Month: November 2008

Larison cracks the code.

Ezra Klein is disappointed  that Tom Vilsack, former governor of Iowa, is being floated as a possible Secretary of Agriculture. John Schwenkler is curt:

…if you expected anything else, then I’ve got a few gallons of E-85 to sell you. As has been the case in any number of other instances, the kind of "I read Michael Pollan!" talk that gets folks like Ezra and Alice Waters all excited was just that – talk – and all those who fell for it should be taking a lot more cynicism with their morning coffee.

“Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions, but has no educational value for kids; it only benefits adults. If we can put veteran teachers who have tenure in a position where they don’t have it, that would help us to radically increase our teacher quality. And maybe other districts would try it, too,” – Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the Washington DC public schools.

The lengths to which Rhee must go just to apply basic standards of accountability in the teaching profession is mind-boggling. And reading the comments from the leaders of the teachers’ unions really does drive home the point. Until we really do bust the teachers unions, the next generation of kids in public schools is at risk. I’m one of those DC residents, whose taxes are poured into often useless schools with often dreadful teachers. I’d like to see a tiny bit more value for money.

The best profile of Rhee is, of course, in the Atlantic, ahead of the curve as usual. It’s by Clay Risen.

Shep Smith denies that the "liberal media" doomed McCain. Shep is goin’ rogue. At Fox, someone needs to.

There’s a lot of sudden chatter about what the core meaning of conservatism is. That’s different, of course, from what the core direction of Republicanism will be. I think a huge amount of the future of the GOP is less up to the Republican leadership and "conservative" intelligentsia than to what Obama does and how the opposition reacts.

With any luck, Obama will force the right to go back to the critique of managed economies, of industrial policy, of debt and "progressive" taxation that helped restore conservatism in the 1970s. And the decline of the culture wars facilitated by Obama’s generational shift may prompt Republicans to appreciate the role of federalism and secularism in public as well as responsibility and faith in private.

Or the GOP could respond viscerally to a multi-cultural, internationally-minded, pragmatic liberalism by ratcheting up the anti-gay, prohibitionist, neo-racist paranoia represented by Palin, Perkins, and the gang. I’d bet on both happening. But Obama has much more influence over this than anyone in the GOP right now. If he hews to the center economically, and stays sober culturally, he could prompt a conservative renaissance … by the end of his second term.

A libertarian-minded talk show host, who once mocked the idea that the US engaged in torture, has an epiphany:

If you go after Cheney–seriously, I’m talking now about a serious investigation by an international tribunal, and charges brought against him in the international court, so that he would be subject to arrest, and trial, just as Milosevic and some of the people involved in these behaviors in the Balkans were–that that would force Cheney, in his defense, to disclose the degree to which the president, George W. Bush, was culpable in any of this, if culpable at all.

I really found this documentary, Torturing Democracy, very, very disturbing. And I guess the reason that heretofore I have not been such an easy mark on the matter of this kind of charge is that I don’t think I ever saw an organized, systematized review of what we did, andhow we did it, as well presented as it was in this documentary. And it grieves me to say, as an American citizen, that I believe the leadership of our country is responsible for crimes against humanity. But, you know, we can’t be trumpeting about the behavior of others, like Milosevic, and others, if we do not expect ourselves to be held to a similar high standard.

It grieves me too. Please watch "Torturing Democracy." It isn’t easy to watch; but what so many innocent (and guilty) individuals were subjected to in your name was unimaginably harder. As readers know, I’ve been fixated on this since Abu Ghraib. But that documentary made me ill by forcing me again to absorb the enormity of what Bush and Cheney have done – and the urgent, urgent task of repairing the damage.

If America is to recover, those responsible must be put on trial. Including the president.

Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? The US is now in a much stronger p.r. position; and the mullahs are on the defensive. And Obama isn’t even president yet. Amazing what a little sanity and strategy can do.

Mature Republicans in Miami don’t know quite what to say:

A surprising moment occurred late this afternoon in a press roundtable featuring Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Jon Huntsman of Utah, former Ebay CEO and McCain national campaign co-chairman Meg Whitman, and former OMB Director Rob Portman.  A reporter asked whether they would have felt comfortable with Palin as president. After a moment of awkward silence, there were several answers given—but no one said "yes."

At some point, all this will be funny. Not quite yet.

He’s my friend, but I’ve never been prouder of that fact:

Interesting new wrinkle, courtesy of Howie Kurtz. The anonymous McCain campaign source who called Palin a "whack-job" was not a minor figure, according to the great Mike Allen:

"I found it illuminating because it came from an extremely senior McCain person, clearly reflecting the views of others in the inner circle. I would not have used it from the peanut gallery, internal or external."

I’m glad they get it. But they are still cowards for not putting their name on the quote. Palin is more about McCain than it is about Palin.