Month: November 2012

A reader writes:

You twice refer to some of Fox News’ policies as “Stalinist.”  Stalin had between five and ten million people murdered.  Roger Ailes and Greta van Susteren, as far as a know, have had no people at all murdered.  I know you were not referring to the political or social policies of Stalin when you referred to Fox’s policies as “Stalinist,” but the analogy to Stalin’s informational policies is grossly exaggerated as well.  Fox is not suppressing anything – it is a news organization, not a government.  There is a principle followed by many good journalists that any comparison of a person or organization to Hitler or the Holocaust must have something to do with Hitler or the Holocaust, and not be thrown about lightly for purposes of derogation.  The same principle ought to apply to the invocation of Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, Sadaam Hussein, etc.  If someone compared me to Stalin, I would be reluctant to put them on my show too.

I understand. My first point was simply to illuminate a media blacklist by a propaganda outlet to prevent a real discussion of the issues so that one party’s line remains unchallenged, except by Potemkin caricatures of the dumb left. My second point was that this has hurt conservatism as a political tradition. I should have left Stalin out of it – but the phrase is pretty commonly used as a now-exhausted metaphor to refer to airbrushing people out of various movements. And I should do better than exhausted metaphors. Another writes:

Andrew, make no mistake: at the end of the day, Fox ignores you not because of the power of your argument, but because you can be a very unpleasant asshole when challenged by those with whom you disagree.  If I recall correctly, Hugh Hewitt devoted a full hour of his radio show to allow you to discuss your book back in 2006, and you spent much of the time calling him names (“pathetic pedant”) and attacking him personally.  After the interview, you vowed you would never go on his show again, and created that stupid “Hewitt Award” raspberry.  Very mature.

Now, Hugh is obviously secure (and gracious) enough that he would most certainly bring you back if you ever agreed. But is it really that hard to comprehend that everyone from Roger Ailes to the cast of “Fox and Friends” are not? Some people, shockingly, just don’t take well to being called unhinged, mentally ill, war-criminal enabling, racist, “Christianist” Stalinist, torture-enabling fundamentalists on a daily basis. Ponder upon what you have written about Fox and its regular guests for the last few years, and then ask yourself why anyone over there would be inclined to invite you on to use their network as a platform to promote your books or your blog. 

Make no mistake: Fox’s distaste for you (like many in the conservative blogosphere and elsewhere) is personal. The blurring of your name on that Newsweek cover was not some Stalinist attempt at censorship.  They were, after all, discussing your article!  No, it was a raised middle-finger aimed squarely in your direction.  And it obviously got to you, so kudos to the editor who made that call.  The fact that you think it is some veiled attempt at censorship illustrates your vanity, not your significance.

My memory of the Hewitt interview is not that of my reader’s. I was hauled in for cross-examination by a propagandist. And I gave back as good as I got. It was riveting radio. The transcript is here. To give a flavor of the inquisition-style radio, here’s an extract from the beginning:

HH: Are you a Christian?

AS: What kind of question is that?

HH: Well, you write a lot about your faith in here, and I would just…

AS: Well then, obviously I am.

HH: Well, I don’t know. I was going to ask. Do you think you are?

AS: Well, if you’ve read the book, you’ll surely know.

HH: Okay. Let me ask you this…

AS: Are you a Christian?

HH: Do you believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead?

AS: Yes.

You think I was being an asshole? Yes, I refused to accept the terms of the interview – and it prompted a very lively discussion. And that liveliness kind of proves my point. It was great radio and a real discussion of the core issues would make great TV. Why would a media operation not want that? The answer is: Because they put propaganda before journalism. MSNBC is just as bad. But Fox is the best at it. That’s why I regularly link to and engage lots of right-wing blowhards and take them on. It makes for an interesting debate! And openly attacking is a different form of discourse than trying to ostracize and marginalize (which is Fox’s and AIPAC’s mojo). My feelings are not hurt by brutal attacks on my arguments. Why would a grown-up like Roger Ailes be so sensitive? Would I ever think of blurring his name? Why on earth would I? Why would anyone – unless they live in a petty, binary world in which they think they can actually control a country’s discourse. As we just found out, Fox doesn’t. But they could – if they allowed actual debate on their shows. But when that breaks out, as Tom Ricks discovered, the interview is over.

One minor point. I don’t really want to go on Fox, although it would be great to have a real argument with O’Reilly or Hannity and tell the truth like Tom Ricks did. All I’m pointing out is how central to the collapse of conservatism Fox News has been. Between Ailes and Rove, the destruction of the conservative brand for anyone under 60 years’ old is almost complete. Because it was intellectually suffocated by propaganda.

Michael Stafford is hopeful:

Now, as the GOP regroups from its electoral debacle, public criticisms of conservative dogmas have expanded beyond a small circle of dissidents. Prominent conservatives are saying heretical things that would have gotten them tarred, feathered, and banished a few months ago. The long night of strict doctrinal conformity – a period when dissidents were condemned for the slightest deviations in the equivalent of media show trials, purged, and then airbrushed out of old CPAC convention pictures- shows signs of ending. The high priests of the conservative infotainment industry are both discredited and politically vulnerable. Their agenda has been exposed as a bankrupt fraud – a Potemkin village, a path to nowhere.

But he also cautions:

The window of opportunity for reform could shut quickly. The Conservative Spring might be followed, swiftly, by dour Brezhnevian repression, and another round of purity purges. Authoritarian elites, after all, have a nasty habit of regrouping and reasserting control. And it is unclear whether reform ideas can be effectively communicated to a base that believes in movement conservative inerrancy, is cut off from other information sources, disdains intellectuals, is dangerously misinformed, and is accustomed to the confrontational, schoolyard bully-style of talk radio.

Until the GOP accepts its cultural and intellectual dead-end, it will not endure for long as a national party. They’ve lost three generations of voters – those who came of age under Clinton (and liked him), those who came of age under Bush-Cheney and are still nauseated by the memory, and those who have come of age in the Obama era. I propose two places to start: a commitment to developing conservative ideas for environmental protection and a volte-face on gays. That was one way the Tories climbed back to electability in Britain. But David Cameron didn’t have a fundamentalist religious movement and a far right media-industrial complex to overcome. And it took the Tories three consecutive losses to get real.

In Britain, the all-male culture of college sports is not quite the mass religion it is in the US, but it sure is a force that has historically been hostile to homosexuals in their midst. But here we have the new order: a Warwick University rowing club doing a naked calendar and video to benefit straight rugby player Ben Cohen's campaign against anti-gay fear and bullying. I simply cannot begin to imagine such a thng happening when I was a student at Oxford. Not only have these straight dudes totally copped to their own sexiness – once a taboo among jocks – they have channeled it into protecting gays – and legitimizing gay people by their support.

Know hope.

How Ezra Klein understands Obama’s initial fiscal cliff proposal:

Republicans are frustrated at the new Obama they’re facing: The Obama who refuses to negotiate with himself. That’s what you’re really seeing in this “proposal.” Previously, Obama’s pattern had been to offer plans that roughly tracked where he thought the compromise should end up. The White House’s belief was that by being solicitous in their policy proposals, they would win goodwill on the other side, and even if they didn’t, the media would side with them, realizing they’d sought compromise and been rebuffed. They don’t believe that anymore.

Tomasky’s related thoughts:

If the White House had instead yesterday offered a modest set of specific entitlement cuts and domestic spending cuts, that would have started the negotiations on GOP turf, since those are the two things the GOP wants. This of course is exactly what Obama used to do: As in last year’s debt negotiations, he started by offering the Republicans half a loaf, and the compromise ended up at 75 or 80 percent of the GOP loaf, and Obama looked weak and his voters were terribly dispirited. it took months for him and them to recover. He seems to have learned the lesson that that didn’t work so well.

But he just got re-elected. It’s a classic time for magnanimity – and yet he began the critical negotiations by poking the defeated GOP in the eye. This is not the new politics. It’s the old partisanship. I hope it works. I fear it won’t.

Bill recently spoke with Marc Maximov about the subject of species extinction:

I think that the standard scientific assessment, at least for the last seven or eight years, is someplace between 40 and 70 percent of species would go extinct in a rapid warming scenario like the one we’re entering. As I recall, that was the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] account of a three-and-a-half-degree rise in temperature. … 

A certain amount of climate change is clearly already baked in, and some of the effects are brutal. You know, this summer we saw the catastrophic melt of the Arctic. We’ve broken one of the world’s biggest physical features. But if we do what we need to do now to get off coal and gas and oil, then we can limit the damage. There’s still the possibility of keeping the rise of the planet’s temperature below two degrees, which is the line that governments have drawn as the red line. But that would take an all-out, focused, wartime-footing kind of effort, and most of all it would take ending the political power of the fossil fuel industry that’s forever delayed change.

Bill’s previous videos are here, here, here, here and here. Read some of his Sandy-related coverage featured on the Dish here, here and here. McKibben’s campaign against the fossil fuel industry, Do The Math, is catching fire across the country.

Mike Riggs reports on cities that have resisted marijuana decriminalization:

While voters in Colorado, Washington, and Massachusetts celebrate the reform of those states' marijuana laws, residents in two Michigan cities are learning that marijuana ballot initiatives are only as effective as the government wants them to be. In Flint and Detroit, popular ballot measures decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of pot have been rendered toothless by resistant city governments.

He goes on:

Respecting the will of voters wouldn't put Flint or Detroit in uncharted territory. Ann Arbor, home of the top-ranked University of Michigan, decriminalized marijuana in the early 70s (it has yet to descend into anarchy). Michigan voters approved medical marijuana (or "marihuana") in 2008. The refusal of Flint and Detroit governments to respect voters is especially mystifying considering that a third Michigan city not only passed a decriminalization ballot measure, but is hard at work implementing it. According to Grand Rapids officials, the new marijuana ordinance, which reduces marijuana possession from a misdemeanor to a civil infraction, goes into effect Dec. 6.

Republicans are unhappy with Obama’s fiscal cliff opening proposal. Last night, Krauthammer urged Republicans to hold strong:

Along the same lines, Keith Hennessey argues that the president is bluffing:

If there is no bill, the U.S. economy will probably dip into recession for much/most/all of 2013, and it’s impossible to predict whether such a recession would be short-lived. A 2013 recession would be terrible for the country and terrible for the Obama Presidency. It would limit the President’s options across his entire policy agenda, economic and non-economic.

Limbaugh piles on:

I think if you want to call Obama’s bluff — if that’s what you really believe, if there are people who think that Obama will not go where he wants to go unless he has Republican fingerprints — then don’t give him any. If you believe the Republicans truly have leverage, then use it. And the way you use it is making sure that as far as Obama’s concerned, he doesn’t have any assistance in taking this country over the cliff, that that’s all him. That’s my only point here. And let’s find out. Let’s find out real fast.

Chait sees the situation differently:

Since immediately after his election, Obama has been calling on Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts on income under $250,000. If they fail to do so before January, Republicans will be in the position of denying popular tax cuts for all Americans — remember, rich people also get the benefit of having the first $250,000 of their income taxed at lower rates — because they insist on adding unpopular tax cuts only for the very rich. At least some Republicans understand that this isn’t a gun aimed at Obama’s head. It’s a gun aimed at their own.

I think this opening ballsy gambit is over-reach, and risky for Obama. He makes himself look far too soft on spending cuts, for too gimmicky with his defense cut claims, and positioning himself as the head of his party rather than the leader of the country. This is what Obama seems to have learned in his first term: don’t negotiate with yourself. But he may have over-reached and end up negotiating with no one in a second recession.

That’s my fear.

Public health professor Michael Siegel explains the why the FDA and seven national anti-smoking groups lost their case for the banning of e-cigarettes:

The FDA failed in its efforts because the courts ruled that its jurisdiction over these products falls under the Tobacco Act, not the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (in the absence of therapeutic or drug claims made by electronic cigarette companies). The anti-smoking organizations failed in their efforts because the state legislatures which considered bans on electronic cigarettes were swayed by an outpouring of protest from vapers who testified that they would most likely return to cigarette smoking if these devices were taken off the market.

Dr. Gilbert Ross points out that global bans on e-cigarettes are widespread:

Lethally addictive cigarettes remain available on every street corner in Brussels and Atlanta while authorities denounce e-cigarettes (the product is already banned in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). And while, as of today, e-cigarettes remain available in the European Union, a new Tobacco Products Directive is expected this year to call for a ban on e-cigarettes (while tightening the existing proscription on the nearly harmless type of Swedish smokeless, snus). Such measures would leave addicted smokers with few reliable means of quitting.

He adds:

An important fact, rarely discussed by “public health” gurus, is that the patches, gums, and drugs they recommend as “safe and effective” are all-too-often neither. Among the 46 million smokers in the United States, well over half say they want to quit, and more than one-third attempt to do so each year — but less than one-tenth succeed. Despite those sorry statistics, those in charge at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization, and the European Union health commission argue for sticking with currently approved cessation methods.

Earlier Dish on e-cigs here.

Geoffrey O'Brien reviews Lincoln, claiming that it "manages to instill an authentic wonderment" about Lincoln while also being attuned to the gritty details of 19th century politics:

Politics, for the most part, has been something that happens off-screen, either too tedious or too depressingly cynical for its mechanisms to be exposed in their full particulars; presidents are more likely to be shown in moments of public grandeur than in scenes of backroom horse-trading. Perhaps it is the era of cable news, with its permanent theater of politics, that has made it possible to engage more vigorously with the kind of historical detail in which Lincoln revels. An audience that has endured the protracted dramas surrounding the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the raising of the debt ceiling, and followed the statistics of political polling as if it were a new national pastime, is certainly ready to contemplate the overt and covert tactics involved in the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Earlier Dish commentary on the film here and here.

Brendan Nyhan thinks that expanded fact-checking during the 2012 campaign made a difference. He hopes the progress will continue:

The criteria for success … should not be the addition of more specialized factcheckers or the production of more factchecking articles and TV segments. Dedicated factcheckers like PolitiFact and Factcheck.org play a critical role, but we will know that factchecking has succeeded in changing American political journalism when it disappears as a specialized function. The process of factchecking needs to be integrated into political coverage, not ghettoized in sidebars and online features. If more reporters adopt best practices for covering misinformation (including exercising discretion in not fact-checking some statements), politicians and other public figures could face even more effective scrutiny in 2013 and beyond.