The Dish

Judis concedes that Democrats will be vulnerable in 2016:

The chief obstacle that any Democratic nominee will face is public resistance to installing a president from the same party in the White House for three terms in a row. If you look at the presidents since World War II, when the same party occupied the White House for two terms in a row, that party’s candidate lost in the next election six out of seven times.

The one exception was George H.W. Bush’s 1988 victory after two terms of Ronald Reagan, but Bush, who was seventeen points behind Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis at the Republican convention, was only able to win because his campaign manager Lee Atwater ran a brilliant campaign against an extraordinarily weak opponent.

Larison agrees:

When a president has mediocre or poor approval ratings, as Obama probably will have at the end of his term, it becomes almost impossible for a candidate to find the right balance between approval and criticism. That is because it becomes much more difficult to win over alienated voters without further demoralizing one’s own core supporters. Even in cases of extreme presidential unpopularity, most candidates for the nomination don’t want to be seen as trashing or repudiating the president. Most partisans that vote in primaries remain supportive of the president at least as long as he is still in office, and so the eventual nominee has to cater to that. An added difficulty is that the presidential party’s nominee usually is very closely aligned with the administration on policy, so that it is only too easy for the other party to use the administration’s failings as a bludgeon against the nominee. That attack becomes even easier when the nominee is very closely associated with the administration or even served as a part of it.

There’s another possibility: that the economy will keep growing so as to make a dent in the lives of those passed over by the recovery so far; that the ACA will win more recruits and, with some enthusiastic backing from a Democratic nominee, could even be an asset in the next election; that a deal with Iran averts war in the Middle East; and that, once the public gets a sense of the actual alternatives to Obama – more war; more secrecy; less healthcare security – the mood might shift. I’m not predicting this, and I basically agree with John and Daniel. But the public mood is restive and fickle. It could turn yet again.

(Photo: By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

Jordan Weissmann admits that, contrary to the predictions of liberals, drilling has played a role:

There had never been much of a statistical relationship between U.S. oil production and what Americans paid at the pump. But with crude prices crashing, gas down to about $3 a gallon, and the International Energy Agency declaring that we have reached “a new chapter in the history of the oil markets,” it is time to acknowledge that the left in some respects was wrong, and that drilling in North Dakota, Texas, and beyond has actually helped cut the price of gas. …

The combination of U.S. drilling and a global slowdown didn’t necessarily have to end in plummeting oil prices. Traditionally, OPEC members have cut their production in the face of global gluts in order to keep their profits high. But now, OPEC appears to be fraying. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia shocked much of the world by cutting its crude export prices to the U.S., in what was interpreted as an attempt to protect its market share and possibly put pressure on America’s domestic drillers. Instead of trying to buoy the price of petroleum, the Saudis are now helping drive it down further in order to save their own revenue stream.

Plumer passes along word that “US is now producing more crude oil than at any point since 1986″:

Worldwide, only Russia and Saudi Arabia now pump out more crude oil, and the US is quickly closing the gap. (Sometimes you’ll see news stories saying that the US is already the largest oil producer. This is only true if your definition of “oil” includes things like natural gas liquids — which are still useful, though not exactly the same as crude oil.)

But Max Ehrenfreund finds it worrisome “that no one is buying all that oil”:

The unfortunate truth is that low prices for gasoline are a symptom of a sickly global economy. It isn’t just gas prices that are falling as consumers make do with less and businesses put off new investments in Europe, China and Japan. Metals such as copper, silver and platinum are cheap, too, and so are crops like corn, soybeans and wheat.

Earlier Dish on $3-a-gallon oil here.

The polarizing trends of our current cultural moment are alive and well, alas, in the debate over civil marriage for gay couples. We seem incapable of compromise, of an unsatisfactory (to both sides) middle ground, of the give-and-take that makes a liberal society possible. And so we now come across a proposal for religious ministers to withdraw from any role in establishing civil marriage – for straights as well as gays. The institution is now so tainted no minister should acquiesce to it. Hence this proposed pastoral pledge, endorsed by the editor of First Things:

In our roles as Christian ministers, we, the undersigned, commit ourselves to disengaging civil and Christian marriage in the performance of our pastoral duties. We will no longer serve as agents of the state in marriage. We will no longer sign government-provided marriage certificates. We will ask couples to seek civil marriage separately from their church-related vows and blessings. We will preside only at those weddings that seek to establish a Christian marriage in accord with the principles ­articulated and lived out from the beginning of the Church’s life.

Of course, these pastors are well within their rights to do this. Maybe some more secular types will even welcome it. I find it merely sad and somewhat spiteful. Does accommodating a tiny minority in the civil rights and responsibilities of civil marriage really require all Christian ministers to withdraw from their traditional role in certifying a civil marriage? It’s just one more thread removed from our commonality.

And, then, of course, there’s the absolutism of the hard left on these matters. The idea that you cannot simply live with people who don’t want to celebrate or participate in gay marriages – but have to sue them to enforce equality – is also likely to make things worse, not better. Over-reaching to restrict religious freedom unravels us as a society – and abjures the simple virtues of getting along. Then there’s this kind of maneuver, which is an extreme outlier – but would have lots of support on the hard left if they had their druthers. Catalonia has just passed a new bill protecting gays, lesbians and transgender people from discrimination. But with a twist:

The new law includes a range of sanctions, which has been one of the most controversial points of the new legal framework. The sanctions include fines, whose amount is graded in relation to the seriousness of the offense. The parties supporting the new measure argued that without sanctions, the new law would be “a mere statement of good will”. Furthermore, another controversial aspect is that those accused of being homophobic against somebody will have to prove their innocence, instead of the victim having to prove the accused’s guilt. This positive discrimination measure is already in place for other offenses, such as domestic violence against women, in instances when it is very difficult to prove.

And this is not that far from what the Obama administration has decreed is appropriate for campuses. No wonder the defense lawyers are gearing up for conflict. What’s missing from this is balance, some accommodation for all in a society, and a fair judicial system to separate the true from the false. Raising awareness of how this stuff can happen with impunity is extremely important – just as signaling a religious opposition to civil marriage for gays is well within the bounds of fair advocacy. But finding a way not to over-reach is a trickier task. And we’re not doing so well with that right now, are we?

A reader writes:

On the subject of false allegations of rape, we often hear of the Duke Lacrosse team and Tawana Brawley.  Far less often, we hear of Jamie Leigh Jones v KBR and Charles Bortz.  That case was tried to an eleven-person federal jury in the summer of 2011.  I was Bortz’ attorney.  The jury refused to find -on evidence that was beyond ample – that Jamie Leigh Jones was raped.  She was not raped; her claims were not true and yet only one writer on the left, Stephanie Mencimer, ever came close to figuring this out.

Post-verdict, with both sides having had their day in court, Charles was as guilty in the left’s eyes as he was when Ms. Jones first made her allegations.  Neither the evidence nor the jury’s verdict mattered at all.  The mystery is why the current debate isn’t a source of terror for traditional civil liberties types.  The current left, including elements of the current administration (these federal mandates are recent arrivals), prizes outcome – their outcome – over all else, including guilt or innocence, fair trial or kabuki play.  When someone tries to explain why due process matters, the response is vilification and dismissal.  No effort is made to explain why due process does not matter or why it should be secondary or diluted or what-have-you.  Rather, the Progressive Feminist Left has spoken and further discussion other than assent is not tolerated.  And they’re winning.

Another makes many legal distinctions:

You write that arguments for a serious response to the problem of campus rape, including changes to the standard of proof, “echo[] Ezra Klein’s endorsement of expelling male students accused of rape without due process.” Emphasis mine. A quick and honest question: what is your understanding of the term “due process”?

Because the concept is not so cut and dry as you are presenting it. “Due process” does not mean “maximal procedural protections in every case.” Rather, it means that a party to a dispute should receive the procedural protection (“process”) that is “due” given the circumstances.

Civil defendants, for example, do not have the same trial rights as criminal defendants, because if she loses, the civil defendant won’t be going to jail. To borrow a term from my favorite law professor, “due process” is an “error deflection” principle. The law understands that mistakes happen. Procedural safeguards work by “deflecting” the risk of those mistakes away from the protected party.

When you talk about campus rape, then, you need to remember the stakes, and assess the due process problem accordingly. In a college disciplinary proceeding, does the accused student risk being thrown in jail? Fined? His criminal history broadcast to the world through a public trial?

No, no, and no. He’s just going to be expelled from college, to re-enroll somewhere else. His risk of error is low, relative to a criminal case. By comparison, the risk of error borne by the accuser is about the same relative to a criminal case, if not higher. Following acquittal, the victim can’t avoid a wrongly-acquitted rapist. She must go to class with him, socialize with him, and live (in most cases) within a mile of him. She’s trapped, basically. With her rapist. In her home.

When campus reformers talk about making it easier to expel accused rapists, they’re not arguing against due process. They’re just emphasizing the “due” part over the “process” part. And with good reason.