Month: December 2010

One expects government officials to do this; but journalists?

Josh Gerstein says that DADT could make it to the Senate floor tonight. NJ says that could doom it. Collins is looking shaky:

Collins has said she supports repeal, but won’t agree to vote for cloture on the Defense Authorization Bill containing repeal if Harry Reid doesn’t allow ample time for open debate and amendments on the bill.

In private discussions between Collins and Reid this morning, and between their staffs over the weekend, Collins has demanded that Reid allow what’s known as “unlimited debate” on the bill in order for her to vote for repeal, the aide close to the talks says.

Reid has rejected this demand, the aide continues. The problem is that this could allow any Senator to hijack the proceedings by introducing a “non-germane amendment,” thus holding the floor.

Drum is disheartened:

If this is really what’s happening, it’s a pretty sobering reminder of the power of the Republican right wing. Collins is sincerely in favor of repealing DADT, she’s not up for reelection until 2014, and she represents a moderate state. But obviously something has scared the hell out of her. She knows unlimited debate isn’t practical, and she knows that repealing DADT in the next session of Congress is all but impossible. So she’s killing this for years.

 Joe Sudbay has a list of Senators on the fence on DADT that you can call. Mark Pryor is now on board. There is a clear majority in the Senate on this, support from the Pentagon, overwhelming backing from the public … and then the fucking filibuster.

Noam Scheiber explains the reasoning behind the White House's doubling down on a post-partisan, good-government, tackle-the-tough-issues approach to the next two years. I have to say I find the rationale persuasive. And in some ways, it comes down to this: the GOP House has finally given Obama the space to be the president he always wanted to be.

(Photo: Obama campaigning for Patrick last October, by Saul Loeb/Getty.)

In the wake of the proposed tax cut deal, Nate Silver wonders how Obama's base will react:

[J]ust because liberals are disappointed with Mr. Obama does not necessarily mean they will fail to turn out and vote for him when the only other choice is a Republican. In some ways, it probably helps Mr. Obama that the country has become so polarized and that liberals view Republicans as such an unacceptable alternative, and vice versa. The prospect of a President Palin or a President Gingrich would surely motivate most liberals to vote — and even comparatively moderate Republican candidates like Mitt Romney will be under pressure to show their conservative stripes during the Republican primaries and are likely to campaign on policies, like a repeal of the health care bill, that liberals overwhelmingly object to.

Clive is very sharp in analyzing yesterday's presser. Obama both defended the deal to Democrats as the best he could do, given the extremism of his opponents, and vowed to press on with as much of the Democrats' priorities as possible … and gave a more broad-based response to why he was determined to bridge both parties, to be a president of compromise and leadership beyond the partisan fray:

People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position–and no victories for the American people… This is a big diverse country. Not everybody agrees with us. I know that shocks people. Now the New York Times editorial page does not permeate across all of America … neither does the Wall Street Journal editorial page … And that means … in order to get stuff done, you have to compromise. … This country was founded on compromise … If we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn't have a union.

Clive thinks Obama has to choose between these two stools. Yes, that would be more coherent, and I'd prefer the latter Obama. But I'm just a blogger and Clive is just a columnist. We can describe ideal types – but we don't have to bring a political coalition along with us. Obama hs no such luxury. He also has to rally his own party, by arguing that his pragmatism and centrism in the end advances liberal goals. My sense is that, just like Reagan, his entire record will be viewed soon through the prism of restored economic growth. Just like Reagan, he has now goosed the economy to bolster his re-election chances; which in turn shifts the debate to his own party's advantage.

If he can grab the debt question by the horns in his State of the Union – and reframe it, a la Bowles-Simpson, through tax reform and simplification – he will re-emerge as a formidable force.

In this polarized country, even food is now political. Richmond Ramsey reflects on how the culture war is affecting eating habits in the South:

I’ve seen emerging back home a growing sense that food intake is not something that can be held up for moral analysis and judgment. Those who attempt to do so are typically seen as liberal snobs trying to impose their own preferences.

There’s no doubt that liberal foodies can be horrible snobs, and excruciatingly moralistic (to shop at the organic co-op in my uber-liberal neighborhood is to rub shoulders with people every bit as prissy and intolerant as the Church Lady). But at some point, it’s downright absurd for conservatives to ignore that food choices have moral implications. For me, going to my home county is an occasion for culinary culture shock, because middle-class people there simply do not have the same outlook on eating – especially for their children – as middle-class people do in my liberal city. Put plainly, people eat whatever they want, and lots of it, without giving it a second thought. More to my point here, they see the idea that one ought to care about such things as a sign of effete, high-handed liberalism.

It comes as news to my churchgoing conservative friends here in Coastal Liberal Land that making sure your kids limit sugary snacks and junk food is something only liberals care about. None of us are what you’d call foodies, and none of us go to the gym. It’s just understood that living responsibly, especially in a culture that celebrates the abolition of limits, requires a great deal of vigilance, especially when it comes to child-raising. That’s why though fasting is not really a part of American religious life today, there is still among my conservative friends real moral awareness of a religious duty to live a self-disciplined life, and to avoid the sin of gluttony. Why is the South – the most culturally conservative part of the country, in most respects, especially in Christian piety – so thoughtlessly permissive about eating?

But they are also in fact permissive about many things, while merely claiming piety: pre-marital sex, divorce, abortion, adultery, pornography, illegitimacy, gun crime, etc. The Christianism is as much a neurotic response to the collapse of measured restraint as it is an attempt to address it. 

Just do the math:

Of [the deal's] estimated $900 billion-plus cost over two years, roughly $120 billion covers the high-end tax cuts and the estate tax cut, $450 billion covers Mr. Obama’s wish list and $360 billion covers the tax cut extensions both parties favored.

The core reason to be angry at this deal is fury that the richest will keep their tax rates. I agree that, given the need for revenue, this is irresponsible. But, unlike some liberals, I'd prefer no income tax rises at all for anyone, and tackling the debt through ending tax breaks, reforming the code, and cutting entitlements and defense. I'd be open to a consumption tax if necessary (and I'm sure some revenue increase is necessary). But the core fact of the post-election deal is the following: Obama gave the GOP their symbol while grabbing a huge amount of substance – substance that Democrats should like and substance that will likely help him win re-election.

Helsinki, Finland, 11.30 am

Joyner sees the logic of Obama’s press conference yesterday:

[M]aking enemies of the extremists on both sides is a win.   It makes it easy for Obama to dodge the “socialist” and “most liberal ever” labels.  And it both belies the Republicans’ newfound zeal for fiscal responsibility and makes it harder to keep the Tea Party zealots on the reservation.

Does McConnell realize he just struck a huge blow at the FNC/Talk Radio demonization of Obama as an alien? Suddenly, this president is a deal-maker with Republicans. His ability to deal with conservatives was long a feather in his cap. Finally, he has the chance to prove it – and disprove the conspiracy theories, and crazy fabrications on the responsibility-free right. Win-win-win – if only the Dems could see it.

Adam Serwer notes what’s at stake when Senator Dianne Feinstein calls for Julian Assange to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917:

If WikiLeaks is prosecuted under the Espionage Act as it currently exists, then no journalistic institution or entity is safe. The idea that anytime that a journalist obtains a document that has “information related to the national defense” that could be used “to the injury of the United States” they could be subject to prosecution would destroy national-security journalism as it currently exists. Also frightening is the reality that government officials looking to skew public debates one way or another regularly leak information to the press, so the government would really only be prosecuting people for publishing leaked information they didn’t want leaked.

I think there’s this idea that because the New York Times and the Washington Post are treasured journalistic institutions the government wouldn’t dare engage in the kind of coercion it has leveled so effectively against Assange, and that even if he were prosecuted under an archaic unconstitutional law like the Espionage Act, he’s a scary foreigner and there’s no way that Americans would be treated the same way. But it really wasn’t that long ago that Republicans like Bill Kristol and Rep. Peter King were talking about the NYT in the same kind of language they’re using to describe Assange.