Month: September 2012

As the Obama administration brings its second WTO case against China since July – to which China immediately responded with its own – Mark Landler notes that Obama has progressively stepped up his aggression on trade matters:

Once in office, Mr. Obama became frustrated by what he views as China’s refusal to play by the rules, according to current and former officials. In the fall of 2009, he imposed a tariff on China over its dumping of tires into the American market. This was by far the most conspicuous of a stream of trade actions; before this year, most of the cases were fairly obscure, covering goods like flat-rolled steel and chicken broilers.

Alan Beattie cheers the suits, arguing that if both cases win, the barriers to each other's markets will be even further reduced. However, the latest WTO case comes in the wake of anti-China ads that both campaigns rolled out in the last few days to attack each other's stances. And the Chinese government took notice:

The official Chinese news agency, in an English-language commentary, attacked the GOP presidential nominee for his proposal to label China a currency manipulator. "If these mud-slinging tactics were to become U.S. government policies, a trade war would be very likely to break out between the world’s top two economies, which would be catastrophic enough to both sides and the already groaning global economy," Xinhua’s Liu Chang writes. "For generations, China-bashing has been a cancer in U.S. electoral politics, seriously plaguing the relations between the two countries."

Meanwhile, Krzysztof Pelc explains why the administration's WTO case against China's auto industry could backfire. Terry Miller makes the case that protectionism is not just counterproductive – it's destructive to jobs created by plugging into a global supply chain:

[If] the priority is to create jobs, then an obsessive focus on exports is entirely misplaced. A just-released study by The Heritage Foundation identifies more than half a million jobs—good-paying jobs in the United States—supported by imports of toys and apparel from just one country: China.

A reader writes:

James Fallows wrote an article about the "throwing like a girl" issue back in the '90s, and it came to a very different conclusion than the pieces you cited. In Fallows' analysis, a great deal of the difference is practice and competition. He updated the piece last year for a discussion of The Freak's throwing motion (not sure if you follow Giants baseball, but Tim Lincecum is a slip of a man who achieves a blistering fastball through an extraordinary chaining of potential energy through his body).

Another offers a more creative theory:

The most persuasive and thorough scholarly analysis of the phenomenon of "throwing like a girl" comes from Iris Young, who argues (contra Maurice Merleau-Ponty's embodied phenomenology) that the limited arm motion that results in "throwing like a girl" is the result of internalized cultural imperatives that women hold their limbs protectively close to their bodies, as a way to prevent rape and other forms of gendered violence.  Women and girls throw the ball in a particular way for the same reasons they sit with their legs closed, walk with a limited arm movement, and carry things close to their bodies – because full extension of limbs opens the body, rendering it physically vulnerable.  

Put another way, "throwing like a boy" is part of male privilege of being able to possess a body and move it in space without fearing that is boundaries will be breached.  And "throwing like a girl" is an embodied manifestation of the psychological and practical effects of pervasive male violence against women.   Which is why the phenomenon of "throwing like a girl" is present across a broad spectrum of geographic and historical locations.  Wherever there is male-domination and/or pervasive violence against women, you will find "throwing like a girl."

For theory geeks, Young was critiquing Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, which posits that the human body is the starting point of selfhood, that perception is always measured against biological centeredness and the simultaneous physical limits of the body mediated by its ability to extend itself into the world (by throwing a ball, for example).  Young's point is that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology assumes universal subjectivity, ignoring the fact that women experienced themselves simultaneously as subjects (able to extend themselves by throwing a ball) and objects (often of male violence, which causes them to hold their limbs close to their bodies to protect themselves).

Another is more practical:

What the "practice and competition" explanation ignores is the effect of height. Height is an advantage in throwing. Men 6’3” and over represent 3.5% of the population but 50% of major league baseball pitchers. The average male height in the US is between 5'9" and 5'10". On the list of the 100 pitchers with the most all-time wins there is only one who is less than 5’10, Eddie Cicotte standing 5'9" with 208 wins. He’s 98th on the list. The leader, Cy Young, had 517 wins and stood 6’2".

No amount of practice and competition makes you grow to be 6’2”.

Today on the Dish, Andrew framed the election as a Tory against a Randian. And as commentators hailed Ponnuru's takedown of the 47 percent attack line from last year, Andrew saw hope for the GOP's return to sanity. He also pointed to the debates as Romney's chance for recovery, parried a reader's dissent on the context of Romney's remarks, and assessed the Obama camp's first online ad regarding the scandal. (Full ad war update here.) Scores of bloggers contextualized the remarks and assessed the damage. As Bob Shrum wondered what Romney had left, conservatives applauded the "Real Romney" and John Tucker argued the race wasn't over. Derek Thompson observed the popularity of the 47% talking point, Jim Tankersley questioned its appeal to independents and Rich Lowry knocked Romney's lack of policy substance.

As another shoe dropped from the taped fundraiser, Andrew reiterated that Romney would be an extension of the Likud party. Chait called out Romney on pandering to conservative Jewish donors, Ackerman parsed Romney's Mideast policy, and the GOP base got the campaign it wanted. Meanwhile, Krugman broke down tax-paying by age, Blake Zeff outlined why candidates go off-script for donors and Rob Delaney likened Romney's fragmented talking point to alcoholism. Ta-Nehisi hailed the end of whiteness, the 47 percent video kicked around for months before breaking yesterday and Dorothy Rabinowitz earned a Dick Morris nod. The @MexicanMitt meme emerged and we highlighted some notable quotes here and here.

In other electoral developments, Weigel tallied up how Dems might hold the Senate, Nate Silver noted that swing states remain close, Virginia's hue grew bluer, and Super PAC execs pocketed mammoth salaries. Meanwhile, Chris Geidner looked forward to SCOTUS gay marriage cases, readers set the record straight on Bush apologies, while another identified Obama as a night owl. Jesus may have married and John Hodgman revealed the funniest person in the world. VFYW here, FOTD here, MHB here, and reflections on the view from a Mankato, Minnesota window here.

– G.G.

(Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

One sentence by Michael Barbaro:

A flustered [Romney] adviser, describing the mood, said that the campaign was turning into a vulgar, unprintable phrase.

Clusterfuck-fuckety-fuck-fuck-fuck. But God knows what highs and lows are in store.

TNC has, as usual, a perspective few express so well, and which informed my earlier post. Money quote:

You can paint a similar history of the welfare state, which was first secured by assuring racist white Democrats that the pariah of black America would be cut out of it. When such machinations became untenable, the strategy became to claim the welfare state mainly benefited blacks. And as that has become untenable, the strategy has become to target the welfare state itself, with no obvious mention of color. At each interval the ostensible pariah grows, until one in two Americans are members of the pariah class.

In all this you can see the insidious and lovely foresight of integration which, at its root, posits an end to whiteness as any kind of organizing political force. I would not say we are there. But when the party of white populism finds itself writing off half the country, we are really close.

In addition to the web ad we highlighted earlier that first uses the fundraiser footage, Team Obama puts out a clever graphic:

The Obama campaign indicates they are still considering how to use the fundraiser clips in actual advertising, while pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA is already gung-ho. But the campaign did come out with a new TV ad targeting women; it follows yesterday's baby-deficit-daughter ad from the Romney campaign and focuses on the potential negative effects of the Romney/Ryan tax plans. The ad will air in six states (size of the buy unknown):

In outside spending news, Rove's assorted groups announced a new $10 million ad buy, with $8.3 million hitting Obama via Super PAC American Crossroads, while dark money group Crossroads GPS is dropping $2.3 million to take on down-ticket Democrats (four Senate races, one House race). Here is the small business-focused ad American Crossroads is using against Obama in eight states:

Meanwhile, a new WaPo/ABC poll looked at opinions regarding outside spending on the presidential race, with 75% "very concerned" about the amount of spending from corporations, unions, and the wealthy. They also note how conservatives don't seem to understand that the majority of the outside spending is supporting Romney:

Lastly, Todd Akin's campaign hopes that disaffected Missouri women have eight minutes to kill watching a series of women declare their continued support for the candidate in this web video.

Ad War archive here.

Munich inhabitants, one with piercings and face tattoos, the other dressed in traditional Bavarian Lederhosen trousers, cheer with beer steins three days ahead of Oktoberfest opening at Hofbraeuhaus beer garden on September 18, 2012 in Muenchen, Germany. The three-week long Oktoberfest beer festival, which attracts around 1 million foreign tourists, begins on September 22. By Johannes Simon/Getty Images.

Gallup's bounce has faded for Obama. Ditto in the poll of polls. RCP still gives him a 3 point national lead. And David Rothschild sees Obama with his highest odds of winning since hr race began. The newest big media likely voter poll – NBC/WSJ – gives him a 5 point lead. None of this reflects the latest news. But look: on Gallup, Obama has got the parasite 47 percent, just as Romney predicted.

It's looking more and more likely. Weigel passes along the above chart from electoral-vote.com:

[O]nly in the last week have the numbers on U.S. Senate races suggested that the Democrats — who have more seats in play, and more open seats to defend — are winning. Dark colors indicate that one party is winning; a light color line indicates that there's a lead, but it's close. Today's map has Democrats holding at least 52 seats when the election's over.

Silver's analysis:

[T]he odds of a favorable overall outcome for Democrats have increased in recent weeks. The forecast model now gives them a 70 percent chance of controlling the chamber, either by having at least 50 seats and the presidency, or 51 without it.