Month: December 2009

by Patrick Appel

One of the larger cognitive biases we fall into when discussing politics is we often act like politicians mostly rely on ideological principles and the strength of arguments when deciding how to vote. This is part of the equation, but I view politicians as vessels for interest groups first and influenced by ideology only at the margins. I share some of Daniel Larison's perspective on Obama and on Taibbi's article:

Some progressives are just as invested in the idea that Obama has “sold out” to corporate and financial interests as neoconservatives are committed to the fantasy that Obama’s foreign policy has recently undergone dramatic change. The reality is that Obama never had to “sell out” to these interests, because he never challenged them in any serious way in his national political career before he became President. We are not witnessing “one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history.” We are seeing Obama do pretty much exactly what he did during the general election and the months before his Inauguration: he has been careful to position himself squarely as a conventional center-left politician, and he has done this most of all as far as it concerns the financial sector.

Larison undersells conventionalism to some degree. Special interests are a vital part of the system and bowing to said interests is a sometimes necessary evil. 

Unwavering ideological voting, of the sort Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich exhibit, is the exception in politics for good reason. It is impossible to separate wealthy or powerful groups from the centers of government. And trying to do so can make a country less stable. Opposition movement must enlist opposing powerful elements in order to achieve success, which means one group of powerful individuals is replaced with another. Look at the relationships between the wealthy, the military, and the government in any number of anti-democratic or marginally democratic states. That Goldman Sachs, to take Taibbi's favored boogeyman, is able to influence the political process through lobbyists is far preferable a government where the most powerful interests might need stage or threaten a military coup in order to influence the stewards of government.

This is not to say that we should always capitulate to powerful interests, but that these interests will always have a say in government and that our system of lobbying is an alternative to much less desirable arrangements. Pretending that if Obama were more liberal that the government would suddenly have to tools to oppose these interests is wishful thinking. These problems are systemic and not attributable to any individual.

by Conor Friedersdorf

If any public official in America deserves the contempt of all citizens, it is Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County lawman who has forced innocent men to march down the street in pink underwear, reportedly forced a Latina woman to give birth while shackled to a bed, and is now trumping up bribery charges against a local judge. That Arizonans repeatedly elect this man is a mark against their polity.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

He recently filed a racketeering lawsuit against the entire Maricopa County power structure. On Thursday night, the Arizona Court of Appeals issued an emergency order forbidding the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office from searching the home or chambers of a Superior Court judge who was named in the racketeering case.

Last year, when Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called for a federal investigation of Arpaio's immigration enforcement, the Sheriff's Office demanded to see Gordon's e-mails, phone logs and appointment calendars.

When the police chief in one suburb complained about the sweeps, Arpaio's deputies raided that town's City Hall.

A local television station, KPHO, in a 10-minute-long segment last month, documented two dozen instances of the sheriff launching investigations of critics, none of which led to convictions.

The most notorious case involves county Supervisor Don Stapley, a Republican who has sometimes disagreed with Arpaio's immigration tactics. Last December, deputies arrested Stapley on charges of failing to disclose business interests properly on his statement of economic interest.

Stapley's alarmed supervisor colleagues had their offices swept for listening devices. Arpaio contended the search was illegal and sent investigators to the homes of dozens of county staffers to grill them about the sweep.

And see the tireless Radley Balko here for another example of this man's penchant for obstinate lawlessness.

Given all that, can a reader from Arizona please explain this to me: "PHOENIX — The most popular choice for governor among Republicans is someone who isn't running now — and may not run at all: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio." There is no instance I know of in America where the grassroots of the Republican Party could do more damage to liberty than to elect this man governor.

by Chris Bodenner

"“It is ironic how [the] headscarf, which was traditionally seen as a symbol of women’s oppression … is now being used by men to show membership in a liberation movement," – Peter Tatchell, a commenter on The Spittoon, an Islam-focused blog.  (Tatchell notes that it's illegal to cross-dress in Iran.)  Dish coverage of the headscarf protest here.

(Hat tip: CNN)

Update: A reader passes along this link to an intense mosaic of head-scarfed portraits.

by Patrick Appel

Taibbi's recent Obama rant must be cathartic for some liberals upset with Obama, but the article is misguided. The kicker gives the gist:

What's most troubling is that we don't know if Obama has changed, or if the influence of Wall Street is simply a fundamental and ineradicable element of our electoral system. What we do know is that Barack Obama pulled a bait-and-switch on us. If it were any other politician, we wouldn't be surprised. Maybe it's our fault, for thinking he was different.

Yglesias partially understands the problem with this view:

The implicit theory of political change here, that pivotal members of congress undermine reform proposals because of “the White House’s refusal to push for real reform” is just wrong. That’s not how things work. The fact of the matter is that Matt Taibbi is more liberal than I am, and I am more liberal than Larry Summers is, but Larry Summers is more liberal than Ben Nelson is. Replacing Summers with me, or with Taibbi, doesn’t change the fact that the only bills that pass the Senate are the bills that Ben Nelson votes for.

There are a few ways to change the votes of politicians: 1) kick them out of their jobs and hope for more progressive or conservative candidates, which isn't very easy to do and might backfire 2) sweeten the pot – most likely by cramming a bill full of pork carefully tailored to interests in the politician's district or state 3) make the bill align with the politician's principles.

Numbers two and three are often used in tandem with substantive changes to a bill serving as political cover to let a politician vote for the pork. The Lieberman analysis this morning focused on Lieberman's character and his desire to settle old grudges. That's part of it, but he is also protecting major contributors to his office. Ben Nelson might get a bigger percentage of donations from the health care industry than Lieberman, but Lieberman doesn't have the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's money to rely on or worry about. Nelson is less likely to openly flaunt his differences with the party because he can't afford to offend the DNC to the same degree Lieberman can.

by Chris Bodenner

For the dog owner who has everything.

by Chris Bodenner Joe Klein spells it out:

The Pakistanis are absolutely convinced that if the U.S. leaves Afghanistan, India will jump in, supporting the non-Pashtun elements in the country…. Why is this a problem we should care about? Because India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons. Because tensions between the two countries would escalate dramatically if we were to abandon the region. And, most important, because our departure would empower the more radical elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence services–not merely in their support of the Taliban, but also, potentially, in their ability to stage an Islamist coup d’etat. This is the worst scenario imaginable: a nuclear Pakistan, with allies of Osama Bin Laden controlling the trigger.

Greenwald pounces:

The U.S. government excels at finding brand new Urgent National Security Reasons to continue fighting wars once the original justifications fail or otherwise become inoperative:  no more Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Still have to stay, otherwise India and Pakistan will fight.  As part of his stenography services, Klein explained:

[S]ome of the best arguments about why this war is necessary must go unspoken by the President.

So there are deeply compelling reasons to escalate in Afghanistan.  But they’re secret.  They “must go unspoken by the President.”  The American people have no right to know what the alleged purposes and objectives are of this war.  They’re supposed to fight in it (a tiny percentage, anyway) and pay for it with massive debt but they can’t be told why it’s really being fought.

by Patrick Appel

 TNC:

Joe Lieberman is neither manifesting long-held views or being brought to heel by the politics of his state. (Quite the contrary.) Still, Lieberman could make an argument against the current bill outlining his own thinking, and how it's changed. But Lieberman hasn't done that. Instead he's put forth the kind of logic that make you question either his understanding of the public option he so vociferously opposes, or his intellectual honesty.

What your left with is neither policy nor politics, but an ethic of fanatic spite.

He's not "being brought to heel by the politics of his state"? What about the Connecticut insurers? They make up a sizable part of contributions to his office. There is nothing necessarily wrong with Lieberman representing the interests in his state, and with DNC money no longer flowing to his office, it makes sense that Lieberman would be more careful about upsetting financiers. I also suspect Lieberman is preparing for life after politics. Megan has some sharp analysis:

No matter how furious Democrats are, they are not going to punish him as long as he can break a filibuster for them. But that's another year.  Then what?  It's highly unlikely that Democrats will keep exactly 58 seats plus Bernie Sanders.  At that point, one way or another, Joe Lieberman becomes largely superfluous.  And the Democrats are going to have their knives out.

Chait oversimplifies here:

With Lieberman, we all suspect it's part of a plan. I think he just has no idea what he's talking about and doesn't care to learn. Lieberman thinks about politics in terms of broad ideological labels. He's the heroic centrist voice pushing legislation to the center. No, Lieberman doesn't have any particular sense of what the Medicare buy-in option would do to the national debt. If the liberals like it, then he figures it's big government and he should oppose it. I think it's basically that simple.

Ezra says basically the same thing:

[T]he underlying dynamic seems to be that Lieberman will destroy any compromise the left likes. That, in fact, seems to be the compromise: Lieberman will pass the bill if he can hurt liberals while doing so. From Lieberman's perspective, the compromise is killing the compromise.

Suderman:

[It's] not clear whether Lieberman actually wants something specific from the legislation or whether, like General Zod in Superman II, he simply wants to show Senate Democrats (and their liberal supporters) that he is strong and they are weak.

Josh Marshall:

The only path I can see for the Dems is that they need to try to put 60 votes together with Sen. Snowe. Yes, that sounds crazy to me too. But I think she actually has a set of policy priorities that could be met. I don't think that's true with Lieberman. So further negotiating just means more game-playing.

Nate Silver buys that Lieberman wants to kick the liberals who opposed him during the last campaign but thinks Nelson is different:

Nebraska is one of the few states where the public option isn't especially popular and Nelson is near the top of the list of Senators that receive the most money from the insurance industry. But the outlook was the same: this wasn't a compromise that served any of Ben Nelson's goals.

So what do Lieberman and Nelson want? I think they've actually made this rather clear. They want liberals to give up the public option and not get anything for it. If liberals do, they'll probably get a health care bill. If they don't, they probably won't.

Joe Klein:

[T]his should be a litmus test: if Lieberman doesn't vote for this bill, he should no longer be considered part of the Democratic caucus; he should be stripped of his seniority and committee assignments.

On the other hand, if Lieberman gets his way and all hint of a public option is stripped from the bill–and several Republicans, like Snow and Collins decide to vote for it, I would still say the same principle applies: a yes vote is indicated. Extending health insurance to all, and ending the insurance companies' ability to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions etc, is just too important to vote against.

Ambinder:

Here is the reality, though: the Democrats need 60 votes. They're not going to pass the insurance reforms through reconciliation. (Some blame the White House for insisting that Democrats eschew the reconciliation option.)

That means that Ben Nelson has to be accommodated on abortion, and then Joe Lieberman or Olympia Snowe has to compromise. Snowe is the more likely of the two, so, barring a change of heart, the best that Senate Democrats can do, at the moment, is probably to water down their Medicare buy-in and add a trigger mechanism to it, which will probably get Snowe's vote. Probably.

(image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)