Month: October 2009

Did Jon Stewart Hurt America?

Drezner provokes:

We're coming up on the five-year anniversary of Jon Stewart's verbal skewering of Crossfire in particular and the whole genre of left-right cable gabfests in general.  Stewart said these kind of shows were "hurting America" because of their general blather and failure to ask politicians good, sharp questions. 

Stewart's appearance on Crossfire generated quite the navel-gazing among the commentariat, and played no small role in the eventual disappearance of Crossfire, The Capitol Gang, Hannity & Colmes, and shows of that ilk.  

So, five years later, I have a half-assed blog question to ask — did Jon Stewart hurt America by driving these shows off the air? 

If you're expecting a lengthy defense of the Crossfire format right now, well, you're going to be disappointed. My point rather, is to question what replaced these kinds of shows on the cable newsverse. Instead of Hannity & Colmes, you now have…. Hannity. Is this really an improvement?

He's got a point, hasn't he?

Face Of The Day

HADASDavidSilverman:Getty

An ultra-Orthodox Jew inspects a Hadas (myrtle branch), one of the Four Species which will be used during the rituals of the upcoming festival of Sukkot, on October 1, 2009, in the religious Jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, Israel. The eight-day Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles, which begins tomorrow evening October 2, 2009, commemorates the biblical Hebrews' 40 years of wandering in the desert after the exodus from Egypt some 3,200 years ago. By David Silverman/Getty Images.

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

"It's impossible to watch the vast ignorance, hate and extremism in this country right now and not almost despair. At a time of extraordinary challenges, the center is not holding."

I agree wholeheartedly with the first part of the statement – not so much yet with the last.

I think the cited piece hits the nail on the head. Extremism makes news and gets a back bencher a name among followers. But I don't see much evidence that the center is crumbling, just that the extremists are louder, more strident, and more publicized. Bachmann is a good example. Despite being only in her second term, her publicized vocal stridency has made her likely the best known congressperson in Minnesota (my state). But, she represents one of the most Republican districts in the state and barely survived last election while her predecessor, a much lower profile Mark Kennedy, was reelected to that seat easily. I think that she will continue to make a normally safe seat competitive like other well-known strident right wing legislators of the past (e.g., Marilyn Musgrave, Robert Dornan).

Butters vs Beck

This is news from Jeffrey Goldberg's interview with Lindsey Graham:

"Only in America can you make that much money crying," Graham said, as he suggested conservative talk radio, in particular, has detracted form constructive political debate in America. "What do I think of Rush Limbaugh? Well, I think he makes hundreds of millions of dollars being able to talk on the radio for three hours a day. It is what it is, but here's what I worry about: how many people in my business are going to be controlled by what's said on the radio or in a TV commercial? Base politics is what we're talking about."

He continued: " Glenn Beck is not aligned with any party as far as I can tell. He's aligned with cynicism, and there's always been a market for cynicism."

Anti-Yglesias Award Nominee

How depressing to see Matt excuse Grayson's behavior:

I think the real issue—and the real import—of Grayson’s statement is that it involved breaking one of the unspoken rules of modern American politics. The rule is that conservatives talk about their causes in stark, moralistic terms and progressives don’t. Instead, progressives talk about our causes in bloodless technocratic terms. This is also one of the reasons that Ted Kennedy’s stark, moralistic attack on Robert Bork’s legal theories are for some reason often cast by the MSM as some kind of illegitimate smear campaign. The reality is that it was just him talking about a conservative the way conservatives relatively talk about liberals. Like Grayson he characterized his opponents’ views polemically, but wasn’t offering any kind of wild factual distortions. But moralism from the left is very unfamiliar to American political debates.

Laying The Dynamite Around DADT?, Ctd

Pivoting off this post, Mark Kleiman all but declares DADT over:

Now that it’s obvious both that Obama had a strategy for getting rid of DADT and that the strategy will work, can he expect any apologies from his critics, starting with Sullivan?

It's not at all obvious. The brass has never been able to sustain a credible actual argument in defense of the ban; and the article was simply a superb piece of work. If it had been spiked, despite its excellence, that would have been the story. The next generation regards this ban as absurd and so its disappearance is probably inevitable in the long term. But soon? DADT will have to be ended by the Congress. You think Pelosi or Frank or Reid will push for it? You think Rahm Emmanuel will want to ignite that on the way to midterms or as the president faces re-election against Sarah Palin?

Kleiman's argument is on the lines of "progressives" should support a "progressive" president and stop whining. Well, I'm proudly not a "progressive" whatever that means. I want the US to stop persecuting its own servicemembers for reasons utterly unrelated to their job performance. Period. I will never apologize for that, nor should I. But if Obama actually does what he promises in his first term, I'll be the first to congratulate him. Until then: no quarter.

Reform, Not Removal

Joe Klein reacts to Robert Kagan's call for "crippling sanctions" and regime change in Iran:

This is a particularly ridiculous and odious notion–not that the Iranian regime isn't disgraceful and badly in need of a thorough, internal cleansing. It is ridiculous because the vast majority of Iranian dissidents have no intention of overturning the Islamic Republic, but want to reform it.

They are joined now by a significant slice of the theocracy, which is appalled by recent events and have no desire to live in a military dictatorship quietly dominated by the Revolutionary Guards. They have made it clear that they are opposed to foreign economic sanctions, to foreign interference of any sort. Mir Hossein Mousavi came out against sanctions a few days ago, on the ground that they would hurt ordinary people more than they would hurt the regime. What makes the call for regime change particularly tone-deaf and odious is history. Iranians–all Iranians–are extremely aware of past US meddling in their country's internal affairs.

They Tortured A Man They Knew To Be Innocent, Ctd.

A reader writes:

You say the Obama administration has “embraced and defended the torture of the past”. But remember – they lost this one, in a court of law. What if they expect to lose them all? What better way to expose the torture of the past than to air it out in the courts (under the pretense of defending it)? Doesn’t that completely disarm his political opponents who would otherwise claim that it is simply a witch hunt? Sadly, there is not much of a public outcry to accompany your (and my) outrage at this legacy of the Bush administration. How do you create it? By telling the story. Better yet, by having someone else (Judge Kollar-Kotelly) tell the story for you.

You like to use the analogy of rope-a-dope. I think he might have roped you.

I understand the use of rope-a-dope in political jujitsu. When you are forcefully arguing for the continued detention of an innocent, tortured man, it's disgusting.