Month: March 2010

Jonathan Bernstein rebuts William Saletan's latest column:

Yes, the Constitution does create a system of representative democracy, not direct democracy.  But how are those representatives supposed to decide?   The Constitution is silent about that.  We can suppose (and here I'm following Hanna Pitkin) that Saletan is correct at one extreme; if Members simply take a poll about everything and do whatever the poll tells them, then they're not really "representing" them.  But, Pitkin argues, the other extreme — in which the elected official does whatever she wants, regardless of what the people say they want — isn't really "representation" either.  For her, representation is a way of making present someone (the constituents) who aren't actually present.  And so they have to be with the politician, in some sense, but not completely overwhelming him.

Bernstein's second criticism:

Saletan and others would have politicians do what's right.  What I'm saying is that politicians have no way of knowing what's right. They aren't trained for it. They aren't selected for it.  And that's true whether one thinks of it in terms of policy that works, or in terms of what's ethically correct.  If you want the former, get rid of democracy and hire some technocratic experts; if you want the latter, go find yourself a philosopher-king, I suppose.

The entire job of a politician is to discern what he or she thinks is right at any particular moment on any particular question. And of course they have a way of knowing what's right: it's called judgment and practical wisdom. For Jonathan to say that this is somehow not part of their role seems to miss a core part of human conduct and nature. He adds:

Now, in my view, a Democratic Member of Congress who is trying to get re-elected will want the health care bill to pass, because that's going to help her win re-election.

I remain with Burke.

Mead's advice:

President Obama needs to do two things now in this dispute.  He must stand tall, and he must settle quick. 

He cannot afford a humiliating climb down in the face of Israeli pressure, but it is unlikely that either Congress or Jacksonian America will back him in a long and divisive struggle.  Israel on the other hand cannot welcome a bitter controversy that will polarize American public opinion and damage Israel’s image, perhaps irreparably, among the liberal constituencies who were once its strongest source of support.

But whatever happens in the Washington policy wars, one thing should be clear.  This is not a battle between ‘the Jews’ and the rest of the United States over our policy in the Middle East.  It is a battle between opposing conceptions of America’s interests in the Middle East, and  gentiles and Jews can be found on both sides.

Jacksonian America will not support a president boldly defending the interests of the US? Mead gets the paradox here. I'd prefer to put it as Christianist America, primed to see Israel as a sacred territory where an in-gathering will precede the Apocalypse; and a Jacksonian empathy for any fellow nation waging scorched earth warfare against common perceived enemies.

The terrifying prospect is that Israel's religious fanatics join forces with America's religious fanatics to destroy any hope of peace in the Middle East or of America's regaining the role of an honest broker between the parties. Actually, of course, that has already happened.

But resisting the logic of this cycle of religious violence is one reason Obama was elected. Preventing the escalation will not be easy. But one humiliation over the settlements was bad enough for US power. Two humiliations would be devastating to America's position in the Middle East. Alas, the Republican right believe in Israel's right to do anything anywhere almost as strongly as they believe in pre-emptive war, unlimited presidential power, the fusion of religion and politics, and torture at home. 

But at least the phony war is now over. On so many fronts, something else is taking shape.

Thoreau levels judgment:

I’m not writing this to defend libertarianism from the charge of being infiltrated by the GOP.  I’m writing this to argue that the GOP has not been overcome by libertarianism.  Those are two entirely different things.  From where I sit, I see some useful idiots for the GOP in the libertarian ranks, but I see precious little libertarianism animating the Republicans.  If you’re going to blame us for anything, blame us for shilling, not for animating.

Yesterday, Tom Ricks rightly complained that Pete Wehner misquoted him. Wehner, caught red-handed, doubles down. Sigh. It's not a close call. Wehner claims Ricks wrote "I think staying in Iraq is immoral." What Ricks actually wrote is the following, as an argument for keeping troops longer in Iraq:

I think staying in Iraq is immoral, but I think leaving immediately would be even more so, because of the risk it runs of leaving Iraq to a civil war that could go regional. That is, I don't expect much to be gained by staying, but I think much, much more could be lost by leaving right now. Just pulling out unilaterally reminds me of Jerry Rubin's comment back in the 1960s that after the revolution, he would just "groove on the rubble."

My italics.

This question was a matter of some debate between me and Ricks recently, and Ricks' position of keeping more troops there for a longer period – which won't win him much applause from the liberals and realists who admire his work – was recently outlined in the New York Times. I'm concerned that there will never be a moment when post-sectarian politics allows US troops to leave, because Iraq is Iraq, and so we should leave sooner rather than later, preferably when the future Iraqi government demands that we do. But Tom's case is a strong one pragmatically, and he is admirably facing up to the conflicts he feels about it.

I know this kind of position is a little intricate for the ideological mindset, but it is intellectually honest and deserves being treated seriously as an argument, rather than as a truncated rhetorical bludgeon.

Why can most neoconservatives never concede error?

Diane Ravitch makes her case against a program she once endorsed:

NCLB requires that all students must be proficient in reading and math by 2014. When the legislation was signed in 2002, this goal was wildly unrealistic–and now, it is merely laughable. The target date is only four years away, but no state is remotely close to 100 percent proficiency. Indeed, in 2008, 35,000 of the nation’s schools bore the stigma of "failing" because they weren't making sufficient progress toward that utopian target.

What NCLB has done with its proficiency deadline is set a timetable for the demolition of American public education.

In an effort to meet NCLB’s unattainable goal and avoid the "failing" label, most states have dumbed down their standardized tests or their definitions of proficiency. Many states claim that large majorities of their students are “proficient” in reading or math, but their claims are refuted by federal assessments (called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP) that are given to all students in fourth and eighth grades every other year. For example, Texas reported that 85 percent of its students in those grades were proficient readers based on year-end state testing, but, on the NAEP, only 29 percent were. Nationwide, NAEP scores have gone up in math since 2003, but the rate of improvement has been less than before the passage of NCLB. In eighth-grade reading, there was no improvement at all from 1998 to 2007.

The Dish has featured reviews of Ravitch's book by Tyler Cowen and Sara Mosle. Max Fisher rounds up commentary on Obama's recently released proposals for reforming NCLB.

Nowshera, Pakistan, 11 am

Netanyahu isn't backing down. Contra Chait, Yglesias doesn't think that Israel is at much risk of blow-back:

The current government in the West Bank is probably the most moderate we’ve ever seen, while Israel is governed by a right/far-right coalition that’s the least moderate we’ve ever seen. But of course the bulk of voters don’t pay attention to this sort of thing. So I think Congress is less likely than ever to question the upside-down nature of the US-Israel client-superpower dynamic.

The Israeli government is preventing the US president from achieving a core goal of his election: reorienting the US relationship with the Muslim world, reaching out to moderate Muslims, defusing the appeal of Jihadism, and securing a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. And where does AIPAC and the Congress stand? With Netanyahu – against Obama.

Noah Pollak tells the US president to bring it on::

All the pro-Israel heavies are coming to D.C. in a few days for the AIPAC policy conference, the single most important event of the year for the pro-Israel community. And now Obama has set it up so that pretty much the only thing people are going to be talking about is this crisis — and not just talking, but planning how to push back.

John Cole responds to Pollak:

The reason AIPAC has so much sway with Congress is because the American people honestly have no idea who or what AIPAC is, and having them trying to act as a co-equal branch of government could be quite, shall we say, illuminating…

In her recent profile of the Texas Board of Education, Mariah Blake mentions the woman who pushed to remove Jefferson:

After the 2006 election, Republicans claimed ten of fifteen board seats. Seven were held by the ultra-conservatives, and one by a close ally, giving them an effective majority. Among the new cadre were some fiery ideologues; in her self-published book, Cynthia Dunbar of Richmond rails against public education, which she dubs “tyrannical” and a “tool of perversion,” and says sending kids to public school is like “throwing them into the enemy’s flames.” (More recently, she has accused Barack Obama of being a terrorist sympathizer and suggested he wants America to be attacked so he can declare martial law.)

Sounds like a future Fox News host to me.