Month: August 2012

by Chris Bodenner

A reader uses the Ryan pick to evaluate the big picture:

The foundation of a masterful Obama long game to address the budget conflict has probably been laid over the past several months.  It would be the resolution to the conflict that was fought to a stalemate in 2010/11 between the White House and congressional Republicans, but it really has roots going back 30 years.

In broad strokes, the issue is that Americans want more government than they are willing to pay for, but they have been shielded from this truth over the years for the sake of political expediency.  A well-maintained playing field with equitable rules that offers the promise of success for those who can achieve it and the reassurance that those that stumble won't be left to die in the street.  Our basic, tacit, social contract.  Even at our current heights of anti-government furor, calls to cut these government functions – which account for the overwhelming majority of the federal budget – are deeply unpopular.

The only thing as unpopular as reducing those benefits is paying taxes to fund them.  So over the past several decades the Republicans have skillfully played this dynamic to their favor with a simple formula: Advocate tax cuts at all times, make noise about wasteful spending and cut small items with limited appeal (or appeal only to the unpowerful), and never touch (and in fact add to) spending on popular big-ticket items like defense and entitlements.  Oh and, of course, obscure all this with constant, distracting, engagement in the culture wars. The fruits of this strategy, unsurprisingly, are record low taxes, increasing spending, and exploding debt.

The solution is as simple as it is unpopular: raise more tax revenue and reduce spending.  That is what Simpson-Bowles propose, that is what the Obama-Boehner "Grand Bargain" would have done, and remarkably it is what the public at large prefers when directly polled – a "balanced" solution.

Simpson-Bowles is reverently regarded by high-information voters as a serious piece of work and it surely is, but denouncing Obama for not embracing it willfully ignores the political realities of the time.  It was not approved by its own committee because of liberal squeamishness about entitlement reform and en bloc opposition by Ryan and Republicans to one cent in increased revenue.  On the floor of the House it mustered 38 votes. What about our experiences in Congress since 2010 suggest that President Obama embracing this plan would encourage Republicans to do the same?

The GOP establishment is, for the most part, still trying to play from its standard playbook which is to sell tax cuts, keep talk of spending cuts vague, and count on voters to assume none of the cuts would really affect them, just the "undeserving."  Even when confronted with specific GOP policy proposals many voters simply dismiss out of hand that a politician would actually do any of that.

That's the formula Romney has used to this point and compared to the specific, painful, realities of a Simpson-Bowles style plan it would win hands-down.  You rail on taxes and regulations and demagogue the benefit cuts in your opponent's plan.  Then you keep the tax cuts, soft pedal the spending reductions, throw the difference on the deficit, and start picking drapes for the Lincoln bedroom. In fact, the only way you win running on increasing taxes and reforming entitlements is to run it head to head as a choice between your plan and a much more noxious option.

Enter Paul Ryan.

I don't think Chicago ever thought they would be so lucky as to run against the man himself, but they've been trying to hang his toxic budget around the GOP nominee's neck all cycle.  That's because Ryan and his acolytes are true believers of a radical small government philosophy.  While the GOP establishment knows that tax cuts and deficit spending are what win elections, Ryan thinks he can sell people on huge reductions in services in exchange for tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy.  The polling suggests he is very wrong.

The Obama campaign's principle strategy to this point has been to prevent a referendum election on the state of the economy and turn it into a choice between a balanced, conservative, approach that maintains the basic structure of federal spending and a more radical GOP plan to restructure our social contract to accommodate their tax preferences.

Rather than try to avoid or obfuscate this choice, Romney chose to turn into the fire.  It is a gutsy call that deserves respect in the nanosecond before he categorically denies neither he nor Paul meant or even said any of the things they have ever said. 

But now is the time for Obama to show courage as well.  He has avoided the referendum election, he has made it a choice election, and it's a debate over starkly different policies that polling suggests he could win handily. If he is the President so many of us believe we elected, now is the time he proves it by laying out a competing vision – dare I dream of short-term stimulus, rehiring state workers, and recovery followed by long-term deficit reduction in the mold of Simpson-Bowles?  He then heads into his second term with a clear electoral mandate to break our current stalemate and cement his first term achievements before they are smothered in the crib.

Now that would be worthy of a meep meep, no?

Tony Nicklinson reacts as a statement is read regarding the decision made by High Court judges not to allow him to ask a doctor to end his life on August 16, 2012 in Melksham, England. Nicklinson, who suffers from locked-in syndrome as the result of a stroke, has lost his High Court battle for the legal right to end his life when he chooses. By Matt Cardy/Getty Images.

– C.B.

by Gwynn Guilford

… comes 50 Cent's late mother, whom he discusses with Perez Hilton:

"My mom was a lesbian. Yeah, she liked women. My whole childhood was like that," Fiddy admitted. "It's two different things too – from a female perspective, when you see two females together, you think, oh, they're just girlfriends, they're close. But, with my mom, the male was missing," he went on to explain.

In other gay hip-hop news, Syd Tha Kyd of Odd Future – the same group Frank Ocean belongs to – briefly touched on being out recently:

To be honest, for the longest I never said I was gay, and that’s the funniest part…. And I did that for a reason, just to keep everything open-minded and not close any doors for myself, you know? I feel like, you know, I’m not ignorant.

by Patrick Appel

America is still #1. The Economist breaks it down by state:

Matt Steinglass suspects America isn't "going to do anything, as a matter of public health policy, that has any appreciable effect on obesity rates in the next couple of decades":

America's national governing ideology is based almost entirely on the assertion of negative rights, with a few exceptions for positive rights and public goods such as universal elementary education, national defence and highways. But it's become increasingly clear over the past decade that the country simply doesn't have the political vocabulary that would allow it to institute effective national programmes to improve eating and exercise habits or culture. A country that can't think of a vision of public life beyond freedom of individual choice, including the individual choice to watch TV and eat a Big Mac, is not going to be able to craft public policies that encourage people to exercise and eat right. We're the fattest country on earth because that's what our political philosophy leads to. We ought to incorporate that into the way we see ourselves; it's certainly the way other countries see us.

by Chas Danner

Several readers are echoing this one:

I love it anytime sports makes its way on to The Dish, but come on. You mention Ryan Braun as a PED user in your post and you never mention that his positive test was thrown out on appeal. I realize Braun not necessarily being guilty hurts the premise of your piece a bit, but leaving that out of the post is bush league. 

Point taken. I should have included more context on Braun, or at least linked to one of the many articles that looked at the larger story of his test (which showed synthetic testosterone in his urine). Braun did indeed win his appeal [NYT] and faced no consequences from his positive test. However, my take at the time, after reading a great deal about the case, was that the decision was hardly an exoneration – more like he and his lawyers won on a technicality. And while Braun has consistently maintained his innocence, he didn't dispute the test results; he disputed the way in which his urine sample was handled afterwards. The appeal process itself was internal and hardly transparent, and both the process and the decision were controversial. This NYT column does a good job of explaining what happened and the various problems that came up.

To my knowledge, Braun has never publicly explained how synthetic testosterone ended up in his urine, and no evidence was ever found that his sample had been tampered with.

He won his appeal, but he still tested positive in the first place, and regardless of whether he faced any consequences from the league he still counts as an example of why the sport needs better testing procedures, more severe punishment, and much greater accountability from players and the league. Also, regarding the response of other players to Braun winning his appeal, Buster Olney wrote on that back in March (paywalled):

[Players I've spoken with] are furious that a player who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs won by challenging the administration of his test rather than contesting the presence of synthetic testosterone in the urine. (Although we haven't seen the official written decision from the arbitrator.)

I'm guessing I've had 30 to 40 conversations with different folks around the sport, a small sample for sure. But a decade ago you might have found three or four players among those 40 who criticized a fellow player. Rather, the vast majority would've recited the strong words from their union meetings about their privacy rights, about the pitfalls of testing, about how any suggestion of drug testing by the owners was really designed to undermine their livelihood. But if this recent straw poll of players is a proper reflection of the union as a whole, there has been a dramatic shift of thought among the brethren. I'm guessing 80 to 90 percent of the players I spoke with expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of last week's case, in varying degrees. Some agents and executives say they've drawn the same responses in their conversations with players.

Another reader takes Olney to task:

Thanks for sharing Buster Olney's latest reactionary moralizing about PEDs with your readers. He is one of many writers who selectively equate certain drugs with "cheating". While technically Cabrera was stupid for violating an existing policy, he is only guilty of cheating with an unpopular drug. If a player injures his pitching arm, he can get Tommy John surgery to replace a damaged ligament. If his eyesight is not perfect, he can get lasik. If he is sore, they give him a cortisone shot. None of this is considered cheating. Neither were the decades of amphetamine use. Taking a banned substance is wrong, but it is not even close to gambling on baseball. Not even in the same ball park.

On a more positive note, another reader puts the focus back on yesterday's perfect game:

I am from the Seattle area, and on a team that has had something like 90 losses 3 out of the last 4 years, Felix Hernandez is our shining star, our treasure. To top off his on the field talents, he appears to be a genuinely likeable and amiable guy. A couple of years back he had the chance to go into free agency and have a team like the Yankees or Red Sox swell his bank account rightfully, for his merits. Instead he chose to extend his contract with the lowly Mariners for less money and stick around for a while. Having been with the Mariner's organization since he was 16, we've all watched him work his way through the ranks. He is one of ours, and I don't think any city has swelled more with pride, and thankfulness, than Seattle did yesterday watching Felix pitch perfection. My office exploded when he struck out the final batter, I wasn't even aware what was going on. It was the most sports excitement we've had around here since the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl.

One more reader:

"Baseball's Bipolar Day" – I see that Mr. Sullivan is still off the grid.

Brethren, Michigan, 10 am

by Gwynn Guilford and Patrick Appel

Hyperventilating about Gen X's retirement outlook, Kirsten Powers writes "maybe [Ryan's brand of] radical is what they want." Larison isn't having it:

Almost everything we know about Millennial political attitudes tells us that Paul Ryan is not the sort of politician most of them are inclined to support. Their political experience would also tend to bias them against a Bush-era Republican such as Ryan. As Pew reports, those who came of age during the Bush-Obama years are much more likely to vote Democratic than the electorate as a whole. Overall, Millennials self-identify as conservative less than any other generation, and they self-identify as liberal more than any other. In addition to cultural and demographic changes that make Millennials less likely to vote Republican, their main experience with Republican governance was George W. Bush’s administration, which has understandably alienated them on several fronts.

Ryan's youth won't neccessarily win him the youth vote, notes Scott Conroy:

[F]or the time being, there is scant polling data on the effect of Ryan's selection on younger voters, and experts on youth voting patterns warn that superficial impressions of a candidate often fade quickly. A candidate's age, in and of itself, has not been shown as a reliable indicator of how younger voters cast their ballots in past elections.

by Chris Bodenner

In case you need another big fix of gymnastics before 2016:

(Hat tip: Devour)

by Chas Danner and Patrick Appel

Ashley Fetters rounds up a number of sports that have a case for being added to the Games. Among them are the martial arts of wushu and karate:

A lack of global appeal certainly won't be an obstacle for either discipline in getting to the Olympics. Karate is practiced by more than 100 million athletes in 180 countries, while wushu, known in some circles as kung fu, is most famous for being the preferred fighting style of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and, of course, Kung Fu Panda. Additionally, competitive wushu, according to a 2008 report by China Daily, has metamorphosed over the years into "a graceful art similar to gymnastic floor exercises"—gymnastic floor exercises with "full-contact sparring," "punching maneuvers," and "flashy Chinese sabers," that is. In other words, concerns over TV appeal sit squarely between slim and none.

Both martial arts would be relatively cheap additions to the Olympic program; competitions can be held in the same arenas as gymnastics and other martial arts events. Its global following could mean an opportunity for smaller nations to medal. And if Tokyo is chosen over Istanbul and Madrid to host the 2020 Games, karate may enjoy a special home-country advantage at the selection stage.

Along the same lines, some former Olympic sports are worth reviving. Who wouldn't want to see an international game of Tug-of-War?

by Gwynn Guilford

PRI's The World profiles David J. Peterson, whose invented language, Dothraki – from Game of Thrones - may become the world's most elaborate made-up language:

Klingon has since taken on a life of its own, with a small but dedicated group of speakers who have added hundreds of words and phrases to its vocabulary. Na’vi is a more sophisticated language, with a wealth of grammatical rules…. But because Dothraki was invented for a television series that could run for many seasons, it may end up having the widest vocabulary of any Hollywood language so far.

For the Andalish-only folks out there, here are some pointers:

"If you want to greet some respectfully, you say Mathchumararoon," Peterson said. And then there are insults. Everyone, including TV producers, wants to know how say them. In Dothraki, the word ifak means a "walker." “The Dothraki are a horse riding people,” Peterson said. “They respect people who ride horses. So, if someone is a walker they are not worthy of attention.”

A more detailed glossary here. In other Game of Thrones news, author George R.R. Martin takes a break from the sixth book to rail against voter suppression and overall lack of Republican conscience. His view on the current crop of GOPers:

There were once many Republicans I admired, even I disagreed with them: men like Everett Dirksen, Clifford Case, Henry Cabot Lodge, William Scranton… yes, even Barry Goldwater, conservative as he is. I do not believe for a moment that Goldwater would have approved of this, any more than Robert A. Heinlein would have. They were conservatives, but they were not bigots, nor racists, nor corrupt. The Vote Suppressors have far more in common with Lester Maddox, George Wallace, John Stennis, and their ilk than they do with their distinguished GOP forebears.

Sounds like he doesn't support the Stannis facsimile for the Iron Throne.