Month: January 2011

by Conor Friedersdorf

In theory, it shouldn't be difficult. I'm a fiscal hawk with libertarian instincts on domestic policy. I am skeptical of President Obama's signature legislative achievement. And the Obama Administration's record on civil liberties vexes me – the executive branch thinks its unchallengable say so is sufficient to assasinate Americans, even if it requires waging drone war sans Congressional authorization in neutral countries. Yes, I know. It's the unhinged opposition to our president that causes some of you to look past these flaws. I'm as appalled as anyone by the absurd, paranoid accusations made by Dinesh D'Souza and Andy McCarthy. I've demonstrated the holes in their thinking as forcefully as anyone. But it isn't a mark in a leader's favor when he or she is attacked unfairly.

George W. Bush wasn't like Hitler. Barack Obama isn't a Kenyan anti-colonialist who has allied himself with radical Islamists. Can we put Visqueen sheeting down, accept that the kids are going to hurl food at one another in the den, and disappear into the dining room for a frank conversation among adults? Our last two presidents are unlike one another in most ways. It so happens that what they have in common is tremendously consequential. Both presidents needlessly undermined civil liberties, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in the course of fighting the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. Had President Obama merely lived up to his own pre-election rhetoric on civil liberties, I'd be here arguing for his second term. As it is, I'm very much hoping for a change of leadership.

So why haven't I pledged my support to his eventual opponent? The way I see it, my vote is the GOP's to lose, and they may well do it, because several contenders for the nomination would be even worse than President Obama. Put simply, I won't vote for any Republican who thinks that our current leadership is excessively solicitous of civil liberties in the war on terror, or whose main foreign policy critique is that our leaders are insufficiently bellicose. It isn't much to say that the current administration hasn't tortured anyone, or launched any unwinnable foreign wars, but one couldn't say it about its predecessor.

Let's hope that America doesn't suffer a terrorist attack between 2012 and 2016. But level with yourself. It's a possibility. It isn't unthinkable for it to be worse than 9/11. How will the man or woman in the White House respond? That's one question I'll be asking myself as I evaluate the candidates in the next election. In such a scenario, do I trust Barack Obama to avoid overreacting in a way that hurts America? To refrain from using an attack as a pretext to seize greater power for the executive branch? Or to launch an ill-advised war?

I trust him more than Bush/Cheney or McCain/Palin. I trust him less than Bush/Quayle or Clinton/Gore. These are judgment calls made with imperfect information. This isn't the only question for me in the next election. But it's a big one. Given all its rhetoric about safeguarding liberty and the Constitution, you'd think the right could manage a candidate with whom I'd feel comfortable on these grounds. But the conservative movement doesn't seem interested in what concerns me.

I honestly don't know how it'll turn out.

by Patrick Appel

Beinart says that Obama won't touch gun control in the SOTU:

Unlike crime, which was a constant presence, continually reminding Americans of the absurdity of allowing dangerous people to buy high-tech weapons, episodes like the one in Tucson produce a temporary spike in support for gun control, which quickly recedes. According to a CNN-Gallup poll, 28 percent of Americans said the Giffords shooting made them more likely to support gun control. But according to Pew, there were similar spikes after Columbine and Virginia Tech, and they had no lasting effect.

(Photo: Gallup)

by Conor Friedersdorf

– At Big Peace, Ben Barrack lays out the Truther case that the Bush Administration was in on the 9/11 attacks – after explaining why conspiracy theorists believe that GWB was complicit, he explains that the real conspiracy that day involved Muslims infiltrating the United States in large part thanks to Grover Norquist.

– At Big Hollywood, we're informed that failing to defend Rush Limbaugh when he is accused of racism is analogous to appeasing Nazis:

The politically correct chickens are coming home to roost in the Orwellian world of the organized left’s free-expression-stifling speech codes. To paraphrase Martin Niemöller’s famous admonition about complacency with totalitarian fascists:  “First they came for Rush Limbaugh and called his satire racist, and I didn’t speak out because Rush Limbaugh is a conservative.  Then they came for Dr. Laura and called her commentary racist, and I didn’t speak out because Dr. Laura is a conservative…”

All this by way of reporting that high school students will be allowed to use the n-word in a school play despite their superintendent's objections.

– Over at Big Government, James M. Simpson explains that a "globalist totalitarian dictatorship" is "invading a town near you." And with what weapon will these tyrants make you subservient to their  regime?

To promote their socialist nightmare, Marxists must use deceptive language and tactics. In “Sustainable Development” they have found a magic mantra. It has allowed them to insinuate all their socialist fantasies into our legal code, under our noses, with little or no fanfare, scant public debate and graveyard noises from our treacherously AWOL mass media, right down to the local level – with our permission.

So beware the forces of sustainable development.

I've merely linked, excerpted and fairly summarized three posts at three different Breitbart sites. If he reads this post, and concludes that it's a net negative for his pubishing empire, he might consider why that is so.

 by Zoe Pollock

Blake Hounshell parses the Al Jazeera leaks, which hinted at major Palestinian concessions offered to Israel:

If [the Guardian's] speculation is right, the leakers intended to embarrass their former bosses. Mission accomplished.

So what now? Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been ruling outside the law for some time now; there doesn't seem to be a legal means for his opponents to oust him. That means Palestinians who oppose the PA are going to need to take to the streets to voice their disapproval, Tunisia style.

And what of the two-state solution? It was probably already dead, and these documents will only reinforce the point. But I imagine the "peace process" will limp along, one way or another, until it becomes impossible to defend anymore.

Meanwhile Hounshell is keeping a close eye on Egypt, where "the Egyptian street got a taste of its power today."

 

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

I'm getting fed up with the Douthats of this world and the entire Republican party's attempts to blame the insidious Palin presence on the liberals coverage of her. (I'm an Independent by the way.) Its strictly Rove 101: Accuse the other side of doing what your yourself are guilty of.

For if he accuses the other side of "pandering to the millions of Americans for whom she’s become a hate figure, and who are always eager to be confirmed in that hatred." he might spare us the smug and keep in mind this little fact: She is there because the Republicans pandered to millions of Americans in inflicting this hateful figure on the country and were always eager to have her confirmed as a serious political figure by thrusting her into America's face every chance they had.

Now they own her. Because she's not going away. Which is what is at the root of this. She's become embarrassing, and she threatens to embarrass them still further. They want her ignored and they want to blame the other side for not ignoring her. Which is something they should not do. Because charlatans like Palin do their best work in the shadows. In speaking engagement with no press coverage. In giving dog whistles from a toy studio broadcast over a fake news channel. In ghost written missives from behind the curtain of Facebook. And every time she did it the Republicans were more than happy to use her interference in our discourse and even in our national policy. But now they want her to go away. They don't want to people to watch her.

Well I want her watched like a hawk. I want every silly, sordid moment that is the career and persona of Palin covered. I don't want to miss a thing.

She's here because the Republicans put her here. And kept her here. So let's look at her. Let's look very closely.

by Conor Friedersdorf

A guest post at James Fallows' blog explains how they're preventing the release of historical documents pertaining to RFK's time as attorney general.

Varanasi, India, 2 pm

by Zoe Pollock

Cord Jefferson has some, with "'Nigger Day' In a Country Town," originally published in the New York Times on November 30, 1874:

If America's relationship with its black population is a plane crash—James Baldwin theorized in a 1966 essay that "the Negro-in-America is increasingly the central problem in American life"—"Nigger Day" should be considered a sort of black box, a reminder of how calculated and insidious the variety of attention paid to American blacks was, even as this post-slavery segregation was about to be codified into the Jim Crow laws that would blanket the South.

I love this article for many reasons—not least because I love history!—but primarily because, in a few simple, condescending paragraphs, it highlights pretty much every single problem that will burden American race relations 137 years into the future, as if the author were some snooty Nostradamus.

by Patrick Appel

An alternative to Obama's SOTU address.

by Conor Friedersdorf

I've never seen a political ad quite like that. And I wonder how the average voter will react. Is it so slick and movie-trailer like that it'll turn people off as they recognize that most of its power is drawn from mood manipulation? (If the Pawlenty Administration goes to war it'll be set to the best musical score ever!)

Or will its surface-level appeal work?