Month: September 2009

David Frum continues his debate with David Horowitz:

I speak out against people like Palin, Limbaugh and Beck because in my estimation they do enormous harm to the causes in which I believe. In my view, the talk-and-Fox complex marginalizes Republicans – and backs us into demagogic and unsustainable political positions. David, do you really want to abolish the Federal Reserve? Do you think the United States should have allowed Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and other banks to follow Lehman into bankruptcy in October 2008? Do you think that any cuts to Medicare amount to a death panel for grandma? Do you think we can sustain an adequate military – never mind finance future tax reductions – if we allow healthcare to continue rising from its current 16% of GDP to a projected 20% of GDP a decade from now if nothing changes?

I can’t believe you do. And if you don’t believe these things, is it not dangerous to have talk-and Fox whipping a couple of million conservatives into frenzy over things that are not true?

David has ammunition in the latest NYT poll. It shows some cooling on Obama – but only from ridiculously high levels. But the verdict on Republicans is devastating:

76 percent said Republicans had not even laid out a clear health care plan. And by a lopsided margin, respondents said that Mr. Obama and not Republicans had made an effort to cross party lines and strike a deal that has the support of both parties. … Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believed Republicans in Congress were opposing Mr. Obama’s bill only for political gain, rather than because they believed it was bad for the country; just over half said Democrats in Congress backed the bill for political reasons.

Just 30 percent said they had a favorable view of Republicans in Congress. By contrast, 47 percent said they had a favorable view of Congressional Democrats.

In stoking the base, the GOP has persuaded the center that they are not a serious party interested in governing.

Gary Sick games the looming October 1 negotiations:

What if Iran got a bomb? Well, unless they buy one intact, the process of actually moving to weaponization is likely to be noticed, so one must ask what happens between the moment when they decide to proceed to a bomb and when they actually have it. That period, which is apt to be several years, would be the true case of the ticking time bomb, and that would be the moment for consideration of extreme pressure tactics, probably with very wide support in the international community. Iran knows this, and that is itself a disincentive for them to proceed.

The real purpose of negotiations, in my view, is to build a system of monitoring and inspections that will (1) provide maximum early warning of a potential future Iranian decision to “break out;” and (2) insure the maximum possible interval between that moment and the moment where Iran could actually have a bomb. Iran has said on several occasions that it is willing to accept such an enhanced inspection regime, but it will no doubt insist on a price. That, I think, is what the negotiations should be about.

Today on the Dish, Andrew addressed Obama's address at the UN and acknowledged the potential consequences of leaving Afghanistan. Greenwald praised the president, Packer offered some historical perspective, and Larison shared some cold realism.

We also compiled a whole lot of crazy: Muammar Gaddafi, Steve King, ACORN, Breitbart, and Beck. On Palin, Andrew spotted inconsistency while Lowry saw more starbursts.

In other news, the Dish tracked the reports of an alleged hanging down in Kentucky. We also got a glimpse of the shrinking gay closet, saw the light at the end of the HIV ban, and watched a wallop of an ad from Maine.  And a reader whacked Andrew over a religion post.

Last but not least, we tried to help Fallows capture his great white frog.

— C.B.

Here’s a local blogger with some opinions and context:

Eastern Ky has a difficult relationship with government anyway. Much local government is corrupt. The only plot to assassinate a sitting governor was hatched here. The old courthouse was full of bullet holes from an assault in the 1930s.

Our school was founded to try and bring an end to the Baker-Howard-White war, which brought government troops in at one point. Whether it’s revenuers or government support of coal companies or the welfare state’s corruption of everything it touches, this is an area where it wouldn’t be too hard to find fifty people living off the Federal government and fifty people across the creek ready to shoot any DEA agent that stops to use the phone,.

What it’s NOT is about Glenn Beck, etc. I assure you that few people of the sort who would kill a census worker are concerned with Mr. Beck. They are probably more concerned with why their cousin is in prison or why they aren’t getting paid for running dope any more.

A reader writes:

You've twice (here and here) referred to this survey of "American attitudes toward presidential conspiracy theories" without noting the unusually large margin of error.

The sample size for this poll is only 621, with means that the overall margin of error is +/- 3.9 %. However, only 35 percent of respondents identified themselves as Republicans, which means that the margin of error for this subgroup is significantly higher (approximately +/- 6.65%). The pollster also notes that "other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify." So we can assume that nonresponse bias adds another dimension of uncertainty.

Pollsters often tell you margin of error for the entire sample, but uncertainty grows when you do cross-tabulations because you're breaking the sample into smaller subgroups.  

If you look at some of the other cross-tabulations for this survey, they're very difficult to believe. For example, according the poll, 22% those between the ages of 18 and 29 believe President Obama is the Anti-Christ. This compared to only 5% of those ages 30 to 45; 9% of those ages 46 to 65; and 7% of those over the age of 65.

Since when are younger people more predisposed to believe President Obama is the Anti-Christ? This contradicts every polling trend we've seen.

I think we need to be more careful when we interpret the results of these kinds of surveys. The degree of uncertainty is often larger than you expect.

Children pose during the southern German mud-championship for primary school children in Muehlberg, eastern Germany on September 24, 2009. Eight primary school teams fight in the mud for the entry into the grand finale, taking place on October 2, 2009 in Cologne, western Germany. By Jens-Ulirch Koch/AFP/Getty.

"Maybe it was the spectacle of all those discredited neocons gathering in Washington to urge him to stay the course in Afghanistan. Or maybe it was the endless nagging from Vice President Biden. But for whatever reason, President Obama is suddenly said to be rethinking his approach to that benighted country — possibly even considering Biden's proposal to withdraw troops currently engaged in counter-insurgency and nation-building, and instead focus on counter-terrorism there and in Pakistan. Should Obama actually change his mind about Afghanistan, our elite journalists — obsessed as they are with how the game is played — will almost inevitably characterize this as vacillation and declare it a sign of political weakness. But that really misses the point…." – Dan Froomkin.

A reader writes:

I'm a cradle Catholic, daughter of a biologist, a Fulbright scholar, and married to a Presbyterian minister, so you could say I can see the American religious debate from all sides. I have a long-founded respect your informed and unique perspective on this topic, but was disappointed in your first post on The Nones this week. I felt your reflexive biases won out.

First, the statement of theocons and Christianists being intellectually bankrupt is actually the opposite of what you yourself argue about both these movements, more thoughtfully, in The Conservative Soul. Theocons/Christianists may be power-hungry, narcissistic, and narrow-minded, but stupid? No way. That's part of the problem.

Secondly, you also seem to contradict yourself when you imply that there is a large, vague "continued and accelerated flight from organized religion." Yet as your yourself show in the same post, if there's any large religious movement in this country, it's actually movement towards (politically powerful, literalist, creationist Christian) organized religion.

Additionally you also imply that anyone with a brain rejects, or will eventually reject, organized religion– as if all organized religious belief, from Zen to Zoroastrianism, has been corrupted by our favorite political assholes. (You may argue that you're only talking about Christianity here; I would counter that the statistics from which you argue cover all religious belief, and if you mean to limit your analysis to Christianity, you're not being very clear about it.)

You also try to support the "smart = areligious" view by claiming the best of opposing analyses. In one breath, it seems to be an educated few (and therefore unimpeachable) who have the intellectual means to rise above religious mass hypnosis. In the next, it's also some implied ad populum (and therefore unimpeachable) movement of the many. None of this rhetoric is really accurate.

The reality of religion in America– as my history, and certainly yours, demonstrates– is much too nuanced. Unfortunately, the one thing we've got to be when we're talking about religion in America is accurate. And of all the people in the world who need to be accurate, it's you– you who is such a meaningful, necessary voice in intellectual, political, and religious conversations in this country.

I accept that a brief and politically pointed post is not the last or only word on the subject. But I didn't mean that theoconservatism was stupid, merely that its attempted resuscitation of natural law is a form of intellectual bankruptcy and unconvincing for all the reasons I laid out in The Conservative Soul. And I don't believe that an intelligent person would reject all organized religion (I sure don't), merely that many intelligent Americans rightly find the current orthodoxy and its emphases unattractive and unpersuasive. I believe that this view can be held simultaneously by those paid to think about it and ordinary people of faith who can recognize a failing argument when they see it.

But more nuance is always important, and I'm sorry if that post seemed too truncated and political to do this complex subject justice. On a blog, one post is never the summation. It is one part of a conversation, now amplified by my reader's skepticism.