Month: September 2011

A flavor of the GOP base from a new poll:

Among Republicans/Republican leaners, 74.7% feel the term “socialist” describes President Obama very well or well.

Among Republicans/Republican leaners, almost 30% believe President Obama is a Muslim. Among Republicans/Republican leaners, 36% continue to believe the president was either probably, or definitely, born in another country.

Even though a long-form birth certificate for the president was produced between the Winthrop April 2011 Poll and now—showing he was born in Hawaii—just 5.2% fewer respondents now believe Obama was born outside the country than those back in April (36% now vs. 41.2 % in April).

More interesting to me is how even among this nutjob electorate, Perry is only slightly edging Romney, 30.5 to 27.3 percent.

Well, here we go. It seems appropriate to introduce this new video feature by using it:

And first up: My thoughts on Joe McGinniss's new book, "The Rogue" – and its mixed reception, especially in Washington:

Gotta question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com

Meh.

Ailes gets a glowing write up from Howie Kurtz. But this does not strike me as a mellowing:

The talk turns to terrorism. Ailes is angry about an Associated Press report that 29 worshipers were killed by a suicide bomber in Baghdad’s largest Sunni mosque during prayers. “How do we know they were worshiping?” he demands. “I think the AP is so far over the hill, they’ve become left wing, antiwar. Gotta watch their copy.”

Take a few steps out. Ailes seems to believe that an assumption that Muslims in a Mosque were at prayer is a function of "left-liberalism" not empirical fact. Why? Because, persumably, the sacrilegious carnage would reflect badly on the aftermath of the Iraq war and occupation – showing that we had achieved almost nothing after so much sacrifice. This is wrong because it would be "anti-war," and therefore "left wing". Not because it's untrue. Then there's this gaffe:

Ailes has a blunt rejoinder to those who say he runs a biased outfit: “Every other network has given all their shows to liberals. We are the balance.”

That was Chris Wallace's position. Essentially, it means that because Ailes thinks the other networks are biased to the left, his is biased to the right. That's fair enough and pretty clear from the words both have used. But say that and they will surreally deny it with straight faces once again. Then this:

Ailes keeps a wary eye on anchor Shepard Smith, who occasionally backs aspects of the Obama record: “Every once in a while Shep Smith gets out there where the buses don’t run and we have a friendly talk.”

If you want to understand why Fox News is now and has long been a propaganda, not a news, outlet, here's a tiny little sliver of truth behind all of it. If facts and propaganda collide, propaganda always wins. If a journalist pursues news without such an agenda, well, he or she gets "a friendly talk."

"In prison, every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay," - Shane Bauer, one of the two American hikers released last week after 781 days of detention in Iranian prison.

Yglesias says yes:

Mitt Romney has serious liabilities in a GOP primary on paper that Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry didn’t have. But in primary elections, gaffes and poor debate performances matter a lot. There are many more “swing voters” in a primary since the candidates are ideologically similar and voters/donors/etc. don’t have tribal allegiances that create high floors for the candidates.

Steve Benen traces it back to Perry's time in Texas. Bernstein isn't ruling Perry out yet:

It's basically between him and a guy who a whole lot of people in the party don't trust on core Republican issues, and Perry has still survived a decade in office with surprisingly little baggage that will bring veto attempts from key GOP actors. There are some things that would make them look twice, whether it's immigration or immunization or property rights (which I assume we'll hear about soon), but really: are any people who care passionately about abortion in the GOP going to choose Romney over Perry? Nope.

I've had the same wonderful cleaning lady for almost two decades now, and her English, alas, does not seem to have advanced much in that time. But when you add the accent to the Vonage computer transcript which we get for our home phone, some da-da gold emerges. From Saturday:

"Hello Mr. Don Lewis, this is Ahmed you set out doing stuff but basically I don't said to come in tomorrow. I said they'll call in 3:00 because so he might feeling no good mice. So Molly Smith. She birthday and get the van's birthday. Nobody cool. I come in tomorrow please. Thank you. Bye. Yeah maybe cutting a little bye you leave me $40 I I I thought it would be tomorrow. Bye."

As if liberated by the knowledge that they will never compromise on anything in the next fourteen months, Obama is beginning to call the far right bluff:

"I mean has anybody been watching the debates lately? You've got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. It's true. You've got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don't have healthcare. And booing a service member in Iraq because they're gay."

I suspect one reason that some former Obama supporters have drifted away is because for the last eighteen months, the far right has dominated the terms of debate in this country without any strong pushback. You knew this had gone completely over the top when mere assertions that we have to have higher revenues from the wealthy to tackle the debt – a mathematical certainty without throwing out much of the Great Society and some of the New Deal – were dubbed "class warfare".

At some point, reality has to assert itself. As does a president who needs to win back the confidence of his supporters.

(Photo: US President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign fundraiser on September 25, 2011 at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Washington. By Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Patient K.C. can’t remember anything that happened more than a few minutes ago. His worldview:

Tellingly, not only can he not recall the past, he can’t envision the future. When researchers ask him to picture himself somewhere he might go, he says that all he sees is “a big blankness.” … The bottom line is that memory is essential to constructing scenarios for ourselves in the future. Anecdotal evidence backs this up. Our ability to project forward and to recollect the past both develop around age 5, and people who are good at remembering also report having vivid thoughts about the future.

James Joyner sees his acquiescence to the crazies as perhaps the best strategy to neutralize them:

It would be a failure of leadership to pander to these people’s worst instincts. At the same time, it would be counterproductive to challenge them directly and forcefully, since it would just be met with defensiveness and cognitive dissonance. (See: Huntsman, Jon.) The middle approach of emphasizing common cultural touchstones while nibbling on the edges of the areas of disagreement has a chance of success.

I take the point. But the zeal of the base makes tinkering with their prejudices and fears extremely dangerous in government. When a party becomes its own echo-chamber, when it denies basic realities such as climate change, or the collapse in government revenue, or legitimate Arab grievances, or the suffering of the uninsured, or the existence of gay soldiers worth cheering not booing … there's usually only one true re-education process: electoral defeat.