In addition to a simple aggregate lack of jobs due to the recession, what we're suffering from right now is still more of a sectoral shift issue more than a basic skills issue. If you look at lists of the fastest growing occupations, they've always been populated mainly by jobs that require a high school degree and some specialized training. Lots of them are in healthcare (physical therapists, dental assistants, etc.) and lots of them require specific computer skills. Laid off factory workers just can't jump into these jobs without retraining, and as Matt Steinglass points out, the success of government retraining programs has been pretty dismal over the years.
One reason I enjoy the writing of center-right thinkers such as Reihan Salam or Ross Douthat (among others) is that rather than constantly taking a position against liberals or other conservatives, they are constantly on the prowl for good ideas.
I think this is especially true of Reihan, whose wonkish blog over at NRO can only be described as a sort of positive conservatism. Instead of focusing on simply being in opposition to the liberal agenda – which is, really, a fairly easy task – this brand of conservatism is always perusing the market of good ideas. This doesn’t mean you can’t also be against bad ideas, but only that every oppositional stance should be paired with a positive solution. The bank tax is wrong – here’s why, and here’s a better idea. The healthcare bill is going to be a disaster – here’s why, and here’s a better idea. Positive conservatism, for it to be effective at all, also must avoid Utopianism if it is to avoid the progressive pitfall.
Pfc. Reed Kaiser of Detroit, Michigan with the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division looks into the hills where militants were attacking his unit July 2, 2010 over the village of Joikahr, Afghanistan. Paratroopers in the 82nd Airborne moved on Joikahr in the early morning of July 2 to establish a security outpost overlooking the town. When they arrived, they found the town deserted of civilians and came under fire from suspected Taliban militants ensconced in the surrounding hills. After several hours of fighting, the paratroopers along with Afghan forces established the outpost on a hill overlooking the village.
The U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne along have been working with Afghanistan National Army forces for nearly a year in this combative zone in the far northwest of the country, building relationships and attempting extend the Afghanistan central government rule to this rural and fiercely independent area rife with Taliban insurgents.
Steele has already attempted to walk back the remarks. Larison sees Steele's criticism of Afghanistan as a failed attempt to play politics:
Steele evidently believes that Afghanistan is now a political liability for Obama, and he wants to take advantage of this, but far from being a potential “turning point” it is just another example of how clueless and hopeless Steele is when it comes to serving in a leadership capacity for Republicans. I can hardly wait to hear how Steele’s cynical posturing is another sign of the rise of antiwar Republicanism.
Maybe the strategy is genuinely wrong. Maybe the Afghanistan commitment is not worth the costs. Maybe instituting a stable central government in Afghanistan is an over-ambitious project. Again: fine. But with the guns firing, that’s a point of view to advocate in a serious and considered way, as part of a debate over national interests, not to score political points. The debate should be aimed at finding a resolution in Afghanistan that is maximally successful for the U.S. and partners, not the way that is maximally humiliating to the president. Obama may fail in Afghanistan. But if he does, the whole country fails with him.
Charlie Cook continues to think it will be a very bad election for Democrats:
The potential is here for a result that is proportional to some of the bigger postwar midterm wave elections. These kinds of waves are often ragged; almost always some candidates who looked dead somehow survive and others who were deemed safe get sucked down in the undertow. That's the nature of these beasts. But the recent numbers confirm that trends first spotted late last summer have fully developed into at least a Category 3 or 4 hurricane.
The first weekend of the contretemps, I emailed a top DC journalist to ask him what he thought about the story. His fundamental response – and one echoed in many Washington circles – was that it might well be true but he wondered "how this gets into the MSM."
Well, it is beginning to seep into the MSM, as with this story from The Week. The comments section seems evenly divided and are worth reading. Palingates has more on the slowly creaking dam of cognitive dissonance:
You know the MSM is more interested in preserving their reputations on the far right than in seeking the truth. So it's up to the blogs of regular people to keep these people accountable. All anyone is asking for is documentation and we can all move on. All I have ever asked for is for Palin to prove I am a fool for even asking.
Chris Orr reviews Shyamalan’s latest, The Last Airbender:
A slow-motion car wreck? A chronic illness that worsens and worsens without ever quite proving terminal? A night out on the town with Lindsay Lohan?
It’s hard work coming up with a metaphor equal to the task of describing the precipitous cinematic decline of M. Night Shyamalan. The writer-director’s career over the last dozen years has been like an exercise in entropy: from the critical and commercial success of The Sixth Sense; to the underrated Unbreakable; to the bold but ill-conceived Signs; to the escalating idiocies of The Village; to the risible Lady in the Water (a failure notable enough to occasion an entire book); to The Happening, a picture so terrible that it defied conventional criticism.
Your reader stated, "if you choose to believe that homosexuality is chosen, and a sin, then a medical cure for homosexuality presents a legitimate challenge to that belief."
I grew up in a highly evangelical culture, and I can attest that your reader overstates the case that the finding of evidence for sexual orientation in-utero would conflict with evangelicals' beliefs. The hard belief that orientation is in no way biological was dropped years ago by nearly all evangelicals. That is why we have seen such a shift towards condemning homosexual "activity" or "relationships" instead of merely orientation. Proving that orientation can be predicted from the womb would merely solidify this trend, and do nothing to further acceptance. For the average evangelical, there simply would be no contradiction with believing "gay is bad" and also "gay is nature." In fact, it would be seen as God's gift to parents so that they could train their children to never ever act on their "temptations."
Another writes:
A Christian who affirms Original Sin ought not to be scandalized to learn that homosexuality may have a biological basis. That humans are compulsive sinners by nature is a core doctrine of the church and the reason why we are all in need of salvation. Indeed, the Apostle Paul chose "the flesh" as a core term in his writings about sin.
Another:
As a 23-year-old gay man raised evangelical Christian, I'd like to counter this reader.
A lot of conservative Christians have come around to the viewpoint that homosexuality may not be a simple choice. You may have been raised wrong and are trying to compensate for that – this is the current line peddled by most ex-gay groups (and, sadly, most evangelical parents with gay children). For instance, my own parents, for reasons explainable only by forced narrative and cognitive dissonance, accept this reasoning and have decided that my gayness is probably a combination of my personality and a somehow-defective upbringing, and my own subconscious response to that. But they still regard homosexuality as one of the most egregious sins known to man, just one in which those "making" the gay person bear some share of responsibility. There are lots of people who think like this, especially in the South. And although the younger generation is more accepting than their parents, quite some number of the youth have this view as well.
Another:
I just wanted to point out that their has already been some controversy within the Christian right about this. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argued that homosexuality is probably biological in its origins, and that it should be changed in utero if possible. He does think that admitting homosexuality is a choice makes it any more acceptable:
3. Given the consequences of the Fall and the effects of human sin, we should not be surprised that such a causation or link is found. After all, the human genetic structure, along with every other aspect of creation, shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God’s judgment.
4. The biblical condemnation of all homosexual behaviors would not be compromised or mitigated in the least by such a discovery. The discovery of a biological factor would not change the Bible’s moral verdict on homosexual behavior.
I hope that one day Mohler, and others like him will see that there is no sin and no harm in bisexuality and homosexuality, but I am doubtful that establishing a biological explanation will sway those who take as a given that homosexuality and bisexuality are sinful.
Palin’s poll numbers are nearly as horrible as George W. Bush’s–but only one of them launched two wars and destroyed the economy. That’s remarkable. But what’s more remarkable, in light of this, is that the idea of George W. Bush running for another term (were such a thing possible) would be greeted by gales of laughter from the political cognoscenti, while the prospect of a Palin presidential campaign is taken seriously.
Again, I sure hope Josh is right and from a purely rational perspective, he is. He knows much more about the machinery of electoral politics than I do. But has he noticed that the GOP base isn’t behaving exactly rationally lately? As the base shrinks and becomes more extreme and paranoid, the cultural and symbolic appeal of Palin is enormous. And she has an amazing talent for the performance art and hallucinatory version of reality that the tea partiers crave. She is both a religious and a secular fundamentalist, a walking slogan for the tea-partiers and a warrior princess armed with a child with Down Syndrome for the Christianists.
Romney’s unfavorables? 33 percent. Huckabee’s? 30 percent. But they have not been as exposed as Palin and her favorables are higher than either of them; she has 34 percent to Romney’s 32.5 and Huckabee’s 29. In primaries, favorables among the base are more salient than unfavorables among the broader population.
The other factor is, of course, the economy and the war. In normal times, she would be a joke. But in an era of high unemployment, growing populism, intensifying secular and religious fundamentalism, and the collapse of an adversarial mass media, all bets are off.
One issue that goes unmentioned in all of this analysis is the rapidly changing face of the fag hag. Cultural observers like Tablet’s Alana Newhouse and Salon’s Thomas Rogers have argued that while the “classic fag hags were theatrical, brassy, unconventional … the Liza Minnellis, Bette Midlers and Liz Taylors of the world,” influential shows like Sex and the City and Real Housewives have corrupted and commodified the once-sacred and singular bond between quirky women and their gay male confidantes. With the success of feminism and increasing inclusion of LGBTs in mainstream culture, women and gay men relinquished the sense of marginalization and otherness that had long united them.
The growth of the gay community to embrace both its masculine and feminine sides has also contributed to the decline, I’d suggest. I have yet to see many fag-hags at Bear week or at the gay rugby tournaments. And then there’s the real cultural catalyst behind gay culture’s accelerating diversity: the Internet. There’s less socializing in person, fewer bars and clubs, and thereby fewer opportunities for social fag-haggery. And no one wants a female friend to kibbitz with while scanning Manhunt.
(And, now, of course, I await the emails from the countless readers who do.)
The Dish 