Month: July 2010

A blog pays homage to the wonderful inaccuracies, typos and pleonasms that somehow gain more heft by being printed on paper. This one seems ripped from a Palin family out-take:

Then this ad (which seems too good to be true), but you never know:

A reader writes:

I find it impossible not to comment that everything Frum says about Israel applied to US support for, and dependence on, the Apartheid-era South African regime. Giving the US influence in the region? Check. Using South Africa's power as a proxy? Check. Intelligence-gathering partner? Check. Source of information on weapons and tactics? Check. Confirmation of the superiority of a market economy? Check. You only have to ignore that, in both countries, the benefits of that superior economy only applied to the chosen people.

The future of Israel as a democratic Jewish state depends on Israel's adoption of a fair two-state solution, soon. US policy should be to facilitate that solution, or to abandon Israel as just another of the region's religious autocracies.

A must-see local news report on Sharron Angle walking away from her own press conference:

As for why this is a news story; it's highly unusual for a candidate for major office to regularly avoid the media as Angle has done and not even take one or two questions.

Unless you are running for vice president.

Friedersdorf hits the nail on the head.

Douthat believes that American conservatives could learn a thing or two from David Cameron:

Cameron’s critics missed the forest for the trees: They took note of every centrist lunge, every compassionate-conservative gesture and every touchy-feely gimmick, while failing to recognize that the Tory leader and his brain trust were putting together a more sweeping and serious blueprint for cutting and decentralizing government than we’ve seen from any Republican politician since Newt Gingrich, and maybe Ronald Reagan.

Whether that agenda can succeed is still very much an open question. But its very existence offers an impressive example to American conservatives, and a rebuke to those on the right who see any attempt to reform and modernize the G.O.P. as a betrayal of conservative principle.

I couldn’t agree more. Check out this first-hand account of how conservative thought and policy are thriving in Britain, infused with some liberalism from their coalition partners. They have not clung to Thatcherism as the GOP has to Reaganism, because they are Tories and know that societies and problems change, and so too must policy. This strikes me as very sharp:

James Forsyth made the point that Cameron himself is not a particularly ideological thinker. He is a traditional organic Conservative. The combination of the electorate’s distaste for politicians and the financial swamp which emerged after the credit-crunch, means that his government must be a truly reformist administration. Modern Conservatives’ big and radical ideas are driven by the huge and deep-rooted problems that were left on Cameron’s desk when he arrived at No10.

No wonder he and Obama get along – although, of course, Obama is more liberal than Cameron on the economy and more authoritarian on civil liberties. Here’s the future:

New politics and new economics will have the greatest chance of success if they are born in relationships that are based on trust. One of the roles of Government needs to be in creating open trust networks where people do not need bureaucracy because there exists ethos and intimacy. Those who cynically dismiss the possibilities of this happening should look at Zopa, the person-to-person lending service, or E-bay, the on-line auction house. In a system such as E-bay a person’s trust rating is often worth more than a single financial transaction. This fact and the innate human desire to live in a fair and orderly society means that 135 million people each year give money to complete strangers for products they mostly have never seen. By tapping into the nature of trust it should be possible to significantly reduce transaction costs. 

Phillip predicts that the Coalition will deliver mass mutualism because our future relies heavily on the success of relationships in economic environments. 

They take climate change and civil liberties seriously; they are investigating torture; they are including everyone in conservative values. Can a reform Toryism save American conservatism? Or should I have stayed in Blighty?

(Photo: David Cameron and Nick Clegg by Christopher Furlong/Getty.)

Ezra Klein's attempt to pass off JournoList as just a water-cooler confab seems pretty much exploded by this latest Daily Caller piece. I mean: what is the point of putting out an email with the subject line "The Line On Palin" if there isn't an actual line? And what is this if not organizing a media narrative:

“Okay, let’s get deadly serious, folks.  Grating voice or not, ‘inexperienced’ or not, Sarah Palin’s just been introduced to the country as a brave, above-party, oil-company-bashing, pork-hating maverick ‘outsider’,” Kilgore said, “What we can do is to expose her ideology.”

What you mean "we"? Look: you know how appalled I was by the Palin pick, but on this issue, I have to side with the JournoList critics. If this was not an organized media campaign in the service of a political candidate, what would be?

London, England, 3.17 pm

This reader email makes a point I have made before but makes it in such a compelling way that it really does bring me up short. I stand by my insistence that politicians should provide any data that supports a campaign narrative, especially when the narrative is truly strange. But increasingly, I suspect that this is what actually went on, and that in many ways, it is more damning of Palin as a political leader and as a responsible parent than any outright deception:

I think you have to make a distinction between the birth story being medically implausible and the story being implausible under the assumption that the protagonist is a reasonable person. I find the story of having a leak, having slightly stronger contractions but not active labor, then being induced 16-18hrs later very plausible. What I find unbelievable is the decision making that was involved.

But this is a person who accepted the VP nomination without knowing the first thing about current affairs; a person who quit her position as a governor so she could "stand and effect change" — her relationship with reality is tenuous at best. Her cognitive processes, the way she makes decisions and the "data" on which those decisions are based, are not those of a rational person.

This is how I imagine a conversation with Palin goes:

Palin: It's a perfect day for a picnic. Let's go!

Palin-child: Mom, it's raining.

Palin: God is wondrous. Rain will make the grass grow!

P-child: Right but…

Palin: Is there anything better than a picnic on soft soft grass, also? Get the picnic basket!

P-child: I'll grab some umbrellas too…

So with her Dr, it probably went like this:

Palin: Hey doc, I think my water broke.

Dr: Are you sure it is not pee? Has the leaking stopped? Have your contractions changed in nature?

Palin: Yes, yes, and yes.

Dr.: Ok, I have a colleague who works in a wonderful hospital down there; I'll call my colleague to get everything set up.

Palin: Oh no, I'm not due for 5 weeks. Plus I have to give a speech now, and also.

Dr: Well, we can't plan these things, you can find yourself in active labor at any moment and traveling is an unnecessary risk.

Palin: I completely agree. God in his wisdom has seen it to put me in a plane that is not fully booked. Gotta go give my speech now!

Dr: But…

Given what we know, highly plausible. Now imagine such a person with a finger near the nuclear button.

I remain committed to getting as much information as we can. But I remain committed to having an open mind as well, including the bathetic likelihood that Trig is Sarah's biological child and she's both nuts, delusional and irresponsible.

"Life is continually changing us. These issues have to do with the condition of human beings, with aspiring for equality; they're things that cannot divide us, but should rather unite us. We didn't take anything away from anyone; we gave rights to those who didn't have them," – Argentina's president, Mrs. Fernández de Kirchner.

I have not been immune to feeling frustrated and depressed by the sheer power and energy of the Fox News/Drudge/Breitbart media onslaught against anything to do with Obama. As in the campaign, I've longed in my gut for the administration to lash back with as much vehemence as Fox lashes forward. I've also winced when the Obamaites have appeared totally craven in responding to the context-free narrative many on the denialist, angry right have been pushing. (But at least Vilsack apologized which makes him much more of a man than Breitbart.)

But I've learned over time to respect the canniness of this president's restraint. His gift is patience and perseverance and allowing his enemies to destroy themselves. And I suspect this Breitbart racial smear may be a moment when, once again, you see how Obama outsmarts his opponents. I mean: when you examine it, you see that a woman who actually exemplifies honesty about race and overcomes prejudice was cynically and recklessly used to create a false notion that this administration is racist toward whites, an old and disgusting canard devised by the Becks and Hannitys and Limbaughs in the tradition of Wallace and Atwater and McCarthy.

But – and here's the thing – to the credit of many on the right (and, of course, good old Shep Smith of Fox News), this episode has led to the first real rift in the lock-step of the right-wing noise machine. I know this was so egregious a smear it was indefensible. And I know, as David Frum has noted, that many conservatives tried to deflect blame onto Obama, and the media – led by the cynic Lloyd Grove – has joined the pack. But nonetheless, many on the right took Breitbart on, from NRO outward. This great injustice has, to anyone with a fair mind, deeply damaged Fox News, deeply discredited the Breitbart noise machine, and will render every new soundbite and video issued by FNC more suspect.

It was, in other words, an over-reach from hubris. And I suspect that this over-reach is not just in the rightwing media but in what's left of conservative political activism.

I do not believe, for example, that the blatant religious bigotry shown by Palin and Gingrich on the Cordoba complex near Ground Zero will wear well with Americans. George W. Bush rightly insisted in distinguishing all Muslims from the Jihadist mass murderers who claim to represent them. That distinction – a core element of basic fairness – is vital not just for domestic peace but for success in defanging Jihadist nihilism. And respecting the overwhelming majority of American Muslims who seek only to worship their God in a land dedicated to religious liberty is something, I believe, that will outlast the cheap demagoguery of the current far right that has captured the GOP.

The public may be frustrated by the lack of progress in the economy, and who can blame them? But they are still looking for solutions more than someone to blame. And most are fair enough to understand that Obama has no magic wand, that these problems are bone-deep, and that he has passed actual, substantive legislation that fulfilled clear campaign pledges in an election he won handily. Yes, they are queasy about government growth. So am I. But only government can rescue a free-market capitalist system that destroyed itself – and millions of jobs; deep recessions require short-term fiscal boosts; the health insurance reform was moderate and centrist and you have to have a heart of stone to sit back and watch so many suffer with such waste and cruelty; and there is a steadiness in Obama that no one should under-estimate. Here we have a black president presiding over 10 percent unemployment and his ratings, in a deeply polarized polity, are still above Reagan's at this juncture in a similar long-term economic crisis.

He avoided a second Great Depression. The bank bailout, however noxious, worked. GM may soon be returning a profit to the government. Health insurance reform will stick and, with careful oversight, could begin to curtail runaway healthcare costs. Financial re-regulation just passed. Two new Supreme Court Justices are in place after failed attempts at culture war demagoguery. Crime – amazingly – has not jumped with the recession. America is no longer despised abroad the way it was; torture has been ended; relations with Russia have improved immensely; Iran's regime is more diplomatically and economically isolated than in its entire history; even the Greater Israel chorus has been challenged. Moreover, if the House goes Republican this fall, it renders a second Obama term as likely as Clinton's became (how many Independents would want to hand over the government to Palin and the current GOP in Congress?). On the economy, the employment outlook remains bleak  – but not desperate if you look at the long run:

The Fed expects the economy to grow this year by 3 to 3.5 percent, picking up only slightly, to 3.5 to 4.5 percent, in 2011 and 2012. The unemployment rate is projected to drop to 7 to 7.5 percent by the end of 2012 — still far higher than the 5 to 5.3 percent that the Fed now considers to be full employment.

After the scale of the recession, this could be a lot worse. The whole pattern really does remind me of Reagan. And against this, what do the Republicans have to offer? They want to slash long-term spending, but Obama will have the initiative on this after the elections with his debt commission. Will they really obstruct debt reduction because any reasonable deal will need to increase revenues? Do they really want another war, this time with Iran? Are they really going to run on more commitment to Afghanistan? How much will they propose in slashing Medicare and social security? Do they have anything substantive to propose on ending our addiction to carbon energy?

I think the GOP has already doomed itself. I may be wrong and may be misreading an ornery public and the power of Palin-style demagoguery. But I think they have committed the same error in Obama's time in office as they did when he was running. They have mistaken tactics for strategy.

Meep, meep.

(Photo: US President Barack Obama pauses while speaking before signing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC, July 21, 2010. By Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.)