Author: Andrew Sullivan

by Dave Weigel

Ed Barnes has the lede of the day, if only by accident: 

The chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party called Thursday for a massive, eleventh-hour investigation into allegations of illegal voting by felons in the state's bitterly contested 2008 Senate election.

OK, somebody help me with this. "Eleventh-hour" means, basically, in the final stages of something. The shot clock is ticking down. The egg timer is about to ring. The video is almost done buffering. And so on. So how do you do an eleventh-hour investigation into something that happened 20 months ago? This is a yoga backbend by a reporter who needs to pretend that the the story he's writing makes sense. I mean, here's Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.)'s comment on a conservative group's report — which everyone admits is flawed and undoubtedly includes false positives.

Referring to Minnesota Majority, which conducted the voting study, Pawlenty said: “They seem to have found credible evidence that many felons who are not supposed to be voting actually voted in the Franken-Coleman election. I suspect they favored Al Franken. I don’t know that, but if that turned out to be true, they may have flipped the election.”

They "may have," says the governor who watched a three-stage legal process unfold over eight months and signed the Democratic winner's certificate of election. Come on, this is hackery unbecoming of a potential president of the United States. You don't let an ideological group play games with the rule of law, no matter how much you dislike the fact that the Duluth Answer Man is now a U.S. senator.

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

I hope the couple who are struggling with their sex life after using the NuVa ring have gotten off of hormone-based birth control altogether. Many women experience a nosedive in desire when they are on that stuff. The real way hormonal forms of birth control work (for many) is by making the woman not want to have sex. Some reading on this.

Another writes:

I almost fell out of my chair when I saw the note from the fellow whose wife has pain with intercourse. This is for him or can be posted as a public service announcement. Or neither.

I’m going to guess that his wife has vulvar vestiblitis. I, unfortunately, know a lot about this condition because I was born with it. It can absolutely mess with your head, especially when you discuss with doctors (as I did) and they suggest it’s mental and suggest psychotherapy. At my worst, I thought I was frigid and should let my husband go.

How is this woman trying to recover, I wonder? I hope she’s not just waiting it out and going it alone. Once I got a name for my condition (eleven years after I realized I had a problem), I went on a mission: I researched my guts out, found a doctor who specializes in vulvar pain, read "The V Book" by Elizabeth Stewart, and charted my symptoms. I also found an immensely helpful online support group.

For what it’s worth, I discovered that the pill killed my libido and made everything worse and that my symptoms peaked when my estrogen levels dipped. Use of Estrace, a topical estrogen cream, got me about 80% cured. I’m now at closer to 90% thanks to, of all things, childbirth.

Others have found success with Neurontin, certain types of anti-depressants (for physical, not mental reasons), testosterone cream, biofeedback, capsaicin cream, and others. There's even surgery as a
treatment of last resort.

Maybe this couple are doing/have done all of these things. But in case they haven’t, they should know that there is treatment and information out there, and that physical problems of this nature can lead to mental ones. It's a vicious cycle of misery.

Finally, sympathy goes a long, long way. It would be most helpful if while the wife seeks treatment, the husband takes intercourse off the menu and focuses on other ways of pleasing and being pleased. “Sex” means more than a single act. My gut instinct is that forgoing monogamy is not the solution to this couple's situation: it sounds like what they need is a good doctor and a good couples’ therapist to unpack years of damage.

I know this isn't what the thread is about. But whenever I sense that a secret and shameful medical condition is causing such misery, I start making PSAs.

by Dave Weigel

The heart-achingly moronic "spat" between Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney tells us how. The rundown, if you can stand it:

THURSDAY: Anonymous aides to Mitt Romney tell Mark Halperin that Palin is "not a serious human being" and will be in trouble in a debate where the "answers are more than 15 seconds long."

FRIDAY, 6:47 a.m.: Politico's Andy Barr publishes comments from "a longtime Palin aide," who gets eight paragraphs to unload on Romney and pump up his/her boss: "She’s not a finger-in-the-wind kind of leader."

FRIDAY, 10-something a.m.: Romney's Twitter account (written by him? written by someone else?) friendly-fires on the first aides as "anonymous numbskulls."

How many people were directly quoted in this spat? None, unless you count the Romney Twitter account. Andy Bar hustled in getting those quotes from Mysterious Palin Aide of the Deep, but his talent is wasted when he plays kid who whispers the gossip about the popular kids to the less popular kids. It's stuff like this that informs my dark, dark suspicion that 2012 will be more about nonsense than policy, and that people who think Palin needs to bone up on policy don't get this.

by Patrick Appel

The first reader quoted in this post e-mails again:

I agree that it would be better if the bureaucracy had some incentive to save money, and being allowed to keep saved money, to use for some other need in another year, is vastly better than flushing money near the end of the budget year. When I was in my Master of Public Administration program a few years ago, I learned about how the city of San Diego had taken that approach, and it does work. Whether it works in a time when budgets are tight and people are looking for money that would otherwise be available but isn't due to tax receipts being lower than expected  (this is at the state level, not national, where Congress can just borrow money) remains to be seen.
 
Also, consider your suggestions in the context we all live in.

Many members of Congress, which appropriates money, also argue that the bureaucrats are ruining the country and blame them for problems that Congress creates. Those bureaucrats are there to administer the laws that are passed. Seldom does anyone in Congress or at the state level ever ask 1) does this proposal make sense, 2) is there a better way to do it, and 3) do we still need to do this at all. Instead, decisions about what is funded and to what extent is based more on what the lobbyists and other special interests say they need, with little thought given to how the bureaucracy has to manage the outcome.
 
Finally, do you really think that the Congress would be willing to cede its authority to appropriate funds to a bunch of people they generally refer to as losers? Ronald Reagan did some good things for this country, but using the bureaucracy as a foil and perpetuating the notion that all bureaucrats are lazy and wasteful doesn't make for an environment where they would ask those same people to be part of the solution, I think.

by Chris Bodenner

TNC rounds up examples of ugly and often racist rhetoric from the right since Obama took office:

Perhaps you could argue that some of these instances aren't about race. Certainly, you could note that many of them are about race plus several other factors. But even granting those points as caveats, what you have is disturbing pattern among the GOP that sometimes floats up to the top. Black writers working in the mainstream, and even at liberal publications, are in a constant dialogue with white audiences. It is utterly useless, and to some extend brand-damaging, to repeatedly call on conservatives to repudiate racism in their midst. What many of us chose to do instead is to try to extend some sympathy, and get into the head of the offending party, in hopes of building a bridge.

I think, for those who are skeptical of the NAACP, something of a turn-about is in order. If you were black what would you think, faced with this pattern? If you were the NAACP what would you to say to this? The downside of the Obama approach, one that I still embrace, is that it tacitly supports Chait's notion that conservative opposition to Obama has "generally lacked much in the way of racial animus." I just don't think the facts bear that conclusion out–at all.

Ta-Nehisi also tackles Weigel's latest on the Tea Party backlash. John McWhorter – an even stronger NAACP critic than TNC in the past – sides with the group in this case as well. The more I read about the controversy and see how leaders in the TPM are making an ass of themselves, the more I side with my colleague and McWhorter.

by Patrick Appel

Chris Blattman flags a new paper:

Among young women, who experienced the greatest decline in HIV prevalence, the most important component was delaying sexual debut, accounting for 57 percent of the drop in HIV prevalence. Condom use by high risk males and to a lesser extent death (of older males) also played a significant role, accounting for 30 and 16 percent respectively. However, for older women, the trend is reversed, with death being more important than abstinence or condom usage.

by Patrick Appel

Howard Gleckman joins the retirement age debate:

While it is tough for older workers to find employment in today’s soft economy, we are talking about Social Security changes that won’t take effect for decades. By then, younger people will make up a much smaller share of the workforce, and there may be far more jobs available for seniors. In addition, older workers are likely to be healthier and better educated even as work continues to be less physically demanding. Still, Monique is right that there will be many 60-somethings who can’t work. And we are obliged to help them out. But the solution should be to reform the Social Security disability program for those who need it, not to allow everyone else to retire early.

by Patrick Appel

Timothy Lee makes some smart points in response to Julian Sanchez:

I agree with Julian’s take on this: political alliances are built by concrete actions toward shared goals, not by abstract statements of philosophical agreement. But I think his point can be made stronger with some specific examples.

In 2005, I was a founding employee of the Show-Me Institute, a “free market” think tank. What we meant by “free market” is that the organization devoted itself exclusively to those issues where conservatives and libertarians agreed. We wrote about taxes, school choice, property rights, health care policy, and so forth. We had an explicit policy that we didn’t do work on “social issues,” which in practice meant any issue where libertarians sided with liberals. So we avoided writing about immigration, gay rights, free speech, abortion, drug prohibition, prayer in schools, the death penalty, and the like.

And the Show-Me Institute is hardly unique. There’s a nationwide network of think tanks called the State Policy Network, with member organizations in almost every state, that are built on this same premise. 

He later gets into why there is no liberal-libertarian equivalent.

by Dave Weigel

Mark Halperin writes the 153,893th paean to Sarah Palin's "Mama Grizzlies" video (if an alien civilization just began observing Earth, it would think she invented YouTube) in a manner calculated to irritate liberals.

A new TIME poll shows Palin losing to Obama 55% to 34%, a lopsided margin that leads some Republican strategists to predict a wipeout if Palin is eventually chosen as the party's nominee. But that might not matter… Her candidacy would require almost none of the usual time sinks that force politicians to jump in early: power-broker schmoozing, schedule-intensive fundraising, competitive recruitment of experienced strategists, careful policy development. She would have immediate access to cash, with even small Internet donations likely bringing in millions.

You read that if you're a liberal who cannot stand this woman (but clicks on every article about her), you wonder what the hell Halperin is talking about. Really, even conservatives think it's a problem that a Palin 2012 bid would not include "careful policy development." How long have they been saying she's in a unique position to talk about energy and offshore drilling? How many unlettered appearances have we seen from her now, discussing that topic?

But Halperin is right about Palin in the media that's going to actually cover the 2012 election. This media is not going to care about her policies. If policies come up during debates, and she gives the same answers she gives on Fox now, and Mitt Romney pounces on her, the story will not be that the GOP's frontrunner gave a pallid answer. The story will be that Mitt Romney pounced. What does this do to his image? What does Mike Huckabee have to say about it?

And so on. It's hard to imagine Palin competing at the policy level the press claims she needs to get to, but easy to imagine her competing at the level they actually play on. Quick, cast your mind back to the countless 2007/2008 Democratic debates. Do you remember Hillary's mastery of policy? No. You remember her fumbling an answer on drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants, you remember Obama telling her she was "likable enough," and perhaps you remember Dennis Kucinich talking about aliens.

After 18 months in the spotlight with journalists treating her every tweet like fire from Olympus. Palin has to know how this works. Which is why Halperin is right.