Category: Keepers

It seems so so long ago, when Barack Obama decided to throw his highly improbable hat into the ring of the 2008 election cycle. But back then, before we knew how deeply Wall Street would cripple the global economy with its recklessness, the primary issue that dominated politics and that made his victory possible was the Iraq war – and to a lesser extent, the Afghanistan war. He pledged to end one and win the other. By any secure metric, he has done both.

I remain staggered by this achievement and doubted it from the get-go. I assumed that we could not get out of Iraq without a civil war breaking out and harassing our departing troops. I feared that Obama's Afghanistan surge was a dreadful error that would make ending the war impossible. But like so many aspects of this administration, what hasn't happened is as salient as what has. Iraq is in permanent crisis and our departure has left a country riven by sectarianism and violence and a burgeoning Shiite authoritarianism. But the ungrateful volcano didn't explode before we got out; and if you regard the surge as a face-saving withdrawal plan, rather than as some kind of "victory", then it worked.

And yesterday, I get a text from one of my friends, a former Special Ops guy who was one of the first to learn how to ride a horse, grow a beard and disappear into the mountains of Afghanistan in 2001. It read:

Are we leaving afghanistan. No way we are that is awesome.

The facts have persuaded me that this war needs to come to an end. But the most persuasive arguments I have heard have come from my friends who have served there. Every single one described "nation-building" there to be about as insane as, well, a 51st state on the moon. All of them wanted to find and kill the men who attacked the US a decade ago – and go home. Since Obama took office, they have been granted their wish: almost all the al Qaeda leadership dead, and bin Laden's bones being picked dry by fishes. But Les Gelb notes how smartly the administration has handled the policy and the politics:

The White House had begun to shape this decision almost two months ago, with National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Vice President Joe Biden, and Defense Secretary Panetta doing the pushing. Key administration officials said these senior leaders had become convinced that U.S. interests in Afghanistan were no longer vital, and that more American deaths and billions in costs were no longer worthwhile. But they hadn’t figured out the details or the politics until about two weeks ago.

Specifically, they wouldn’t speed up withdrawals until after the U.S. election, but they would hasten the end of the American combat role. They still have additional big decisions to work out with generals on the ground: what use to make of U.S. airpower in support of Afghan forces and to forestall concentrations of Taliban troops; whether to continue special-forces attacks, etc. Also, and very importantly, they still need to figure out how fast to bring home the remaining 68,000 troops after the U.S. election.

In running for re-election, Obama will be able to say he delivered on four core objectives: restoring economic growth in one year after inheriting the worst recession since the 1930s; ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; delivering universal healthcare; and saving the now buoyant American auto sector. And Romney wants to run against Obama's record. Go for it, Mitt.

(Photo: Attenders of a welcome ceremony for the 170th U.S. Army Infantry Brigade upon the troops' return from Afghanistan salute at U.S. Army Garrison Baumholder on January 28, 2012 in Baumholder, Germany. The 170th Infantry Brigade, which is based at Baumholder, is one of four Army brigades stationed in Europe. U.S. military officials announced recently that two brigades will likely be withdrawn in the near future as part of a broader cost-cutting effort, and analysts have cited the 170th as a likely candidate. By Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images)

Even though recent polls show a majority or near-majority for decriminalizing one of America’s biggest cash crops, the possibility of actual federal legislative action seems as remote as it was ten years ago. Will Oremus has an interesting piece on why this should be so – generational, cultural, and political. It’s mainly cowardice, of course. The cowardice comes from not wanting to disturb the sacred status of American hypocrisy. The truth is: most Americans have no real problem with pot-smoking; they just don’t want public approval of it. The way to achieve this, of course, is to legalize it and try to stigmatize it. But that wouldn’t be hypocritical enough. To get to true American levels of hypocrisy – you know: how Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich are fighters for family values, but Barack Obama isn’t – you have to keep it illegal, and use the laws to arrest, harrass and penalize black and brown youngsters – while mainly allowing the American middle and upper classes to cannabinate in peace.

And prohibition is real and under the micro-managing mayor of New York City, has soared in recent years, even as public attitudes have softened remarkably. Under the Bloomberg police state, the following has happened:

The year-end [2011] arrest total was 50,684, up 0.6 percent from 2010, the study found, constituting more arrests than in the entire 19-year period 1978 to 1996 combined. Marijuana possession was once again the largest arrest category in the city last year, and the arrests cost the city about $75 million, said Harry G. Levine, the sociologist who did the analysis.

Read that again: last year, more people were arrested for pot possession in NYC than in the roughly two decades before 1996. As public acceptance grows, government prohibition intensifies. This is the direct opposite of what a police force that actually represents the people should be doing.

Nowhere is this truer than in Washington DC, where the medical marijuana law has been hobbled and crippled by terrified DC pols and cops, who fear some far-right Republican will try and clobber any progress because of DC’s neo-colonial status in the US. That’s presumably why the DC cops have brutally raided legal small businesses who dare to sell hemp products and water-pipes for  medical marijuana users – or just tobacco smokers in a neighborhood full of hookah bars. All of this is underlined by the facts of widespread pot use in DC, especially among the upper middle classes, as described in a must-read piece in the latest Washingtonian magazine.

Washington lives and breathes hypocrisy. But it inhales this kind of hypocrisy very deeply.

On the one side, ladies and gentlemen, Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge, and Elliott Abrams. On the other, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh. And Abrams' Drudge-hyped claim that Newt was once a Reagan-basher seems to have been the final straw. After all, what is this GOP election in 2011 all about if not replaying the fantasy of 1980 – without Reagan and without high inflation and without Carter? Putting Romney before Gingrich as the Reagan heir was just a mite too much for the Newties.

Palin's Facebook screed is a classic of the backlash genre. For her, all mainstream media is the same – which means Brian Ross and National Review are now in cahoots. And she is trying to reframe the race as one between the Tea Party base and the Republican Establishment. Somehow, a former Speaker who called the Ryan plan "right-wing social engineering" and pioneered the individual healthcare mandate is now the Tea Party insurgent. But this was never about issues; it was about identity and class. And that's what makes it so dangerous for the GOP. Money quote:

Now, I respect Governor Romney and his success. But there are serious concerns about his record and whether as a politician he consistently applied conservative principles and how this impacts the agenda moving forward. The questions need answers now. That is why this primary should not be rushed to an end. We need to vet this.

Pundits in the Beltway are gleefully proclaiming that this primary race is over after Florida, despite 46 states still not having chimed in. Well, perhaps it’s possible that it will come to a speedy end in just four days; but with these questions left unanswered, it will not have come to a satisfactory conclusion. Without this necessary vetting process, the unanswered question of Governor Romney’s conservative bona fides and the unanswered and false attacks on Newt Gingrich will hang in the air to demoralize many in the electorate. The Tea Party grassroots will certainly feel disenfranchised and disenchanted with the perceived orchestrated outcome from self-proclaimed movers and shakers trying to sew this all up.

That suggests to me that this is going to get even nastier, as long as Shelly can keep up the funding and Palin can keep up the attention. And here's Palin's definition of what's going on right now:

This whole thing isn’t really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on. In fact, the establishment has been just as dismissive of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

Newt is an imperfect vessel for Tea Party support, but in South Carolina the Tea Party chose to get behind him instead of the old guard’s choice. In response, the GOP establishment voices denounced South Carolinian voters with the same vitriol we usually see from the left when they spew hatred at everyday Americans “bitterly clinging” to their faith and their Second Amendment rights. The Tea Party was once again told to sit down and shut up and listen to the “wisdom” of their betters. We were reminded of the litany of Tea Party endorsed candidates in 2010 who didn’t win. Well, here’s a little newsflash to the establishment: without the Tea Party there would have been no historic 2010 victory at all.

Heres another wingnut:

From RNC head, to primaries, now the primary, the GOP establishment consistently uses all its power to stomp down any conservative. Conservatives are fast approaching a breaking point. The GOP believes it will be fine because it will be all Obama come November. They are wrong. Mitt Romney has gone from unlikeable, to detestable and some of us are not going to forget it simply because the GOP thinks it can blow dog whistles around Obama.

And here's Erickson:

The fix is in for Romney, which just means when he is crushed by Barack Obama a lot of Republicans will have a lot of explaining to do. Newt may not be able to win. But Romney sure as hell can’t beat Obama either if Newt can’t win. The problem remains — Gingrich supporters intrinsically know this to be so and are happy to die fighting. Romney’s supporters are still deluding themselves.

This is a level of rhetorical bile that didn't even occur in the Obama-Clinton dust-up. I don't know if it will give Newt a final wind beneath his wings. But it's possible. A new large sample auto-telephone poll this morning shows a dead heat – while most polls show a comfy Romney margin. But the establishment might have over-panicked a little and given the Newt-Palin forces a way back into the fight. That may weigh especially in the Florida panhandle. Who knows?

What we do know, I think, is that Newt will not bow out if he loses Florida and may go on a scorched earth Palinite crusade to stop Mitt on Super Tuesday. And what we also know is that Palin is fanning the flames. If Newt were to do better than expected in Florida, her clout as a king-maker soars. And the chance that she would lead a Tea Party revolt at the Convention grows.

I mean what if Newt and Romney are so damaged by the end of this that neither has a chance. Could Queen Esther return?

(Photo: Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin speaks during the Republican Party of Florida's fundraising event at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort on November 3, 2011 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. About 800 people attended the fundraiser to listen to Palin speak, along with Governor Rick Scott and the Attorney General Pam Bondi. By Roberto Gonzalez/Getty Images.)

One of the more 1990s features of Romney's very 1990s campaign is his attempt to describe Obama as a European rather than an American. He means by this the notion of Europe as a beleaguered, depressed welfare state (although some moderator might ask him about Germany's 5.5 percent unemployment rate, and why that's such a dreadful model).

The irony is that in 2012, in the real world outside of Mitt's pander-world, much of Europe is being run by center-right governments, who are being dictated to by the center right government in Berlin. And what are 2012's European policies with respect to the economy? Why, they're much closer to Romney and the Republicans than Obama and the Democrats.

Germany is insisting on austerity and budget cutting even during a recession, just as the GOP wants. The result is a Europe on the very brink of a serious debt trap, in which cutting debt depresses the economy which depresses revenues which increases the debt some more. Greece and Italy are obviously the prime examples.

But perhaps the more gripping analogy is with Britain, where my Tory friends embarked on a very serious austerity program in the middle of 2010, in the hopes of liquidating the debt quickly, staying on the right side of the bond markets, and allowing new private sector investment to bring back growth. Sure, the US has an advantage of a global reserve currency, and Britain needs to prevent a collapse in the pound if the markets perceive fiscal drift. So Osborne has less lee-way than Obama. But still, the contrast is striking.

In the US – following the Keynesian model – the economy is recovering, however slowly and has been adding jobs for two years. In Britain, following Tea Party policy (with some tax increases as well) the recession is now officially longer than the Great Depression in the 1930s, and still drifting down:

Brad DeLong argues:

With a ten-year nominal interest rate in Britain of 2.098% per year, if low long-term Treasury interest rates were the key to recovery, Britain would be in a boom. If there was ever a place where expansionary austerity would work well–where private investment and exports would stand up as government purchases stood down–if its advocates’ view of the world was reality rather than fantasy, it would be Britain today.

But it is not working. And the lesson is general.

If it is not working in Britain, how well can it possibly work elsewhere in countries that are less open, that don’t have the exchange-rate channel to boost exports, that don’t have the degree of long-term confidence that investors and businesses have in Britain?

Krugman piles on. For me, the true test of conservatism is empiricism. It doesn't look as if the Ron Paul medicine is currently working very well (although some of that blame must surely lie with the massive debt that Blair and Brown, like Bush, piled up in the last decade). Nonetheless: this is the data. Britain has flatlined or declined in the last six months. The US has grown.

So here's an obvious retort to Romney and his Obama-Is-A-European schtick. Obama should simply say that it is Romney who now wants to impose European-style austerity, and it isn't working. Obama, meanwhile, has chosen an American exceptionalism strategy, which is leading to growth. By relying on that renowned British homosexual, JM Keynes.

It does help, after these frenzied few weeks. I think my reaction to the SOTU reflects a skewed perspective – much different than most people tuning in, who were the speech's core audience. A big part of the speech was reminding Americans of the facts about Obama's record – as opposed to the massive lies and distortions we keep hearing in the GOP debates. That's new to many; and it's impressive. But since I wrote that argument and have been defending it for more than a week, I didn't hear that part, or heard it and dismissed it as old news. It may be old news to me, but it isn't old news to most Americans. So I was focused on policy specifics, which were indeed underwhelming, as others have noted, with a few possible exceptions (the task force targeting Wall Street corruption; the mass mortgage refi proposal).

And the focus entirely on getting the wealthy and successful pay more – outside the context of comprehensive tax reform – rubs me the wrong way. It puts Obama in the position of liberal crusader against the wealthy, rather than centrist reformer of the system. Yes, I know he can't reform the system with this GOP. But since they favor tax reform, that proposal would have put them on the spot. By all means, make it revenue-neutral and then in a second term raise the rates a little, if revenue continues to be a problem. I just think Obama needs a big centrist cause in the campaign as well as a few big liberal ones.

But we have entered a purely political season. And Obama is being purely political here – in a way he pledged not to be in 2008. It may be a master-stroke – since he sure has painted the GOP into a corner on fairness, and his arguments here have broad traction. And if he destroys the GOP this year – and he probably will if Gingrich is the nominee – then it may all come together. But it will mean a much more liberal Obama, which is why this centrist supporter gets a little queasy.

Still, the GOP asked for it. By denying him any cooperation, they have ceded policy to him. And if he wins, they will be on the ropes for a while. And that's how Obama could truly become the liberal Reagan I spotted in 2007. Because he will not only shift the landscape toward more government intervention, he will have reformed the opposition party to reflect that change.

And who should really get a big part of the credit for turning America to the left? The Republicans who made Obama more liberal than he ever wanted to be. Congrats, guys. You may really be making history.

(Photo: Bill O'Leary/WaPo/Getty.)

10.20 pm. I was hoping for a vision. I was hoping for real, strategic reform. What we got was one big blizzard of tax deductions, wrapped in a populist cloak. It was treading water. I suspect this will buoy liberal spirits, but anger the right and befuddle the independents. It definitely gives the Republican case against Obama as a big government meddler more credibility. I may be wrong – but the sheer cramped, tedious, mediocre micro-policies he listed were uninspiring to say the least.

We voted for Obama; now we find we got another Clinton. The base will like this. I'm not sure independents will. As performance, he did as well as he could with the thin material he had in his hands. As a speech, I thought it was the worst of his SOTUs, when he really needed his best.

10.17 pm. This notion that a country, a democracy, should have the same attitude as troops fighting a war is preposterous and slightly creepy. Yes, we should put aside our differences to get important things done, put aside ideology to focus on solving problems. But we are not a military and the president is not our commander. He is our president. We have every right to argue with one another and to distrust one another at times. The whole idea of getting each others' backs in a boisterous democracy is deeply undemocratic. I do not want to be a citizen trained like a member of the Navy SEALs. Nor should anyone. This isn't Sparta. It's America. And to use the raid on bin Laden as the model of our future cooperation struck me as too easy and trite an analogy.

10.16 pm. More tax deductions for companies that hire vets. Almost every single proposal in this speech has been a tax break for something or other. What an awful way to run an economy.

10.14 pm. A strong defense of American exceptionalism – presumably as a retort to the neocon right. But the line about American power reminds me that this is the presidentseen clasping Fareed Zakaria's "The Post-American World".

10.12 pm. A familiar line on Iran and a new fact about the Israeli alliance under Obama:

Our iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history.

10.07 pm. And after this tired litany of liberal gimmicks, he brings us back to his original promise:

None of these reforms can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town.  We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas. 

Absolutely. But it feels alien to the rest of the speech. Maybe it's because he has been greeted with such derisive, contemptuous opposition from the GOP in the Congress. But it's sad to see him seem so, well, Washington. His strength is in the broad vision for the future, not these dozens of little initiatives. The strongest parts came in his own statements about his unilateral actions in the executive branch. The rest? Weak, poorly constructed, rhetorically sub-par.

10.06 pm. Why not mention the 60 vote filibuster if you're talking reform, rather than getting your own nominees approved more quickly? That would be the high road. He's now settled on the low one.

9.59 pm. We're beginning to get to the real stuff now. It's tax cuts for the very wealthy or investment in America. Here's the tax "reform":

Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right:  Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires.  In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions.  On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up. You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You’re the ones who need relief.   

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want.  But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes?  Most Americans would call that common sense. 

And you could achieve that with real tax reform, instead of this purely make-the-rich-pay-more gambit. He's given up on real reform, it seems to me, in favor of more tax breaks and deductions for his preferred companies and sectors, and tax hikes on the wealthy. This is the old liberalism, warmed over. To those of us who supported him because he was about serious reform – and not this kind of gimmicky meddling in the economy and increasing complexity in the tax code.

9.58 pm. Boehner and Cantor applaud an extension of the payroll tax cut.

9.56 pm. And now a war on shady banks and financial companies:

I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans. 

9.55 pm. So far: nada on debt; nada on tax reform; nada on healthcare reform. He really refuses to sell Obamacare, doesn't he? But maybe it will come later.

9.54 pm. That spilt milk line: a joke worthy of Jon Huntsman. We miss you, Jon Lovett.

9.52 pm. A big idea:

That’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates.  No more red tape.  No more runaround from the banks.  A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.

Basically, that's a handout to underwater homeowners using money from the banks. Pure populism. Pure redistributionism. But the speech has lacked any big sustaining argument about the inequality and unfairness that has marked the last few years. And so all of this sounds like a series of shameless panders that someone has to pay for.

9.48 pm. This speech is beginning to make Bill Clintons' look like clear and visionary. But people loved Clinton's long laundry list of micro-policies. I think this is the worst SOTU Obama has given. But maybe it will work. It sure seems like it has been put through a software program to pander to various industries.

9.45 pm. Finally, something specific: removing the subsidies for Big Oil – but adding new tax credits for green energy. More tax credits! With each minute of this speech, the tax code gets more impenetrable and the government's meddling in the economy more entrenched.

9.43 pm. Some facts to counter GOP lies: "Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years.  That’s right – eight years.  Not only that – last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years."

9.41 pm. "Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs." Are you keeping count of how many more tax deductions he is now proposing? The tax code is getting more complicated with every sentence. Tax reform? Left in the dust – and to the GOP. Tax simplification? He's making it all much more complicated.

9.39 pm. What on earth is this supposed to mean:

So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can’t be a luxury – it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

Again: vapid beyond measure. If he wants to convince Americans he has no idea about how the economy works, this speech so far will help.

9.33 pm. Now a demand for more money for community colleges, so they can set up partnerships for training. Sounds fine in principle (did David Brooks get a heads up?) but I'm deply skepitcal of sentences like: "Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job." This is thin gruel. So far, a litany of old liberal policies, some xenophobia and general bullshit. This is what I mean by bullshit:

I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.

What an easy thing to say. And he can do nothing about it. So why say it?

9.31 pm. So Obama is now pro-SOPA? How completely out of touch with his base. And all this nationalism and protectionism is deeply depressing.

9.27 pm. And now a Santorum-style focus on manufacturing – and the same old abuse of the tax code to influence the economy. This is industrial policy, based on populism. It isn't unleashing the free market through tax reform. It's a throwback to paleo-liberalism. Tax breaks and subsidies to keep jobs at home. It's spitting in the wind of the global economy – and it fails to grasp government's proper role. Workers here will never be cost-competitive with the Chinese. This is fantasy – and cheap populism.

9.25 pm. Now for the case for his rescuing of the auto industry, which Romney wanted to go bankrupt. It will be an interesting race in Michigan this fall, won't it?

9.22 pm. "Those are the facts." The beginning of the reclamation of reality from the deranged GOP. Good to see him insist on the truth that he inherited an economy in free-fall, and turned it around in a year. And what's interesting is his insistence that the problems go back decades. What he means, I think, is the era of supply-side economics.

9.17 pm. A segueway from the end of World War II to the end of the Iraq war – and the era when government was respected and believed in. This tour of history is now a recurring feature of Obama's speeches. Then the core argument:

Everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.  What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values.  We have to reclaim them.

9.14 pm. The right start: reminding Americans that the reason he was nominated – ending the Iraq war – has been accomplished. And that he won the war in Afghanistan against al Qaeda. Then a unifying salute to the troops.

9.08 pm. "Don't get lipstick on me!" And a big embrace from Justice Ginsburg. Then a lovely rollicking hug with Gabby Giffords. A warm personal start.

9.07 pm. It will begin and end with foreign policy. The center will be fairness. And a whole bunch of programs to help the unemployed. I hope no one forbids applause.

13.9 percent. If you're really, really rich, that's all you have to pay in taxes, we see more plainly today. It seems to me that this is not about Romney and shouldn't be about Romney. He broke no laws; he seems admirably charitable; his massive wealth is not a marker against him.

The issue is the system. My basic view has long been for a flat, simple tax code, in which everyone pays either the same rate, or two or three clear rates, and all deductions are removed. You tax income and dividends at the same rate. You get government out of the way of an economy's market decisions, by not tilting the playing field.

My position is on the right. I know that. I'm not a redistributionist. But the system we have now is geting close to absurd. I pay almost half my income in taxes of various sorts. It's nuts that I should be paying far, far more as a precentage than a man like Romney. And I'm a one percenter. For the average American, struggling in this economy, seeing this man pay so little in taxes is astounding. In fact, it's a scandal.

In my view, the critical issue that the president hasn't yet fully grasped and that he should champion in the SOTU is tax reform. If he wants one area where he and the GOP truly can hammer out a deal, it should be on reforming taxes. I'd prefer to see that reform combined with a revenue increase. But it can be done revenue-neutrally too. But just calling the GOP's bluff on tax reform would be enough, as a preparation for a second term push.

To put it more bluntly: The president and the Democrats should not be piling on Romney because he's rich. They should be piling on the tax code because it is so insane. This issue is populist and good economics. With a full-scale Bowles-Simpson attack on deductions, reform could keep taxation simple and low and easier to understand. And that restrains lobbyists, who suddenly have far less to lobby for; and it restrains taxation. If you have three simple rates – say, 10, 20, 30 – then any increase in them is very, very visible. You want a government that can be monitored and controlled by the people? Simplify the tax code!

If Obama wants to win this election, he needs to embrace radical tax reform. The shape and structure of sane reforms is already out there, as Bruce Bartlett explains here, and in his new book, here. He cannot and must not rely on a recovery alone. And he should force the GOP to refuse it, as he has forced them to refuse the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance. Good policy. Good politics. And a reminder of the independent-minded liberal we backed in 2008.

Go big, Mr President, tonight. Go big. This is the moment when the transformation away from the old politics happens; when the baby-boom battle recedes; when the extremism of the GOP finally eats itself; and when a saner future can be born. The real moment of transformation will be the re-election of a reasonable president in an unreasonable time. But tonight is the harbinger, the marker, the rally moment.

Seize it.

(Photo: Jewel Samad/Getty.)

Let us now play the tiniest violin for what is called the "Republican Establishment". I'm not sure what this phrase means or represents any more – the Chamber of Commerce? John Boehner? The Bush family? But the concept of a responsible, sane, pragmatic party leadership able to corral or coax or manage a party's base is, it seems to me, a preposterous fiction on its face, as we are seeing.

The Republican Establishment is Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, and their mainfold products, from Hannity to Levin. They rule on the talk radio airwaves and on the GOP's own "news" channel, Fox. They have never quite reconciled themselves to Romney since he represents a gray blur in a stark Manichean universe they have created for more than a decade now. In this universe, there is only black and white. There is only them and us. Anyone who diverges an iota from this schematic is speaking without a microphone in front of a revving airplane engine.

Listen to Gingrich's victory speech. It was completely, fundamentally, organizationally Manichean, if you'll pardon the expression. He limned a familiar battle between independence and dependence, pay-checks vs food stamps, America vs "Europe", the American people vs elites "forcing people" for 35 years not to be American, the traditional America vs the "secular, European style socialist bureaucratic system". There is no gray here. There is no nuance. And there is the imputation to the other side of malign motives, secret agendas and foreignness that has been Gingrich's hallmark since the very beginning, when he assaulted the traditions of the Congress until that institution eventually had to repel him.

Listen to Limbaugh, the GOP's chief spokesman. How does a Romney channel that level of viciousness and rage? Listen to Hannity. How does a smooth manager reach a base that wants the same Manichean approach to foreign policy, in which there is only one ally (Israel) and enemies everywhere else (Europe, China, the Arab world, Russia)? Read Mark Levin. There are only two options now on the table, as he sees it: freedom or slavery. And a vote for Obama is a vote for slavery.

This is the current GOP. It purges dissidents, it vaunts total loyalty, it polices discourse for any deviation. If you really have a cogent argument, you find yourself fired – like Bruce Bartlett or David Frum – or subject to blacklists, like me and Fox. You can find Steve Schmidt lamenting Gingrich for very good reasons, and then you realize that it was Schmidt – a moderate, sane, level-headed professional – who helped pick Sarah Palin for the vice-presidential nomination. Because he correctly realized that she would actually add base votes and prevent a total Obama tsunami. In the end, he knew what he had to do. In the end, the "establishment" knows the party they have created.

This now is the party of Palin and Gingrich, animated primarily by hatred of elites, angry at the new shape and color of America, befuddled by a suddenly more complicated world, and dedicated primarily to emotion rather than reason. That party is simply not one that can rally behind a Mitt Romney. He too knows what he has to say – hence his ludicrous invocation of Obama as some kind of alien being. But it doesn't work. He believes it – since he seems capable of genuinely believing in anything that will win him votes and power. But he doesn't have the rage to make it work. And that rage cannot be downward, as Romney's often is – toward hecklers or interviewers. It has to be upward – at vague, treasonous elites. It has to have that Poujadist touch, that soupcon of contempt, that sends shivers up the legs of the Republican faithful, reared on Limbaugh, propagandized by Fox, and coated with a shallow knowledge of a largely fictionalized past.

This is Gingrich's party; and Ailes'; and Rove's. They made it; and it is only fitting it now be put on the table, for full inspection. Better sooner than later.

Obama is a poultice. He brings poison to the surface. Where, with any luck, it dies.

(Photo: Supporters of Republican presidential candidate, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich celebrate at a primary night rally as he is announced as the winner of the South Carolina primary January 21, 2012 in Columbia, South Carolina. By Richard Ellis/Getty.)

Megyn Kelly's producer tells Newsweek that they are fully booked for today and have not responded about any slots Thursday and Friday. There is also no promise of any correction of the factually untrue statement that I have been "out there saying that Sarah Palin didn't give birth to her own child." I have never said that and, in fact, have taken extreme care never to say that. 

By even raising the question at all, I suppose, I grant the notion that Palin might have done something completely nuts credibility. My sin is in considering that she was crazy enough to do such a thing. The more I learned about her, the more plausible it is that she might be that crazy. And so I have stated that this story, in my mind, is not credible as it stands. And maybe some think that is itself so outrageous it disqualifies me from being a journalist.

But outrageous things do happen in public life. John Edwards, for example, was two-timing a wife who was dying of cancer. Was that such a vile allegation that asking him if it was true was not "actual journalism"? He lied, of course, until the National Enquirer got the story. Bill Clinton was crazy enough to screw an intern in the White House while being hounded by the far right for his previous sexual adventures.

There is a very critical distinction between saying something or writing something that you do not know is true, and asking a public official to clear up genuine questions about the stories she has told in public, while declaring herself an "open book." I have never proposed a single conspiracy theory. I just wanted evidence that Palin's remarkable, bizarre story is true – which would help her, if she's telling the truth, not me. I asked publicly and I asked the McCain campaign privately. I did what a journalist, in my mind, should do: get information and data, not just statements and blather. I also draw a distinction between a blog and a column or essay. I have never written at length about the Palin Trig stuff in a column or essay, because it's what Mickey would call "undernews". It's something blogs can do that other more formal formats in journalism cannot: ask questions, air debates, get conversations going that aren't supposed to be the final truth, but a provisional search for it.

And this wasn't some free-floating no-win question. It was a simple request for a document of some sort – conveyed privately if need be to a journalist – to put this matter to rest. That's not asking someone a question they cannot answer. Or using the device of "asking questions" to perpetuate a smear. And I might add of course that this blog also aired every single dissent on this and every single piece of evidence that backed up Palin's story. And that as soon as Palin removed herself from the pursuit of public office, I've barely covered her at all.

Kelly thinks this is not "actual journalism." And you can see why: her own channel employs said public figure.

They have a deep conflict of interest in covering or discussing her. And so, in the world of Kelly, actual journalism is never asking very difficult questions of a candidate you might eventually employ (which includes most Republicans who have ever run for national office or any Democrats who hate Obama). It is demonizing other journalists asking for easily available evidence, and then smearing that journalist and lying about his work on air without inviting him on to discuss his own arguments or allowing him a right to reply. Also: actual journalism according to Kelly means never correcting factual errors.

Ask yourself: there's a controversial cover-essay in Newsweek. The writer is prepared to come on and debate it. Why would Fox not even consider it? I've been on Hardball and tonight I'll be on Anderson Cooper's show. But Fox brings on two hired guns to talk about my piece, and actually blur out my name on the screen for some reason (either to make sure I remain air-brushed out of reality, or to deceive people that Newsweek is somehow institutionally making the point of my essay). Rich Lowry, moreover, says I cannot be trusted reporting on Palin. Rich Lowry. Here is how Rich Lowry, an "actual journalist" reacted to Palin's convention speech:

I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

That's "actual journalism", according to Fox. But a tightly argued essay, backed up with evidence and data for every point, isn't. And neither is demanding accountability from public officials when they make bizarre claims like experiencing contractions while giving a speech. No Fox reporter has ever asked Palin about that. And they never would and never will. Because Fox, in the end, is about power and money, not truth.