly substantive expertise about the situation in Iraq to the study group? Sure, some people need to be expert on things that don't necessarily require Arabic language skills. But most of you? What kinda sense is that? Y'think you have expertise 'cause you recently skimmed a summary of al Jazeera broadcasts? That's like thinking you can advise on heart surgery 'cause you watched Marcus Welby a lot when you were a kid.

Just asking.

Love,


tristero

h/t Glenn Greenwald who, in a typically brilliant post writes:

Back in 2002, when the U.S. was debating whether to invade Iraq, those who opposed the invasion were, for that reason alone, dismissed as unserious morons and demonized as anti-American subversive hippies. Despite the fact that subsequent events have largely proven them to have been right, and that those who did the demonizing were the frivolous, unserious, know-nothing extremists, this narrative persists, so that -- even now, when most Americans have turned against this war -- the only way to avoid being an "extremist," and to be rewarded with the "centrist" mantle, is to support the continuation of this war in one form or another.

A desire to keep troops in Iraq even in the face of what is going on there may be many things, but "centrist" is not really one of them. Any Commission which commits itself in advance to keeping American troops fighting in Iraq for the foreseeable, indefinite future is itself "extremist" -- whether that term is seen as a function of public opinion or assessed on its own merits.

tristero 11/26/2006 10:22:00 AM |

 

The Root Of All Selfishness

by poputonian

Perhaps Antifa was right:

Psychologists: Money is the root of anti-social behavior

A team of psychologists has discovered why money can't buy happiness.

Pictures of dollar bills, fantasies of wealth and even wads of Monopoly money arouse feelings of self-sufficiency that result in selfish and often anti-social behavior, according to a study published in the journal Science.
...
Money makes it possible for people to achieve their goals without asking for help. Therefore, Vohs and her colleagues theorized, even subtle reminders of money would inspire people to be self-reliant -- and to expect such behavior from others.

A series of nine experiments confirmed their hypothesis. For example, students who played Monopoly and then were asked to envision a future with great wealth picked up fewer dropped pencils for a fellow student than those asked to contemplate a hand-to-mouth existence.

Money also influenced how people said they preferred to spend their leisure time. A poster of bills and coins prompted students to favor a solitary social activity, such as private cooking lessons, while students sitting across from posters of seascapes and gardens were more likely to opt for a group dinner.

The expected behavior of others comment reminds me of Ronald Reagan, who used himself as a model of how to rise from nowhere. If he could become president, anyone could achieve whatever they wanted. In a system that rewards self-interest, you just have to constantly act in your own self-interest, society be damned.

poputonian 11/26/2006 08:01:00 AM |

 
Chickenhawks Part Deux

by tristero

A lot of fascinating discussion in comments to this post on chickenhawks, a subject that has more odd angles than one might originally suppose. One of the most intriguing response to my post is that two regular commenters, Jose Chung and DavidByron, who I always assumed would never agree about a thing, both strenuously objected to the notion that willingness to serve in the military confers some sort of special status in opining about Bush/Iraq. Another was DavidByron and Jill Bains' insistence that my opposition to both the Bush/Iraq war and the Afghanistan catastrophes is diluted by a barely disguised willingness to accept the premises of America's manifest destiny trope. A lot of other folks also made interesting, thought-provoking observations as well, and they all made me refine, perhaps even revise, some of my opinions on the subject. Thank you, one and all, for your contributions.

1. Jose Chung and DavidByron both seem to believe (and I'm sure they'll correct me if I'm wrong!) that the chickenhawk issue really is about whether only those with military service are qualified to opine on the subject of war. But that's not quite right. Of course, military service, or the lack of, has no genuine importance to the worth of an argument pro or con the Bush/Iraq war.* The real issue is the total cluelessness of a particular group of war advocates whose drooling enthusiasm for war isn't grounded in reality.

I tried to make it clear in my post - but it wasn't clear enough, apparently - that the hostile question, "well, if you support the war so much, why doncha serve?" is no query at all, but an angry, exasperated, assertion amounting to saying, "You don't know a damn thing about what you're talking about, or you wouldn't talk about Bush/Iraq in such a foolish, callous way." So yes, as DavidByron says, the question is a nasty, sarcastic, ad hominem attack. What makes it appropriate is that the reasoning of the chickenhawks was beyond serious discussion. Thomas Friedman's insistence that even if Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 or had WMD's, "we" still oughta whack him because "we" can. George Packer's utterly naive kumbaya-save-the-world attitude. John Podhoretz' floating the suggestion that maybe US forces should have killed more young Iraqi males at the beginning of the invasion. And, of course, the 101st Keyboarders who talk as if Mr. Kurtz's "Exterminate all of the brutes" doesn't go far enough by half.

There are various ways to respond to such garbage. Given an unlimited lifespan, I completely agree that we should examine each of the chickenhawks' assertions in detail and respond in a logical, reasoned, way. But the truth is that life is short and Friedman, Packer, Podhoretz, and many others aren't making arguments or assertions that are intended to be seriously discussed. These are crude, impulsive, thoughtless reasons to go to war - uttered from a virtual barstool - and they are usually accompanied with equally crude and thoughtless personal attacks on those who disagree: "you're not with us, you're against us!"

Since that is the level of the chickenhawks' reasoning, it makes more than enough sense - to me, but maybe not to everyone - to respond, "okay tough guy, put up or shut up." It's another way of making the point that the chickenhawks - not necessarlily ALL advocates of Bush/Iraq who didn't serve - aren't serious people. It is mocking them, not asserting in any serious way qualifications for ALL discussions. And it is a terrible tragedy that those of us opposed to the war didn't find ways to mock them earlier and in even nastier ways. Why? Because one of these profoundly unserious people is the president of the United States who was in a position to, and did, order US troops to invade, conquer, and occupy Iraq.

Is sneering mockery the ONLY weapon against idiots like Bush, or the single BEST weapon? No, and no. But it is one tactic, nevertheless, and it has its place, and its uses. It may not discredit the chickenhawks in your view, dear reader, as you are knowledgeable enough to ask deeper questions, but it has the potential to do so with others.

2. Regarding the manifest destiny business, I am, unlike DavidByron, an American. It is possible that somewhere, somehow, I buying into that ugly, dangerous, myth of exceptionalism. But I truly doubt that some unacknowledged sympathy for manifest destiny influences my attitude towards Bush/Iraq or Bush/Afghanistan. I have been consistently and publicly opposed to both long before it was fashionable and have often framed the argument by saying America has no business spreading its cooties hither and yon. We are one great country among many great countries. But America has many serious flaws and has no reason to assume that its institutions are uniquely good for everyone, or that America has the right to do as it pleases in the world.

I fail to see how anyone can be serious in asserting that these are the views of someone who advocates manifest destiny, even without realizing it.

Jill Bains, however, tries to. She wrote, "If you fail to support the Taliban and whomever else is trying to physically expel the United States from Afghanistan, then, despite all your protestations to the contrary, you become a de facto supporter of the American occupation." This is exactly the kind of false reasoning that leads others to conclude that if you're opposed to Bush/Iraq, you're "objectively pro-Saddam." I reject it because it sets up an unnecessary and false dichotomy; it requires me to align myself with moral monsters in order to "prove" the seriousness with which I oppose Bush, an alignment I utterly refuse; and because it is needlessly tendentious.

Perhaps the best response to Jill Bains' assertion is something close to what Arundhati Roy said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that a reasonable alternative to Osama bin Laden is not George W. Bush. Likewise, a reasonable alternative to Bush is not the Taliban. This, of course, goes without saying for most of us, but it bears repeating.

It is vitally important, in trying to articulate a 21st century liberalism, that liberals continue to insist upon finding and creating alternatives to this kind of false polarity. That is no easy job, but we've seen the kind of horror that quickly results when those alternatives are cavalierly swept off the table.

*Except, to a greater or lesser extent, in regards to technical issues. For instance, I am certain that General Shinseki's considerable military expertise gave him a far better sense of what a reasonable level of troop deployment might be if Iraq was invaded and occupied by a US coalition than Paul Wolfowitz. That said, I maintain that no level of troop strength could possibly have led to a result much different than the one we see today. Bush/Iraq was a stupid idea that had no chance of an acceptable outcome.

tristero 11/26/2006 03:55:00 AM |

Saturday, November 25, 2006

 
Saturday Night At The Movies


A Long Goodbye

By Dennis Hartley


I was going to write a movie review (after all, this post is billed as “Saturday Night At The Movies”) but as a dedicated film buff I feel compelled to pay my respects to Robert Altman, who we lost on November 20. OK, he was 81 years old, so on one level I can’t say I was completely blindsided-but this was a “senior citizen” who was not planning his next golf outing, but in the midst of wrapping pre-production on his next film, for Christ’s sake. We lose great actors and directors all the time, but there are some whose loss precipitates something much deeper than just a momentary “Wow…bummer” reflection. Robert Altman wasn’t just a “maverick” or an “iconoclastic Hollywood outsider”-he was his own genre (“Altmanesque” has become part of the cinematic lexicon for good reason). Contemporary directors like John Sayles and PT Anderson owe their entire filmmaking approach to Altman’s pioneering groundwork. No American filmmaker before or since could Question Authority (on and off-screen) whilst flaunting cinematic conventions so….cinematically. Rather than boring you with more superlatives, I’ll let the Man’s work speak for itself. Here are some of my recommendations:

M*A*S*H The obvious place to start. Groundbreaking, ballsy (for its time) anti-Vietnam meditation cloaked in bawdy anti-authoritarian hijinx. Launched the careers of Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, Bud Cort, Sally Kellerman, Tom Skerritt and more.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller -Brilliant, gritty, resonant “Northwestern” with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. The creators of HBO’s “Deadwood” need to own up.

The Long Goodbye -Altman stands film noir on its head and coaxes a career best performance from Elliot Gould as he reinvents Phillip Marlowe for the Me Decade.

California Split Elliot Gould and George Segal are priceless in Altman’s existential Vegas pastiche. A close cousin to “The King Of Marvin Gardens” in its bittersweet examination of beautiful losers and the elusive American Dream.

Nashville Considered by many to be Altman’s masterwork; it certainly qualifies as “Altmanesque” -dozens of disparate vignettes eventually intersect at the scene of a (fictional) political assassination. (Emilio Estevez’s “Bobby” sounds suspiciously derivative- which I will be able to either confirm or retract once I screen it-stay tuned!)

Secret Honor In just under 90 minutes, Altman cinematically sums up the Shakespearean train wreck that was the Nixon administration. Unique in the Altman canon in that it features a cast of just one. Phillip Baker Hall’s fearless and profane invocation of the madness of King Richard has to be seen to be believed.

All of the above films are currently in print on DVD and easy to track down for purchase or rental. These are only a handful of the 40-odd films in the Altman canon; see ‘em all!



Digby adds these two:

The Player

Short Cuts


.
digby 11/25/2006 08:02:00 PM |

 

Leftovers: Plymouth Rocked

by poputonian

Here is a link to an excellent essay about Mayflower historians, including the original one, Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford, the man who also discovered capitalism. New Yorker writer Jill Lepore begins with a sketch of Samuel Eliot Morison, who entered Harvard and never left, and then does a smooth takedown on Bradford, followed by one of journalist neo-historian Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the current best-seller Mayflower - A Story of Courage, Community, and War. Philbrick's book takes you from Bradford's voyage across the "vast and furious" ocean to that seminal event, King Phillip's War. The essay should be read in its entirety by those with an interest, but nonetheless, here is an excerpt:

THE NEW YORKER
Critic at Large

PLYMOUTH ROCKED
by JILL LEPORE
Of Pilgrims, Puritans, and professors.
Issue of 2006-04-24

Philbrick, a former all-American sailor and Sunfish-racing champion who lives on Nantucket, seems, at first glance, to be following in Morison’s wake. Waves slosh through all of his books, whose titles sound like the names of sea chanties: “Sea of Glory,” “Away Off Shore,” “Second Wind,” and “In the Heart of the Sea,” the winner of the 2000 National Book Award for nonfiction. Like Morison, he finds most history books written by professors a chore to read. Trained as a journalist, Philbrick once explained his decision to include a bibliographic essay instead of footnotes or references to works of scholarship in his text: “I wanted to remove the scholarly apparatus that so often gets in the way of the plot in academic history.”

Sam Morison never met a footnote he didn’t like, but his relationship to academic history was a complicated one. At Harvard, he was neither a natural teacher nor a beloved one. He never held office hours, he made his students come to class in coat and tie, and he refused to teach Radcliffe girls (he considered them frivolous). He liked to lecture in riding breeches and, in later years, in his Navy uniform. “Even before he became an admiral, you felt as though he were one and you were a midshipman,” a former student, the eminent Yale historian Edmund Morgan, recalled.

But Morison believed, ardently, that there was something about university life that mattered, that made people more honest, more accountable, and less likely to get things wrong. In a 1948 review in the Atlantic Monthly of a book by the historian Charles Beard, who had left Columbia thirty years earlier to live on a dairy farm, Morison suggested (pretty cruelly, since Beard was on his deathbed at the time) that Beard’s work had suffered from his isolation: “You get more back talk even from freshmen than from milch cows.”

Maybe if Nathaniel Philbrick had had to answer to freshmen he might have learned to be a bit more skeptical of his sources. The first half of his book stars William Bradford, and relies, appropriately, on Bradford’s history, or, rather, on Samuel Eliot Morison’s invaluable edition of Bradford’s history. So much did Morison admire Bradford, so much did he despise the myth of the Puritans, so much did he want Americans to read better history, that he spent five years meticulously preparing an edition of Bradford’s history “that the ordinary reader might peruse with pleasure as well as profit.” Working closely with his faithful secretary, Antha Card, to whom he read Bradford’s every word aloud, Morison altered the original’s antiquated spelling and cleared the text of notes and scribbles made by everyone from Bradford’s biographers to his descendants, material that had been injudiciously included, and mistakenly attributed to Bradford himself, in earlier printed editions. Morison applied his magnifying glass to every trace of ink on the manuscript’s pages. Where earlier copyists had Bradford concluding that “the light here kindled hath shone to many,” Morison pointed out that the light actually shone “unto” many; a splotch that looked as though Bradford had crossed out the “un” turned out, on closer inspection, to be “merely an inadvertent blot from the Governor’s quill pen.” Published in 1952 as “Of Plymouth Plantation,” Morison’s definitive edition of Bradford is now in its twenty-third printing.

I very much related this next part to current times:

In proportion to population, King Philip’s War was one of the deadliest wars in American history. More than half of all English settlements in New England were either destroyed or abandoned. Hundreds of colonists were killed. Thousands of Indians died; those who survived, including Philip’s nine-year-old son, Massasoit’s grandson, were loaded on ships and sold into slavery. Because the conflict was, for both sides, a holy war, it was waged with staggering brutality. New England’s Indians fought to take their land back from the Christians, mocking their praying victims: “Where is Your O God?” One, having killed a colonist, stuffed a Bible into his victim’s gutted belly. Puritans interpreted such acts as a sign of God’s wrath, as punishment for their descent into sinfulness. Not only had they become, over the years, less pious than the first generation of settlers; they had also failed to convert the Indians to Christianity. The Boston minister Increase Mather asked, “Why should we suppose that God is not offended with us, when his displeasure is written, in such visible and bloody Characters?”

Reading those scarlet letters, Puritans concluded that God was commanding them to defeat their “heathen” enemies by any means necessary. For the English, all restraint in war, all notions of “just conduct,” applied only to secular warfare; in a holy war, anything goes. Ministers urged their congregations to “take, kill, burn, sink, destroy all sin and Corruption, &C which are professed enemies to Christ Jesus, and not to pity or spare any of them.” Such a policy, then as now, breeds nothing if not merciless retaliation. As a Boston merchant reported to London, the Indians, in town after town, tortured and mutilated their victims, “either cutting off the Head, ripping open the Belly, or skulping the Head of Skin and Hair, and hanging them up as Trophies; wearing Men’s Fingers as Bracelets about their Necks, and Stripes of their Skins which they dresse for Belts."

Brutal.

poputonian 11/25/2006 06:07:00 PM |

 

Leftover Retch Phlegmball

by poputonian

Unbelievable.

Several people commented that they wanted Digby to make a stronger point-by-point refutation of Retch's The Real Story of Thanksgiving. But really, folks, is that the way radio guys work, by discussing details? C'mon. They paint pictures with words.

So, I had heard that one of R's ancestors, someone called T'mush Graungerball, an ol' bugger, had actually been executed in Plymouth Colony. But I never expected to actually find it documented in the original records.

From Plymouth Colony, Its History & People, 1620-1691 (Stratton, 1986), p199 (original quotations from Bradford's History and Plymouth Colony records):

Though fair-minded in determining guilt, the Plymouth leaders themselves acknowledged that their punishments were severe. Bradford wrote concerning the year 1642 that it was surprising to see how wickedness was growing in the colony, "wher the same was so much witnesed against, and so narrowly looked unto, and severly punished." He admitted that they had been censured even by moderate and good men "for their severities in punishments." And he noted, "Yet all this could not suppress the breaking out of sundrie notorious sins…espetially drunkennes and unclainnes; not only incontinencie betweene persons unmaried, for which many both men and women have been punished sharply enough, but some maried persons allso. But that which is worse, even sodomie and bugerie, (things fearfull to name,) have broak forth in this land, oftener then once."

The event which apparently provoked these observations from the governor was mentioned very briefly in court records of 7 September 1642: "Thomas Graunger, late servant to Love Brewster of Duxborrow, was this Court indicted for buggery wth a mare, a cowe, two goats, divers sheepe, two calves, and a turkey, and was found guilty, and received sentence of death by hanging untill he was dead." The executioner was Mr. John Holmes, the Messenger of the court, and in his account he claimed as due him £1 for ten weeks boarding of Granger, and £2/10 for executing Granger and eight beasts. Bradford described Granger as about sixteen or seventeen years of age. Someone saw him in the act with the mare, and he was examined and confessed. The animals were individually killed before his face, according to Leviticus 20:15, and were buried in a pit, no use being made of them. Bradford relates that on examination of both Granger and someone else who had made a sodomitical attempt on another, they were asked where they learned such practices, and one confessed he "had long used it in England," while Granger said he had been taught it by another, and had heard of such things when he was in England.

Wow. Retch's ancestor screwed a turkey.

I'm not too sure of the source of this next one, but it sounds about right:

"Wretch Flemball was deetayned for sundrie notorious sins upon returning from Quisqueya in Hispanolia wher hee had erectile-dysfunction with sum little boys, who hee disapointed very much."

This is the real story of Thanksgiving, people. Sexual perversion set loose by Retch's ancestors for its trek though American history. Read other entries on Sex and Morality in Plymouth Colony.

(I swear I have not been drinking.)

poputonian 11/25/2006 06:06:00 PM |

 
Advocating War If You Haven't Served

by tristero

Kevin Drum writes

When nations decide whether to go to war — or whether to continue an existing war — everyone in a democracy is entitled to a view and everyone is entitled to be taken seriously. But if non-veterans, by virtue of having never served, are denied the moral authority to advocate in favor of war, their views will quite rightfully be entirely marginalized. After all, why should anyone care what they think if, as O'Donnell suggests, their non-serving status predetermines their only honorable opinion?

I'm not willing to leave decisions on the use of military force solely to combat veterans, but that's where this sentiment leads us. It leads to a place where military veterans are put on a pedestal and anyone who hasn't served is ipso facto less qualified to hold an opinion on isssues of war and peace than someone who has.

Sounds reasonable, but I think Kevin's reasoning is out of context and flawed.

First of all, the objection is not to everyone who hasn't served expressing an opinion about war, but only to those who haven't served who also are advocating war. I do not believe that it is necessary to experience war in order to oppose it.

Furthermore, I don't object in general to people who advocate war who haven't served. I object to the specific situation we have in regards to Bush/Iraq. I strongly object to the chickenhawks for their warped attitude in regards to this particular war. It is not merely that they are advocating war without having suffered the consequences. It is their loopy, ungrounded-in-reality enthusiasm for this war that I find revolting, an attitude that minimizes war's horrors rather than focusing on them, as any responsible person would.

Chickenhawks rarely if ever try to make the case that as awful as the sufferings of war are for everyone involved, reluctantly, this war is necessary. That is because there simply is no case to be made, never has been. Instead the chickenhawks are happy to go to war; rather than acknowledge that sometimes war is a solemn, unavoidable obligation, we hear about Grand Global Strategies or that Saddam was working with al Qaeda, or war is some kind of of post 9/11 therapy. And the chickenhawk discourse descends rapidly to the moral sewer, where a demented John Podhoretz will blithely talk about how the biggest mistake at the beginning of Bush/Iraq was that "we" didn't kill enough young Iraqis. (The biggest mistake at the beginning of the war was starting it.)

But the chickenhawks go even further than just excitedly embracing the prospect of waging war against Iraq for no reason. They have the unmitigated gall to denounce everyone who opposed Bush/Iraq as naive, as traitorous, as third-rate minds, as not really comprehending the nature of the threat, and so on. They are perfectly willing to describe the tens of millions of people who marched in February '03 in opposition to the war as "objectively pro-Saddam," a remark as utterly ignorant as high-five enthusiasm to fight a war is.

In short, it is the lack of even the slightest comprehension of what war really is, combined with their belligerent, dismissive arrogance that makes the question of the chickenhawks' own willingness to serve in the Bush/Iraq war a more than fair question.

Again, the question of happy-war advocates being willing to serve is specific to this war, a war which has never been a legitimate cause, either strategically or morally. In contrast, while I strongly opposed the invasion and conquest of Afghanistan in 2001,* I certainly understood that a legitimate case could be made for it (and that war was inevitable no matter what I, or anyone else, thought). The lack of experience of war advocates never entered the equation.

It is the hysterical, clueless, and reality-free warmongering over Iraq that makes the question, "Well, since you feel so strongly about it, why don't you enlist and go fight? " an inevitable one. The question is really another way of saying, "You don't know a damn thing about what you're talking about, or you wouldn't talk about Bush/Iraq in such a foolish, callous way."

For my own part, I strongly believe that those advocating this war must, in some meaningful sense, get involved in the war effort. That doesn't mean staying in your pajamas and typing on a blog that your smarter countrymen are traitors. Nor does it mean that you have to volunteer for night patrols in Sadr City. But if you are as gung ho for bang bang as the National Review gang was, it behooves you to support the war in an active manner, by enlisting, by joining USO, by volunteering in hospitals, and so on. It is simply disgraceful how little responsibility or involvement the chickenhawks have. If the threat is that serious that you think your neighbor has to be willing to die to meet that threat, then the least you should feel obligated to do is to help confront that threat. That, my friends, strikes me as close to a moral absolute.

By focusing on what really is a non-existent issue, one that no one really disputes - who in general has the moral standing to advocate war rather than the obnoxious attitude of the Bush/Iraq chickenhawks - Kevin missed the important point of O'Donnell's post, namely the enormous, unjustifiable distance between the people fighting the war and those empowered to figure out what to do about it now. O'Donnell, in defending Rangel's call for a draft, gives us a very telling anecdote:

In my one conversation with Kissinger, which occurred on TV, I asked him if he knew anyone who got killed in Vietnam. He was completely thrown. He doesn't go on TV to be asked such small-minded questions, he goes on TV to pontificate and TV interviewers are happy to let him do it. Kissinger sputtered and ran away from the question, leaving the distinct impression that he did not know anyone who was killed in the war he managed. His memoir of the period does not mention a single casualty. If you have ever stood at the Vietnam Memorial and run your hand over the name of a relative on the wall, as my mother and I did last month, you can get as angry as Charlie Rangel does about people like Kissinger deciding how long our soldiers should be exposed to enemy fire in a war we know we can't win.

Of course, Rangel doesn't want a draft. But somehow the reality of this war must be made palpable to the American people. It is not, and as a consequence, the drooling warlust on display by the chickenhawks attains a credibility it doesn't deserve. It is a lot easier for a lunatic like Cheney to sound like he knows what he's talking about when he lies that the war is going "remarkably well" when there are no photos of coffins of American soldiers, no tally of Iraqi deaths, and no images of what war really looks like to the people unfortunate enough to be caught up in it.

*My objections to Bush/Afghanistan were both tactical and moral. A few reasons. First of all, it was patently obvious that bin Laden, for a variety of reasons, was trying to provoke precisely the kind of invasion and slaughter that took place. One should never do what an enemy wants you to do but what is in your best interest. It was not in America's best interest to get quagmired in Afghanistan. Related to this is the fact that no one in the American government knew enough about Afghanistan to wage an effective war, ie, one that would end with a positive outcome. In regards to the morality of Bush/Afghanistan, I simply didn't understand how killing thousands of innocent Afghans "in revenge" for 9/11 could be justified. I still don't. The 9/11 attacks were bin Laden's doing, they were not even the Taliban's doing, let alone the majority of Afghans.

While in a normal discourse the following would go without saying, we don't have a normal discourse here in America in the 21st Century. Sooo.... the Taliban were, and still are, exhibit A for the obscenity of theocracy. I need no lecture from a rightwing apologist for James Dobson to know that. To oppose the Bush/Afghan war in no way implied an endorsement of Talibanism. Likewise and just as obviously, I strongly believe that bin Laden and his henchfolk must be brought to justice which, not being naive about such things, means he will be killed - no country would dare imprison him. As Afghanistan gets worse and worse, and bin Laden remains on the loose, I see no reason to revisit my initial opposition to the Bush/Afghan war. In 2001, I saw a moral and strategic disaster in the making and sadly, I was right.

tristero 11/25/2006 04:25:00 AM |

 
It's Official. And Getting Worse.

by tristero

LA Times:

Iraq's civil war worsened Friday as Shiite and Sunni Arabs engaged in retaliatory attacks after coordinated car bombings that killed more than 200 people in a Shiite neighborhood the day before. A main Shiite political faction threatened to quit the government, a move that probably would cause its collapse and plunge the nation deeper into disarray.

Emphasis added.

Any questions why it is immoral to invade a country that is not an imminent threat? Any questions why it is the height of idiocy to claim you can impose democracy by force? Any questions why Richard Cohen should resign and get psychiatric help for opining America needed some therapeutic violence after 9/11?

Finally, any questions why anyone who gave five minutes of study to the situation - except rightwingers and others with third-rate minds - could see this coming long before American tanks rolled over the border and the deaths and atrocities started to mount?

PS. Special note to all the liberal hawks who supported the invasion: It's gonna get a lot worse. Guaranteed. And your apologies and contrition mean nothing.

tristero 11/25/2006 12:49:00 AM |

Friday, November 24, 2006

 

Cortez The Killer

by poputonian

This summer I saw the Dave Matthews Band, along with Warren Haynes (of Gov't Mule) perform a sensational, twenty-minute cover of Neil Young's, Cortez The Killer. Cortez is that guy who slipped into Mexico and conquered the indigenous people. I wonder what the place was like when he got there?

The book 1491 lists the following inside the cover:

-In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe.

-Certain cities --- such as Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital -- were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitlan, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets.

-The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids.

-Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journal Science recently described it as "man's first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering."

-Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it -- a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge.

-Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively "landscaped" by human beings.

DMB and Warren Haynes also played Cortez the Killer (a shorter, ten minute version) before 100,000 people in 2003 in New York's Central Park. The video of that performance [link below] juxtaposes beautiful shots of the fruits of one civilization, the NYC sky-scrape, while the band plays on about the conqueror of another. Several other songs on the DVD had similar images, so I don't think any message was intended. But it is paradoxical, methinks, that you have this going on, and all the while everyone in the crowd and in the band is smiling.

Maybe Kurt Vonnegut knows a reason why. He had a comment or two about music in his book, A Man Without a Country:

No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.
...
It makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even Military bands, although I am a pacifist, cheer me up. And I really like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All pop music today -- jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones, rock-and-roll, hip-hop, and on and on -- is derived from the blues.

A gift to the world? One of the best rhythm-and-blues combos I ever heard was three guys and a girl playing in a club in Krakow, Poland.

The wonderful songwriter Albert Murray, who is a jazz historian and a friend of mine among other things, told me that during the era of slavery in this country -- an atrocity from which we can never fully recover -- the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was much higher than the suicide rate among slaves.

Murray thinks this was because slaves had a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: They could shoo away Old Man Suicide by playing and singing the Blues. He says something else which also sounds right to me. He says the blues can't drive depression clear out of a house, but can drive it into the corners of any room where it's played. So please remember that.

Here's the link to Cortez the Killer. Enjoy the incredible guitar riffs by Haynes, and watch after the second one when Dave turns to Carter, shakes his head in amazement, and says smiling: "That's bad!"

A nice slice of Americana.

You can get the Central Park DVD at any music retailer.

poputonian 11/24/2006 03:37:00 PM |

 

The Root Of All Evil

by poputonian

There were many interesting comments in tristero's last post, but two separate ones in particular caught my eye:

"This world is ruled by the purse, and violence, diplomacy, war, deception, and the long knives all serve the purse."

And then this one, which argued against economic causes:

"It is irrational tribalism, nationalism, religion (and also the pride, fears, and stupidities of leaders) that are the root cause of most conflicts."

I agree with both of these points but think the first one, material standing, causes a distortion of the 'rightness' of the second, the cultural ways that make up the tribe. In other words, those with the material means control the politics, and with control of the politics comes the opportunity to push your tribe's belief system onto society. My favorite history professor writes:

[Culture] is communicated from one generation to the next by many interlocking mechanisms -- child-rearing processes, institutional structures, cultural ethics, and codes of law -- which in advanced societies as well as primitive cultures create ethical imperatives of great power. Indeed, the more advanced a society becomes in material terms, the stronger is the determinant power of its folkways, for modern technologies act as amplifiers, and modern institutions as stabilizers, and modern elites as organizers of these complex cultural processes.

I would posit that America's path to war was caused by the political power of the Republican culture along with its southern and religious cultural roots. Modern institutions, such as the free press, failed to act as a stabilizer against what that culture saw as its ethical imperatives. The Republican connection to the business class amplified the power behind those perceived imperatives.

In a footnote, Fischer tempers the notion that materialism is the lone determinant in what shapes a culture's norms and expectations:

Scholars regularly rediscover the persistent power of ethnicity and regional culture in modern societies without being able to explain it except in material terms. See, for example, Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536-1966 (London 1975), which argues that survival of "ethnic solidarity" in Britain was caused by a division of labor in which some ethnic groups were kept in inferior positions by a process "internal colonialism." The argument of the present work is different -- that cultural systems have their own imperatives, and are not mere reflexes of material relationships. This is not to argue against the power of material forces, but for a more balanced conception of the problem in which material structures are seen as part of a cultural whole.

Maybe this is a chicken and the egg sort of thing: is it the pursuit of material things that causes war, or is it the perceived cultural imperatives -- or both? There is strong evidence that the Bush-Cheney plutocrats were already planning regime change for Iraq, but 9/11 surely was a trigger event (bad pun intended) for all the moralistic and ideological responses that made war essential to their tribal cause.

poputonian 11/24/2006 07:21:00 AM |

 

Buy Nothing Day

by poputonian

This email came in from Hello Cool World, where I purchased the enlightening (or should I say harrowing) DVD The Corporation:

As we toil to make the Blackspot venture bear fruit, we think it's a good strategy to occasionally pause and take stock of all of the ideals that motivated all of this effort in the first place. That's why we hope you'll join us this Friday or Saturday (November 24th and 25th) in celebrating the 14th annual Buy Nothing Day.

This year's Buy Nothing Day has a special poignancy. Never before have our emerging environmental crises been planted so firmly on the lips of the policymakers and the general public. Rather than screaming from the fringes, high-profile economists and scientists are sounding the warnings in respected journals and the halls of parliament -- warnings that our oceans are dying, that the ice shelves are melting, and that we are setting ourselves up for the most massive and widest-ranging market failure the world has ever seen.

All of this points to a profound need for a shift in the way we see things. Recycling, protecting our waterways, driving hybrid cars -- all the old environmental imperatives -- are great, but it's becoming obvious that they don't address the core problem: we have to change our lifestyles, we have to change our culture, and we have to consume smarter and consume less.

This is the message of this year's Buy Nothing Day, and there are only a few days left to get that message out onto the streets. From the quietly sublime to the crazily anarchic, the ways in which you can mark BND are only limited by the imperative not to spend. Strut your stuff as if the fate of whole planet is resting in your hands, because even if each of us only does one small thing to contribute, tens of thousands of small things sure add up!

At the BND campaign headquarters - that's http://www.adbusters.org/bnd - we've already featured upcoming actions in Japan, the UK, Canada, and the USA, with more to come from all over the world, including Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Hungary, Spain and Sweden. You can also download posters and other resources, as well as connect with activists in your own little corner of the globe.

Remember: Make a scene. Make people laugh. Make them think. If you have to, make them angry. Just get out there.

I won't be harrassing anyone who wants to shop, but I am happy to buy nothing.

Actually, I think I'm going to give 1491 a try. It's been sitting on the shelf for a while waiting its turn. A couple of people mentioned it in my prior post, which caused me to take a closer look.

Fire in the fireplace (it's 35 degrees here), couch, coffee, book, iPod, human.

poputonian 11/24/2006 05:44:00 AM |

Thursday, November 23, 2006

 
Mark Danner

by tristero

This article by Mark Danner is a superb summary of the spectacular series of mis-assumptions and downright idiocies that created the unmitigated disaster that is Iraq today. As Danner says several times in the article, some of the mistakes are simply unbelievably basic as, for example, invading and conquering a country without any idea about what to do afterwards.

Where I differ, perhaps, with Danner, is in ascribing any positive value to the original neo-con vision that the region would be transformed. It is difficult to say exactly where Danner stands on this. I think he comes down on the side of "very unlikely, but it would be nice if it worked and with the right people, maybe, just maybe, it would." Others have gone further, asserting that an aggressively evangelical foreign policy to bring democracy to the Middle East and elsewhere is a noble idea.

I think it is a deeply immoral idea. It is an indication of how dangerously stupid our discourse has become that opposition to democracy evangelization is almost instantly labelled as a form of Kissingerism. It is not, by a long shot.

In the interest of keeping this post short and sweet, here are two reasons I'm opposed to such a policy. First of all, it is ignorant. Evangelization rests upon the same "black box" assumptions as realism, that what goes on inside the country to be transformed is far less important than the supposed benefits that will accrue once the people in that country experience American-style democracy.

Second of all, it is racist, in a white man's burden sort of a way.

The combination of willful ignorance and unquestioned superiority, even if the intentions were wholly disinterested and good (which they never are), make the evangelizing model propagated by neo-cons and other so-called idealists utterly immoral. That doesn't mean that abetting tyrants and atrocities is moral. Nor does it mean that the United States, acting in concert with other nations, shouldn't encourage efforts to build democracies and to improve already existing democracies (including its own). It does mean acting with great prudence, defined as acting cautiously and with deep knowledge of a country's culture, politics, and concerns. Prudence is one value (among many) that is conspicuosly lacking in Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush.

Prudence also means acting rationally. I'm sure all of you were as disgusted as I was by Richard Cohen's remarks on America's so-called "need for therapeutic violence after 9/11" which Digby mentioned below. The corollary to rejecting such an ridiculous idea is that whatever actions the US takes, especially military ones, should never be predicated on emotion but only on cold, rational calculation. Gut instinct has no place in American foreign policy. Ever. That doesn't mean that self-interest and only interest is the only concern (although I believe it must be the principle one). Compassion certainly has an important role, for example in an American response to the atrocities in Darfur, but it must be a rational, knowledgeable compassion, not the kind of do-good impulse that led Bush the Elder to send troops to Somalia.

Read Danner's article, which makes it very clear how an imprudent foreign policy unfolded.
tristero 11/23/2006 07:56:00 AM |

 
A Very Special Turkey

by digby

For those of you who, like me, are spending Thanksgiving in the company of rightwingers, here's Rush Limbaugh's version of the pilgrim story to remind you that that your dinner table conversation could actually be worse than it is:

On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible. The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work.

"But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford's detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness," destined to become the home of the Kennedy family. "There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims – including Bradford's own wife – died of either starvation, sickness or exposure.

"When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats." Yes, it was Indians that taught the white man how to skin beasts. "Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. "Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part [of Thanksgiving] that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share.

"All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well. They were going to distribute it equally. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well. Nobody owned anything. They just had a share in it. It was a commune, folks. It was the forerunner to the communes we saw in the '60s and '70s out in California – and it was complete with organic vegetables, by the way. Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace.

"That's right. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn't work! Surprise, surprise, huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future.

"'The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God,' Bradford wrote. 'For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that was thought injustice.' Why should you work for other people when you can't work for yourself? What's the point?

"Do you hear what he was saying, ladies and gentlemen? The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result? 'This had very good success,' wrote Bradford, 'for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.' Bradford doesn't sound like much of a..." I wrote "Clintonite" then. He doesn't sound much like a liberal Democrat, "does he? Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s? Yes.

"Read the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Genesis 41. Following Joseph's suggestion (Gen 41:34), Pharaoh reduced the tax on Egyptians to 20% during the 'seven years of plenty' and the 'Earth brought forth in heaps.' (Gen. 41:47) In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves.... So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the 'Great Puritan Migration.'" Now, other than on this program every year, have you heard this story before? Is this lesson being taught to your kids today -- and if it isn't, why not?

Can you think of a more important lesson one could derive from the pilgrim experience? So in essence there was, thanks to the Indians, because they taught us how to skin beavers and how to plant corn when we arrived, but the real Thanksgiving was thanking the Lord for guidance and plenty -- and once they reformed their system and got rid of the communal bottle and started what was essentially free market capitalism, they produced more than they could possibly consume, and they invited the Indians to dinner, and voila, we got Thanksgiving, and that's what it was: inviting the Indians to dinner and giving thanks for all the plenty is the true story of Thanksgiving. The last two-thirds of this story simply are not told.

Now, I was just talking about the plenty of this country and how I'm awed by it. You can go to places where there are famines, and we usually get the story, "Well, look it, there are deserts, well, look it, Africa, I mean there's no water and nothing but sand and so forth." It's not the answer, folks. Those people don't have a prayer because they have no incentive. They live under tyrannical dictatorships and governments. The problem with the world is not too few resources. The problem with the world is an insufficient distribution of capitalism.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Remember to be thankful that you don't have to spend the day with Rush Limbaugh.

But also remember that the reason people are hungry in the world is because they just don't have enough incentive to eat.



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digby 11/23/2006 07:44:00 AM |

 
A Win For Moderation

by digby

This is what it's come to:

Despite his work for a Christian pregnancy counseling group that opposes contraception, the physician who yesterday began overseeing federal family-planning programs has prescribed birth control for his patients, a Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman said.

Out of all the doctors in the country they had to pick one for whom it was necessary to issue a statement like that one. I never thought I'd live to see the day when birth control would once again be a subject of controversy. It's quite stunning. After all, I'm old. This one, at least, seemed settled.

This is a classic Overton Window deal where it sounds completely out to lunch at the moment but soon will have made its way into mainstream dialog. But it also serves the dual purpose of putting abortion on the negotiating table at a time when all the "reasonable" people are getting together to talk about the need to drastically "reduce" abortion.

There are moral and practical reasons for members of both parties, and combatants on both sides of the abortion question, to embrace this approach.

Liberal supporters of abortion rights should be eager to promote a measure that does not make abortion illegal but does embrace goals, including help for the poor, that liberals have long advocated.

In the meantime, the victories that opponents of abortion rights have won do little to reduce the number of abortions. As Rachel Laser, director of the Third Way Culture Project, points out, even those who would ban late-term or "partial-birth" abortions need to acknowledge that very few are performed, meaning that these laws do little to reduce the overall abortion rate. According to one study cited by Laser, only 0.08 percent of abortions are performed in the third trimester.

The problem is that the forced pregnancy forces are dedicated to a long term process whereby they whittle away at abortion rights. They move the goal posts, little by little with outrageous stunts at the far fringe which allow the "reasonable" people to negotiate away things like parental notice and "partial-birth" abortion. This is where the birth control issue comes in:

Anti-choicers: "Birth control is just like baby killing"

Reasonable Dupes: "Not true! It's nothing like baby killing. We are against baby killing!"

Anti-choicers: "We don't believe you. You just want the freedom to put little girls on the pill and when that doesn't work, you want to yank unborn babies from their wombs against God's will!"

Dupes: (rolling eyes) "Ok, ok. We'll prove it. We are willing to outlaw abortion, but you will pry our birth control from our cold dead fingers.

Anti-choicers: "heh"

Moderates and centrists of good will often try to split the difference and find ways to appease all sides when it comes to civil rights and liberties. And they almost always screw things up because fundamental rights are called fundamental for a reason. Once you let go of them all sorts of other things become possible.

I'm reminded of Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham jail. He was, of course, talking about the necessity of activism to gain civil rights for African Americans, but I think the sentiment applies equally well to those who allow the rights and freedoms women already have to be whittled away over time in political negotiations.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Like those white moderates of yesterday, the social moderates of today think they can finesse the issue with appeals to change around the edges. But they can't. I'm sorry the culture war is unpleasant. But it's happening whether we like it or not. Resolving the issue is not a matter of finding some middle ground or splitting the difference. This is not finesseable with neat slogans or nice little agreements to try to "reduce" the ickiness. Women either own their own bodies or they don't.

The new, fiercely anti-choice, head of HHS family planning programs has agitated against birth control for years. But it turns out that he "has" prescribed it for some of his patients, so he's not really outside the mainstream after all. Another win for the voices of moderation.


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digby 11/23/2006 07:23:00 AM |

 
Becoming Goldstein

by digby

Perhaps some of you already came across this amazing essay in the American Conservative, but I had missed it. It is written by a lawyer and writer named Austin Bramwell, who was, until recently, a director and trustee for the National Review. It's an impressive analysis of the failure of the conservative movement and one that I guarantee you will find very interesting.

Here's a little excerpt:

The movement’s leaders may be better informed, but they have no clearer idea of what they actually think. What they need is analysis: the skeptical tradition extending from Machiavelli to Hobbes, Hamilton, and Burnham that seeks to understand the world as it is rather than as we might like it to be. Analysis, however, requires intellect, but the movement’s mainstream, perhaps to avoid embarrassment (some mainstream figures favorably compared Bush not just to Ronald Reagan but to Abraham Lincoln), has increasingly ostracized its brightest minds.

Sadly, analysis is also often lacking outside the mainstream movement. Every movement throws off disgruntled outsiders (conservatives sometimes call them “paleoconservatives”) who feel bitterly their loss of power. They write obsessively, sometimes quite fancifully, on the alleged perfidies of the mainstream. Often, however, their critiques want credibility.

Some, for example, carry on the Cold War obsession with the so-called “crisis of the West.” Convinced that history at some point took a wrong turn, they pore over ancient texts in search of some Hermetic insight into the fatal error. (Not surprisingly, this approach has little popular appeal, although it still commands respect among professional conservatives.) The notion of a crisis of the West, however, grossly overestimates the importance of ideas; indeed, it requires an unphilosophical and almost paranoid ability to treat ideologies (most conspicuously, liberalism) as living, breathing omnipresences to which intentions, tactics, strategies, feelings, disappointments, and conflicts can all be attributed. Believers in the crisis of the West rest almost their entire worldview on an elusive notion—modernity—borrowed from a half-formed science—sociology. Crisis-of-the-West conservatism, at one time a fruitful response to the calamities of the 20th century, has become more a posture than a genuine school of thought.

Another group pleads for the conservative movement to return to its alleged first principles. “If only people would still read Russell Kirk,” one hears. But the movement never had any first principles to begin with. Although it boasts a carefully husbanded canon of supposedly foundational texts, the men who wrote them—Kirk, Strauss, Voegelin, Weaver, Chambers, Meyer—were notorious eccentrics given to extravagant claims whose policy implications remain largely obscure. Russell Kirk, for example, even as he shrewdly positioned himself as the intellectual godfather of the conservative movement, had almost no political opinions whatsoever.

What is most refreshing about this piece, and perhaps unprecedented, is that Bramwell does not just fault flawed execution or creeping liberalism. He considers the movement empty in all its forms, even as his temperament and view of human psychology shows him to be what everyone used to think of as a conservative. (After living with "movement conservatism" for so long it's actually a bit disorienting to see a conservative under the age of 70 or so with intellectual integrity.) And to his credit he doesn't erect a liberal straw man or hedge his bets by explicitly saying that liberalism is "even worse," which, considering his history must have been a temptation.

We have all discussed the bizarre parallels to 1984 over these last freakish years, but Bramwell's observations are among the most entertaining and insightful I've read:

First, like Ingsoc, conservatism has a hierarchical structure. Like Orwell’s “Inner Party,” those at the top of the movement have almost perfect freedom to decide what opinions count as official conservatism. The Iraq War furnishes a telling example. In the run-up to the invasion, leading conservatives announced that conservatism now meant spreading global democratic revolution. This forthright radicalism—this embrace of the sanative powers of violence—became quickly accepted as the ineluctable meaning of conservatism in foreign policy. Those who dissented risked ostracism and harsh rebuke. Had conservative leaders instead argued that global democratic revolution would not cure our woes but increase them, the rest of the movement would have accepted this position no less quickly. Millions of conservative epigones believe nothing less than what the movement’s established organs tell them to believe. Rarely does a man recognize, like Winston Smith, his own ideology as such.

Read on. You won't regret it.

It sounds like Bramwell has been having some very unpleasant conversations with conservatives recently. I feel for him. Lord knows I've been there. In the intro to the essay he says that he was asked to resign from the National Review by Buckley himself. That certainly sounds intriguing and well worth another article or two, I would think.


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digby 11/23/2006 07:20:00 AM |

 

OK - But Let's Not Shit Ourselves

by poputonian

As best I can tell, the following is the approximate order in which homo-sapiens came to the land now called America (or parts of Canada.) Some stayed and made themselves at home, some didn't:

2. The population that came over the land bridge, the ancestry of the people we now call Native Americans.

3. The Vikings, about 1,000 years ago (they apparently didn't stay.)

Next were a couple more European attempts:

[4.] In 1559, Tristan de Luna y Arellano led an attempt by Europeans to colonize Florida. He established a settlement at Pensacola Bay, but a series of misfortunes caused his efforts to be abandoned after two years. [Link below]

[5.] In 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés arrived in 1565 at a place he called San Augustín (St. Augustine, Florida) and established the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States. [Link below]

6. Then, in 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition foundered at Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina. The survivors were most likely absorbed into the indigenous population. Those who doubt this should read the remarkable book by author, anthropologist, and ethno-historian, Lee Miller. In her research, Miller dealt first with English political history to determine why these people were abandoned, and then followed with the stunning evidence of what became of them.

7. In 1598, there was the The Second Thanksgiving:

On April 30th four centuries ago, our ancestors, led by Don Juan de Oñate, reached the banks of El Rio Bravo (Rio Grande). The first recorded act of thanksgiving by colonizing Europeans on this continent occurred on that April day in 1598 in Nuevo Mexico, about 25 miles south of what is now El Paso, Texas. After having begun their northward trek in March of that same year, the entire caravan was gathered at this point. The 400 person expedition included soldiers, families, servants, personal belongings, and livestock . . . virtually a living village. Two thirds of the colonizers were from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands). There was even one Greek and a man from Flanders! The rest were Mexican Indians and mestizos (mixed bloods).

The starting point for the colonists had been in Zacatecas, Nueva España (now Mexico) and by being part of the colonizing expedition they had been promised the title of Hidalgo, men with rights and privileges equal to Spain's nobility. Juan de Oñate was a man of wealth and prominence, the son of Cristobal Oñate, silver mine owner whose family had come to the New World from the Basque region of Spain. Titles granted to him by Viceroy Luis de Velasco were Governor and Adelantado of New Mexico. The colonists suffered hardships and deprivations as they headed north, but they were also headed toward posterity: they would participate in the first recorded act of Thanksgiving by colonizing Europeans on this continent—22 years before the English colonists similarly gave thanks on the Atlantic coast. The expedition is well recorded by Gaspar Perez de Villagrá, the Spanish poet who traveled with the group. He wrote, "We were sadly lacking in all knowledge of the stars, the winds, and other knowledge by which to guide our steps."

On April 30, 1598, the scouts made camp along the Rio Grande and prepared to drink and eat their fill, for there they found fishes and waterfowl. Villagrá wrote,

"We built a great bonfire and roasted meat and fish, and then sat down to a repast the like of which we had never enjoyed before." Before this bountiful meal, Don Juan de Oñate personally nailed a cross to a living tree and prayed, "Open the door to these heathens, establish the church altars where the body and blood of the Son of God may be offered, open to us the way to security and peace for their preservation and ours, and give to our king and to me in his royal name, peaceful possession of these kingdoms and provinces for His blessed glory. Amen."

Next came some Frenchies:

[8.] In 1604, Samuel de Champlain, along with Sieur de Mont, established what is now known as the first Acadian settlement on the North American continent on the Isle-of-St.-Croix, at St. Croix River near Calais, Maine. After experiencing a harsh winter and extreme cold on this small island, they moved their settlement into the rich agricultural area of the Bay of Fundy, which subsequently became known as Acadia. The permanent French colony of Port Royal was established in 1605. [Link above]

[9.] The islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon were colonized by France in 1604. The colony survived and still exists today on these tiny islands ten miles south of Newfoundland, Canada. The islands still belong to France. Many people today are unaware that France still has territory in North America. [Link above]

Some more English:

[10.] In 1607, some 100 men and boys sailed from England and landed in present-day Virginia and founded Jamestown. They found a hostile environment that probably would have destroyed the colony but for the resourcefulness of Captain John Smith, who managed to organize and motivate the settlers and save them from starvation. [Link above]

French:

[11.] In 1608 Samuel de Champlain established what is now known as Quebec City.

1. And finally you have "the first" to get here, the Mayflower pilgrims, who landed in Massachusetts in 1620 and later celebrated "the first" Thanksgiving.

The rest is history, as they say.

poputonian 11/23/2006 05:25:00 AM |

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

 
Customer Service

by digby

It looks like the big money boyz are starting to get nervous:

The United States ranks worst in welcoming foreign business travelers and tourists, due to bureaucratic headaches and rude immigration officials, a survey showed.

The survey by the Discover America Partnership, a business group from the travel and tourism industries, said the cold welcome for visitors could hurt the US economy.

"The US entry process has created a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers from visiting the United States -- and damaging America's image abroad," the group said in a statement.

The study was based on a survey of more than 2,000 travelers worldwide, asked to rate their experience in 16 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America, in addition to the United States.

However, it also found that those with experience visiting America are 74 percent more likely to have an extremely favorable opinion of the country versus those who have not visited recently.

"This study should be a wake-up call for the US government," said Geoff Freeman, Executive Director of the Discover America Partnership.

"Visiting the United States and interacting with the American people can have a powerful, positive effect on how non-US residents see our country. Unfortunately, perceptions of a 'rude' and 'arrogant' entry process are turning away travelers and harming America's image."

The survey found that the US entry process is considered the "world's worst" by travelers, by more than a two-to-one margin over the next-worst destination area.

The US ranks with Africa and the Middle East when it comes to traveler-friendly paperwork and officials, the survey concluded, with 54 percent of international travelers saying that immigration officials are rude.

The survey found that two-thirds of travelers surveyed feared they would be detained at the border because of a simple mistake or misstatement.

"Foreign travelers are in agreement: the US entry process is unpredictable and unfriendly to foreign visitors, it is hurting America's image abroad and deterring many from visiting the US," said Thomas Riehle, partner, RT Strategies, which conducted the poll.

"These survey results help to explain the 17 percent decline in overseas travel to the US over the past five years and the 10 percent decline in business travel to the US over the past year."

I heard recently that a lot of financial industry business is shifting to Europe because it's just too much trouble to get into the country. The visa process is a nightmare even for people who come back and forth regularly. And treatment at the airports is downright frightening. I'm reminded of this story:

Somewhere in central Los Angeles, about 20 miles from LAX airport, there is a nondescript building housing a detention facility for foreigners who have violated US immigration and customs laws. I was driven there around 11pm on May 3, my hands painfully handcuffed behind my back as I sat crammed in one of several small, locked cages inside a security van. I saw glimpses of night-time urban LA through the metal bars as we drove, and shadowy figures of armed security officers when we arrived, two of whom took me inside. The handcuffs came off just before I was locked in a cell behind a thick glass wall and a heavy door. No bed, no chair, only two steel benches about a foot wide. There was a toilet in full view of anyone passing by, and of the video camera watching my every move. No pillow or blanket. A permanent fluorescent light and a television in one corner of the ceiling. It stayed on all night, tuned into a shopping channel.

After 10 minutes in the hot, barely breathable air, I panicked. I don't suffer from claustrophobia, but this enclosure triggered it. There was no guard in sight and no way of calling for help. I banged on the door and the glass wall. A male security officer finally approached and gave the newly arrived detainee a disinterested look. Our shouting voices were barely audible through the thick door. "What do you want?" he yelled. I said I didn't feel well. He walked away. I forced myself to calm down. I forced myself to use that toilet. I figured out a way of sleeping on the bench, on my side, for five minutes at a time, until the pain became unbearable, then resting in a sitting position and sleeping for another five minutes. I told myself it was for only one night.

As it turned out, I was to spend 26 hours in detention. My crime: I had flown in earlier that day to research an innocuous freelance assignment for the Guardian, but did not have a journalist's visa.

Since September 11 2001, any traveller to the US is treated as a potential security risk. The Patriot Act, introduced 45 days after 9/11, contains a chapter on Protecting The Border, with a detailed section on Enhanced Immigration Provision, in which the paragraph on Visa Security And Integrity follows those relating to protection against terrorism. In this spirit, the immigration and naturalisation service has been placed, since March 2003, under the jurisdiction of the new department of homeland security. One of its innovations was to revive a law that had been dormant since 1952, requiring journalists to apply for a special visa, known as I-visa, when visiting the US for professional reasons. Somewhere along the way, in the process of trying to develop a foolproof system of protecting itself against genuine threats, the US has lost the ability to distinguish between friend and foe. The price this powerful country is paying for living in fear is the price of its civil liberties.

[...]

The queue for passport control was short. I presented my British passport and the green visa waiver form I had signed on the plane. The immigration official began by asking the usual questions about where I was staying and why I was travelling to the US. It brought back memories of another trip there to write a series of articles about post 9/11 America for the German weekly Die Zeit. I had written about commuters who preferred the safety of train travel to flying, and about a wounded New York that had become a city of survivors. I had seen a traumatised, no longer cockily immortal America in a profound state of mourning. But it had seemed to me that its newly acknowledged vulnerability was becoming its strength: stunned by an act of war on its own soil, Americans had been shocked into a sudden hunger for information about the world beyond their borders.

"I'm here to do some interviews," I said.

"With whom?" He wrote down the names, asked what the article was about and who had commissioned it. "So you're a journalist," he said, accusingly, and for the first time I sensed that, in his eyes, this was not a good thing to be. "I have to refer this to my supervisor," he said ominously, and asked me to move to a separate, enclosed area, where I was to wait to be "processed". Other travellers came, waited and went; I was beginning to feel my jetlag and some impatience. I asked how long I'd have to wait, but received no reply. Finally, an officer said, noncommittally, "It seems that we will probably have to deport you."

I'm not sure, but I think I laughed. Deport? Me? "Why?" I asked, incredulously.

"You came here as a journalist, and you don't have a journalist's visa." I had never heard of it. He swiftly produced the visa waiver (I-94W) I had signed on the plane, and pointed to what it said in tiny print: in addition to not being a drug smuggler, a Nazi or any other sort of criminal, I had inadvertently declared that I was not entering the US as a representative of foreign media ("You may not accept unauthorised employment or attend school or represent the foreign information media during your visit under this program").

My protestations that I had not noticed this caveat, nor been alerted to it, that I had travelled to the US on many occasions, both for work and pleasure, that I had, in fact, lived there as a permanent resident and that my husband was a US citizen, as was my New York-born daughter, all fell on deaf ears. He grinned. "You don't care, do you?" I said, with controlled anger. Then I backtracked, and assumed a begging, apologetic mode. In response, he told me I would have to be "interviewed", and that a decision would then be taken by yet another superior. This sounded hopeful.

Finally, after much scurrying around by officers, I was invited into an office and asked if I needed anything before we began. I requested a glass of water, which the interrogating officer brought me himself. He was a gentle, intelligent interrogator: the interview lasted several hours and consisted of a complete appraisal of my life, past and present, personal and professional. He needed information as diverse as my parents' names, the fee I would be paid for the article I was working on, what it was about, exactly, and, again, the names of people I was coming to interview. My biography was a confusing issue - I was born in one country, had lived in many others: who was I, exactly? For US immigration, my British passport was not enough of an identity. The officer said, pointedly, "You are Russian, yet you claim to be British", an accusation based on the fact that I was born in Moscow (though I never lived there). Your governor, went my mental reply, is Austrian, yet he claims to be American. After about three hours, during which I tried hard to fight jetlag and stay alert, we had produced several pages that were supposed to provide the invisible person in charge with enough material to say yes or no to my request to be allowed entry. My interrogator asked one last obligatory question, "Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand," I sighed, and signed the form. The instant faxed response was an official, final refusal to enter the US for not having the appropriate visa. I'd have to go back to London to apply for it.

At this moment, the absurd but almost friendly banter between these men and myself underwent a sudden transformation. Their tone hardened as they said that their "rules" demanded that they now search my luggage. Before I could approach to observe them doing this, the officer who had originally referred me to his supervisor was unzipping my suitcase and rummaging inside. For the first time, I raised my voice: "How dare you touch my private things?"

"How dare you treat an American officer with disrespect?" he shouted back, indignantly. "Believe me, we have treated you with much more respect than other people. You should go to places like Iran, you'd see a big difference." The irony is that it is only "countries like Iran" (for example, Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe) that have a visa requirement for journalists. It is unheard of in open societies, and, in spite of now being enforced in the US, is still so obscure that most journalists are not familiar with it. Thirteen foreign journalists were detained and deported from the US last year, 12 of them from LAX.

I urge you to read the whole thing.

Nobody cares about foreign journalists, of course, and nobody in our current government is going to stand up for the principle of a free press.(They have reportedly streamlined the journalist visa process, at least.) These are people who are investigating the NY Times for publishing leaks, after all.

But now our terrible image and rude tactics are really starting to interfere with business --- and that's a problem that's going to get some attention. I'm sure Karen Hughes is out there feverishly chatting up all the soccer moms on the planet telling them they shouldn't hate us for our freedom, but somehow I don't think it's going to help. Being hated all over the world is not just bad for our physical security it's bad for our economic security too.

I'm wondering if there's any aspect of life in America (or the world, for that matter) that hasn't been adversely affected by the Bush administration's blunderbuss approach to governance. The American big money boyz were very short-sighted when they backed these people. But then, that's one of their trademarks, isn't it?


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digby 11/22/2006 02:39:00 PM |

 
Let Us Play

by digby

Look who's going to be writing about religion for the Washington Post.

Of course, gossip, backbiting and social ruin are sacred rites in all royal courts, so I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense for the Mother Superior of the Order of Bored Trophy Wives to exploit some of that olde time religion. She will be joined in this venture by another member of the nfashionable, religious in-crowd, Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, who once wrote this in the magazine:

The uniqueness—one could say oddity, or implausibility—of the story of Jesus' resurrection argues that the tradition is more likely historical than theological.

I'm sure this new WaPo feature will be a fascinating trek through the minds of the bosses wife and a trendy mainstream religion peddler. Naturally, they enter the scene just as it passes from hip to kitch and have no idea that it's happened. This is not unusual among the DC cognoscenti.

Remember this?

On the evening of Nov. 14, Quinn took her message to the grass roots, addressing approximately 70 folks at a meeting of the Citizens Association of Georgetown. Speaking from the pulpit of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Quinn said that she had gathered enough information to “scare you a lot.”

[...]

Your N95 Mask: The Building Block of Emergency Prep. At her talk, Quinn held this particle-filtering device to her mouth and said that she’s “never without it.” She also stuffs one into the briefcase of her husband, former Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, who she says “grouses” about the precaution.

Pick a Room and Stock It. You need water and food to last a week, a battery-powered radio and flashlight, planned emergency routes, contact numbers for the family, the antibiotics Cipro and doxycycline, a first-aid kit, and plastic sheeting and duct tape. Quinn herself keeps all these things in her home’s laundry room, because it’s “easy to seal off.” Also, her food supply is heavy on the beans, “because they’re nutritious.”

[...]

Two Words: Peanut Butter. Along with a supply of water, Quinn keeps a “large jar” of peanut butter in her car, primarily for the protein. Even a small amount of this staple, says Quinn, will sustain the terrorism victim for quite some time.

Keep the Kayak in the Garage. In a 2003 Post piece, Quinn advocated the use of inflatable kayaks as an evacuation mode for those who live near water. The mass hysteria following Hurricane Katrina, though, has apparently soured Quinn on riparian retreat. “Somebody would stick you up with a gun,” said Quinn of an evacuee headed to the river with a portable craft.

Don’t Bother Putting Masks on Your Dog. At the Georgetown speech, an audience member suggested placing masks on pets to keep them from spreading contagions. Quinn responded that she’d tried putting an N95 on Sparky, her now-deceased Shih Tzu, but it didn’t work.

In this new online feature, Meacham can be counted upon to continue to help us understand that the more implausible a thing is, the more likely it is to be true. And Quinn will hopefully put the same kind of serious thought into spirituality that she puts into risk management. Sounds like a winner.


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digby 11/22/2006 10:38:00 AM |

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

 
Shorthand

by digby

The other day I was listening to Al Franken and Jonathan Alter chatter about a speech they'd heard President Clinton deliver at a dinner for the 20th anniversary of Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. (This is the speech in which he said "people didn't give Democrats a mandate.They gave us a chance.")

Franken made the interesting observation that in a room filled with journalists he was the only one taking notes --- which explains why there was so little coverage of the event and the speech. Alter (one of the few who wrote about it) has an excellent memory, however, and described what Clinton said in some detail on Franken's show, focusing on a specific point that Clinton made:

"America rejected shorthand, people are thinking again."

This was, apparently (I can't find a copy of the speech anywhere) a bit from a long passage explaining how this election reflects America's return to empiricism. Alter doesn't discuss this aspect of the speech in his piece, linked above, in Newsweek. And since virtually the entire elite press corps who were present didn't bother to write about it, it's hard to know exactly what he meant. But it certainly seems likely that he was at least obliquely referring to the press corps, considering the venue.

On Franken, Alter did not mention that possibility and instead went on to use Clinton's theory that Americans had voted for empiricism as an opportunity to lecture liberals that they were in danger of becoming like conservatives because they hadn't learned to rein in their own faith-based fanaticism. He used the teachers unions as an example of how the liberals refuse to admit empirical evidence that might endanger their power base. (I know. That's right up there with denying global warming and saying that abortion causes breast cancer.)

As I listened to this I was once again struck by the lack of self-awareness in the media. You have the former president saying this to a crowd of elite journalists and they don't seem to think it could apply to them --- the very institution that is in charge of getting out the facts to the public. (The same institution that is now giving respect to such empirically nonsensical notions as creationism.)

I have long thought that one of liberalism's biggest problems is its liberal pundits. Alter is a good guy who is more often right than wrong and so I don't mean to pick on him here. But his comments are revealing. While he takes the opportunity to scold liberals for their own weakness in this area, he doesn't acknowledge his own.

Sometime back I took him to task for his lazy adherence to the tired beltway theme about McGovernite retreads. But Alter is not one of the worst purveyors of this tired trope. A much better example of egregiously obtuse liberal punditry -- the kind that would likely make me become a conservative if I were young and didn't know better, just because I wouldn't want to be associated with it --- is Richard Cohen talking about the Vietnam and Iraq wars today:

I would have fought neither war.

Before you protest "of course, Cohen," let me explain that the "I" in the foregoing sentence is really four people. There is the "I" who originally thought the Vietnam War was morally correct, that the communists were awful people and that the loss of South Vietnam (the North was already gone) would result in a debacle for its people. That's, in fact, what happened. It was only later, when I myself was in the Army, that I deemed the war not worth killing or dying for. By then I -- the second "I" -- no longer felt it was winnable, and I did not want to lose my life so that somehow defeat could be managed more elegantly.

Things are precisely the same with Iraq, and here, too, I -- No. 3 -- originally had no moral qualms about the war. Saddam Hussein was a beast who had twice invaded his neighbors, had killed his own people with abandon and posed a threat -- and not just a theoretical one -- to Israel. If anything, I was encouraged in my belief by the offensive opposition to the war -- silly arguments about oil or empire or, at bottom, the ineradicable and perpetual rottenness of America.

On the contrary, I thought. We are a good country, attempting to do a good thing. In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic. The United States had the power to change things for the better, and those who would do the changing -- the fighting -- were, after all, volunteers. This mattered to me.

But these volunteers are now fighting a war few envisaged and no one wanted -- not I (No. 4), for sure. If at one time my latter-day minutemen marched off thinking they were bringing democracy to Iraq and the greater Middle East, they now must know better. If they thought they were going to rid the region of weapons of mass destruction and sever the link between al-Qaeda and Hussein, they now are entitled to feel duped by Bush, Vice President Cheney and others. The exaggerations are particularly repellent. To fool someone into sacrificing his life to battle a chimera is a hideous abuse of the public trust.

Everything about that screams shallow, unsubstantial, flip-flopping fool. This is the face of liberalism that the right loves to use as an example of our dizzy, deer-in-the-headlights intellectual fecklessness. And if we were like him, they would be right.

It was one thing for Cohen to have followed that path the Vietnam war. He was a young man. He was also part of a culture that was drenched in the WWII ethos of American military dominance. Cohen's journey during Vietnam is that of many Americans. What is not acceptable is that in middle age he shows exactly the same naivete as if the previous experience never happened --- much like Bush and the Neocons who apparently never got past it either. This is the most embarrassing public confession I've read in a long time.

But that wasn't the worst of it:

If anything, I was encouraged in my belief by the offensive opposition to the war -- silly arguments about oil or empire or, at bottom, the ineradicable and perpetual rottenness of America.

On the contrary, I thought. We are a good country, attempting to do a good thing. In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic.

The "prudent use of violence could be therapeutic," (for whom, he doesn't say, but I must assume it wasn't those who were on either the delivery or receving ends --- I doubt it's very therapeutic for them.) And in the same breath he says he was encouraged in his beliefs because of the "offensive" and "silly" opposition to the war which was "at bottom" a bunch of believers in the "ineradicable and perpetual rottenness" of America.

This isn't just any Joe Schmoe. He's a top liberal columnist in the national capitol's premiere newspaper and he's not only a trafficker in cliches so musty they smell like Robert Novak's crypt, but he's apparently so muddle headed that he doesn't know when he sounds like a sociopath. (But I suppose sociopaths never know when they sound like sociopaths, do they?)

This statement actually does raise an important question: would the judgment of America as being "rotten" actually be all wrong if it were proven that most Americans were the type of people who think that the "prudent use of violence is therapeutic?" I think it might. It would certainly prove that most Americans are offensive.

As it is, I doubt that very many people really believe that a prudent use of violence is therapeutic. Only rich, rheumy-eyed, dissolute courtiers who live in a rarified world in which patriotic "volunteers" administer the beatings for them would think such a thing. (Or S&M porno afficionados, which I suspect may include many of the same people.)

If Clinton is correct and the American people are thinking again, it's quite clear that Richard Cohen has not joined their ranks. He's still splashing about in his own alternate reality, fighting the straw hippies he still sees around every corner and sharing a lifelong personal journey in which he managed to get from the toilet to the sink and back again. Jonathan Alter may be right that liberals have their own faith-based problems, but our much bigger problem is the total incoherence of people like Cohen who are paid big bucks to represent us in the media.


Update: Hilzoy says Richard Cohen should get a new job.
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digby 11/21/2006 03:30:00 PM |

 
Something Odd About This Story

by tristero

Something strikes me as truly weird about this story. See if you agree:

The Dyersburg Youth Minister accused of raping a 14 year old girl has resigned from his position as Youth Minister of Music at Springhill Baptist Church.

44 year old Timothy Byars submitted his resignation to the church's pastor over the phone. Byars was released from jail in Knoxville Sunday November 19, 2006 on a $50,000 bond.

The teenage girl claims Byars raped her while she, Byars and three other young girls were attending a track meet in East Tennessee.

While the investigation continues in the case, Springhill Baptist Church Pastor, James Branscum says he and the church members will pray for Byars.

Police say Byars may have also raped another young girl in Nashville.

See what I mean? Pastor Branscum says he and his church members will pray for the accused rapist. And that is very Christian of them, I"m sure.

But I think they forgot someone else to pray for. Maybe two someone elses...

By the way, Here's another story about the case::

A 14-year-old girl said Coach Timothy Byars, 44, raped her while at a tournament over the weekend in East Tennessee.

Knoxville Police said the attack happened in a parking lot, as Byars, his two daughters, the victim and her older sister slept in his SUV before a track meet. The girl text messaged her parents after the attack happened.

Her parents flew to East Tennessee to get their daughter. Soon after, Knoxville Police arrested Byars for rape.

A 19-year-old also accused Byars of inappropriate behavior, and said he touched her inappropriately as she drove the team van through Nashville.

"It was not a situation of it occurring just for a second or two. She said the inappropriate contact occurred for a time as they were on I-40, we believe in Nashville," Metro Police spokesperson Don Aaron said.

This little detail leaped out at me:

In Dyersburg, people found the allegations against the father of seven hard to believe.

Sounds like maybe we got one of those staunch, pious Quiverfull patriarchs the press has been fawning over recently.

A perverse question. Let's say the girl was in fact raped and becomes pregnant. Do you think Byars could win if he sued to prevent an abortion? After all, the rightwing has been shrieking for years on the subject of the father's rights in re: abortion.

Like I said, a perverse question, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if someday it happens, even if not in this case.
tristero 11/21/2006 03:29:00 PM |

 
Hand Off

by digby

Atrios links to this post by Robert Reich in which he says that McCain wants higher troop levels in Iraq because it will raise morale. Ok.

But he also says something else that I think is important and have been meaning to discuss:

I think McCain knows Iraq is out of our hands – it’s disintegrating into civil war, and by 2008 will be a bloodbath. He also knows American troops will be withdrawn. The most important political fact he knows is he has to keep a big distance between himself and Bush in order to avoid being tainted by this horrifying failure. Arguing that we need more troops effectively covers his ass. It will allow him to say, “if the President did what I urged him to do, none of this would have happened.”

This is obviously his plan. But from what I'm reading there is likely to be a plan that will do exactly what McCain wants and if it's implemented it's going to screw him good.

The Pentagon's closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials.

Insiders have dubbed the options "Go Big," "Go Long" and "Go Home." The group conducting the review is likely to recommend a combination of a small, short-term increase in U.S. troops and a long-term commitment to stepped-up training and advising of Iraqi forces, the officials said.

I do not want to see anybody sent into that meat grinder and I'm not sure they can do it. But if they do, it will stab St. John right in the back. His rationale for winning in 2008 hinges on his calling for more troops and the Bush administration not listening. (Whoever wins the Republican nomination in 08 must run against both Bush and the Democrats.)

McCain made a tactical error when he asked for a specific number recently. If they give him what he wants and it fails, which it will, his rabid support for the war becomes a huge liability:

Mr. McCain contends that the war in Iraq is worth fighting and is worth winning. He has said consistently from the start of the conflict that the only way to prevail is to send enough soldiers to do the job. His current proposal is to send 20,000 additional troops in hopes of bringing Baghdad and the restive western provinces under control.

The alternative, he said, is humiliation for the United States and disaster for Iraq.

(Josh Marshall explains why this won't work.)

He's going to be left with no option but to call for even more escalation going into '08 if they do this. I can't help but wonder about the political implications. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that the number is the same and that Abizaid famously said recently that the extra 20,000 weren't necessary. If the Bush administration now "gives" McCain exactly what he's asked for they are effectively passing off the war to him. McCain is positioning himself to be Lyndon Johnson in this thing without even becoming president.


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digby 11/21/2006 11:45:00 AM |

 
Olbermann

by tristero

I will confess something. About halfway through this brilliant, eloquent takedown of Bush's remarks in Vietnam, my eyes teared up and I could barely continue. I remembered the horror of opening up Life Magazine, over 35 years ago now, I guess, that famous issue of photos of one week's dead soldiers in Vietnam. You turned those pages of pictures with a combination of grief at the loss and fury at the sheer senselessness of it. Then my mind turned back to the rising death toll in Iraq. No matter how many times I've read about about the latest casualties, it still hits me in the gut, each and every time. And the same with the spotty coverage of the Iraqi dead, stories of the most horrific atrocities, all triggered by the lunatic orders of a sociopath who lied to his people, a people, terrorized by 9/11, who were all too willing to trust him. Atrocities for which all Americans, even those of us who devoted enormous effort to prevent the war, will be blamed by the communities Bush brutalized.

The tired question all of us have been asking for years now about America is, "Where's the outrage?" Well, watch Olbermann, who can barely restrain himself. There's the outrage.

I hope Olbermann's comments spread like wildfire until every last person in this country hears them. Don't miss this video.

ht, atrios.

tristero 11/21/2006 11:26:00 AM |

 
Reality Is Strange, Love

by tristero

Reading Digby's recent post finally jogged my memory. All this talk about compulsory breeding being good for the race - the race being "Christians" these days - where had I heard that before?

Oh, yeah:

General 'Buck' Turgidson:
Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?


Dr. Strangelove:
Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.


Ambassador de Sadesky:
I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

It's a somewhat different solution to the problem than the quiverfulls, but the desired outcome is the same. And in this case, as the General points out, rather than forcing one woman to endure a lifetime of pregnancy, it is the man who would have to sacrifice the most, by giving up his monogamy.

It's time, given the rise of islamofascistliberalvegetarian immigrant-type people, to have a serious, thoughtful discussion of the Dr.'s ideas. Not to be willing to do so just shows that liberals are truly small-minded and unwilling to entertain refreshingingly unusual ideas.

tristero 11/21/2006 04:37:00 AM |

Monday, November 20, 2006

 
All Shook Up

by digby

Somebody needs a nice long rest.

The price for being a Christian.... in Indonesia...and soon to be Malaysia (allegedly reported in the local daily news yesterday and today.)

Death for abandoning (lapsing) Muslims and for Christians who preach in Malay.

Indonesia. An Islamic democracy. Is Islam compatible with democracy? These pictures were forwarded to me from a friend who knows a Christian in Indonesia......I cannot reveal too much or I will jeopardize the lives of those that smuggled these pics out. I am running them beneath the fold as they are too graphic to run on the main page. I am running them so the world will know and see that Indonesians are NOT the friend of anyone who is not Muslim.

The problem, as commmenters point out, is that the pictures have been on the internet for years and they depict tribal and ethnic violence that is only peripherally related to religion. If you read the whole post she goes into a total hysterical meltdown right on the page. Repeating over and over again

****THESE ARE GRAPHIC ********VIOLENT PICS*******WARNING WARNING WARNING**********

and then this:

UPDATE: I will have more details on these pics shortly. There is enormous fear in those I communicate with. Will post soon

Finally today, she acknowledges that the pics are from the early 90's (no explanation about the "smuggling" or the "enormous fear") but finds new evidence of Christian beheadings and writes this:

So what follows are photos from the late 1990s before the US went into Afghanistan and Iraq. Here we have Christian girls beheaded in Indonesia late last year. And here we have more Christian girls beheaded last week with the promise of more. It's the jihad.

[...]

These pictures depict the cruel, oppressive existence that non Muslims live under in Islamic countries. No matter how the left twists and squirms to rationalize, this is the ugly truth. And the barbarism continues before the US intervened and after.

Hoookay. It's the jihad.

Her followers are certainly convinced:

Atrocities like these will be commonplace in Europe probably within the next five years, and certainly within the next ten. 2012 will be a watershed year.

Normally, this wouldn't be worth mentioning --- just another slightly deranged rightwing blogger, right? Dime a dozen. But Atlas conducts long interviews with people like John Bolton and Benjamin Netanyahu. Shouldn't their security people be a little bit concerned about this?



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digby 11/20/2006 09:00:00 PM |

 
Shake Your Floozy Patch

by digby

From Missouri:

A Republican-led legislative panel claims in a new report on illegal immigration that abortion is partly to blame because it is causing a shortage of American workers.

The report from the state House Special Committee on Immigration Reform also claims "liberal social welfare policies" have discouraged Americans from working and encouraged immigrants to cross the border illegally.

The statements about abortion, welfare policies and a recommendation to abolish income taxes in favor of sales taxes were inserted into the immigration report by the committee chairman, Rep. Ed Emery.

All six Democrats on the panel refused to sign the report. Some of them called the abortion assertion ridiculous and embarrassing.

"There's a lot of editorial comment there that I couldn't really stomach," Rep. Trent Skaggs said Monday. "To be honest, I think it's a little delusional."

All 10 Republican committee members signed the report, though one of them, Rep. Billy Pat Wright, said Monday he didn't recall it connecting abortion and illegal immigration.

Emery, who equates abortion to murder, defended the assertions.

"We hear a lot of arguments today that the reason that we can't get serious about our borders is that we are desperate for all these workers," Emery said. "You don't have to think too long. If you kill 44 million of your potential workers, it's not too surprising we would be desperate for workers."

National Right to Life estimates there have been more than 47 million abortions since the Supreme Court established a woman's right to abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The immigration report estimates there are 80,000 fewer Missourians because of abortion, many of whom now would have been in a "highly productive age group for workers."

As I wrote earlier, we have the DLC hiring crackpot sociologists to write articles about liberals outbreeding the conservative movement, David Brooks talking about "natalism," Newsweek writing respectful articles about the Kooky Quiverfuls and now state legislatures connecting immigration to abortion and suggesting that the white women aren't breeding enough. Anybody feeling the hot breath of a new conservative meme on their necks?

Good luck with that. Women are going to make their own choices and there is nothing these throwbacks can do about it. If some of them want to have 14 children it's their right. Nobody's going to stop them. (As long as they are white and married of course. Singles or women of color are just whores and parasites and must be stopped, the workforce be damned.) I have a feeling that this anti-birth control and brood-mare-for-Jesus thing isn't going to catch fire.

I do have a good idea how these people can lead by example, however. Every woman who belongs to the forced childbirth movement should sign a contract agreeing to birth at least four snowflake babies and homeschool them. This way they could assure that each woman fulfills her patriotic duty by raising at least four children (more if she wants to pass on her own very special genes) and the nation will have a nice homegrown uneducated workforce to exploit with low wages and bad working conditions. They wouldn't even have to fuck, which I'm sure would be a great relief for all concerned.


Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, Ed Meese, one of the Horsenuts of the Apocalypse, explicitly says in his GQ interview that Roe is not the problem. It's Griswald. I'm not sure why exactly, but recent wingnut "science" suggests that when females hang their "floozy-patch" out there for all to see, pick up strange men and get drunk on oxytocin they lose the capacity to love a good man. Or something.



Pandagon has been discussing this issue in detail and has lots of info on what is obviously a new front for the forced childbirth movement.


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digby 11/20/2006 06:37:00 PM |

 
Honest Abe The Newt

by tristero

So, Newt Gingrich wants to be president because, get this, he thinks he can be the new Lincoln:

In casting himself as the reluctant but critical-for-these-times candidate, the former history professor is looking back to 1860, and the wildfire support for Lincoln's candidacy touched off by a series of speeches.... "I was fascinated by Holzer's portrait of Lincoln spending three months at the Springfield state library, putting together the definitive argument about the Constitution, the Founding Fathers and slavery," Gingrich says.

"He turns it into a 7,300-word speech - gives it once in New York, once in Rhode Island, once in Massachusetts, once in New Hampshire. Then he goes home. I was struck by the sheer courage of the self-definitional moment that said, 'We are in real trouble, we need real leadership, and if that's who you think we need, here's my speech'," Gingrich says, suggesting he intends to do the same thing.

So can we look forward to the 21st version of such immortal phrases as "the mystic chords of memory," or "a house divided cannot stand," or "the last best hope on earth?"

Well, Newt gives us a preview. When asked if he is running for president, Gingrich replied:

'I'm going to tell you something, and whether or not it's plausible given the world you come out of is your problem' .... 'I am not 'running' for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.'

What command of the language! What magnanimity of spirit! What perspective on his own ambitions!

Now if he'd only grow a beard, lose 250 pounds, buy those shoes with humongous soles teenage girls wear to make him 6'5" - what else would he need? A brain and a heart, you say? Oh, don't be snarky.

Sigh. It truly is amazing the slime that has access to the mainstream discourse these days.

(Btw, simply because Gingrich totally mangled Lincoln at Cooper Union, don't prejudge the book. I read it when it came out and as I recall, it's actually very good. )

tristero 11/20/2006 01:22:00 PM |

 
Sweet Neocons

by digby

Watching all these neocon rats racing to fling themselves off the sinking Republican ship is an amazing sight to see. On Blitzer's show yesterday they were all over the place, blaming everyone but themselves for the disaster in Iraq.

Ken Adelman is heartbroken to find that the administration is dysfunctional and incompetent. David Frum just wishes the president had followed through on the words David Frum had put in his mouth. Michael Rubin throws Condi under the bus and then backs up over her:

ADELMAN: Well, I think, when you look at the record, Wolf, it's a record that has a lot of mistakes. You can't read a book without, you know, realizing that.

George Packer's book, "The Assassin's Gate," Michael Gordon and Bernie Trainor's book on "Cobra II," Bob Woodward's book on "State of Denial," Tom Ricks's book, "Fiasco" -- they all have different episodes but the same sad, story.

And you have to ask yourself, how did this happen? And all them attempt, and all of them are serious works and all of them full of facts and figures and episodes. And to tell you the truth, it just breaks your heart.

BLITZER: Does it break your heart, David Frum, to see how this situation unfolded?

Because in the Vanity Fair quotes that were released -- the whole article has not yet been published, but in the quotes -- I'll read one of them from you, and you'll tell me if this is accurate: "I always believed, as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the idea that underlay those words."

And the big shock to me has been that, although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything.

FRUM: Yes, that is an accurate quote.

BLITZER: It is accurate?

FRUM: Yes. And it reflects a lot of what I've been saying for the past year and a half.

When the president gives these speeches, every speech is the result of a battle for the president's heart and mind, as has famously been said about the speech-making process.

So different people try to persuade the president to say different kinds of things. And he considers and deliberates. And George Bush committed himself to a series of propositions.

One, he was going to stop Iran and North Korea from acquiring these terrible weapons. And two, that in Iraq, he was going to put his trust in the future of Iraq in a democratic process.

Instead, what happened in Iraq, for example, was the United States became an occupying power almost immediately.

That even before the invasion of Iraq, the decision was made not to have any kind of an Iraqi face on the future government, on the next government of Iraq, because...

BLITZER: Was that Paul Bremer who made that decision, who was the provisional authority representative, the proconsul, as some people say he was? Or was that a decision made by Rumsfeld or Cheney?

FRUM: Paul Bremer was the result of it. But the reason there was a proconsul was because a decision was made not to have an Iraqi provisional government. And that came about because the administration fought itself to a standstill. I mean, there were people who -- there were a number of Iraqis, each of whom had patrons in the administration.

BLITZER: A lot of people would say, that was, Michael Rubin, a huge blunder. You were there. You worked for Paul Bremer. Who came up with that idea of a U.S. military occupation as opposed to trying to let the Iraqis take charge?

RUBIN: Well, I'd second what David said, that that decision, Paul Bremer was the result of that decision. What there was was a debate within the administration about, you have the Iraqi opposition. You had, I believe it was seven key figures. And the question was whether to allow them to become a provisional government. They had already been self-selected through a number of conferences. Or whether there would be some sort of American presence first.

The real debate in Washington was whether we would have more influence before liberation or after liberation. And ultimately, it was the National Security Council, the national security adviser which made the decision to go with an American occupation presence.

BLITZER: That was Condoleezza Rice?

RUBIN: That was Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley.

BLITZER: The deputy national security adviser...

RUBIN: At the time, yes.

BLITZER: ... who's now the national security adviser. And Condoleezza Rice, of course, is the secretary of state now.

RUBIN: That was the compromise that came out of interagency debate, when again, as David said, the State Department, the Pentagon and the others fought themselves to a standstill.

BLITZER: And you think that was a blunder?

RUBIN: I do believe it is one the greatest blunders we have made. The Coalition Provisional Authority and Paul Bremer did a lot of good, but nothing they accomplished which was good couldn't have been accomplished without an immediate transfer of sovereignty. And the fact that we labelled ourselves an occupying power, unlike in Bosnia, unlike in Kosovo and elsewhere, really put -- it justified all the insurgent rhetoric against us. And it turned our allies from those creating a democracy into collaborators.

Frum and Rubin are both saying that they never backed an occupation but rather instead wanted to put "an iraqi" in charge of the country from the get. Apparently temporary viceroy Bremer was the compromise. Tim at Balloon Juice, seeing Richard Perle's similar explanation in yesterdays WaPo, and concludes:

Arguing about Iraq often gets stuck on what exactly our original exit strategy was supposed to be. Rumsfeld clearly planned to get in and out rapidly, which can only mean that we intended to knock over the top tier of leadership and hand over the country to somebody. Who, exactly, is often the sticking point.

The top candidate was always Ahmad Chalabi. A serial fabricator, forger, convicted embezzler and the charismatic leader of a ragtag group of Iraqi exiles Chalabi clearly owned the hearts and minds of neoconservatives. Now that we know the rest of his story (no support inside Iraq, a likely double agent for Iran) the appeal to incredulity fallacy seems so tempting that even I want to write it off on the grounds of a basic faith in humanity. Nobody can be that dumb, etc. Sadly one cannot deny that the Chalabi handover makes more sense than any other explanation for the Pentagon’s prewar behavior. Handing Iraq over to one of Saddam’s liutenants seems improbable in light of the dewy-eyed humanitarianism displayed by early war supporters. Saddam had killed off homegrown opposition leaders and Ali al-Sistani wasn’t offered the job (too close to Iran). It would be Chalabi, or…who?

I have no problem saying they would have been that dumb. The neocons for all their brilliance have serious and fatal blindspots and one of them is a terrible, immature romanticicm. I can't say whether the pentagon really went in with a light force because they were planning to do a quick handover to Chalabi (although it makes as much sense as anything else --- and they did pay him more than $30 million.) I do know, however, that the starry eyed neocons believed that Chalabi was going to be the George Washington of Iraq. (It's hard to believe now that they could be this absurdly naive, but they were.)

Chalabi was hailed in some circles, especially among the neocons at AEI, as the “George Washington of Iraq...” After the Republicans regained the White House in 2001, many of the neocons took top national-security jobs. Perle, the man closest to Chalabi, chose to stay on the outside (where he kept a lucrative lobbying practice). But Wolfowitz and Feith became, respectively, the No. 2 and No. 3 man at the Defense Department, and a former Wolfowitz aide, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, became the vice president’s chief of staff. Once the newcomers took over, the word went out that any disparaging observations about Chalabi or the INC were no longer appreciated. “The view was, ‘If you weren’t a total INC guy, then you’re on the wrong side’,” said a Pentagon official. “It was, ‘We’re not going to trash the INC anymore and Ahmad Chalabi is an Iraqi patriot who risked his life for his country’. ”

So maybe Rummy and Dick truly agreed with Perle and company that they could roll into Iraq, topple Saddam and quickly turn it over to their pal Ahmad and then build some nice, permanent air-conditioned bases in the middle of the desert. Within a year or so it would be just like Germany, only hotter and without the good beer.

From what Rubin says, Condi and Hadley were whispering in Junior's other ear telling him that Chalabi was a bad choice. And Junior, being the braintrust he is, decided to split the difference and go in with Rummy and Dick's light force but do Condi's occupation --- without any planning, of course, just the knowledge that his "gut" told him it was the right thing to do. (Oy --- why didn't they just consult Nancy Reagan's astrologer?)

It's possible. Sometimes it keeps me awake nights wondering what it would have been like to have a real president when all this came down --- you know, one who had enough brains to sift all this advice in a coherent fashion and who had the experience and maturity to actually lead instead of flip a coin or read the pattern in the bottom of his morning frosted flakes for signs of what to do. If this doesn't prove that it really does matter who's in charge, I don't know what will. This conservative committee of "grown-ups" fucked things up royally.

Meanwhile, just becaue the neocons are running for the exits doesn't mean they don't continue to be wrong about everything. It is their most distinguishing characteristic. Right now, however, their brand is very damaged so they are beginning to distance themselves from their "movement" in a most clumsy and amusing fashion:

BLITZER: Ken, I'll start with you. The Iraq Study Group...I see ten very influential, prominent guys, but I don't see one conservative, neoconservative, Ken Adelman. What do you make of that?

ADELMAN: Nothing, to tell you the truth. I'm not a neoconservative. I was always a conservative. While the neoconservatives, I guess, were Trotskyites in campaigning in some nefarious manner in 1964, I was campaigning for Barry Goldwater. So I think it doesn't matter all that much. It's an academic exercise. Because I am conservative and all that. But I think it's a very good group, and I'm interested in what they have to say.

BLITZER: Are you concerned, though, about the membership of this Iraq study group, David Frum, given their histories, the so-called realist as opposed to the neoconservative, the idealist school of thought?

FRUM: I think it is -- I'm with Ken. I'm not sure how helpful any of those terms are.

It's certainly not helpful to David Frum and the rest of the neocons, is it?

But they aren't going anywhere, not really. They are always wrong but they always find ways to rationalize their dizzy incompetence. And they truly do represent the intellectual wing of the conservative movement, such as it is. Without them, the Republican party would no longer have a foreign policy. Poppy and Jim Baker aren't going to last much longer and Pat Buchanan is going to be tied up down at the border taking potshots at "Jose" for the forseeable future.

So, this is what we are going to be dealing with in right wing foreign policy from now on. Here's Rubin again, spelling it all out:

BLITZER: To bring in the regional powers, including Iran and Syria and to start a dialogue. The Iraq study group of James Baker and Lee Hamilton, they're already doing what Bush administration refuses to do. They've been meeting with high-ranking Iranian and Syrian officials.

RUBIN: Actually, the Bush administration doesn't refuse to do it. On May 31st, Condoleezza Rice offered to have direct talks with Iran in the context...

BLITZER: But they laid out certain conditions?

RUBIN: The only condition was that Iran suspend uranium enrichment during the duration of the talks.

BLITZER: But Baker-Hamilton didn't ask for that suspension.

RUBIN: But you know what? Four days later, Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, got up in response to Condoleezza Rice's offer and said, why don't you just admit that you've lost? Why don't you just admit that you are weak and your razor is blunt?

That was Iran's response.

Yes. It was quite the zinger, wasn't it? Let's nuke 'em back into the stone age.

Rubin and friends think that insults and bluster are real and that great nations should react in anger when some bombastic fool says something stupid. (But then, they always thought we should invade the Soviet Union because they were rude to the US too. Somebody forgot to tell them about the sticks and stones thing when they were kids.)

In this sense they've got an awful lot in common with al Qaeda --- they both have an outsized sense of "pride" which is really insecurity. It's not a good idea for the world's most powerful nation to react to a street corner diss. We should set the agenda, not some blowhard who is trying to impress his followers.

It is a cosmic joke that we had a terrible combination of vain, hubristic neocons and a brand name in an empty flightsuit in charge when militant Islamic fundamentalism made its big play. These guys always lose their heads when somebody taunts them and they overreact. There's a lesson in that somewhere.


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digby 11/20/2006 01:02:00 PM |

 
Y'Never Know

by tristero

Kevin writes:

A year from now, we could end up in the middle of a full-blown civil war costing a thousand American lives a month. We could end up taking sides in a shooting war against Turkey, a NATO ally. We could end up fighting off an armed invasion from Iran. We could end up on the receiving of an oil embargo led by Saudi Arabia. Who knows?

Possibly.

Or suddenly tomorrow, the scales could fall from al-Sadr's eyes, and from Maliki's, and from everyone else's, and they would realize that after the horror of the Saddam years, it is simply crazy to fight amongst themselves for control of such a potentially wealthy country like Iraq when there are plenty of petro-dollars (or petro-euros) for everyone.

Or maybe tomorrow Osama bin Laden will get on tv and say, "Mein Gott, what a schmuck I've been. After deep study of Torah, and after discovering the joys of matzo ball soup, I've decided to convert and become a Lubavitcher. As for my ex-friend Ayman al-Zawahiri, the heretic! He's renounced all religious belief and become Richard Dawkins personal physician and valet."

Hey! Y'never know.

Let me put this another way, to make the point clear. I'll ask, and answer, a rhetorical quesion or two.

Are any of Kevin's scenarios even remotely plausible?

Yes, mathematically, they are. They could conceivably happen.

Are the scenarios I proposed even remotely plausible?

Yes, mathematically, they are. They could conceivably happen.

Are they of equal plausibility?

No, of course not. Kevin's scenarios are far more likely than mine.

What is the approximate probability of one of Kevin's scenarios happening? Of mine?

Roughly 10% to 65% for Kevin. As for mine, roughly .000000000000000001% to .00000000000001%.

Using everyday language, how would you best summarize these probabilities?

It''s somewhat possible, to likely, that one of Kevin's scenarios may actually turn out to be an accurate prediction. As for you, tristero, it's never ever gonna happen. Give it up.

How come so many people, including Kevin Drum but more importantly, far more influential people than he, literally thought something close to the exact opposite in 2002/03? How come people believed for even one second that positive outcomes to Bush/Iraq that could never possibly happen (do I really have to add "colloquially speaking" to qualify that assertion?) might happen? Or that a good outcome, however defined, had - at the very least - equal probability to all the tragic scenarios that were somewhat possible to likely?

Beats me. I will be spending the rest of my life trying to answer that question. Maybe someday I'll learn the answer.

Hey! Y'never know.

tristero 11/20/2006 06:21:00 AM |

Sunday, November 19, 2006

 
Toxins

by digby

From Newsweek:

Old CW: First woman Speaker will be Rayburn redux.
New CW: Botox bumbler blows first play.

This particular Mean Girlz theme didn't spring from nowhere. It's coming directly from Frank Luntz:

LUNTZ: I always use the line for Nancy Pelosi, "You get one shot at a facelift. If it doesn't work the first time, let it go."

This must have focused grouped well among their target wingnut pigs because, as I previously noted, Queenbee Dowd generously shared this one with the whole world today (before she went off on a sexist rant of her own):

Ted Olson, the former solicitor general and eloquent Republican lawyer who argued the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court, was warming up the rabidly conservative Federalist Society crowd for John McCain with a few sexist cracks about Botox.

The new Congress could amuse itself, he said, by “searching for any sign of movement in Speaker Pelosi’s forehead.” The Senate, he added, would be entertained by “the expressionless, Pelosi-like forehead of Senator Clinton.”

I just have one question for these fine fellows who think this is appropriate: do they really want to start getting into discussions of looks? Because I don't know who told them they looked like George Clooney and Brad Pitt but whoever it was was either drunk or blind.





This is very dangerous ground for these extremely plain looking middle aged men to be walking on. Dennis Miller ruined a comedy career doing conservative "humor" like this. (And perhaps Liddy Dole and Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Arnold Schwarzenegger should have a discrete talk with them before this gets out of hand and starts to blow back in some unfortunate directions.)

Luntz gave the game away. This kind of derisive babble is not simply a bunch of overgrown frat boys 'n sorority girls disrespectfully talking about these women's looks. It's designed very specifically to trivialize them. It's right out of the Spring 2000 Earth Tones catalogue.

And the Kewl Kidz, anxious as ever to prove their sophomoric Spite Girl bona-fides, are more than happy to "pass it on" as that snotty little CWitem proves.

Newsweek cleverly puts this disclaimer at the bottom:

The CW is not NEWSWEEK's opinion, but an informal distillation of the ever-changing thinking of Beltway pundits and the chattering classes.

I don't doubt it for a minute. And the fact that the RNC's most famous focus grouper openly admits that he's pushing the line is purely coincidence.


Letters@newsweek.com
Mailing Address:
Newsweek
251 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10019


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digby 11/19/2006 03:15:00 PM |

 
Cheney Via Hersh

by tristero

Seymour Hersh:

If the Democrats won on November 7th, the Vice-President said, that victory would not stop the Administration from pursuing a military option with Iran.

Anyone who thinks the next two years are gonna be a cakewalk will be forced to listen 10 times in a row to the score to "The Full Monty: The Musical."

tristero 11/19/2006 02:53:00 PM |

 
Demons And Pat Robertson

by tristero

On November 8, I wrote:

If you think Republicans took the day off in 2000, 20002, and 2004, think again. Get up off your asses. Here we go.

As if to underscore my point,* we have seen in the past week or so a veritable Katrina of trash from the right and the administration. There's the return of the judicial nominees from hell. There's Bolton's nomination. And Cheney assuring the Federalist Society goons that GOP losses won't keep Bush from nominating right wing lunatics to the bench. And, of course, there is Eric Keroack, a loser so weird even a weird loser like John Podhoretz can't entirely agree with him.

And now, courtesy Bob Cesca comes Pat Robertson's latest outrage:

A viewer wrote in to ask Pat Robertson a question

Why [do] evangelical Christians tell non-Christians that Jesus (God) is the only way to Heaven? Those who are Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, etc. already know and have a relationship with God. Why is this? It seems disrespectful.

Robertson replied that it is not all disrespectful because all other religions really just worship "demonic powers."

No. They don't have a relationship. There is the god of the Bible, who is Jehovah. When you see L-O-R-D in caps, that is the name. It's not Allah, it's not Brahma, it's not Shiva, it's not Vishnu, it's not Buddha. It is Jehovah God. They don't have a relationship with him. He is the God of all Gods.** These others are mostly demonic powers. Sure they're demons. There are many demons in the world.

Yes, it's true that there are many demons in the world. And yes, obviously, Pat Robertson is one of them. Me, I prefer Maxwell's Demon and always have.

Anyway, any questions as to why the Democrats have to move and move fast?

*Alas, the rest of that post was not so clear. Apologies.

** Dig the blasphemy. Robertson's saying that Jehovah is one God, the top God, among many. Who knew he was a polytheist?

tristero 11/19/2006 11:06:00 AM |

 
"Pre-Marital Sex Is Really Germ Warfare"

by tristero

That's right: If you fuck outside of marriage, you're a terrorist. Sez who? Why, Eric Keroack sez so, that's who (warning, the link's to a pdf).



You know who Eric Keroack is, don't you? You should. You're paying his salary.

ht, The Corpus Callosum.

[Updated immediately because I hit post too soon. grr....]

tristero 11/19/2006 10:04:00 AM |

 

Collective Guilt And Punishment: Worse Than Racism

by poputonian

Let's try this one more time. Sharkbabe said:

Sadly the mass of Americans are no more moved by Iraqi deaths than they were by Vietnamese deaths.
...
How hard is it to imagine your own neighborhood in ruins, your husband and children dead, your job gone, basics of life gone (clean water, electricity), future gone - why does nobody seem to grasp this or care? I still don't get it. It's more than racism, it's something worse.

When I first read that, I tried to find a previous comment made by the brilliant aimai, but couldn't locate it. Now I have. Aimai was correcting me for calling Jose Chung a racist. Jose had rationalized the Haditha massacre in part because Iraqis were so barbaric as to distribute DVDs of themselves killing American soldiers. In his mind, otherwise innocent Iraqis therefore deserved to be massacred. He even stated that Iraqi children preferred the DVDs to cartoons. Jose said he couldn't see any logic in me calling him a racist. As aimai pointed out, he was right:

aimai: Got to side with the josebot on this one, poputonian--his haditha anecdote makes him a soulless, would be mass murderer ... but it doesnt *necessarily* make him a racist. In fact, I'd bet all lombard street to a china orange that jose would happilly see lots of people killed in revenge for lots of perceived and imaginary infractions on jose's world. And I'm sure that some would include members of jose's own ethnic group,whatever that is, and possibly even members of his own family. Jose's postings clearly point to both a massive and a fragile ego, a boundless and childish sense of rage, and an unlimited and utterly improbable sense of inflated self worth. But he's not necessarily a racist. As if that could possibly make it any worse, or any better.

Me: Maybe so, aimai. What I took from his comment was that he sees a group of barbaric people, and from it then concludes that other people who look and dress like them must be sublimated into a culture he knows and understands. In other words, to his small and feeble mind, all Iraqi people must be tamed. Isn't that racism?

aimai: poputonian, you know, no one despises the josebot and what it spits out more than I do, but it doesn't make it racist. Jose is concluding--or trying to argue in a pathetic fashion--that all iraqis should be subject to some kind of strict group punishment in which even small children and non-combatants must pay for the sins of their countrymen. But I think jose probably thinks that about a lot of groups if he thinks they are "not on his side." I don't doubt that in practice jose finds that, oddly, lots of non-white people are "really evil" and need punishing but he will always think it's because of something they 'really did' and not because he is over-categorizing due to a racist impulse which confuses individual with group. But I also think jose would cheerfully see lots of people of his own race killed, if it didn't cost him anything and he determined they were "on the wrong side." The idea of collective guilt and collective punishment is very old, and very retrograde. Its been abandoned by every civilized society. But jose still advocates for it, pathetically and by implication, with a sidewise wink and a kind of "omlettes must be made" attititude.

Here's the thing, pop, Jose ... lacks intelligence, and he certainly lacks empathy. All he has is a persistence of bad faith and a deep and abiding cowardice. It's not even worth trying to discern his motives--frankly, even a true racist whose every impulse came from race hatred could be a more admirable figure than Jose. Such a person could be loving (to some) noble (to some), courageous in conflict, honest and upright in argument (to some). They could even be peaceful, generous, and empathetic in all things except their chosen fixation (race). Jose can never be any of those things.

Here's Digby's original Haditha war crime post (from May), and the corresponding comment thread from which the above comments are extracted.

poputonian 11/19/2006 09:11:00 AM |

 
Glad You Woke Up, Ken Adelman. Now Go Away.

by tristero

Ken Adelman's flack has been getting him a lot of publicity lately, the latest being the lead-off "Had I known then what I know now" guy in this Washington Post article about rats deserting the sinking ship of George Bush's state. And he seems genuinely horrified over what he contributed to, if still somewhat deluded on the subject of it being a good idea.

Now, being generous people, let's take Adelman at his word and welcome him back to reality. And I'm not being sarcastic or snarky. I'm genuinely glad that Adelman has wised up, even if it's late in the game. However, the fact that Adelman now understands the consequences of what he so foolishly advocated doesn't change those facts, or his responsibility.

First of all, Ken Adelman has the blood of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of innocents on his hands. Assuming the best, that he is at some level a moral person, he will have to live with the horror of that fact for the rest of his life, that he directly contributed to the slaughter and carnage. But that is not all.

If there are (as there should be but probably won't be) trials for the perpetrators of this illegal war, Adelman may escape indictment on a technicality but he is morally obligated to testify truthfully about all he knew and saw within the Bush administration regarding the planning and execution of the Bush/Iraq war.

Assuming the likeliest, that there are no trials, Adelman needs to write a book describing in detail what his thinking was that led to the infamous "cakewalk" comment (and weasling out of it by saying it merely referred to taking Baghdad won't do) and what he knows about the Bush administration.

Secondly, and in my opinion far more important than punishing Adelman (I know many of you disagree, and you're probably right, but it's just not my personality to focus on punishing people for their crimes), after writing that book he should immediately retire from having any kind of role in the theorizing or implementation of foreign affairs. Time for a career change, Ken, and I don't mean teaching foreign affairs somewhere. I mean it's time to reactivate those adolescent dreams of becoming a death metal superstar, or opening up the motorcycle chop shop you and your wife always fantasized about.

In short, it's time for Ken Adelman to go away. He didn't merely make a mistake. He made hundreds of spectacularly awful mistakes. He was wrong about Rumsfeld's competence, wrong about the very idea of invading Iraq, wrong about the cakewalk, and wrong to keep his mouth shut for so long. Kudos for speaking out (sort-of) before the November election, but that is not enough to recommend Adelman for a continued career in international affairs.

The corollary, of course, is that people who were right about Bush/Iraq from the get-go should consider a career in foreign relations and they should achieve serious influence. Step one: Elect a Democratic president. Step two: don't count on the mere election of a Democrat to the presidency to guarantee good advisers: work hard to make sure s/he appoints them.

The article is also useful as it gives more insight into the delusional aspect of Richard Perle's thinking, and by extension the mindset of neoconservatism and the Republican far-right:

Perle said the administration's big mistake was occupying the country rather than creating an interim Iraqi government led by a coalition of exile groups to take over after Hussein was toppled. "If I had known that the U.S. was going to essentially establish an occupation, then I'd say, 'Let's not do it,' " and instead find another way to target Hussein, Perle said. "It was a foolish thing to do."

Perle, head of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board at the time of the 2003 invasion, said he still believes the invasion was justified. But he resents being called "the architect of the Iraq war," because "my view was different from the administration's view from the very beginning" about how to conduct it. "I am not critical now of anything about which I was not critical before," he said. "I've said it more publicly."

In other words, Perle had a plan, a Grand Vision of exactly how to topple Saddam, install Chalabi, and transform Iraq into a land of milk and honey. Then, through some magical osmosis known only to neoconservatives, the rest of the Arab Middle East would follow. Oh, and by the way, while Israel would finally be safe unto eternity, they should hold onto those nukes they don't have (wink, wink) just in case.

God save us from all future visionaries with clear plans to transform the world.

What Perle is saying is that he laid out the exact steps to follow and if things changed, hey, don't blame him, they didn't follow his carefully reasoned plan, which had to be followed to the letter if it was to work.

As if anything as complicated as the invasion and conquest of any country, let alone one the size and complexity of Iraq, can be done according to a linear plan with no deviations. Of all the insane assumptions behind the reasoning for the Bush/Iraq war, this was always one of the most idiotic, that you could write a straightforward narrative of what you wanted to happen and follow it. And it is truly incredible how many people fell for it. But they did.

The world simply doesn't work the way Perle wants it to. As Anatol Lieven said, to title a book "An End to Evil" as Perle and Frum did, is insane. One cannot have serious discussions of American foreign policy with such people; it is simply incredible that they ever had, and worse, still have, influence in the foreign policy of the most powerful country in the world.

The article ends with words by Kenneth Adelman that are worth repeating:

The whole philosophy of using American strength for good in the world, for a foreign policy that is really value-based instead of balanced-power-based, I don't think is disproven by Iraq. But it's certainly discredited.

Good.

And going forward, let's operate under the assumption that a "value-based" foreign policy has, in fact, been disproven by Iraq.

To those of you who may not be familiar with my earlier posts on the subject, I am not in any sense advocating "realism" nor an abandonment of ethical principles in foreign policy; nor, for that matter, do I believe that it is impossible for countries to identify "the good" and act to further it.

I simply believe that foreign policy must be guided, above all, by what Raymond Aron called "prudence." I think what he means, at least in part - and I"m sure you'll correct me - is that a country must act cautiously, carefully, and very knowledgeably in international relations, steering an unclear and inevitably compromised course between the Scylla of realism and the Charybdis of idealism. It is as foolish to behave like Henry Kissinger as it is like Elliott Ness ("Okay gentleman, let's do some good!"").

I would emphasize caution and knowledge. Crazy people start unnecessary wars. The history of the last six years demonstrates quite well that the world would have enough problems to deal with had there never been a Bush/Iraq war.

Stupid people deal with other countries from a position of near-total ignorance. And again, the last six years proves that the so-called "black box" paradigm of realism - and its corollary, that all countries and peoples roughly aspire to Americanism with a local accent - is preposterous.

A policy of prudence will neither prevent war in all cases, nor preclude fighting a just war. It is not appeasement nor war-mongering. but simple common-sense. And it helps countries avoid wars. Even when you're dealing with a crazed worsethanhitler lunatic like Saddam Hussein? Yes. Especially then.

In the particular case of Iraq in 2002, a prudent course would have been to drop the sanctions and/or try to refocus them so that they hurt Saddam's administration rather than the people in the country. In addtion, it was necessary to reinstate the inspection regime, backed up with highly targeted force if necessary to compel inspections (the so-called coerced inspection idea).

What would be the prudent course in Iraq right now? There isn't one. There isn't any good course in Iraq. It is a monumental catastrophe. one our grandchildren will be living with. The best I can come up with is get the troops out as quickly as possible and then wait for Bush to leave office in January, 2009 and assess the situation then. Nothing good can or will happen as long as Bush is in office.

That sounds grim and defeatist, I know. But having lived with Bushism now for 6 years, I also know that it is a realistic attitude. The Hamilton-Baker Commission will achieve nothing except create more American deaths (both of Americans and by Americans) while delaying the inevitable withdrawal a few extra months.

And this tragedy - one of the worst debacles in American history, and that is saying a lot - is the legacy of men and women like Kenneth Adelman. And that is why I say, glad you woke up, Ken. Now, go away.


[UPDATE: Peter Daou, quoting Lambert, has a nice takedown of the very idea behind the article, that the most "powerful" criticism has come from his erstwhile supporters. They are, of course, absolutely right.]

tristero 11/19/2006 06:36:00 AM |

 

Nationalism Over Humanism

by poputonian

In a comment thread below, Sharkbabe noted the American apathy toward death and destruction in Iraq, and asked the key question why:

Sadly the mass of Americans are no more moved by Iraqi deaths than they were by Vietnamese deaths.
...
How hard is it to imagine your own neighborhood in ruins, your husband and children dead, your job gone, basics of life gone (clean water, electricity), future gone - why does nobody seem to grasp this or care? I still don't get it. It's more than racism, it's something worse.

Her comment reminded me somewhat of a letter Benjamin Franklin wrote to his friend Anthony Todd, the postmaster in England. Granted, the American Revolution was a war between Anglo-cousins, so it obviously wasn't a race war. But I think it illustrates how people with power do things without thinking about the consequences, just because they can. Here's what Franklin wrote:

How long will the insanity on your side the water continue? Every day's plundering of our property and burning our habitations, serves but to exasperate and unite us the more. The breach between you and us grows daily wider and more difficult to heal. Britain without us can grow no stronger. Without her we shall become a tenfold greater and mightier people. Do you choose to have so increasing a nation of enemies? Do you think it prudent by your barbarities to fix us in a rooted hatred of your nation, and make all our innumerable posterity detest you? Yet this is the way in which you are now proceeding. Our primers begin to be printed with cuts of the burnings of Charlestown, of Falmouth, of James Town, of Norfolk with the flight of women and children from those defenseless places, some falling by shot in their flight.

Allen and his people, with Lovell, an amiable character and a man of letters, all in chains on board your ships. Is anybody among you weak enough to imagine that these mischiefs are neither to be paid for nor be revenged, while we treat your people that are our prisoners with the utmost kindness and humanity? Your ministers may imagine that we shall soon be tired of this, and submit. But they are mistaken, as you may recollect they have been hitherto in every instance in which I told you at the time that they were mistaken. And I now venture to tell you, that though this war may be a long one (and I think it will probably last beyond my time) we shall with God's help finally get the better of you; the consequences I leave to your imagination.

This is what happens when people who are incapable of empathy find their way into the world's top power cell. They start wars because they can; because to them it feels good. It's country versus country first, a competition to force others to submit to your will, even if you have to torture them, or kill them. Apparently, these war-makers do not understand that when you attempt to conquer a culture, that culture's "innumerable posterity" will "detest you." They might even merge into a new and different adversary, in the case of the Middle East, perhaps a more powerful Shia crescent.

Sharkbabe closed with this:

If Pelosi had an empathetic populace to work with, this atrocity would never have happened in the first place. As it is, I think she's being very astute in her rhetoric (and I hope tactics) toward achieving the goal at hand - to stop this soul-sickening holocaust as soon as possible.

Yes, as soon as possible.

poputonian 11/19/2006 06:00:00 AM |

Saturday, November 18, 2006

 
Saturday Night At The Movies

SIR! NO SIR!

Incitement to mutiny

A film review by Dennis Hartley

There have been a good number of excellent documentaries examining various aspects of the Sixties protest movement (“The War At Home”, “Berkeley In The Sixties” and the more recent “Weather Underground”), but none focusing specifically on the members of the armed forces who openly opposed the Vietnam war-until now. “Sir! No Sir!” is a fascinating look at the GI anti-war movement during the era. Director David Zeigler combines present-day interviews with archival footage to good effect in this well-paced documentary. Most people who have seen Oliver Stone’s “Born On The Fourth Of July” were likely left with the impression that paralyzed Vietnam vet and activist Ron Kovic was the main impetus and focus of the GI movement, but Kovic’s story was in fact only one of thousands (Kovic, interestingly, is never mentioned in Ziegler’s film). While the aforementioned Kovic received a certain amount of media attention at the time, the full extent and history of the involvement by military personnel has been suppressed from public knowledge for a number of years, and that is the focus of “Sir! No Sir”. In one very astutely chosen archival clip, a CBS news anchor somberly announces that there appears to be some problems with “troop morale” in Vietnam (while in the meantime, behind closed doors, the US military was apparently imprisoning dissenting GIs left and right under “incitement to mutiny” charges, sometimes just for being overheard expressing anti-war sentiments). All the present-day interviewees (Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine vets) have interesting (and at times emotionally wrenching) stories to share. Jane Fonda speaks candidly about her infamous “FTA” (“Fuck The Army”) shows that she organized for troops as an antidote to the somewhat creaky and more traditional Bob Hope USO tours. Well worth your time. The film would make an excellent double bill with the classic documentary “Hearts And Minds” (DVD available from Criterion).

---- Dennis Hartley

(Ironweed Film Club DVD 2006; info @ www.ironweedfilms.com)



Editors note: Dennis Hartley is a Seattle based comedian, radio personality, film buff and writer. He has agreed to review films for the discerning Hullabaloo reader on a semi-regular basis. We have joined the Ironweed Film Club (what the NY Times calls a "progressive film festival" on DVD) and will be featuring those films, as well as others that we think will be of interest to you liberal schmarties. Please welcome him to our motley crew.


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digby 11/18/2006 08:22:00 PM |

 
Gleichschaltung

by digby

In an unprecedented transparent attempt to severely limit the right to peaceful protest and freedom of speech of low-wage Houston janitors and their supporters, a Harris County District Attorney has set an extraordinarily high bond of $888,888 cash for each of the 44 peaceful protestors arrested last night. Houston janitors and their supporters, many of them janitors from other cities, were participating in an act of non-violent civil disobedience, protesting in the intersection of Travis at Capitol when they were arrested in downtown Houston Thursday night. They were challenging Houston's real estate industry to settle the janitors' strike and agree on a contract that provides the 5,300 janitors in Houston with higher wages and affordable health insurance.

The combined $39.1 million bond for the workers and their supporters is far and above the normal amount of bail set for people accused of even violent crimes in Harris County. While each of the non-violent protestors is being held on $888,888 bail ...

[...]


Community activists and leaders expressed concern and dismay today at the police's use of horses to intimidate and corral janitors participating in the non-violent civil disobedience Thursday night in downtown Houston. The police's choice to use horses to stop the protest resulted in four people being injured, including an 83-year old female janitor from New York.

Check out the pics and the video, here and here.

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

"In Salt Lake, Joe," says I to him,
him standing by my bed,
"They framed you on a murder charge,"
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead,"
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."

"The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
they shot you Joe" says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man"
Says Joe "I didn't die"
Says Joe "I didn't die"

And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes.
Says Joe "What they can never kill
went on to organize,
went on to organize"

From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
where working-men defend their rights,
it's there you find Joe Hill,
it's there you find Joe Hill!

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

digby 11/18/2006 06:26:00 PM |

 
Shrinking The Kewl Kidz

by digby


I have long written about the Washington press corps as a bunch of "Mean Girls," "Kewl Kidz" and the like, often drawing criticism from women who think that I am being sexist by using the terms I use. (I even got a thorough rhetorical thrashing from one of the blogosphere's most famous feminist scolds for using the term "Heathers") Mostly I assume we all "get this" on an instinctive level because it's something we've either observed or experienced in our childhoods and so it is a very quick way to understand the phenomenon. I have thought about writing a long post to explain the social psychology that underlies it and never got around to it.

It's lucky for all of us then, that Sara Robinson at Orcinus has now written a thorough post on this powerful form of bullying. (And those of you have read "Cat's Eye" by the greatest feminist novelist of our time, Margaret Atwood, already know all about it...)

Here's the nub:

The Parenting Perspectives website provides a concise description of this devastating style of coercion and abuse:

Acts of relational aggression are common among girls in American schools. These acts can include rumor spreading, secret-divulging, alliance-building, backstabbing, ignoring, excluding from social groups and activities, verbally insulting, and using hostile body language (i.e., eye-rolling and smirking). Other behaviors include making fun of someone's clothes or appearance and bumping into someone on purpose. Many of these behaviors are quite common in girls' friendships, but when they occur repeatedly to one particular victim, they constitute bullying.

Increasingly common is another form of harassment termed “cyber bullying”—using e-mail and websites to harm someone. Cyber bullies use personal websites and instant messaging to spread rumors about classmates over the Internet. Cyber bullies might also use classmates or “friend's” PIN numbers and pass codes to send embarrassing e-mails. Sometimes it is easier to engage in cyberbullying than more direct acts because the bully never faces the victim. This form of harassment is also very fast--an instant message posted at night may spread through an entire school before the first class period….

Relational aggression tends to be most intense and apparent among girls in fifth through eighth grade. This type of behavior often continues, although perhaps to a somewhat lesser degree, in high school.…

The usual motivation behind acts of relational aggression is to socially isolate the victim while also increasing the social status of the bully. Perpetrators might be driven by jealousy, need for attention, anger, and fear of (or need for) competition. One reason girls choose this type of bullying rather than more direct acts of harassment is that the bully typically avoids being caught or held accountable. Girls who appear the most innocent may indeed be the most hostile in their actions. These bullies are often popular, charismatic girls who are already receiving positive attention from adults. Because of their positive reputations, these girls may be the least likely suspects. Thus it can be very difficult to identify the perpetrators of acts of relational aggression, and victims can suffer for long periods of time without support.

Rosalind Wiseman, whose Queen Bees & Wannabees is one of the bibles on relational aggression (the other is Rachel Simmons' Odd Girl Out), says that Queen Bees are generally the girls who have bought most heavily into "media bombardment" to look pretty and cool. She provides the following list of traits for the garden-variety relational bully:

--Her friends do what she wants them to do.

-- She can argue anyone down, including friends, peers, teachers and parents.

-- Her comments about other girls are about the lame things they did.

-- She doesn't want to invite everyone to her birthday party, and if she does, she ignores some.

-- She's charming to adults.

-- She makes other girls feel "anointed" by declaring them special friends.

-- She is affectionate to one person to show rejection of another, like throwing her arms dramatically around one girl to emphasize the exclusion of another.

-- She does not take responsibility when she hurts another's feelings.

-- She seeks revenge when she feels wronged.

Sound familiar?

The head Queen Bee in American journalism is Maureen Dowd. She has almost singlehanded created Kewl Kidz style journalism. She is, however, a bi-partisan Mean Girl, which is part of what makes her the Queen. Check out her entry today:

Ted Olson, the former solicitor general and eloquent Republican lawyer who argued the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court, was warming up the rabidly conservative Federalist Society crowd for John McCain with a few sexist cracks about Botox.

The new Congress could amuse itself, he said, by “searching for any sign of movement in Speaker Pelosi’s forehead.” The Senate, he added, would be entertained by “the expressionless, Pelosi-like forehead of Senator Clinton.”

It reminded you of just how idiotic Republicans can act sometimes. The only thing worse than hearing the first female speaker of the House filleted in such a lame way was seeing the first female speaker of the House flail around in her first big week in such a lame way. It reminded you of just how idiotic Democrats can act sometimes.

Nancy Pelosi’s first move, after the Democratic triumph, was to throw like a girl. Women get criticized in the office for acting on relationships and past slights rather than strategy, so Madame Speaker wasted no time making her first move based on relationships and past slights rather than strategy.

Instead of counting votes behind closed doors or even just choosing the best person for majority leader, Ms. Pelosi offered an argument along the lines of: John Murtha’s my friend. He’s been nice to me. I don’t like Steny. He did something a long time ago that was really, really bad that I’m never, ever going to tell you. And I’m the boss of you. So vote for John.

Modo is such a grand bitch queen that she can fillet everybody. Her lessers don't have her power and so they only sharpen their puerile wit on those whom they have dubbed the "losers" --- the Democrats.

It would have been smart for bloggers to have disarmed Dowd when we had the chance, by refusing to allow her any accolades when she went after the Bush administration. But Democrats were so beaten down and marginalized during the early years of the Bush juggernaut that we were only too happy to applaud Modo's QueenBee bitchiness when it was directed at them. (At times, it was all we had in the mainstream media.) I'm not sure it would have done any good, anyway. This is now a full-blown pathology among the chattering class that is going to require a much more systematic approach than simply not falling for Maureen Dowd's schtick.

And anyway, the Queen bee is a pundit, not a reporter. She is given latitude to have attitude that regular journalists are not supposed to have, but which so many of them (and their equally "Mean" editors) show toward Democrats all the time. At this point, it's the newspaper and TV reporters on whom we need to focus.

Sara did something interesting with this. She asked what the experts all say needs to be done to stop this kind of bullying in schools and then applied that advice to handling the Washington press corps. (Read her whole post.)

I, for one, will begin asking readers to politely write to reporters who manifest this silliness whenever I blog about it. They may not know they do it or they may not know that we recognize it. ("One reason girls choose this type of bullying rather than more direct acts of harassment is that the bully typically avoids being caught or held accountable. Girls who appear the most innocent may indeed be the most hostile in their actions")

We will do it openly and we will do it politely and we will not use Mean Girl tactics or "cyber-bullying." But we will let them know that they have been caught in the act.

As Gilliard says:

This is not 1996. We live in different times and the stakes are vastly higher. They start with that Beltway Kool Kids Klub bullshit, they're gonna get run to ground.

Clinton didn't have the infastructure on the left to protect him or even object to the bullshit being run about him.

But in an era of You Tube and blogs, this kind of thing is going to be nailed and nailed hard. Noron can make her stupid comments, but her bosses have an e-mail address.

*If there is anyone out there who doesn't really get what this whole thing is about, there is no more thorough compendium of kewl kidz nastiness than Bob Sommerby's exhaustive expose of the Gore Campaign coverage on The Daily Howler.


.
digby 11/18/2006 02:33:00 PM |

 
Just Doing What K-Lo Told Me To Do


by tristero

Kathyrn Jean Lopez has this to say about Borat wannabe Eric Keroack, about whom both Digby and I have been yakking about, as well as a lot of other people:

A Bush administration HHS nominee is getting grief for his involvement with a pregnancy center that believes: "that the crass commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness."

Passing out contraception without any deeper context or conversation is degrading and disrespectful — to men and women. Tell me I'm crazy.

No problem. You're crazy.

tristero 11/18/2006 01:06:00 PM |

 
Radical Quacks

by digby


I looked at tristero's post yesterday about Bush's stealth appointment of Dr. Eric Keroack and laughed nervously, but I had no idea how totally deranged Keroack really is.

Alternet has some slides from his Powerpoint presentation on the "depletion of Oxytocin" that supposedly afflicts women who have sex with too many different men. (Yes, this freak is going to be paid by you and me to spread this ridiculous swill.)



Hello?

Last June, Keroack was a featured speaker at the 10th Annual International Abstinence Leadership Conference in Kansas City, where he provided his somewhat unorthodox insights into the role of hormones in relationship failure.

Oxytocin is a hormone whose actions are associated with pregnancy, breastfeeding, and maternal-infant bonding -- and, according to Keroack, it's the tie that binds in marriage, as well. People don't fall in love, but into hormonal bondage. Therefore, the most important rationale for sexual abstinence isn't faith-based at all, but purely physiological. Unfaithful men and promiscuous women are created by misuse of the "emotional glue" of attraction, an abuse leading to a "perpetual cycle of misery."

In his presentation at the 10th Annual Abstinence Leadership Conference in Kansas City earlier this month, Dr. Eric Keroack ... explained that oxytocin is released during positive social interaction, massage, hugs, "trust" encounters, and sexual intercourse. "It promotes bonding by reducing fear and anxiety in social settings, increasing trust and trustworthiness, reducing stress and pain, and decreasing social aggression," he said.

Forty percent of couples who live together break up before they marry and of the 60 percent that do marry, 40 percent of them divorce after 10 years. ... So why do so many adults continue in a cycle of sex without a marriage commitment, cohabitation, and failed relationships? This perpetual cycle of misery is due largely to the role of oxytocin. The following is Dr. Keroack's explanation of the cycle:

Emotional pain causes our bodies to produce an elevated level of endorphins which in turn lowers the level of oxytocin. Therefore, relationship failure leads to pain which leads to elevated endorphins which leads to lower oxytocin, the result of which is a lower ability to bond. Many in this increased state of emotional pain and lower oxytocin seek sex as a substitute for love, which inevitably leads to another failed relationship, and so on, the cycle continues.

There is hope for the weary brokenhearted, Dr. Keroack said, but it requires abstinence and plenty of time for healing.

Keroack's fitting title for that novel presentation [PowerPoint link] was "If I Only Had a Brain." In an unpublished article that has become an established text of the abstinence movement, he wrote, "People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual." Keroack's teaching on the role of "God's 'super-glue'" is accepted as irrefutable in an article titled Fornication and Oxytocin.

There's more at the link.

This man is a hero in the forced childbirth movement and a card carrying member of the Christian Right. But he also represents another wing of the crackpot alchemy wing of the conservative movment (tristero's personal bete noire) that really has to be marginalized if this country is to remain a first world nation.

David Kuo, whom I admire for his consistency of Christian belief, tried to make a case in his book that the Bush administration didn't deliver for the Christianists. It may be true that they didn't show private respect or funnel as much money as they promised to faith based programs, but they delivered big time with the appointment of unqualified nutjobs like this to taxpayer supported government positions.

Before the election I mentioned in passing this article in the New York Review of Books by Gary Wills that really should get more attention in light of this astonishing appointment. (tristero has a couple of issues with it that are worth noting.) It is called "A Country Ruled By Faith" and really needs to be read by all these people who insist that theocracy is not on the table:

It is common knowledge that the Republican White House and Congress let "K Street" lobbyists have a say in the drafting of economic legislation, and on the personnel assigned to carry it out, in matters like oil production, pharmaceutical regulation, medical insurance, and corporate taxes. It is less known that for social services, evangelical organizations were given the same right to draft bills and install the officials who implement them. Karl Rove had cultivated the extensive network of religious right organizations, and they were consulted at every step of the way as the administration set up its policies on gays, AIDS, condoms, abstinence programs, creationism, and other matters that concerned the evangelicals. All the evangelicals' resentments under previous presidents, including Republicans like Reagan and the first Bush, were now being addressed.

The head of the White House Office of Personnel was Kay Coles James, a former dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University and a former vice-president of Gary Bauer's Family Research Council,[2] the conservative Christian lobbying group that had been set up as the Washington branch of James Dobson's Focus on the Family. She knew whom to put where, or knew the religious right people who knew. An evangelical was in charge of placing evangelicals throughout the bureaucracy. The head lobbyist for the Family Research Council boasted that "a lot of FRC people are in place" in the administration.[3] The evangelicals knew which positions could affect their agenda, whom to replace, and whom they wanted appointed. This was true for the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and Health and Human Services—agencies that would rule on or administer matters dear to the evangelical causes.[4]

The piece goes on to examine in detail the thoroughness with which Bush appointed radical religious right operatives to the government in all departments. The executive branch has become a patronage operation for the Christian Right and it is as destructive in its way as anything the Bush administration did. (And any attempt to unwind it will be greeted with cried of religious discrimination.)

This is obviously the deal that any Republican will have to make with the religious right in order to gain their favor. John McCain may not run as a Christian Conservative but he's already made pilgrimages to Bob Jones and Jerry Falwell and he will have to promise them something for their support. He can agree to appoint their judges, of course. That is a first principle. But if they want to keep their most important, cohesive voting block happy they need to keep them fed. This is how they will do it. It's largely under the radar but over time it will be felt in ways we cannot imagine.

The Christian Right is the most authoritarian faction of an already authoritarian movement. The polls from this last election show that they did not politically demobilize --- even when confronted with such rank hypocrisy as Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley and Ted Haggard. (I used to joke that it would take finding Republicans in bed with young boys to get the Christian Right to step back, but I overestimated them.) They are the most radical force in the Republican party and despite what Dobson and others threaten every couple of years, they aren't going anywhere.

These people ARE the modern Republican party and nobody, not John McCain, not Mitt Romney, not Rudy Giuliani, can do a thing about it. For the forseeable future, every Republican president is going to be owned by these people and Americans will be paying for them to drag this country away from progress and enlightenment and into the cramped, primitive world of superstition and voodoo they are now calling "science."

The only way to keep Christianist radicalism out of your bedroom, your hospital room, your classroom and your wallet is to elect a Democratic president.


.
digby 11/18/2006 10:43:00 AM |

 
Pelosi

by tristero

Pelosi on Huffington Post:

This morning, I visited our brave men and women at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center. It is a place of prayers, of honor, of respect, and reflection. And I left there more committed than ever to bringing the war to an end.

I told my colleagues yesterday that the biggest ethical issue facing our country for the past three and a half years is the war in Iraq. This unnecessary pre-emptive war has come at great cost. Nearly 2,900 of our brave troops have lost their lives and more than 21,000 more have suffered lasting wounds. Since the war began, Congress has appropriated more than $350 billion, and the United States has suffered devastating damage to our reputation in the eyes of the world.

The notion that the war is an ethical issue is an important one. It ties the mindset of a party that would appoint a Mark Foley to the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children or an Eric Keroack to oversee Title X funding to the kind of mentality that would wage an immoral, insane war.

And quite rightly, Pelosi understands that the prosecution of this war, the continued American involvement in the carnage of a civil war, the utterly pointless deaths, the gut-wrenching lack of positive alternatives as long as Bush is in office, the madness of American exceptionalism and pretensions to military/economic empire, the unspeakable corruption and cronyism, and the torture ... Without a doubt, the Bush/Iraq war is the pre-eminent moral issue facing the country right now and the foreseeable future.

Let's hope that she and her caucus continue to have the courage to speak up and more importantly, act, on their principles.
tristero 11/18/2006 03:43:00 AM |

Friday, November 17, 2006

 
Speaking Of Zombies

by digby

We've recently been informed that Kissinger has been wandering around the white house like the ghost of Christmas in Cambodia. Until last week the Ford administration was ably represented by the Don and Dick Comedy hour. The Second Coming of Jimmah "Divahn the willowthevoters" Baker more than makes up for the previous shunning of Daddy's boys. But it turns out that with the Iraq Study Group we not only have retread Robert Gates, we also have Ronnie Raygun's top legal consigliere from his earliest days in California politics, former Attorney General Ed Meese, who is emerging from the primordial conservative slime he went back to after Ronnie left office.

St. Ronnie has taken on all too bright a glow lately, even among liberals who witnessed the atrocity of his administration, because his keepers ran a fairly efficient white house and he didn't speak like a 6 year old in public (usually.) But it's important to remember just what a bunch of flaming idiots they all were too, lest someone gets it in his head that those Ronniezombies are somehow superior to any other movement conservative.

In this months issue, Wil S. Hylton of GQ conducts a revealing interview with Meese, one of the popularizers of the wingnut constitutional theory called "original intent" and an inspiration for the "unitary executive."

Okay, let's talk about executive power. Do you think it poses a legal problem when the president conducts wiretaps on foreign nationals without a FISA review?

Well, there is no wiretapping of foreign nationals without FISA warrants. There have been interceptions of international communications, but that's totally different. It's a very limited category: Number one, they have to be international calls, and number two, they have to be to people who are connected with terrorists.

But doesn't it require a court to determine whether someone is connected with terrorists?

No, it doesn't in this case. Courts are not required.

How do you know someone is a terrorist unless they have been found guilty by a court?

Because they are members of Al Qaeda.[oy --- ed]

You're saying that the president can intercept a phone call between any American citizen and anyone overseas.

Providing that it is connected with terrorism.

But it seems circular: You start intercepting calls because the person is a terrorist, and yet the reason you're intercepting the calls is to find out whether or not they're a terrorist.

No, no, no. There are key words being used in the communication itself. So you have a combination of, number one, a terrorist on the international end, and key words that lead them to believe it is a terrorist conversation.

How do we know they're using key words before we start intercepting their calls?

There's a lot more technical stuff to this, much of which is classified. But it is limited to people known or suspected to be terrorists, and the communications themselves are indicative of that.

Fascinating, isn't it? It's a disease that's not just confined to the Junior Codpiece or the Gingrich crew. They're all like this.

This man was the Attorney General of the United States and he is trying to pass off fourth grade "I know you are but what am I" logic. Warrants aren't required to determine whether there is probable cause to believe someone is a terrorist because we are only listening in on the calls of terrorists.

It is obvious that they have some reason for not wanting to submit these names (even after the fact) to the FISA court for a review. They must know that it is clearly illegal or unconstitutional or they would comply. The FISA court is secret, after all. (Yet Ed Meese apparently knows all about this. Why is that? I thought this was such a top secret program that they wanted to hang the entire NY Times editorial staff for treason. What could it possibly have to do with the Iraq Study Group?)

Anyway, Ed goes on:

Let's move to the Geneva Conventions. A lot of people are concerned that terrorism suspects don't have any kind of habeas corpus.

In order to be covered by the Geneva Convention, you have to fulfill certain requirements. Number one, you have to be in uniform. Number two, you have to be part of a military unit subject to military discipline. Number three, you have to be engaged in combat with other military units and not primarily striking at civilians. So there are a number of criteria in the Geneva Convention that are not met by everyone on the battlefield. Then there's another category of people going back to the Revolutionary War—people who were in those days called spies. If they were not in uniform, they were subject to being summarily executed.

You mean they were executed without even a military tribunal?

I think there were some. Also, a "tribunal" could be a military commander ordering the hanging. I think that's what happened to some of them.

You're advocating summary execution.

Well, yeah, that happens in the military. Illegal combatants are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions.


So we call them "illegal combatants," without using any legal basis to determine whether they're illegal or not.

Well, we do. We have military tribunals.

But not always, apparently.

My understanding is that illegal combatants are subject to military tribunals. But in any event, they have been captured on the field of battle, and anyone captured on the field of battle is either one of these two categories. And both categories can be detained until the end of hostilities.

When we talk about being detained until the war is over, we're talking about a war that could go on for half a century.

Absolutely.

Doesn't detaining someone that long compete with some of the values in the Constitution?

No, it doesn't.

We value a speedy trial, as a culture. That's why we put it in the Constitution.
We value a speedy trial for criminals. But a person who's been apprehended and captured on the field of battle, that status itself identifies them as either a prisoner of war or an illegal combatant.

Unless they live there.

Well, how many people do you have standing around the field of battle?


It depends the battle. Certainly it's possible.

And of course, that's why the president has applied the military tribunals. So that people have the ability, if they claim their innocence, to demonstrate it. But the reason why you detain the people is that you don't want them going back and taking up arms against our soldiers.

Shouldn't we extend them the right to a public trial for that purpose?

Why would we? Why would you do that to somebody who's not entitled to it under any law? Why would we extend the laws to people who are trying to kill Americans?


It seems to me that it goes back to original intent.

No, it doesn't.

Jefferson wrote, "All men are created equal," not "all Americans." He said that men are "endowed by their Creator" with these rights, not endowed by "the Constitution."

But that doesn't have to do with enemy soldiers.

Well, when I read the Declaration of Independence, I don't think he's talking about exclusively American rights. He's talking about rights that he believes are natural, God-given rights, which had been denied under George III.

They are.

And he's saying that anybody who tries to keep those rights from a human being is committing a crime against God.

Absolutely, and they believed that.


So if we don't respect those human rights…

We do give criminals those rights. We just don't give them to enemy soldiers who are engaged in battle against the United States.

Isn't that just a semantic difference? These are human beings, and we're talking about human rights.

The human rights that you're protecting are the rights of innocent civilians to be free from having enemies try to kill them. The Bill of Rights doesn't apply to criminals and enemies.

Sure it does. The Fourth Amendment applies to criminals. The Fifth Amendment applies to criminals.

They apply to criminals in this country. People who are in this country, but not to people who are killing Americans.

A great number of criminals in this country are killing Americans. They still have a right to a speedy public trial.

All right. But under our laws, they are not available to those who are either prisoners of war or who are enemy combatants. They are not available to persons who are outside this country, who are killing Americans.

Again, this man was the Attorney General of the United States. He is credited with popularizing the constitutional theory of original intent, which is the admitted judicial philosophy of three members of the United States Supreme Court. And it's clear that he's a complete nitwit. Even the Powerline boys or Pamela Atlas could come up with a better argument that that. Really --- it's an embarrassment.

The fact is that Ed Meese has never been anything more than a rightwing political thug going all the way back to the days when he advised Ronnie to crack heads in Berkeley. That he is now an intellectual giant in wingnut legal circles is a testament to just how bankrupt wingnut legal theory really is.

If you don't believe that he is nothing more than a Tom DeLay style hatchet man, here's Ed himself to prove it:

Finally, I wanted to touch on partisan rancor in Washington these days. Do you think it's getting worse?

Oh yeah. I think so. Very definitely.


How would the founding fathers feel about that?

Well, I think they'd be disappointed. Part of the problem today is that you have a very mean-spirited Democratic minority. President Bush has continually tried to refrain from direct personal attacks on leaders of the opposition party. He's offered the hand of friendship to them, he's tried to be cooperative, and unfortunately you seem to have leadership on the other side that has been unduly combative and mean-spirited. I can't think of a situation when the Republicans have ever called the president a liar.

The Republicans certainly called President Clinton a liar.

They said that he lied. But to just say he is a liar, and some of the other vicious attacks on the president—I don't think we've ever had as vicious attacks on a president as we've had currently.


Do you think the Democratic resistance to President Bush is greater than the Republican resistance to President Clinton?

Oh, I think so. The Republicans, when they were with Clinton, were very constructive.

There weren't exactly warm feelings.

Well, I don't know that there weren't warm feelings. The Republicans passed virtually all of his judges. They confirmed two of the most liberal candidates that were ever proposed for the Supreme Court. So I think that they were very cooperative with Clinton.

This is the quality of thinking among the "honor and integrity" "grown-ups" for whom everyone in DC circles is still so nostalgic. I frankly don't see anything in that last comment that wouldn't have been perfectly natural coming out of Mary Matalin's or Rush Limbaugh's gaping gobs. He's a sub-standard intellect from a bankrupt political movement who worked for a genial dunce and is now being called in to rescue an arrogant idiot. He is, in other words, the best and the brightest the Republican party has to offer.


Do read the whole interview. Those excerpts are just the tip of the ice-berg.


Update: Here's a great example of what happens when Ed Meese or someone like him says "trust us."


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digby 11/17/2006 05:45:00 PM |

 
Anyone Got Info On Dr. Eric Keroack?

by tristero

In a comment to my earlier post on the Borat clone Dr. Eric Keroack, Entlord wrote:

Amazing that there is so little biographical information on the gentleman. The AMA Find a Doctor site doesn't recognize him and a Google search only turns up that he is an OB/GYN and has been one for 20 years. No information on his CV, his education, his training or anything else except for an unpublished "study" cited in Christianity Today proving showing teenaged girls sonograms of the fetus prevents abortions.

That's just about all I've found, too, except more ugly quotes and incredibly stupid slide shows. And while doing that googling, I noticed several posts from doctors and biologists who are so astounded at the stupidity of his unpublished paper on oxytocin they can't belief this guy is a doctor.

Sooooo.... is he? Anyone know his background? Where he went to med school? Where he got his certifications, etc. etc?

UPDATE: Thanks to commenter NotThatMo, we now have the following info. Other commenters have begun to find out other things about his affiliations and professional qualifications.

License Status: Active
License Issue Date: 8/5/1987
Accepting New Patients: Yes
Accepts Medicaid: Yes
Primary Work Setting: Private Office
Business Address: REMOVED
Phone: REMOVED
Insurance Plans Accepted: None Reported
Hospital Affiliations: North Shore Medical Center - Salem Hospital (Courtesy)
Union Hospital (Active)

Medical School: Tufts University School of Medicine
Graduation Date: 1986
Post Graduate Training: NEWTON-WELLESLEY HOSPITAL (1/1/1986-1/1/1987)
BAYSTATE MEDICAL CENTER (1/1/1989-1/1/1993)
tristero 11/17/2006 01:58:00 PM |

 
TV Democracy

by digby

Christy at FDL posted this amazing TDS moment of zen featuring Laura Ingraham saying that because millions of Americans enjoy watching Jack Bauer of "24" it means we have had a national referendum on whether Americans support the beating of terrorism suspects.

This is a very interesting development. It would seem that Ingraham is saying that popular culture can be used as a proper guage of what Americans truly believe. Certainly Ingraham's allies on the right don't seem to share her view:

On the heels of the demise of NBC's "Book of Daniel" – which many Christians saw as an affront to their faith and actively opposed – ABC's popular "Desperate Housewives" program has become the latest target of a media watchdog organization that will sponsor a boycott of the show's advertisers.

OneMillionMoms.com, which is affiliated with the American Family Association, calls "Desperate Housewives" "one of the most vulgar and tasteless programs on television."

[...]

"ABC says the show is watched by 15 million people each week. That means that 265 million don't watch the show but still end up paying for it by the products they buy," he said.

Wildmon says he doesn't buy the argument that people who don't like a particular show should simply turn off their TV.

"Will they also tell us that if we don't like drunk drivers on the highway to stay off the highway? Sure we can turn the TV off. But why should we have to do that? Why do our children need to be exposed to such trash? Why do the networks keep putting out trash and more trash?"

Wow. These conservatives are confusing. According to Laura Ingraham a program's popularity proves that the American people are endorsing the behavior they see on them. By her logic the public endorsed mob violence because they watched "The Sopranos" and love indiscriminate killing because they watch violent video games. (And by Wildman's logic, watching TV is like driving a car ... or something.)

All liberals ever said was that adults had a right to watch whatever they choose, on the assumption that they are mature and intelligent enough to separate fact from fiction. We thought the V-Chip was the proper course of action so that parents would have tools to monitor their kids' viewing habits. The Ingraham Republicans, however, think the viewing habits of Americans should determine public policy and that has me a little bit worried. I mean, I'm all for popular culture sorting itself out without any interference from the government, but it never occurred to me that the problem might be that government would take its cues from popular culture.

I'm not actually kidding about this. They held seminars on "24" at The Heritage Foundation. Featuring Rush Limbaugh and Michael Chertoff. Together. (Be sure to check out all the pics. )

SECRETARY CHERTOFF: ...In reflecting a little bit about the popularity of the show "24" -- and it is popular, and there are a number of senior political and military officials around the country who are fans, and I won't identify them, because they may not want me to do that (laughter) I was trying to analyze why it's caught such public attention. Obviously, it's a very well-made and very well-acted show, and very exciting. And the premise of a 24-hour period is a novel and, I think, very intriguing premise. But I thought that there was one element of the shows that at least I found very thought-provoking, and I suspect, from talking to people, others do as well.

Typically, in the course of the show, although in a very condensed time period, the actors and the characters are presented with very difficult choices -- choices about whether to take drastic and even violent action against a threat, and weighing that against the consequence of not taking the action and the destruction that might otherwise ensue.

In simple terms, whether it's the president in the show or Jack Bauer or the other characters, they're always trying to make the best choice with a series of bad options, where there is no clear magic bullet to solve the problem, and you have to weigh the costs and benefits of a series of unpalatable alternatives. And I think people are attracted to that because, frankly, it reflects real life. That is what we do every day. That is what we do in the government, that's what we do in private life when we evaluate risks. We recognize that there isn't necessarily a magic bullet that's going to solve the problem easily and without a cost, and that sometimes acting on very imperfect information and running the risk of making a serious mistake, we still have to make a decision because not to make a decision is the worst of all outcomes.

And so I think when people watch the show, it provokes a lot of thinking about what would you do if you were faced with this set of unpalatable alternatives, and what do you do when you make a choice and it turns out to be a mistake because there was something you didn't know. I think that, the lesson there, I think is an important one we need to take to heart. It's very easy in hindsight to go back after a decision and inspect it and examine why the decision should have been taken in the other direction. But when you are in the middle of the event, as the characters in "24" are, with very imperfect information and with very little time to make a decision, and with the consequences very high on a wrong decision, you have to be willing to make a decision recognizing that there is a risk of mistake.

(Are we surprised that this is the guy who screwed up the Katrina response? Jesus.)

Chertoff is basically saying that sometimes we might get a little bit overzealous, if you know what I mean, but that's just because we don't have all the information we need. It's hard to make good decisions under stress and well, you know, you can't make an omlette without breaking a few legs. "24" teaches Americans about that and the government is grateful.

He's not the only highly influential GOP fan, though:

RUSH: I asked Mary Matalin, by the way, on this trip to Afghanistan, we were watching this, and I asked her -- she worked for Vice President Cheney at the time -- I said, "Do we have anything like this?"

SURNOW: (Laughter.)

RUSH: She said, "Not that I know of." What about the possibility of government officials -- back to the scholars -- government officials watching this program (we know they do) can they get ideas, creative ideas on dealing with these problems from this show, or are they strictly fans, do you think?

[...]

Speaking just as an American citizen, you mentioned the operation in Canada. This is why the show has an impact on people. We have a political party trying to shut down the program that enabled that operation in Canada to be a success. It's being called "domestic spying," when it's not. These guys put the same kind of conflict in the program. Jack Bauer, who never fails, always is the target of the government, somebody, being put in jail. It's amazing how close it is. I'm not trying to say that "24" replicates life or influences things. It's clearly an entertainment program. But people who watch this love it because it is pro-good guy; it does show a way in which these things can happen. Howard, how conscious are you when you write an episode or a story line, of real-life events? How recently do you try to incorporate, or is it all made up in your head and if it happens to coincide with reality, it's coincidence?

Sigh. That they all watch the show and think it is real in some way is bad enough. That they also believe it reflects a national referendum on the use of violent interrogation and torture techniques because it loosely tracks possible real life events and makes people "understand" how difficult it can be to make decisions under stress is just plain pathetic.

(Read the whole transcript to see the rather astonished military and Hollywood types try to explain the difference between fact and fiction to these zombies. Aye yay yay.)


Update: I missed this juicy item on C&L earlier. Pat Leahy may ask the DOJ to investigate Ingraham for her little phone jamming gambit on electon day.


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digby 11/17/2006 10:55:00 AM |

 
Having Too Much Fun

by digby

Matt Yglesias observes something that I hadn't seen before. And it's very disturbing:

What it comes down to is that, somewhat perversely, the "more open" primary system -- as opposed to old-school smoke filled rooms -- has in many ways made webs of connections more rather than less important. Power has been taken out of the hands of a small group of geographically dispersed elites who, acting out of self-interest, might choose to elevate a relatively obscure figure in the interests of securing victory and placed less in the hands of a broad mass of people than in the hands of a small geographically concentrated elite that controls the channels of mass communications -- i.e., the Washington political press. This elite, lacking an actual stake in the outcome, can afford to let self-interest essentially dictate a policy of laziness. Hence, we may be doomed to an endless cycle of Senators (who DC political reporters already cover), governors from Virginia and Maryland (whose exploits are detailed in the Metro section of The Washington Post), and scions of famous families.

This is one of the best explanations for what has seemed to be the very shallow bench of viable potential presidential candidates. The press corps is picking them. Oy vey.

Oh, and here's a follow-up to my post from last night about all the "fun" reporters are having. From the National Journal:

Media people are feverish. They've discovered an exotic new life-form, the missing link, the elusive "walking fish" that just might be the key to existence itself. Known as The Democrat, this fascinating beast has been the subject lately of countless earnest, hopeful news stories.

[...]

The hive is buzzing because a Democratic Congress is better for journalism. What!?? you say. Journalists really prefer Democrats? Yes, but not for the reasons you've heard -- covert pinkoism and so on.

Obviously, a divided government is full of the tensions that produce headlines. But a Democratic Congress is also anthropologically different from a Republican Congress -- messier, louder, looser-lipped, more colorful, newsier, and, for the media class's purposes, more fun:

1. Running wild. Generally speaking, Republicans have an executive temperament; they like order and control. Democrats, in contrast, are legislative beasts. They thrive in chaotic, do-your-own-thing environments like Congress -- except when the other guys are running the place. Under the Republican majority, the Democrats always had a glowering, tamped-down look. The sandbox was being run by hall monitors! Now they can be their wild-child selves again. Running Congress brings out the best (creative chaos) and the worst (destructive chaos) in Democrats. Both are catnip for journalists.

2. Infighting. As National Journal's Thomas B. Edsall has pointed out, the current generation of Democratic leaders grew up during the middle decades of the 20th century with the assumption that their party would control the Hill forever. To get ahead, they didn't need to beat the GOP so much as beat one another within the institutions they dominated. Even today, they often seem more interested in warring among themselves than against the other party. It's happy talk and hugs right now, but just wait a few months. The intrigue and skullduggery of the contest for House majority leader was a taste of the cannibalism to come.

3. Who am I? While Republicans seem to know basically who they are and what their purpose is, modern Democrats are filled with doubt. They are the Hamlets of politics, unsure whether to act -- or how. Even what to call themselves is an issue. Where most Republicans seem comfortable with the "conservative" label, many Democrats run from the "L" word. Are they progressives? Populists? Some appear to change identities daily. Remember the Kerry-Edwards campaign? Life under the Democrats is a nonstop identity crisis, and as Shakespeare knew, there is no better story line.

4. Tough love. Journalists are more aggressive under Democratic rule. This doesn't jibe with the stereotype of reporters as liberals, but it's the stereotype that winds up undermining itself. When Democrats are in power, there's a huge incentive for reporters not to appear too sympathetic and thereby confirm the old liberal-bias charge. Thus, despite the friendly coverage we're seeing in this honeymoon period, the Democratic restoration will eventually produce tougher coverage than we saw of the GOP Congress, as media outlets strive to prove that they aren't soft on the Democrats.

5. Duck soup. Democrats are always on the edge of comedy. There's a madcap, Marx Brothers quality to this party. Remember the Dean Scream? Kerry's goof about education and the war was another classic flub, a pratfall tinged with darkness. Was he trying to destroy himself? You laugh, you cry, and sometimes it feels like you're staring straight into the abyss.

Just two weeks ago, journalism was looking so sad and dreary. Let the party begin!

What can I say? This is what we are dealing with and there's no getting around it. These are not serious people, they are immature fools. And apparently, they are proud of it.

We have had a president for the last six years who is so stupid he can barely eat and breathe and who has single handedly destroyed more than 50 years of American leadership in the world. The American people have spoken loudly and clearly and have elected a new congress to provide some checks and balances to his reign of incompetence and executive power-mongering. They did not elect Democrats to provide the puerile putzes of the DC press corps with entertainment.

If these blindered fools can't see how many real stories are now potentially theirs for the taking, they should get out of the business. This could be the most fertile time for investigative reporting since Watergate --- Republicans are talking out of school for the first time in six long years. And the Democrats have the investigative tools to get to information that's been hidden. It should be great moment for DC journalism if DC journalism actually existed. Instead we are already back in the truthiness and fake news business, which they do very badly (particularly since we now have professional comedians who do truthiness and fake news far more entertainingly than these witless bores could ever hope to.)

The shallow cliches in that article are not just lighthearted good times. They illustrate the narrative that cost Al Gore an election and motivated an eight year media withchunt against President Clinton. But it's no joke, which events of the last six years should have pounded home to every person who works in the journalism business. This sophomoric approach to covering politics was largely responsible for the empowerment of the most destructive political leadership in American history.

And apparently they haven't learned a damned thing.


Update: Rick Perlstein wrote about the Pundit Primary sometime back.

It has long been a truism that Democrats pay way too much attention to elite opinion. Gore was criticized heavily for it. I think I always assumed, however, that the pundits and the press corps had a specific agenda for their choices. It never occurred to me before that it was sheer laziness and shallowness that led them to their choices:






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digby 11/17/2006 08:46:00 AM |

 
Bush Hires Latest Sacha Baron Cohen Character

by tristero




Y'gotta hand it to Sacha Baron Cohen. He really is as brilliant and daring a comic as everyone says he is. Fresh off the spectacular success of "Borat," Cohen posed as an utterly deranged abstinence-only rightwinger and managed, apparently, to get himself hired by the Bush administration to oversee the only federal program that oversees family planning!

I haven't laughed so hard since I saw "Borat" last week. It seems according to "Dr. Eric Keroack," that when women have sex with too many men, they deplete their oxytocin:

People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual.

It's amazing, and extremely funny, that he was able to fool anyone. Look at that moustache! Look at that hairline! It's so obviously fake. And then the totally bogus name, a blatant homage to a famous Monty Python - who always looked great in a skirt - and the great Beat author, Jack Kerouac. As if all that wasn't enough of a give-away, oxytocin? Isn't that something like the stuff Limbaugh abused? That should have set off alarm bells right away.

Kudos, Sacha! You haven't lost your touch. That such an obvious fake could get himself hired by the Bush administration really goes to show how utterly clueless they are. And how good you, Sacha, are at slipping into these preposterous characters.

Oh. Omigod. Wait a minute...

tristero 11/17/2006 04:03:00 AM |

Thursday, November 16, 2006

 
Clinton Rules Redux

by digby

Man are these catty little MSNBC snots enjoying their full-on Demo bitch fest. They are partying like it's 1999. Norah O'Donnell, Lawrence O'Donnell, Mary Ann Akers and some other person I don't know have just spent half an hour discussing the fact that Nancy Pelosi ruined her own honeymoon and now it is really quesionable whether she can lead. Meanwhile, the dirty netroots and Howard Dean must have done something wrong because James Carville is hanging out all the Democratic dirty laundry (while his wife cackles with glee, no doubt) and he wouldn't do that unless there was something to it.

After a thorough discussion of how hapless the Democratic nerds have already proven to be, Mary Ann Akers whispers that reporters all over town are "loving" this story. It's so much fun! All the kidz squealed like schoolgirls at prospect of the merciless going-over they are preparing to give these totalbigfatlosers. ("We're so not being mean or anything cuz they like totally deserve it cuz they just don't get it, ok?")

The spite girls are back in town. It isn't so much a matter of substance. You can argue that talking about the majority leader race is worthwhile and that it says something about Pelosi's leadership style. The Carville sideswipe at Dean is interesting. That's not the problem. It's that the patented 90's style smug, juvenile, derisive Kewl Kidz tone is once again ooozing through everything they say. (I could have sworn I heard the "Friends" theme song in the backround.)

It's as if all these unpleasant events of the last six years never happened and we are back in the days of endless cable bitch-fests filled with sniggering about unauthorized blow jobs and earth tones and "grown-ups" who eat PB&J's and travel with their favorite pillies.

I knew it would happen in one form or another. (We caught a glimpse of it with the John Kerry apology treatment.) The DC press corps hates having to criticize Republicans. Republicans make them feel all icky and call them liberals (which they so, like, aren't!) I confess, however, that I'm a little bit awed by how smoothly they have transitioned back into their assigned roles. I thought there might be a moment or two of cognitive dissonance as they went from grim and serious reports about terrorism and war to shallow personality politics and tabloid character assassination. I assumed they would at least wait until the presidential campaign took off to contrast the manly Republican Alpha with the loser Omega Dem, but I guess I didn't realize how much they've missed their fast times at DC High.

They were certainly enjoying themselves tonight. Rolling their eyes and laughing and even snorting a time or two at the completely absurd sight of Democrats in power. I expected to see Yoohoo spray out of Norah's nose at one point. It was just so, like, awesomely super-fun!



It's worth noting that the last time the House turned over, in 1994, Tom Delay beat Newt Gingrich's handpicked choice for majority leader and somehow the whole town didn't interpret that as Newtie's waterloo. As a matter of fact, the press was giving him such wet slurpy blowjobs they could hardly come up for air.




Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was given five months before TIME put him on the cover as the Incredible Shrinking President saying this:

"While the staff can be blamed for some of the confusion, even his closest advisers insist that Clinton is a big part of the problem. 'A lot of it can't be laid at anyone's doorstep but his own,' said one last week. Democratic Party elders admit to being stunned by Clinton's judgment lately. Having his $200 haircut and allowing a Hollywood producer to work out of a White House office and then intervene on behalf of friends to win White House air-charter business have done serious damage to his public standing. 'The best politician the Democratic Party has turned up in a long time turns out to have a tin ear,' said a longtime friend. 'He has squandered his moral authority with a lot of this stuff. It leads people to say, "This man isn't really a populist; he is a phony, a fraud." And though this perception is completely wrong in substance, it is enormously damaging and has to be dealt with. He has to regain the moral authority to call people to sacrifice.'...If he fails to adjust quickly, he will confirm the widespread belief that the biggest problem with the Clinton presidency is Clinton himself."

There are no honeymoons for Democrats. Remember that. And "moral authority" is about haircuts and Hollywood, not torture and illegal wars. It is not merely a fight against the Republicans or a fight over politics and policy. It is a non-stop battle with the press to cover events with seriousness and responsiblity. For some reason, when Democrats are in power the press corps immediately goes from being merely shallow to insufferable, sophomoric assholes.

The 2006 election was nine days ago and this is what CNN had on their screen today:



These are Clinton rules, folks. Get used to it.


H/T to Media Matters for the screen grab.



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digby 11/16/2006 06:16:00 PM |

 
Quick On The Taser

by digby

I have written before about the abusive use of tasers by police in this country. (Talk Left has written much more about this, including discussions of the lawsuits filed against the (Bernie Kerick owned)taser company by police officers themselves for maiming them in their training --- and more than 70 reports of death.)

Here's the latest installment in what is becoming a depressingly commonplace occurence in this country. Excruciating pain is now commonly accepted as a proper way for the police to bend people to their will. It's often used against the mentally ill who populate our streets and is increasingly used in cases of civil disobedience. It's not even particularly controversial.

Police insist that it is a great tool to keep them from having to use lethal force. As you can see by this horrific film (via Americablog) it is more commonly used to force compliance and exert absolute authority. In this film you see the police first tasering the college student because he's yelling at them and then tasering him again on the ground because he refuses to properly respond to an order to stand up.

The thought behind this seems to be that because tasing (usually) doesn't leave any severe marks or lasting damage, it's alright for the police to use this tool to inflict terrible pain on people who are slow or refuse to cooperate. In this case, you can see that this was purely a matter of swaying this person to their will, not a matter of protecting themselves or others. There were a whole bunch of police present and dozens of witnesses. They could have dragged the suspect out.

Here's the story of his "crime."

At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.

The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.

The student began to yell "get off me," repeating himself several times.

It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.

UCPD officers confirmed that the man involved in the incident was a student, but did not give a name or any additional information about his identity.

Video shot from a student's camera phone captured the student yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your fucking abuse of power," while he struggled with the officers.

As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said "stop fighting us." The student did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with the Taser at least once more.

Taser abuse is out of control. Cops are using it to "subdue" people who are not carrying weapons and present no threat. While I understand it is a useful tool in the law enforcement arsenal, police are not supposed to be in the business of meting out punishment nor are they supposed to use excruciating (even if shortlived) pain to make suspects comply with their orders unless they have absolutely no other choice.

I've seen dozens of these videos and it makes me feel nauseated each time I see someone lying on the ground after being tasered while police threaten them with further pain if they refuse to comply. Inevitably these people are disoriented and confused and angry and shocked yet when they fail to properly respond, the police calmly taser them until they do. It's the coldest application of pain I've ever seen.


Update: More here from In These Times.



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digby 11/16/2006 03:09:00 PM |

 
Adding to Spencer's Questions

by tristero

Indeed, Spencer Ackerman is quite right:

"Faced with a disastrous war, the most important consideration is not 'Were we wrong?' but 'Why were we wrong?' and 'How can we avoid being so wrong in the future?"

In fact, I said the same thing on October 18, 2003:

Bush's foreign policy, the too-late-to-save-us release of "America Unbound" and the bamboozling of Joshua Micah Marshall just before the war point to a very serious crisis. It is an intellectual crisis that gives credence to obviously terrible and self-destructive ideas. It makes them seem fit not only for academic debate, and not only for public discussion, but - incredibly -also fit for adoption as policy by the most militarily powerful country the world has ever known. It is an intellectual crisis that permits such long-discredited siren calls as America's "manifest destiny" to sing out once again and seduce nearly every class in this country into believing the clearly delusional notion that by prosecuting a clearly unnecessary war we could ensure peace.

How could this crisis have happened? I don't have a clue. I don't know how anyone could have heard what Josh heard and not think that the person who said them was a candidate for involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. I don't know how anyone as smart and eloquent as Nicholas Lemann could understand the neo-con fairy tale so well and claim it was "breathtakingly ambitious" instead of screaming yellow bonkers.

But we are going to have to find out how it happened. Not to punish Wolfowitz, Perle and the rest of the self-described Cabal (although what they did was surely criminal) and certainly not to punish the media which, to be kind, fucked up royally for two years. No, we must figure out how this crisis happened so that we can prevent it ever happening again.

And now I'd like to add some questions to that list Spencer Ackerman has for The New Republic to address:

1. How come I, along with most of the world I might add, got it so right? Not only, "What did we see that that the official grand poohbahs missed" but also, "How did we know enough, and what did we know, to judge that Bush/Iraq would without doubt be a total disaster so clearly in the spring of '02?*

2. How can we hear from more people who got it right in the mainstream media? I don't mean me, duh, I mean the Jessica Tuchman Mathews of the world.

I think the second question really requires not only an immediate answer, but immediate action. The very same clowns are still in place for the most part, making a total hash of our national discourse. I'm not saying merely that we need knowledgeable liberals appearing regularly on tv, although heaven knows we need them. We also need real moderates, real conservatives, and real leftists - we got plenty already of real rightwingers, thank you very much.

Furthermore, we need the ignorant lunatics - I'm talking Bill o'Reilly and Robert Novak and Sean Hannity here, among others - marginalized. It is inexcusable that a president of the United States would give interviews to such people. It is outrageous that a man as morally bankrupt as William Bennett can still appear as a responsible spokesman on a so-called mainstream network like CNN. Etc. Etc.

* It's worth repeating again, as the "good idea to invade Iraq, too bad Bush was the one who did it" line has become the CW:

In 2002, when I first started to hear about the planned invasion, I was convinced that only a damn fool would take anything like that seriously. There was no chance in hell that good would come out of it. And let me be clear. It was not because the Bush administration was incompetent at implementing an invasion and conquest of Iraq that could have worked, although there was their incompetence to deal with, of course. It never could have worked. (And in fact, one would expect an incompetent government to take just such an incompetent idea seriously.) And of course, most importantly it was immoral and completely illegal.
tristero 11/16/2006 02:17:00 PM |

 

The Pence of Darkness And God's Mighty Government

by poputonian

Today's Indy Star puffs up Mike -- I'm "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order" -- Pence, but acknowledges he is an underdog in the race for House minority leader. The article also notes Laura Ingraham on Tuesday saying of Pence: "If there is a God in heaven, he will be the next House minority leader."

Laura longs for someone to lead her from darkness, that place in the wilderness as can only be understood by "church-people," as Chris Matthews has been calling them lately .

The article also provides this quote from Pence: "We didn't just lose our majority. We lost our way."

As any good conservative will tell you -- and as Pence explained in his vision statement to House Republicans -- 'losing your way' means you end up in that "otherplace." You know where I mean:

We are in the wilderness because we walked away from the principles that brought us our governing Majority.

Yes, it's that place again ... the wilderness.

As interpreted by the minister’s sermon, even the natural world – the storms, the wolves in the wilderness, and the catastrophes at sea – spoke of the war of good and evil and of God’s mighty government. Social institutions, conscience, and the forces of nature meshed in the communal experience to restrain rebellious dispositions.
...
The combined force of so many institutions invested law and authority with immense power. In nearly every dimension of life – family, church, the social hierarchy, and religion – a [citizen] encountered unanimous reinforcement of governing authority. The total impact was immense, because each institution was an integral part of a monolithic whole. In each community the agencies of law and authority merged so that the individual felt himself confined within a unified governing structure. The preacher’s exhortation to submit to domestic government reinforced the father’s dominion in his family. Church discipline carried added terrors because censures were delivered before the neighbors and the town’s most prominent families, and the assignment of pews in the meetinghouse according to social rank reminded everyone of the distinctions among individuals and of the deference due superiors. The total environment enjoined obedience: the stately figure of minister or commissioner as he rode through town, the leading inhabitants’ imposing two-storied houses standing near the meetinghouse at its center, the austere graves of the dead in its shadow.

Only Mike Pence can restore fear of wilderness to puritan governance.

Bushman again:

Election of these officials, even the highest, did not diminish their authority or make them responsible to the people. Democracy, in the Puritan view, was nongovernment, or anarchy, and rulers had to constrain [themselves] not to obey a corrupt popular will. Election was a device for implementing divine intentions rather than for transmitting power from the people to their rulers.

And a contemporaneous quote from the day of Puritan rule:

"In elective states, where persons are advanced by the suffrage of others to places of rule, and vested with Civil Power, the persons choosing give not the power, but GOD. They are but the instruments of conveyance."

I hope Mike hangs in there. Someday he'll convince enough people of the invisible darkness that enfolds them, the one they can't see but which he knows is there. Eventually, the incredible lightness of movement conservatism will save them from it.

poputonian 11/16/2006 08:00:00 AM |

 
The Voice Of Unreason

by tristero

Blogger ate an earlier post I did on David Klinghoffer's Jerusalem Post article in which he attempts to align "intelligent design" creationism with Orthodox Judaism.* So, I will just quickly note that among other "goodies," David's article features a tactic common to the right when they lie or argue for a particularly awful idea, namely the adoption of a facade of sober-minded, above-the-fray thoughtfulness. In this case, David Klingoffer does both. He lies about a particularly awful idea:

Yet more than a few people on the traditional side of the religious divide are vocal critics of intelligent design (ID), the scientific framework in which doubts about Darwinism are currently being expressed and worked out.

The lie, of course, is that David knows that in Kitzmiller v. Dover, Judge Jones ruled that "intelligent design" is nothing more than the religious doctrinee of creationism and that there is nothing scientific about "intelligent design" creationism in the slightest. And David well knows that the vast majority of mainstream scientists concur.

And the bad idea here? Why, evangelizing to Israel for "intelligent design" creationism, of course. Doesn't Israel have enough troubles as it is?

I'll leave it to you to marvel at the incredible density of deceit packed into David's column, not to mention his sheer ignorance of science. My favorite: ID belief is an "increasingly confident minority view among scientists." Not that "a vanishingly small minority of scientists" have anything good to say about ID, but that it is a minority view. Not that the small minority (out of which David can muster up not a single scientist trained in the specialized areas of evolution, genetics and species formation) is increasing, but rather that their confidence is.

My interest in David Klinghoffer is not because I think he is a particularly influential or effective writer. Rather, it is because his efforts to disguise his far-right political agenda as religion are so crude as to make it obvious what he is really up to. By the time you're slick enough to lead a mega-church, as Ted Haggard did, you've managed to bury the political implications underneath all the hosannas and praise the Lords so that casual outside observers who don't know where the action lies will mistake it for non-political and therefore harmless religious observance.

With David, it's always about far-right politics. The lengths he will go to to advance extremist memes are genuinely astonishing, if not downright revolting. Here, for instance:

It would be a presumption to assert that God caused the Holocaust, or allowed it to happen, in order to punish European Jewry for their increasingly widespread devotion to secularism. In any given historical event, we can never know God’s true intention. But it would also be a presumption, and a worse one, to assert that such a punishment was not what He had in mind. It is that latter presumption of which most Jews, including many religiously observant ones, are guilty today. Anyway, if He did intend that event as a punishment, a warning, or a lesson, it would fit the Bible’s pattern neatly. The Jews liquidated by Nazi Germany were not only, or even mostly, Reformers and secularists. Many deeply pious Jews perished as well, for they were often the last to seek escape from rising Nazi power.

You read that correctly. David here is arguing that maybe the Holocaust happened because God was punishing the Jews, all Jews, because some Jews were too "secular." And he skirts quite close to saying that the Jews he thinks are too "secular" deserved the gas camps. His message is unmistakeable: if Jews want to be absolutely certain to avoid another Holocaust, they better do something about the deadly "secularists."

To say the least, a few people begged to differ. Klinghoffer's reply to them is also worth a read; just be sure that you haven't eaten anything for at least two hours before you try.

Again, the issue is not so much David himself as it is how his blatantly obvious attempts to disguise his loopy politics as religion provide us with insight into how the slicker boys and girls go about it. Still, that Klinghoffer would try to export "intelligent design" creationism to Israel is truly unforgivable.

*Klinghoffer is employed by the Discovery Institute which should surprise no one. Where else could he work, after all?
tristero 11/16/2006 03:17:00 AM |

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

 
Right On Time

by digby

November 26, 2005:

Movement conservatives are getting ready to write the history of this era as liberalism once again failing the people. Typically, the conservatives were screwed, as they always are. They must regroup and fight for conservatism, real conservatism, once again. Viva la revolucion!

There is no such thing as a bad conservative. "Conservative" is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives' good graces. Until they aren't. At which point they are liberals.

Today:

Reluctantly, we may finally have to admit that President George W. Bush has governed more like a liberal Democrat than the true moral conservative we all wanted to believe he was. If Richard Viguerie is right, more bad things will continue to happen to the Republican Party as long as conservatives remain unhappy.

They are so utterly predictable it's as if we are living in some sort of conservative Zombie Day from which we cannot escape.


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digby 11/15/2006 09:28:00 PM |

 
The Oracle Speaks

by digby

With his trademark prescience, the man who wrote "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq" is now advising us not to withdraw from Iraq because to do so would lead to civil war:

Kenneth M. Pollack, an expert at the Brookings Institution who served on the staff of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, also argued that a push for troop reductions would backfire by contributing to the disorder in Iraq.

“If we start pulling out troops and the violence gets worse and the control of the militias increases and people become confirmed in their suspicion that the United States is not going to be there to prevent civil war, they are to going to start making decisions today to prepare for the eventuality of civil war tomorrow,” he said. “That is how civil wars start.”

I guess Pollack's been busy analyzing the gathering threat of the Mayan Empire or something because he seems to have missed the latest:






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digby 11/15/2006 05:47:00 PM |

 
Suckers

by digby

I just saw this on a conservative site and I couldn't help but be arrested by the, shall-we-say unrealistic little fantasy this ad represents.



Right
digby 11/15/2006 05:05:00 PM |

 
Garbage Out, Garbage In

by digby

I'm sure others have noted this already, but Trent Lott's resurrection among the Republican leadership can't help but remind all of us of a time when the GOP elites passionately cast aside poor old Trent as nothing more than a piece of garbage. Remember this one, where the crazy dolphin lady held a little dialog with one of the other crazy dolphin ladies inside her head?

Q: Why are you conservative pundit-writer-chatterer types so passionate about this?

A: Lots of reasons. One is that we're tired of being embarrassed by people who aren't sensitive to the reality of race in America. We're tired of being humiliated by politicians who otherwise see many things as we do but who seem to have an inability to be constructive and understanding about race. We're tired to being associated with hate mongering. We care about our country, and we think patriotism demands a constructive attitude in this big area.

Some of us have put our reputations in jeopardy by supporting programs like the school liberation movement because we want to help people who don't have much and need a break. Or we've put ourselves in jeopardy by opposing racial preferences, or any number of other programs, for the very reason that we believe completely in our hearts and minds that all races are equal and no one should be judged by the color of his skin. And then some guy comes along and speaks the old code of yesteryear and seems to reinforce the idea that those who hold conservative positions are really, at heart, racist. We are indignant, and we have been for a long time.

In the Lott scandal our indignation reached critical mass. A lot of conservatives, many of them 50 and under, decided enough is enough, let's end this, let a new party be born. And by the way, in the particular case of Trent Lott, it didn't start yesterday. Stanley Crouch just surprised me by sending me a column he wrote almost four years ago for the New York Daily News. It was about a Lott appearance before the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white-supremacist group. I said it was springtime and it's time to throw out the garbage, and Mr. Lott should go. Go to the archives of conservative journals and see what they've been writing and thinking for a long time about race. This is a good time to get real conservative thinking out there and known for what it is.

So guess it must be liberals who have just elected him again to be the face of a major political party. How embarrassing for us.



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digby 11/15/2006 04:20:00 PM |

 
Deep Bench

by digby


Here's an interesting post-mortem from John Judis on how the parties fared in the state legislatures in which he rightly points out:

Not only do they provide a rough measure of party loyalty, which reflects national politics, but they can also determine the overall success or failure of a party for years to come.

The overall results in this year's state legislative races show a dramatic swing toward the Democrats. In races for state Senate, which usually undercount urban areas, the Democrats went from a 48 percent minority to a 51 percent majority; in state House races, they went from 49 to 55 percent of all seats. Prior to the election, Republicans controlled 20 state legislatures, the Democrats 19, and ten were split between House and Senate (Nebraska's legislature is non-partisan). After the election, Democrats controlled 23, Republicans 15, and eleven were split.

Even more striking, however, are the trends in individual states. They show which states and regions are becoming solidly Democratic or solidly Republican, and which have become or remain contestable. Here's a summary of where the two parties stand around the country:

The Northeast
Republicans not only didn't make significant gains in any Northeastern state, they suffered significant losses in states where the party still had residual strength. New Hampshire, for example, now appears to be in the Democrats' corner. Democrats there picked up six seats in the Senate, giving them a 14 to 10 advantage; in the House, where they were down 150 to 242 seats, nearly one hundred seats switched hands, giving Democrats a 239 to 161 majority. Democrats also made very large gains in Connecticut, Maine, and Maryland (which Republicans had hoped to win back after Republican Robert Ehrlich won the governorship in 2002).

Border states and the Upper South
Republicans made no gains in these states and suffered significant losses in West Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas, where Democrats won the governorship and picked up three legislative seats. They have a huge 27 to eight majority in the Arkansas Senate and a 75 to 25 majority in the House. Democrats now enjoy a clear advantage in Arkansas and West Virginia, and Missouri and Virginia are up for grabs. Kentucky still leans Republican, but Democrats picked up five House seats.

The Midwest
Republicans lost legislative seats throughout the Midwest, including Indiana. Iowa and Minnesota, which have teetered between Republican and Democratic control, appear to have become solidly Democratic. In Minnesota, Democrats won six Senate seats and 19 House seats, and in Iowa five Senate and five House seats. Republicans still enjoy majorities in both chambers in Ohio, though Democrats picked up one Senate seat and seven House seats there. But legislative majorities in Ohio depend on redistricting, which a Democratic governor will now control.

The South
The deep South remains Republican, as the party won two Senate seats and a House seat in Alabama, gained a House seat in South Carolina, and maintained its huge advantage in Georgia, which it won in 2004 when Republicans went from a six-to-five disadvantage to a seven-to-five advantage in the state legislature. Democrats made significant gains, however, in North Carolina and Florida, which are now contestable.

The Great Plains
Republican subordination to the religious right cost the party in the Dakotas and Kansas. In Kansas, with the wounds from a controversy over evolution still fresh, the Democrats picked up six House seats; in South Dakota (where a draconian anti-abortion initiative failed) five Senate seats and one House seat; and in North Dakota six Senate seats and six House seats. A Democratic presidential candidate may not carry these states, but it is now imaginable that a Democrat could be elected senator from Kansas.

Rocky Mountain states
Utah remains solidly Republican. Montana has a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators in Congress, but by losing two Senate seats, Democrats lost control of the Senate. Democrats picked up three Senate seats in Wyoming. These states have become competitive, but no means Democratic. But the big change is in Colorado, where Democrats solidified their victories in 2004, winning two more Senate seats and four more House seats. Colorado, like New Hampshire, may have turned blue this year.

The Southwest
Despite Republican Representative Heather Wilson's re-election in Albuquerque (due to a disastrous debate performance by her opponent at the campaign's end), New Mexico remains Democratic, as Democrats maintained their almost three-to-two margin in the state legislature. In Arizona, Republicans still control the legislature, but Democrats picked up seven seats in the House, narrowing the Republican margin to only 32 to 28. In Oklahoma and Texas, Republicans remain in command, although Democrats picked up five House seats in Texas despite Tom DeLay's rigging of district lines.

The Pacific Coast
Democrats held their own in California, as expected. Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger is governor, but he won re-election by firing the Pete Wilson protégés who initially ran the House and replacing them with Democrats. The Democrats picked up four seats in Oregon and 13 seats in Washington. After a gubernatorial cliff-hanger in 2004, Washington has become dependably Democratic.



Unlike the congressional or presidential elections, state races are not tied directly to national political issues. A candidate for the California Assembly, for example, doesn't run on a platform of withdrawing from Iraq. But, while they don't show whether a particular state will support a Democrat or Republican for president in 2008-- presidential contests are still shaped too much by the candidates' political skills--they do provide a good indication of which party a state or region will favor, on average, over the next four or five elections.

By this measure, Democrats should dominate the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Far West; make serious inroads in the Rockies, Plains states, and Southwest; and win a good share of seats in the border states and Upper South. The Republicans will maintain their hold over the Deep South, Utah, and, perhaps, Idaho. But they will have to work to win elections everywhere else. In short, if these trends hold up, the Republicans are in trouble. So much for Karl Rove's math.

So much for Karl Rove.

One other thing that's not mentioned very often, but which I find astonishing. I think we all sort of saw this as a "throw the bums out" election. The public might hate all incumbents, but the majority is likely to lose more so it's bad news for them and good news for the minority party. What's significant in this election is that the Democrats didn't lose any seats at all. It wasn't just disgust with "Washington" as Karl Rove wants people to believe. It was a very specific national rebuke of the Republican Party in all but its most solid strongholds in the deep South and a few western states.


Update: Bowers crunched these numbers too and makes this great point:

We have now almost entirely restocked our bench following the 1994 elections. Our list of potential candidates for higher office at every level is now much longer than it was only six years ago. We also are in a position to favorably remake electoral maps in than we were six years ago. Also, by taking a substantial lead in trifectas, now we can govern for the first time in a long time, shifting the national policy debate decidedly in our favor. The trend for us at the state level has been pretty much straight upward from 2004-2006. As the backbone of our national coalition, this makes our majorities and influence in Washington, D.C. all the greater.

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digby 11/15/2006 01:44:00 PM |

 
The Conservative Consensus

by digby

As I read about all the intermural jockeying for power and the discussions of a progressive agenda for the next congress, I can't help but feel a little bit overwhelmed by the challenge we are going to face in the next few years.

Jonathan Cohn spells it out:

No, Bush hasn't enacted a conservative version of the New Deal. But, even though some of his most grandiose proposals failed, he has still managed to leave a lasting mark on economic policy--and, through it, the economy. His tax cuts have shifted wealth in this country from the poor and middle-class to the rich. At the same time, they have destroyed the balanced budgets of the Clinton era, creating large liabilities that future governments will have to pay off. If you don't think that's a large impact, ask Bill Clinton himself: The large deficits he inherited forced him to shelve many of his early economic plans in 1993. Even if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, he will similarly spend much of his early time in office cleaning up this fiscal mess.

Less high-profile, but no less important, have been the administration's actions on regulation. Substantially more skeptical of regulation--and regulators--than the Clinton administration, the Bush administration has gutted agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, rejecting proposed new rules on everything from ergonomics standards to tuberculosis protections that were already in the pipeline, while failing to propose new ones. This, too, is the kind of shift that a new president, let alone a new Congress, will find difficult to undo quickly. The regulatory process takes time. And seeing proposed changes through to completion requires sustained political will, particularly when the changes rankle well-connected business groups (as they so often do).

The Bush administration's impact on the judiciary could be even longer-lasting. The conservatives Bush has appointed to the Supreme Court--where they enjoy lifetime tenure--could easily tip the balance on issues like abortion, privacy, and the limits of executive authority, the latter two being of particular concern given the war on terror. And, speaking of war, look at what the administration has done on foreign policy: It has toppled regimes in two countries, set off a civil war in one of them, committed a large chunk of our Armed Forces to action, and basically redefined the premises of U.S. foreign policy.

These and other such changes will affect Americans--and, in some respects, the entire world--for years to come. And while the voters rejected Bush's divisive political strategy, it was exactly that strategy--much like FDR's--that likely made these changes feasible. Imagine that Bush had governed as an accommodator rather than an agitator, as he promised to do as a candidate in 2000. Would he be more popular now? Probably. But would the rich still have their fabulous tax breaks? Would former industry lobbyists be running around the bureaucracy, destroying regulatory agencies from the inside out? Would U.S. troops still be in Baghdad? Probably not.

As Cohn says elsewhere in the piece, "[f]or the last few years, we've been in a conservative political period that arguably extended all the way back to the late 1960s, when Kevin Phillips wrote of an "emerging Republican majority."

This is the fundamental problem we face and I don't think we have all quite grasped the enormity of that because the Republicans ran and governed during the last 40 years as if the liberals were in control and they were the angry insurgents trying to knock them off. Everyone during this period, including the Democrats, fell for it and believed that underneath it all a liberal consensus existed. But to a remarkable extent, we have had a conservative consensus for some time.

Let's look at economics. A reader sent me this excerpt from The Economist View's Tim Duy, talking about Hayek, in which he excerpts some choice quotes from The Road to Serfdom and explains that even the free market God of the right understood that government was necessary to mitigate at least some of the risk of a dynamic capitalist society. Here's what I found most interesting about this post, however:

Speaking of Keynes, Robert Skidelsky’s masterful biography includes Keynes’s thoughts on Hayek:

Keynes’s response was unexpected. Hayek’s was a "grand book," he wrote, and “we all have the greatest reason to be grateful to you for saying so well what needs so much to be said.Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it; and not only in agreement, but in deeply moved agreement.”

Keynes did note, however, that Hayek, by admitting to the need for government to serve a social function, recognized that there was in fact need for a middle ground, but could not determine where to draw it.

The difference between the intellectuals, you see, isn't really so stark. But for the last 40 years that line has been drawn far over to the right as a function of politics rather than real economic philosophy. The public economic debate has been turned into a simplistic argument over who can provide the best tax cuts and the least regulation because that's the candy the southern strategy Republicans sold to their conservative base as the best way to defund a government which they claim always spent hard-earned tax dollars on the "wrong" people. (You know what I'm talking about...)

But it didn't stop with them. I think I wrote before about an earnest young woman I worked with a few years back who was a compassionate liberal, voted for Democrats and even contributed time and money to the cause. One day she came into my office and breathlessly told me, "Finally, I saw someone last night on TV who knows what he's talking about. Maybe you've heard of him. He's an economist and his name is Milton Friedman." To her, Friedman "made sense" because he reaffirmed what she'd been hearing since she was old enough to vaguely pay attention, not because she agreed with his laissez-faire theories. She didn't even know that's what they were. It just sounded so reasonable to her (and as Dr. Atrios pointed out here, that little bit of freshman economics can be a dangerous thing.)

The Republicans may have finally jumped the shark, after failing so dramatically at governance, but they have inculcated their thinking so thoroughly into people's minds that many people don't even know it. The way most people think about government, and the vocabulary they all use, comes from the Republican playbook. It's going to take a huge effort to get people thinking about it in new ways. (There are a lot of smart people working on that, thank goodness.)

But right now, we are stuck in the same old groove:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said reviving several popular business and middle-class tax breaks that expired at the end of 2005 will be at the top of his party's agenda when Congress returns next week for a postelection session.

It's not that I don't want to see middle class families and small businesses have some more money in their pockets. I do. I haven't looked at the economic implication of these tax reductions and maybe they even make sense. But I'm pretty sure this is simple politics (and undoubtedly good politics) in which the Democrats prove their tax-cutting bonafides to the constituency both parties need --- the middle class. In today's political climate, you aren't delivering, if you aren't delivering "tax relief."

That's as true blue Republican as you can get. And at some point Democrats are going to have to start rolling this back and making the case that delivering for the middle class means providing the safety net and provision for the less fortunate that allows average Americans the freedom to take risks and fuel our dynamic economy --- like taking new jobs or starting a new business. Tax cuts are like candy --- they taste good, but the individual middle class worker and her family doesn't get nearly the nutritious bang for the buck that the safety net and government programs do. Liberals and progressives need to start changing the political dialog in ways that talk about risk management and security and fair trade and wage growth --- things we really believe in and which can make an affirmative, lasting difference in people's lives.

There are so many great economists in the blogosphere who are much smarter than I am about these things and who can speak in great detail about policy, so I will leave them to it. But before we get to that I think we are going to have to start thinking about how to make our argument in new terms and talk to people about their relationship to their government in new ways.

My first suggestion for this new vocabulary isn't really mine, but a reader's from some time back who pointed out my use of the term "tax burden" was an example of unthinking adoption of conservative rhetoric. He was right. He suggested that we start talking about it as "paying the bills" something that everyone understands. I think that makes sense. You can't blow smoke in people's faces by trying to tell them that taxes are "good." That's dreaming. But everyone knows that we have to pay the bills and our bill for the services we get --- national defense, social security for the disabled and elderly, medical research, roads and bridges,air traffic control, clean air and water, veterans benefits and on and on and on aren't free. It's a bill that has to be paid for both the individual and common good. We need the insurance it provides, the pension, the health care (universal someday, old age right now) the health and safety, the security. And there is no free lunch on that stuff, it's the price we pay to live in a first world, thriving democracy in the 21st century. If you don't want to pay those bills, move to a third world country and see what not having to pay them gets an average person.

Right now, we are going to have to deal with some rich kids who stole the car, blew the inheritance and ran up a bunch of debt and we are going to have to make them pay it back. Their bills are going to be high for a while. They have plenty of money. They won't suffer much, even though they should.

The conservative consensus says that low taxes, limited government, individual rights, strong national defense and family values equals a better life. Many people, including many liberals, have absorbed that message into their worldview and it's going to take some work to unravel it. It won't happen through issue advocacy. People already favor all the government programs they depend on (and some they that don't even exist, yet.) But they have been disconnected from government itself --- their ownership of it and their obligation to keep it working. Until we successfully challenge the conservative consensus with new language and new ways of thinking about government and politics, it's going to remain in place. And it's going to be very difficult to successfully advance the progressive agenda until that changes.


Update: As DB reminds me in the comments, here's the post I wrote about Bill Sher's book on this very topic.



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digby 11/15/2006 10:20:00 AM |

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

 
Quiverfull of Kooks

by digby

Following up tristero's post below, I think the single most disturbing part of the article he discusses, is this:

Meanwhile, Phillip Longman hardly offers a left-wing counterpoint. Instead, he's searching--at the request of the Democratic Leadership Council, which published his policy proposals in its Blueprint magazine--for a way to appeal to the same voters Carlson is organizing: a typically "radical middle" quest to figure out how Democrats can make nice with Kansas.

"Who are these evangelicals?" asks Longman. "Is there anything about them that makes them inherently prowar and for tax cuts for the rich?" No, he concludes. "What's irreducible about these religious voters is that they're for the family." Asked whether the absolutist position Quiverfull takes on birth control, let alone abortion, might interfere with his strategy, Longman admits that abortion rights would have to take a back seat but that, in politics, "nobody ever gets everything they need."

Aside from the centrist tax policies Longman is crafting to rival Carlson's, he urges a return to patriarchy--properly understood, he is careful to note, as not just male domination but also increased male responsibility as husbands and fathers--on more universal grounds. Taking a long view as unsettling in its way as Pastor Bartly Heneghan's rapture talk, Longman says that no society can survive to reproduce itself without following patriarchy. "As secular and libertarian elements in society fail to reproduce, people adhering to more traditional, patriarchal values inherit society by default," Longman argues, pointing to cyclical demographic upheavals from ancient Greece and Rome to the present day, when falling birthrates have consistently augured conservative, even reactionary comebacks, marked by increased nationalism, religious fundamentalism and deep societal conservatism. Presenting a thinly veiled ultimatum to moderates and liberals, Longman cites the political sea change in the Netherlands in recent years, where, he charges, a population decline led to a vacuum that "Muslim extremists came in to fill." Though individual, nonpatriarchal elements of society may die out, he says, societies as a whole will survive and, "through a process of cultural evolution, a set of values and norms that can roughly be described as patriarchy reemerge."

Longman's answer to this threat is for progressives to beat conservatives by joining them, emulating the large patriarchal families that conservatives promote in order not to be overrun by a reactionary baby boom. Any mention of social good occurring in regions with low birthrates is swept away by the escalating rhetoric of a "birth dearth," a "baby bust," a dying hemisphere undone by its own progressive politics.

Holy fuck, indeed. This kind of thinking has finally gone mainstream and is fully integrated into the debate among influential Democrats. Granted, Longman's advice to the DLC was to embrace "family friendly" policy but as you can see from his comments, in order to truly embrace these undereducated "Quiverfull" nuts whom everyone thinks need to be part of the Big Tent (birthing and cleaning after everyone apparently)the agenda is going to have to expand significantly. We are already seeing the argument going beyond abortion and extending into the birth control realm.

Let me put it this way: if the Democrats insist on racing the Republicans into the dark ages with this kind of racist, misogynist, anti-intellectual, enlightenment destroying bullshit, we won't have to worry about "staying on top." Americans will be soon be living atop a gigantic garbage dump picking through the remnants of their former civilization for enough to eat. It isn't 1956 anymore and it sure as hell isn't 1856 anymore. If the US wants to take a trip back to the 18th century that's fine. I'm sure Europe, China and India would be more than happy to pick up the slack.

This stuff is very thinly veiled Bell Curve nonsense re-packaged to appeal to sexists and homophobes as well as racists. After all, folks, if it was just the aging population everyone was so worried about, there would be no immigration debate, would there?

Here's David Brooks on the subject a few months back:

I suspect that if more people had the chance to focus exclusively on child-rearing before training for and launching a career, fertility rates would rise. That would be good for the country, for as Phillip Longman, author of "The Empty Cradle," has argued, we are consuming more human capital than we are producing - or to put it another way, we don't have enough young people to support our old people.

Plenty of young people want to come to America and would be more than happy to pay into social security to support all of us old codgers. They just aren't the "right kind" of people, if you know what I mean. So get to breeding, white bitches. You've got work to do.

I am all for having a big tent. But there is no political party on earth that is big enough for me and people who believe that liberalism's great hope is to create policies that encourage women to have 14 children so we can "outbreed" the competition and make sure the wrong people don't come in and ruin the place. That's where I head for the exit.

Update:
Here's an interesting article by Michele Goldberg, of "The Rise Of Christian Nationalism" fame on the subject of childlessness and happiness (as in "the pursuit of" --- another one of those bedrock American values people seem to think are fungible these days.) For a great many of us, the pursuit of happiness is not possible unless life offers freedom to choose how we will live our lives.



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digby 11/14/2006 02:36:00 PM |

 
The Quiverfulls

by tristero

I can't improve on what Justin exclaimed about The Quiverfulls (also see here): Holy Fuck!

I'll add only two things. First of all, note the language they use, how by having lotsa kids they are helping to take the country back from the commie-feminist-homosexual-al Qaeda lovers.

This isn't the language of religion. This is the language of far right political operatives. And sure enough, if you read The Nation, you learn that one of the scumbags that inspired the Quiverfulls was a Holocaust "revisionist," to use Kathryn Joyce's disgusting euphemism for Holocaust denier.

As for those who think that the Quiverfulls somehow contradict the notion that christianists are engaged in a war on fucking, well... with all due respect to Justin's great quip, I suggest you read very carefully what they are saying. If that's fucking, God help us all.

Secondly, since someone is bound to mention it in comments, yes, I do recall very well that Bach had 20 children (21, if you count PDQ). And for a very good reason.

Someone had to copy all that music he was writing every week and hiring copyists then as now could get really pricey.

Today, I have no doubt that Bach would do as all the rest of us do. He'd get a Mac (or PC) and a copy of Finale and have a lot less kids.

tristero 11/14/2006 11:19:00 AM |

 
Did You Know That San Francisco Is 28 Feet From New York City?

by tristero

It's true!

(If you're a christianist, that is.)
tristero 11/14/2006 06:45:00 AM |

Monday, November 13, 2006

 
Faith Based Boy Genius

by digby

This is a perfect illustration of everything that is wrong with the Bush administration. They are magical thinkers:

Rove's miscalculations began well before election night. The polls and pundits pointed to a Democratic sweep, but Rove dismissed them all. In public, he predicted outright victory, flashing the V sign to reporters flying on Air Force One. He wasn't just trying to psych out the media and the opposition. He believed his "metrics" were far superior to plain old polls. Two weeks before the elections, Rove showed NEWSWEEK his magic numbers: a series of graphs and bar charts that tallied early voting and voter outreach. Both were running far higher than in 2004. In fact, Rove thought the polls were obsolete because they relied on home telephones in an age of do-not-call lists and cell phones. Based on his models, he forecast a loss of 12 to 14 seats in the House—enough to hang on to the majority. Rove placed so much faith in his figures that, after the elections, he planned to convene a panel of Republican political scientists—to study just how wrong the polls were.

His confidence buoyed everyone inside the West Wing, especially the president. Ten days before the elections, House Majority Leader John Boehner visited Bush in the Oval Office with bad news. He told Bush that the party would lose Tom DeLay's old seat in Texas, where Bush was set to campaign. Bush brushed him off, Boehner recalls. "Get me Karl," the president told an aide. "Karl has the numbers."

I think what shocks me the most about this article is that it reveals that Rove actually believed they would definitely win based on his magic numbers. I assumed he was "projecting" confidence as any political strategist would do. I honestly didn't know he was delusional.

And this delusional man's power was unprecedented for a political advisior. In many ways he has been running the country for the last six years:

In his acceptance speech, Bush thanks Rove, calling him simply "the architect."

"Everyone in the room knew what that meant," says Washington Post reporter Mike Allen. "He was the architect of the public policies that got them there, he was the architect of the campaign platform, he was the architect of the fundraising strategy, he was the architect of the state-by-state strategy, he was the architect of the travel itinerary. His hand was in all of it."

February 2005

Rove is promoted. President Bush announces that he will now be assistant to the president, deputy chief of staff and a senior adviser, the title reflecting influence over both politics and policy. Rove also gets a new office, just steps away from the Oval Office.

With Bush re-elected, Rove is thinking long-term. He intends to use both politics and policy to create a permanent Republican majority. He designs a legislative agenda that he hopes will lead to future Republican gains. High on the list: an overhaul and partial privatization of Social Security, and the appointment of "strict constructionist" judges who will reverse what many Republicans see as judicial activism. "I think what they are trying to do is bigger than the Great Society, and approaches the New Deal," says Washington Post reporter Thomas Edsall. "They aren't kidding around."

They weren't serious people though and Tom Edsall and the rest of the Washington press corps should have known very well by then. Ron Suskind had chronicled the dysfunction inside the Bush administration as early as January 2003:

DiIulio defines the Mayberry Machiavellis as political staff, Karl Rove and his people, "who consistently talked and acted as if the height of political sophistication consisted in reducing every issue to its simplest black-and-white terms for public consumption, then steering legislative initiatives or policy proposals as far right as possible. These folks have their predecessors in previous administrations (left and right, Democrat and Republican), but in the Bush administration, they were particularly unfettered."

"Remember ‘No child left behind’? That was a Bush campaign slogan. I believe it was his heart, too. But translating good impulses into good policy proposals requires more than whatever somebody thinks up in the eleventh hour before a speech is to be delivered."

Weekly meetings of the Domestic Policy Council "were breathtaking," DiIulio told me. As for the head of the DPC, Margaret La Montagne, a longtime friend of Karl Rove who guided education policy in Texas, DiIulio is blunt: "What she knows about domestic policy could fit in a thimble."

When DiIulio would raise objections to killing programs—like the Earned Income Tax Credit, a tax credit for the poorest Americans, hailed by policy analysts on both sides of the aisle, that contributed to the success of welfare reform—he found he was often arguing with libertarians who didn’t know the basic functions of major federal programs. As a senior White House adviser and admirer of DiIulio’s recently said to me, "You have to understand, this administration is further to the right than much of the public understands. The view of many people [in the White House] is that the best government can do is simply do no harm, that it never is an agent for positive change. If that’s your position, why bother to understand what programs actually do?"

[...]

Five days later, on July 9, at the administration’s six-month senior-staff retreat, DiIulio writes that "an explicit discussion ensued concerning how to emulate more strongly the Clinton White House’s press, communications, and rapid-response media relations—how better to wage, if you will, the permanent campaign that so defines the modern presidency regardless of who or which party occupies the Oval Office. I listened and was amazed. It wasn’t more press, communications, media, legislative strategizing, and such that they needed. Maybe the Clinton people did that better, though surely they were less disciplined about it and leaked more to the media and so on. No, what they needed, I thought then and still do now, was more policy-relevant information, discussion, and deliberation."

Part of the problem, DiIulio now understood, was that the paucity of serious policy discussion combined with a leakproof command-and-control operation was altering traditional laws of White House physics. That is: Know what’s political, know what’s policy. They are different. That distinction drives the structure of most administrations. The policy experts, on both domestic and foreign policy, order up "white papers" and hash out the most prudent use of executive power. Political advisers, who often deepen their knowledge by listening carefully as these deliberations unfold, are then called in to decide how, when, and with whom in support policies should be presented, enacted, and executed.

The dilemma presented by Karl Rove, DiIulio realized, was that in such a policy vacuum, his jack-of-all-trades appreciation of an enormous array of policy debates was being mistaken for genuine expertise. It takes a true policy wonk to recognize the difference, and, beyond the realm of foreign affairs, DiIulio was almost alone in the White House.

"When policy analysis is just backfill to support a political maneuver, you’ll get a lot of oops," he says.

A lot of oops.

Karl Rove never got Bush a mandate and yet advised him to govern as if he'd won in a landslide. (Maybe he showed Junior some "metrics" that proved that even though he had a tiny majority, it meant his wingnut policies were hugely popular.) And he's been as responsible for the awful state of American politics and malfeasance in office as anyone in the White House. He barely escaped indictment earlier this year.

Can somebody explain to me why the taxpayers are still paying his salary?



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digby 11/13/2006 04:13:00 PM |

 
Freeper Geeks With Problems

by digby


So this nutball who's been sending white powder to liberals and media celebs turns out to be a freeper. Imagine my surprise.

But it turns out that he's an odd wingnut sci-fi freak too --- and he's been on a rampage to purge the canon of all those dastardly sci-fi lib-symps.

From Dover Bitch:

Beam them all up, already

A quick Google search for the utter prick who sent white powder to Nancy Pelosi, Keith Olbermann and others yields this dilithium crystal, apparently sent by him to SciFi Channel:

With the passing away of Lexx ends an intriguing albeit smarmy experiment in sci-fantasy. One that breaks with conventions, or should I say, cliches of TV sci-fi of the '90s. The politically correct pabulum, the multicultural indoctrination, the Bladerunner motifs, and not the least—the steroid mutated superbabes that can punch the lights out of men, but never get punched back in return!?

How about creating a new sci-fi anthology with none of the puerile baggage of Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, Rockne O' Bannon, etc., etc. It is time to end their reign of Left-wing innuendo, their anti-American, anti-mankind cynicism and fatalism

.(more here...)

"...steroid mutated superbabes that can punch the lights out of men, but never get punched back in return?"

Issues?


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digby 11/13/2006 11:29:00 AM |

 
Poppy's Last Rescue

by digby


It seems to me that with the new narrative of Junior having to put his codpiece between his legs and beg for daddy and daddy's old family retainers to once again bail him out it's a good time to reprise a little vintage Molly Ivans:

Bush likes to claim the difference between him and his father is that, "He went to Greenwich Country Day and I went to San Jacinto Junior High." He did. For one year. Then his family moved to a posh neighborhood in Houston, and he went to the second-best prep school in town (couldn't get into the best one) before going off to Andover as a legacy.

Jim Hightower's great line about Bush, "Born on third and thinks he hit a triple," is still painfully true. Bush has simply never acknowledged that not only was he born with a silver spoon in his mouth -- he's been eating off it ever since. The reason there is no noblesse oblige about Dubya is because he doesn't admit to himself or anyone else that he owes his entire life to being named George W. Bush. He didn't just get a head start by being his father's son -- it remained the single most salient fact about him for most of his life. He got into Andover as a legacy. He got into Yale as a legacy. He got into Harvard Business School as a courtesy (he was turned down by the University of Texas Law School).

He got into the Texas Air National Guard -- and sat out Vietnam -- through Daddy's influence. (I would like to point out that that particular unit of FANGers, as regular Air Force referred to the "Fucking Air National Guard," included not only the sons of Governor John Connally and Senator Lloyd Bentsen, but some actual black members as well -- they just happened to play football for the Dallas Cowboys.) Bush was set up in the oil business by friends of his father.

He went broke and was bailed out by friends of his father. He went broke again and was bailed out again by friends of his father; he went broke yet again and was bailed out by some fellow Yalies.

Everybody knew this before they voted for him. But they thought they were voting for backyard bar-b-que pal not president. They also assumed that he listened to his father. Not so:

Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? "I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, 'Well, no,' and then he got defensive about it," says Woodward. "Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, 'He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.' And then he said, 'There's a higher Father that I appeal to.'"

Just two months ago, Junior told Brian Williams:

WILLIAMS: Is there a palpable tension when you get together with the former president, who happens to be your father? A lot of the guys who worked for him are not happy with the direction of things.

BUSH: Oh no. My relationship is adoring son.

WILLIAMS: You talk shop?

BUSH: Sometimes, yeah, of course we do. But it's a really interesting question, it's kind of conspiracy theory at its most rampant. My dad means the world to me, as a loving dad. He gave me the greatest gift a father can give a child, which is unconditional love. And yeah, we go out and can float around there trying to catch some fish, and chat and talk, but he understands what it means to be president. He understands that often times I have information that he doesn't have. And he understands how difficult the world is today. And I explain my strategy to him, I explain exactly what I just explained to you back there how I view the current tensions, and he takes it on board, and leaves me with this thought, "I love you son."

(He left out the fact that Senior muttered under his breath afterward "... but you are an idiot.")

Now, he's widely seen as having to call in his daddy's consigliere and top spook. He can't be happy about that.

But the truth is that even daddy's rich, loyal pals can't bail him out of this one.(Read this if you want to see just how hopeless the situation seems at this moment. It's a nightmare.) I suspect that the best they can hope for this time is to stanch the bleeding until they can safely whisk him back to Crawford, dump the mess on the next guy and try to blame the Democrats for the failure.

I hope people understand that James Baker and Robert Gates are in the Bush family business not the "wise old sage who will do what's right for the country" business. Indeed, their entire lives have been devoted to bailing out Bushes.(And they haven't always been successful. Jimmy may have pulled one out for Junior in Florida, but he was called back, much against his will, to get Poppy re-elected and failed.) Their job is simply to try to save Junior from ignominy and that is not necessarily what is in the best interest of the US or Iraq.

It is clear that no matter what this country does now in Iraq, it is impossible to
"fix" in any substantial way. We didn't just break the pot at the Pottery Barn, we blew up the whole neighborhood. Going in was, as James Webb wrote back in 2003, "the greatest strategic blunder in modern memor" the war's execution has been the greatest series of tactical mistakes in modern memory --- so much now that it's impossible to see a way out that even leads to some kind of authoritarian stability, much less democracy. And it's very, very easy to see how it can lurch out of control in a dozen different ways.

James Baker and Robert Gates and Joe Lieberman aren't magicians. And they are not going to let anybody say they and Junior "lost Iraq." Don't get your hopes up about these "grown-ups." They are just looking for a way to keep Bush (and in joe's case, himself) from looking like a loser --- and real withdrawal (as opposed to cosmetic) is not going to accomplish that. Everything they do for the next two years will be to save Bush's face and the Republican party, period.

I'm sorry to be so cynical, but I lost any hope that the Bush administration was capable of doing the right thing a long time ago.


BTW: George W. Bush has engendered more nicknames than any other president, I think. I have certainly used my share and even coined a fairly popular one. But I have used "Junior" more often than any other, mainly because I know it's the one that probably bothers him the most. Back in the 2000 campaign Bush made a famous stop on Oprah and gave himself away:

OPRAH WINFREY: Here's another viewer who e-mailed us with a question for you. Here it is.

MAN: Governor Bush, what is the public's largest misconception of you?

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: Probably that I'm running on my daddy's name; that, you know, if my name were George Jones, I'd be a country and western singer.

He's got to be loving this:





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digby 11/13/2006 07:30:00 AM |

Sunday, November 12, 2006

 

Squeeze Play

by poputonian

Thinking a little more about the politics of economics, I'm reminded again of historian David Hackett Fischer's book The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History, in which he noted a 16th century period when rising prices and economic inequality took a heavy toll on society. The book was published in 1996, before everything changed. Doesn't this description sound familiar?

These many responses to rising prices — social, demographic, economic, monetary, fiscal — interacted in combinations of increasing power. For example, the price-revolution caused falling real wages and rising returns to capital, which caused the growth of inequality, which increased the political power of the rich, which led to regressive taxation, which reduced government revenues, which encouraged currency debasements, which drove prices higher.

I understand that we aren't in a period of rampant inflation, but we might be soon. At the same time, we have seen the increased political power of the rich, a move toward more regressive taxation, and reduced government revenues.

Weep as you read Fischer’s fascinating conclusion, and notice the inescapable parallels to what we see today, particulalry about aggregate demand and the cost of fuel [all emphasis mine]:

This inquiry began with a problem of historical description about price movements in the modern world. Its primary purpose was to describe the main lines of change through the past eight hundred years. The central finding may be summarized in a sentence. We found evidence of four price-revolutions since the twelfth century: four very long waves of rising prices, punctuated by long periods of comparative price-equilibrium. This is not a cyclical pattern. Price revolutions have no fixed and regular periodicity. Some were as short as eighty years; others as long as 180 years. They differed in duration, velocity, magnitude, and momentum.

At the same time, these long movements shared several properties in common. All had a common wave-structure, and started in much the same way. The first stage was one of silent beginnings and slow advances. Prices rose slowly in a period of prolonged prosperity. Magnitudes of increase remained within the range of previous fluctuations. At first the long wave appeared to be merely another short-run event. Only later did it emerge as a new secular tendency.

The novelty of the new trend consisted not only in the fact of inflation but also in its form. The pattern of price-relatives was specially revealing. Food and fuel led the upward movement. Manufactured goods and services lagged behind. These patterns indicated that the prime mover was excess aggregate demand, generated by an acceleration of population growth, or by rising living standards, or both.

These trends were the product of individual choices. Men and women deliberately chose to marry early. They freely decided to have more children, because material conditions were improving and the world seemed a better place to raise a family. People demanded and at first received a higher standard of living, because there was an expanding market for their labor. The first stage of every price-revolution was marked by material progress, cultural confidence, and optimism for the future.

The second stage was very different. It began when prices broke through the boundaries of the previous equilibrium. This tended to happen when other events intervened--commonly wars of ambition that arose from the hubris of the preceding period. Examples included the rivalry between emperors and popes in the thirteenth century; the state-building conflicts of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; the dynastic and imperial struggles of the mid-eighteenth century; and the world wars of the twentieth century. These events sent prices surging up and down again, in a pattern that was both a symptom and a cause of instability. The consequences included political disorder, social disruption, and a growing mood of cultural anxiety.

The third stage began when people discovered the fact of price- inflation as a long-term trend, and began to think of it as an inexorable condition. They responded to this discovery by making choices that drove prices still higher. Governments and individuals expanded the supply of money and increased the velocity of its circulation. In each successive wave, price-inflation became more elaborately institutionalized.

A fourth stage began as this new institutionalized inflation took hold. Prices went higher, and became highly unstable. They began to surge and decline in movements of increasing volatility. Severe price shocks were felt in commodity movements. The money supply was alternately expanded and contracted. Financial markets became unstable. Government spending grew faster than revenue, and public debt increased at a rapid rate. In every price-revolution, the strongest nation-states suffered severely from fiscal stresses: Spain in the sixteenth century, France in the eighteenth century , and the United States in the twentieth century.

Other imbalances were even more dangerous. Wages, which had at first kept up with prices, now lagged behind. Returns to labor declined while returns to land and capital increased. The rich grew richer. People of middling estates lost ground. The poor suffered terribly. Inequalities of wealth and income increased. So also did hunger, homelessness, crime, violence, drink, drugs, and family disruption.

These material events had cultural consequences. In literature and the arts, the penultimate stage of every price-revolution was an era of dark visions and restless dreams. This was a time of lost faith in institutions. It was also a period of desperate search for spiritual values. Sects and cults, often very angry and irrational, multiplied rapidly. Intellectuals turned furiously against their environing societies. Young people, uncertain of both the future and the past, gave way to alienation and cultural anomie.

Finally, the great wave crested and broke with shattering force, in a cultural crisis that included demographic contraction, economic collapse, political revolution, international war and social violence. These events relieved the pressures that had set the price-revolution in motion. The first result was a rapid fall of prices, rents and interest. This short but very sharp deflation was followed by an era of equilibrium that persisted for seventy or eighty years. Long-term inflation ceased. Prices stabilized, then declined further, and stabilized once more. Real wages began to rise, but returns to capital and land fell.

The recovery of equilibrium had important social consequences. At first, inequalities continued to grow, as a lag effect of the preceding price revolution. But as the new dynamics took hold, inequality began to diminish. Times were better for laborers, artisans, and ordinary people. Landowners were hard pressed, but economic conditions improved for most people. Families grew stronger. Crime rates fell. Consumption of drugs and drink diminished. Foreign wars became less frequent and less violent, but internal wars of unification became more common and more successful.

Each period of equilibrium had a distinct cultural character. All were marked in their later stages by the emergence of ideas of order and harmony such as appeared in the Renaissance of the twelfth century, the Italian Renaissance of the quattrocento, the Enlightenment of the early eighteenth century, and the Victorian era.

After many years of equilibrium and comparative peace, population began to grow more rapidly. Standards of living improved. Prices, rents and interest started to rise again. As aggregate demand mounted, a new wave began. The next price-revolution was not precisely the same, but it was similar in many ways. As Mark Twain observed, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

poputonian 11/12/2006 03:33:00 PM |

 

Misleading Reuters Headline

by poputonian

Elton John wants "hateful" religion banned

LONDON (Reuters) - Elton John has said organized religion should be banned because it promotes homophobia and turns some people into "hateful lemmings".

"I would ban religion completely, even though there are some wonderful things about it," the British singer said in an interview with the Observer newspaper on Sunday.

"Religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it is not really compassionate."

The singer, who tied the knot with long-term partner David Furnish in a civil ceremony last year, said he admired the teachings of Jesus Christ, but disliked religious bodies.

The headline ambiguously implies that Elton wants some religion banned, the hateful kind. From his full quote, it's clear he wants all religion banned.

Reuters should be more careful with its headlines.

poputonian 11/12/2006 07:07:00 AM |

 

Fun With The House Money

by poputonian

Several posts ago, commenter JEP noted:

We need talented and determined writers to produce the long, detailed historical work that will reveal the total amount of taxpayers' money that the federal government gave to rich and powerful people from 2001-2007.

It is then, and only then, that Americans will have any hope of learning the truth and consequences of Karl Rove and George W. Bush. Everything else, conservatism, religious issues, terrorisim, Iraq, everything, is just the means and the public relations required to transfer the money without anyone noticing or asking questions.

By the time this historical work is produced, if it is produced at all, no one will have any interest in the crimes of this administration, all the principle actors will be dead or otherwise beyond prosecution and the interest earned on the transfered money will be enough to purchase another six years of one-party rule.

James has it right. For example, if a ruling party (Republican) transfers wealth from State to Industry in the form of a drug benefit program that guarantees income (at taxpayer expense) to private firms, what is the quid pro quo from industry, if it's not to help get the ruling party re-elected?

Likewise, if gas prices drop more than a dollar a gallon in the several months leading up to an important election, a price drop that puts the cost of fuel below its market equilibrium, should the profits foregone by the oil companies be considered campaign contributions made to the incumbent party? It would appear, after all, that the purpose of the price drop was an attempt to buy the election.

Call it pluto-reciprocity, or some such name.

poputonian 11/12/2006 06:22:00 AM |

Saturday, November 11, 2006

 

Beware Of This Guy

by poputonian

With the post-election dust settling, the Republican opportunists are beginning to make moves around their hapless loser-mates. Yes, authentic conservatives are ready to reclaim government. First up? A man who proclaims on a web-site we pay for that he is "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order."

He means that literally, of course. Here was Mike Pence a few years back speaking at the Center For Christian Statesmanship (No, really, Christian Statesmanship!)

At this year’s first Center-sponsored summer intern event, over 400 young people filled the Cannon Caucus Room to hear Representative Mike Pence (IN) deliver his personal testimony of faith.

Because of that first luncheon, one intern has already come to know Christ personally. In addition, 13 more interns have asked how they too can have a personal relationship with Christ, 58 requested to take part in discipleship relationships, and 85 requested Bible studies.

One intern said that events like this one allowed him to see a side of Capitol Hill that he did not know existed.

“When I first heard Mike Pence speak, I called home and told my mom, ‘You’re not going to believe what just happened here,’” said Matt McKinney, a second-year intern for Representative Robert Aderholt (AL). “You don’t hear about the people who live for God. I didn’t realize that people of integrity [worked] here.”

But that was then and this is now. Here is Human Events responding to Pence's announcement that he intends to become minority leader of the House.

When the now-defeated Republican majority in the House of Representative was led astray on key issues by President Bush, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, it was Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana who rallied backbenchers to fight back in defense of conservative principles.

That is why Pence should be elected minority leader for the next Congress.

Under Pence’s leadership over the next two years, we believe, House Republicans can put themselves in position to retake the majority in 2008. More importantly, they can be counted on to fight for what’s right—even when that means defying a president of their own party.

Speaker Hastert did the right thing today by stepping aside. But if Republicans in the House simply elevate the other members currently in the leadership—go back to business as usual—the party may find itself mired in the minority for years to come. Conservative activists need to speak out now to make certain this doesn’t happen. They need to say: No to the old leaders. No to business as usual. Yes to Mike Pence.

Pence stumbled a little on immigration (in the eyes of the conservative base) though I suspect he'll recover quite easily from that.

But the real reason to watch out for Mike Pence? He's not a faux-maverick, fleshy dough-boy, like John McCain. He's young, vibrant, and handsome -- and, get this, he entered politics through talk radio, as mentioned in a NYT lede:

He supports tax cuts and the war in Iraq. He opposes stem cell research and the Medicare drug plan. He is a master of his movement’s medium, talk radio. Jesus Christ is his personal savior and Ronald Reagan his political idol.

Conjure what might be called the perfect conservative, and chances are he would look a lot like Representative Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who in just three terms has turned 100 House allies into a vanguard and himself into one of his party’s rising stars.

And finally, his announcement letter stating the new and immediate mission:

"Our mission has now changed. Our mission in the Majority was to pass legislation reflecting Republican principles. The duty of the Republican Minority in the 110th Congress is to defeat the liberal agenda of the Democrat Party and become the majority in Congress again. We will only defeat the Democrat agenda by presenting a positive, conservative message in vivid contrast to the big government liberalism of the new Majority."

Look at that face, peeps ... the opposition is gonna love him.

We've got work to do.

poputonian 11/11/2006 11:30:00 PM |

 

Cart and Horse

by poputonian

Following up on Digby's earlier post about Congressional investigations, I think Nancy Pelosi likewise has it right, that it isn't necessary to do all the impeachment drum-beating that would be typical of the now side-lined Movement Conservatism and Aggrievement Society, were the shoe to be on the other foot. To do so would be the equivalent of the prosecutor's office judging someone guilty, and then setting out to look for evidence to prove it. It's hard to wait it out, and much less gratifying, of course, but I think she put it well in her comments to CNN:

BLITZER: The power that you will have as the majority is subpoena power, when you conduct your investigations, your oversight. You said on "Meet the Press" back on May 7th, "Well, we will have subpoena power. Investigation does not equate to impeachment. Investigation is the requirement of Congress. It's about checks and balances."

Tell us how you plan on pursuing using this subpoena power.

PELOSI: Well, first of all, others have said to us, do the Democrats want to get even now that we're in the majority? We're not about wanting to get even. What we want to do is to help the American people get ahead, not to get even with the Republicans.

And so, as we go forward with our hearing process and -- which is the normal checks and balance responsibility of Congress, it will be to what is in furtherance of passing legislation that makes the policy better, that improves the lives of the American people. In order to make important decisions, you have to base them on facts. That's the only way your judgment...

BLITZER: So you'll use that subpoena power as appropriate?

PELOSI: Well, it's not a question -- well, subpoena power is a last resort. We would hope that there would be cooperation from the executive branch in terms of investigating the pre-war intelligence. I don't know -- those decisions will be made by our caucus with the wisdom of the committees of jurisdiction.

They may or may not be a priority. We're a brand-new caucus, we have many new, excellent members coming in and we will establish our priorities together. But we will not abdicate our responsibility as the first branch of government, Article I, the legislative branch and our checks and balances responsibilities.

BLITZER: I asked the question about subpoena power because the vice president once again made clear if you subpoena him, he's not necessarily going to play ball. "I have no idea that I'm going to be subpoenaed," he said the other day, "and obviously we'd sit down and look at it at the time, but probably not in the sense that the president and vice president are constitutional officers and don't appear before the Congress."

PELOSI: Well, as you know, President Ford did and he wasn't subpoenaed because he came without a subpoena, but why are we even talking about this? We're so far from that. We're at a place where we're here about the future.

Whatever information we need to make the future better, to go forward, whether it's to protect our country, to end our engagement in Iraq, to make our economy fair, whatever it is -- we need to move towards energy independence, I might add -- that's where our priorities are. Information is central to that. So we would have hearings to obtain information.

That's right. Relax. Get the information (evidence) first. Time is on our side now.

poputonian 11/11/2006 10:18:00 PM |

 
Supporting The Troops

by digby

Veteran's Day is a good day to take a look at one of the greatest building blocks of the American middle class, the GI Bill:

On June 22, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the "Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944," better known as the "GI Bill of Rights." At first the subject of intense debate and parliamentary maneuvering, the famed legislation for veteran of World War II has since been recognized as one of the most important acts of Congress.

During the past five decades, the law has made possible the investment of billions of dollars in education and training for millions of veterans. The nation has in return earned many times its investment in increased taxes and a dramatically changed society.

The law also made possible the loan of billions of dollars to purchase homes for millions of veterans, and helped transform the majority of Americans from renters to homeowners.

Most people would call that a good thing, right? A successful government program that helped millions of people improve their lives in tangible ways must be unassailable.

*Uh, no:

The public purpose of the G.I. Bill was to smooth the transition from military to civilian life after the war. But ulterior motives were also present. Washington Keynesians wrongly feared the economic consequences of putting this many people in the private sector at once; better to let them flounder around in schools for a few years.

Left-liberals wanted universities to be "democratized" and purged of traditional notions of merit and class. These ideologues saw veterans as a helpful tool (90 percent were eligible to receive funds) in this egalitarian effort. Moreover, colleges and universities across the country wanted government subsidies, just as they do today.

There’s a myth that most veterans would not have attended college without federal government help. In fact, myriad programs existed at all levels of society. Virtually every major church, civic organization, and large corporation raised money to provide them, and most states established loan programs as well. These could have worked without negative effects on schools. But they were preempted by the feds and history’s largest infusion of public dollars to education.

In 1946, the program’s first year, the government dumped $1.3 billion on higher education. This may not seem like much today, but it was then the largest program giving direct payments to individuals, exceeding unemployment benefits, Social Security (by four times), military retirement (by one third), and even agricultural subsidies during the heyday of rural central planning. Two years later, it had exploded in cost by 250 percent.

As veterans grew older, spending stabilized and declined, but the program left an awful political legacy. It served as a model for how politicians can grow the government without provoking public revolt, and caused an entire generation to regard government as a benefactor.

As Bob Dole said on the campaign trail, promoting federally funded vouchers, "I want to help young people to have an education, just as I had an education after World War II with the G.I. Bill of Rights."

The bastard.

This is essentially the conservative argument against the New Deal and it's been driving the political and economic debate for decades now. If the government does it --- no matter how efficiently or how many people benefit -- it must be wrong. And anyone who promotes such things is a self-interested liberal ideologue who wants nothing more than to destroy America's will to succeed and make people dependent on them. It's such an awful problem that they can't even give government benefits to those who put their lives on the line because people might get the idea that government programs work --- and that sends the wrong message. Slippery slope, don't you know.

They've never had the nerve to really go after the GI Bill, of course. It would be political suicide. But they hate it and if Grover Norquist and his ilk have their way they would drown government veterans benefits in the bathtub right along with social security --- or transform them into faith-based programs where Vets could get training from Ted Haggard (if they asked nicely.)

And it wasn't as if we hadn't tried it their way before:

Among the motives inspiring the legislation was the desire to spare the veterans and the nation the economic hardships that accompanied the return, years before, of those who fought in World War I.

... and resulted in this:

The Bonus march of 1932, when World War I veterans rallied in Washington DC for more effective veterans benefits during the height of the Depression was broken up when the US army sent tanks and soldiers with bayonet-affixed rifles into the veteran camps to clear the veterans out and burn the camp down, killing some (including William Hushka), and injuring many more.

(There are some surviving veterans of WWI, by the way.)

The GI Bill was a case of the government learning from mistakes, being responsive to a problem --- and solving it. It worked.

Now who is it that supports the troops again --- the conservative Club for Growth-style extremists like that guy I quoted above, or the Democratic party? The Democrats will make sure the VA works (as it has beautifully ever since Bill Clinton had it overhauled in the 90's) and the GI bill and other more modern benefits will continue to be available to Veterans. The other side won't because when you get down to it they just don't believe that government is in the problem solving business. It's really that simple.



* ironically, this article weighs in against the conservative hobby horse,school vouchers, because they are just as pernicious as the GI Bill in installing government into the private education system. It's pretty clear, although not explicit, that he would just prefer a totally private educational system for everyone --- let the hoi-polloi teach themselves.


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digby 11/11/2006 02:45:00 PM |

 
More Southern Agitation

by digby


Super smart commenter Sara left this one the Southern Comfort post and I thought it was well worth talking about as we continue this conversation:

Yes, the South needs to rebuild its Democratic Party, and the DNC and Dean can start the ball rolling with some subsidies, but the hard work will be pulling together the Majority Minority African American Democratic Districts with the progressive democratic culture. It has to be built by people on the ground who can cross that racial divide and the trust divide that reflects racial sell-outs of the past, and create one party. For right now the secure Democratic Districts are mostly Majority African American -- and in many parts of the South, that is the core of the Democratic Party. In Texas it will need to be three way trust -- White anglo, Hispanic and Black.

The parties need to keep focused on doing elections well -- but in the off season they need to be good social and information centers. You compete with the Republican Clubhouse in the Mega Church by offering up the party organization as a social setting and a place of fellowship as well as political education. You introduce young people to the party with events that welcome them into their political maturity. Parties in the South ought to be planning major events to which all those new Senate and House Committee Chairs are invited to speak and meet and greet. Out of this will come more election volunteers, and eventually candidates that can win locally and eventually on the state-wide stage. I'll feel less critical of the South when I see all this sort of stuff just regularly happening. I'll also be less critical when I see people on all sides of the race and trust divides understanding each other's take on issues, and backing each other's interests. That is, afterall, what a political party is all about.

One of the things we haven't really gotten to in this discussion of southern politics is how race affects the Democratic Party. Anyone want to weigh in on that?



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digby 11/11/2006 02:13:00 PM |

 
Disenchantment

by digby


Beliefnet did a recent poll of evangelicals that sheds a little light on my post below:

The findings were in line with exit poll estimates such as CNN's, which found about 70 percent of white evangelicals voted Republican in Tuesday's elections in which Democrats regained control of the U.S. Congress from President George W. Bush's Republicans.

While still strong, that level of support was below the 74 to 78 percent range that different surveys found in the 2004 election.

Significantly, about 60 percent of those polled in the Beliefnet survey said their views of the Republican Party had become less positive in recent years.

"It's not that they are soured with the Republican approach to culture war issues like abortion, it's that they are angry with them on issues such as
Iraq and corruption," said Steven Waldman, editor in chief of Beliefnet.com, a Web site on issues of faith.

As with other Americans, the Iraq war topped evangelicals' list of electoral concerns, with 22.5 percent citing it as the issue that most affected their votes.

Respondents were not asked to specify if Iraq was a negative or positive factor, so some who cited it may have voted in support of Bush's Iraq policies. Other surveys have found white evangelical support for the unpopular war to be higher than among other Americans.

Abortion and gay marriage/homosexuality were second and third among evangelicals' electoral concerns, cited by 16 percent and 10.7 percent respectively.

The survey found a general disenchantment with politics among devout evangelicals, with 51.5 percent also saying their views of Democrats had soured in recent years.

"There has been some movement away from the Republicans but it is by no means a stampede of evangelicals toward the Democrats," Waldman said.

So the the top issues for evangelicals were Iraq (who knows whether they viewed it negatively or positively,) gay-marriage and abortion. A stampede it surely ain't.

But if you really want to see where everything becomes clear, check this out:

Over 52 percent still felt Bush was a better Christian than former Democratic President Bill Clinton, while 13 percent felt the reverse was true. About a third rated them evenly.

I know I should be thrilled that 30% believe that Clinton and Bush are equal, but really, that is very thin gruel. George W. Bush started an immoral war that has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, endorsed torture and indefinite imprisonment, presided over the most corrupt government in American history, never goes to church and has never once admitted error or sought forgiveness --- and yet 87 percent of these people believe that Clinton's eight unauthorized hummers make Bush the better Christian or at least no worse. I think we all know what Jesus would have to say about that.

And bravo to the 13% of evangelicals who know that unjust war and torture are more heinous in the godly scheme of things than infidelity. I assume these are the folks who are voting for Democrats because they share their values of of social justice and the common good. Too bad there aren't more of them.



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digby 11/11/2006 11:08:00 AM |

 
My Best Vote

by digby

This is my congressman:

The Democratic congressman who will investigate the Bush administration's running of the government says there are so many areas of possible wrongdoing, his biggest problem will be deciding which ones to pursue.

There's the response to Hurricane Katrina, government contracting in Iraq and on homeland security, political interference in regulatory decisions by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, and allegations of war profiteering, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., told the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

"I'm going to have an interesting time because the Government Reform Committee has jurisdiction over everything," Waxman said Friday, three days after his party's capture of Congress put him in line to chair the panel. "The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose."

[...]

Subpoenas would be used only as a last result, Waxman said, taking a jab at a previous committee chairman, GOP Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, who led the committee during part of the Clinton administration.

"He issued a subpoena like most people write a letter," Waxman said.

Waxman complained that Republicans, while in power, shut Democrats out of decision-making and abdicated oversight responsibilities, focusing only on maintaining their own power.

In contrast to the many investigations the GOP launched of the Clinton administration, "when Bush came into power there wasn't a scandal too big for them to ignore," Waxman said.

Among the issues that should have been investigated but weren't, Waxman contended, were the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the controversy over the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name, and the pre-Iraq war use of intelligence.

He said Congress must restore accountability and function as an independent branch of government. "It's our obligation not to be repeating with the Republicans have done," Waxman said.

Waxman is savvy and will run investigations with focus and flair. He's very, very good at these things. I think he will find a way to do this without appearing to be exacting revenge or wasting the congress's time. And the fact is that it's his duty to do it, regardless. Just look at the list of events about which we are all still reading tea leaves and waiting for Bob Woodward's book to come out to tell us what the Washington whispers are saying. We need a sober, serious official look at what the hell's been going on in Washington these last six years and Waxman's the guy who can do it.

Update: Billmon has more.

Update II: Lawyers, Guns and Money takes down Mickey Kaus' ill absurd rant about Waxman.



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digby 11/11/2006 10:35:00 AM |

 
God Gap

by digby

Before everyone moves on from this election, I think it's important that we all bookmark this post by Kevin Drum and keep it handy. A new zombie meme is emerging and it's going to have to be chased down and killed over and over again:

Why do I keep writing about the exit polls? Because of stories like this from the Washington Post's Alan Cooperman:

Religious liberals contended that a concerted effort by Democrats since 2004 to appeal to people of faith had worked minor wonders, if not electoral miracles, in races across the country.

....Democrats recaptured the Catholic vote they had lost two years ago. They sliced the GOP's advantage among weekly churchgoers to 12 percentage points, down from 18 points in 2004.

Once more with feeling: in the the overall national vote, Democrats picked up 5 percentage points compared to 2004.

Among Catholics they picked up 6 points.

Among weekly churchgoers they picked up 3 points.

Among white evangelicals they picked up 3 points.

There's just no story here unless you look at individual races. Nationally, turnout among religious voters was as high as it was in 2004, and their shift toward Democrats was either the same or a bit less than the overall national shift. I'd love to be able to say that Democrats made some disproportionate inroads in this group, since it's such an important part of the GOP base, but they didn't. People need to quit saying it.

The problem with Cooperman's story is not that it says that evangelicals and catholics may have moved to the Democrats, it's that Amy Sullivan and her friends in the media are going to use Cooperman's incorrect analysis to prove that that the Democrats need to deliver on some menu of social conservatism because of it.

And if it were true that conservative religious voters moved to the Democrats in great numbers, then I'm sure they would be right, which is why I'm not keen on continuing to try to appeal to social conservatives as a voting bloc --- they are way too conservative even for our Big Tent. The real social conservatives understand this:

"Even though a lot of Democratic candidates talked about faith, and even though a lot of them are devout people who hold similar values, they are part of a party that is liberal," said Janice Shaw Crouse, director of Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute, a conservative Christian think tank. "So the only hope social conservatives really have is the Republican Party."

You can't be all things to all people, people. If the large swathe of religious voters who are incorrectly alleged to have voted Democratic are widely seen by all these chatterers as religious liberals then great. More people concerned with social and economic justice would be a very welcome and logical addition to our coalition. (And even if it isn't true I have no problem if people think it is.) But if this unsubstantiated mass migration to the Democrats is used by Amy Sullivan and the like as a cudgel to force Democratic tolerance for such abominations as creationism or right wing "family values," then I see no margin in allowing the error to go unchallenged.

Let's keep it real and ensure that it is well understood that the religious voters who voted Democratic are not people who expect the party to abandon gay rights or choice because they "delivered" the election. Those people voted in huge numbers, as they always do, for the Republicans.

The data shows that religious voters moved to the Democrats in the same numbers that every other demographic did, (except young voters and hispanics who voted Dem in significantly larger numbers than 2004.) We can draw no lessons on social policy at all from the rather small percentage change among these very religious voters except that they wised up, like a whole bunch of other people. Good for them. Welcome to the circus.


Update: Josh Marshall, also riffing on Kevin's unpacking of the exit polls, has more on this zombie meme and where it came from. Unsurprisingly, it came from a badly written new story.
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digby 11/11/2006 08:52:00 AM |

Friday, November 10, 2006

 
Lieu-sieur

by digby

"The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I'd expected," Rove tells TIME. "Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard [the disgraced evangelical leader] added to the general distaste that people have for all things Washington, and it just reached critical mass."

Exit polls showed heavy discontent with the course of the war, and Bush announced the departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the next day. But Rove took comfort in results of the Connecticut Senate race between the anti-war Democratic nominee, Ned Lamont, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary over his support for the war. "Iraq mattered," Rove says. "But it was more frustration than it was an explicit call for withdrawal. If this was a get-out-now call for withdrawal, then Lamont would not have been beaten by Lieberman. Iraq does play a role, but not the critical, central role."

How pathetic is it that the great GOP magus is reduced to finding his silver lining in an Independent beating a Democrat in a blue state?

He goes on to point out that they really didn't lose because the races were so close in some states.

I know. This is not a man who has ever shown even the tiniest bit of shame or self-awareness so I shouldn't be surprised. But that one got me.


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digby 11/10/2006 08:34:00 PM |

 
Moving To The Right

by digby

No, not us. Them. It's hard to see how it's possible for them to move any further, but they think it is.

The dog-beater whines:

"Laura Ingraham said it best. When Congressional Republicans wait until the First of October to begin reaching out to their base, they are destined to lose. That was the GOP s downfall. They consistently ignored the constituency that put them in power until it was late in the game, and then frantically tried to catch up at the last minute. In 2004, conservative voters handed them a 10-seat majority in the Senate and a 29-seat edge in the House. And what did they do with their power? Very little that Values Voters care about.

"Many of my colleagues saw this coming. I said in an interview with U.S. News and World Report shortly after the 2004 elections, "If Republicans in the White House and in Congress squander this opportunity, I believe they will pay a price for it in four years---or maybe in two." Sadly for conservatives, that in large measure explains what happened on Tuesday night. Many of the Values Voters of '04 simply stayed at home this year.

"The unfortunate thing is that Republican leaders still don't appear to get it. Sen. Arlen Spector, R-Pa, said on Wednesday that the election results represented a 'seismic earthquake' and that his party must become 'a lot more progressive and a lot less ideological.' Dick Armey emerged from four years in the wilderness to blame conservative Christians for Tuesday's defeat. They were, he said, 'too involved' with the party. He can't be serious! Someone should tell him that without the support of that specific constituency, John Kerry would be President and the Republicans would have fallen into a black hole in '04. In fact, that is where they are headed if they continue to abandon their pro-moral, pro-family and pro-life base. The big tent will turn into a three-ring circus.

"Republican leaders in Congress during this term apparently never understood, or they forgot, why Ronald Reagan was so loved and why he is considered one of our greatest presidents. If they hope to return to power in '08, they must rediscover the conservative principles that resonated with the majority of Americans in the 1980s -- and still resonate with them today. Failure to do so will be catastrophic. Values Voters are not going to carry the water for the Republican Party if it ignores their deeply held convictions and beliefs.

"To quote Dr. Ken Hutcherson, 'When Republicans act like Democrats they lose, and when Democrats act like Republicans, they win.' And therein lies the lesson of '06."

You just keep right on believing that Jimbo.

The problem with this and the other GOP reason-for-loss meme (that the conservatives abandoned the party because the Republicans had abandoned their philosophy of limited government) is that it just isn't borne out by either the facts (or even the conventional wisdom that this election was a move to the center.) These people all seem to truly believe that the majority who voted for Bush two years ago came out in favor of Democrats this week because they were upset that the Republicans were insufficiently conservative. Does that make any sense?

I hope they continue to believe this and act accordingly because the GOP actually lost the moderates and independents, not their base, and for good reason:

While the publicly-available election data can't answer this question definitively, everything we know about public opinion suggests there isn't a majority constituency for economic libertarianism. (Tax cuts, perhaps, but not the smaller government that goes along with it.) Probably the best source on this is an exhaustive 2005 study by the Pew Research Center, which divided the electorate into nine different "typologies." Of the nine groups, only two were discernibly libertarian on questions of economics, amounting to 20 percent of registered voters. The rest were sympathetic to government, to varying degrees. Even more empirically-minded conservatives--like National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru--have conceded as much.

The easiest way to see this is to focus on a specific issue. For example, amid all the conservative hand-wringing is the occasional lament about Social Security privatization. But there's a simple explanation for the GOP's wobbliness on the issue: A solid majority of the country opposes it. According to a Washington Post poll from March of 2005, Americans disapproved of the president's Social Security plan by a 56-35 margin. And they disliked the plan more the longer they heard about it. Though it's hardly the only explanation, it's no surprise that two of the plan's most vocal supporters--Talent and Santorum--lost on Tuesday night.

I expect this confusion comes from the fact that Republicans truly believe their own hype that says the majority of Americans are fundamentalists -- either of the free market or Christian variety. They are, after all, faith-based. But it's never been true.

The moderates and independents broke against the Republicans for a number of reasons to do with the war, the lies, the mismangement, the spending, the corruption and the whole overused conservative mantra that lost all meaning sometime after the 2,000 American death in Iraq, Terry Schiavo and the endless repetition of tiresome free market bromides that never seem to add up to anything real. It's like watching "Cosby" re-runs at this point --- mildly nostalgic but completely irrelevant.

One thing seems quite clear to me; it's the conservative movement that has been discredited with most people, not just George W. Bush. The majority of people in the country don't see a difference between the two and for good reason: the conservative movement worshipped Bush like he was the second coming and they greedily (and very publicly) sucked up the credit for his elections. They own his ass whether they like it or not and they have from the very beginning.

Remember this:

Congress' passage of a ban on late-term abortions in November, 2003 – again with centrist Democratic support – presented Bush with yet another opportunity to burnish his credentials with the religious right. As Bush signed the bill flanked by Christian right mandarins like Jerry Falwell, Lou Sheldon and Sen. Rick Santorum – an image seemingly calculated to rankle the 100 Planned Parenthood activists protesting outside the White House – cries of the ceremony's 400 attendees erupted in cries of "Amen!" Later that day, Bush celebrated privately with a virtual who's who of the religious right, including Falwell, radio host Janet Parshall, SBC leader Richard Land and National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) president Ted Haggard, who leads a 14,000 member church in Colorado Springs, Colo. Together, they joined hands and prayed.

"Following the prayer," Falwell wrote in an email to his followers, "I told President Bush the people in the room represent about 200,000 pastors and 80 million believers nationwide who consider him not only to be our president but also a man of God."

And here's more:

President Bush's tax cut finally has passed, but there's no time for the true believers in this downtown conference room to celebrate.

Grover Norquist calls on a White House official, who rises to thank more than 100 conservative activists for their help in passing the sort of sweeping tax relief this group has been pursuing for years at weekly strategy sessions known as "the Wednesday Meeting."

But the agenda is full with other issues as well: confirming conservativ