Category: The Dish

Peter Suderman is losing it. No: not Ohio and Texas. The Wire.

His strength among Independents puts some unusual states in play this fall – if he survives the Clintons.

Why – when he has created his own?

John McWhorter talks about the post-sixties fundamentalist preaching style of the best public orator since Reagan. It’s all about melody.

A reader writes:

I’m an Obama supporter, but I’m not a Kool-Aid drinker. The trendlines are pretty clearly pointing towards Clinton winning OH by 8-10 points, RI by a similar margin, with Obama winning VT by about 15-20.

It’s also pretty clear that Obama is at best tied with Clinton in TX, but losing ground fast.  Of course, he’ll probably win the caucus tonight and may come away with more delegates out of that state–due to its allocation of delegates to districts.

So, Clinton will get a decisive win in OH and a popular vote win in TX.

And she may walk away with a net +18 in delegates, best case scenario.

To put things in perspective, Obama got +18 from Wisconsin and Hawaii.

So, Clinton will likely win the media spin tonight at the expense of a month’s worth of drubbings and an insurmountable delegate deficit.

She’ll have a justification for staying in, but no path to the nomination.

If I were a partisan Republican, I’d be very, very happy.

A reader writes:   

You ask:

Doesn’t the answer have to be about race?

Sure–partly. But it’s partly about religion, about the fact that Hagee’s lunacy is that of the religious majority. It may be crazy, but it’s a Christian kind of crazy, whereas Farrakhan’s is a Muslim kind of crazy.

When certain people hear "black Muslim," I suspect they freak out more about the "Muslim" than the "black." Either way, for too many Americans there’s nothing reassuring in either half of the term. But when Christians hear "Christian bigot" they can at least latch onto the "Christian" half.

David Brooks describes the stakes in this election as between old and new politics. I take his point, but I do want to insist that this new politics of which we Obama-fans are talking is not some kind of millennialist, utopian fantasy. I don’t think Obama has – or anyone ever will – abolish the human nature of political life: its combat, its competing interests, its partisanship, its necessary compromises. If I thought one man could do that, I should be given a Valium and told to take some time off. No: the reason to back Obama is because this country is in a terrible hole. The economy is headed into the shitter, the dollar is plunging, soaring government debt and individual fiscal recklessness (now rewarded by the Fed’s rate-cutting) have created the chance of a serious recession, the US is mired in a permanent occupation of a deeply divided failed state in the Muslim Arab world, and key American values – that we do not torture, that we rescue our allies – have been abandoned by a callow, incompetent president.

In the midst of this, we have a domestic politics that has become poisonously polarized by the cumulative impact of two decades of Dick Morris, Karl Rove-style politics and have lurched from one president whose every sentence was a carefully parsed legalism to one often in total denial about the reality he grapples with. We desperately need not some kind of new politics, but a return to reasoned politics, to leaders who, even when they disagree, can rationally explain how and why.

Americans know we have deeply serious problems and are tired of deeply unserious posturing. Republicans have grasped this. That’s why they actually rejected the most polarizing (Giuliani) and cynical (Romney) and facile (Huckabee) candidates, in favor of a serious man, who is at least open to opposing arguments and engaged in more than partisan hucksterism and nasty minority-baiting.

The Democrats, so far, have as well. Obama is simply more capable, more trustworthy, more reasonable and less partisan than Clinton. That’s all. He is not a messiah, for Pete’s sake, and I’m tired of being told that those of us who support him are somehow irrational or emotional. Above all, he will not breathe new life into the very pathologies with which we have all been consumed for too long. She will. Some of this is her fault; some of it isn’t. I see my own attempt to move forward constructively impeded by the emotions she and her husband have the power to evoke. But her partisanship and divisiveness are not in my mind alone. She knows what she’s doing – and, in my view, we cannot afford her any more.

If that is a new politics, fine. But only if "new" means an older, calmer discourse for newer, more perilous times. That’s what Obama represents. And we have to keep focused on that, unless the easy and familar habits of easy, tired politics prevent us from seizing a moment that history doesn’t offer very often.

It’s extremely hard to know how widespread this is, and the NYT piece can only give anecdotal support, but if the next generation of Iraqis is rejecting fundamentalism, it’s surely a very encouraging sign. Fundamentalism is, of course, based on a ridiculous lie: that God’s will in every particular is ever fully knowable by humans. And when fused with politics, its intolerance and fanaticism always expose themselves. That’s why the younger generation of Persians is so hostile to Islamism as well. It’s why we will win the long war if we do not destroy ourselves in the process and do not unwittingly empower the fundies by our over-reaction.

One huge caveat, of course. Religious fervort comes in waves; anyone who doubts its power in the Arab Muslim world is misreading the place. But the extremes, given enough rope, often hang themselves. Look at Jordan. Now, if only we could persuade the Republicans about this fundamentalism thing …

A reader explains her appeal in the state:

You cannot underestimate the power of women needing to vote for Senator Clinton. In conversations with coworkers and friends, this need starts with women who are now forty years old and increases exponentially with age. It is almost a feeling they cannot betray womanhood by voting for any man. The historic nature of the vote coupled with nostalgia for the 90’s, is very emotionally charged.

In many ways, Ohio is behind the times, and is not quite 21st Century.

Ohio still wants to have those high paying, manufacturing jobs of the 50’s and 60’s, and agriculture. I was struck by the interviews on 60 Minutes, Sunday night, from Chillcothe, Ohio. They all seemed to be bemoaning not being able to go to Florida once a year and buying a new car every two years. But only one had tried to get more education for the new challenges of the Global Market.

The state legislature has dragged its feet on fulfilling the Ohio Constitution’s mandate for state funding of education. The Supreme Court of Ohio has told them many times of the requirement, but is ignored. The legislature’s laughable solution was school vouchers, in effect, subsidizing the haves’ private education while giving the have-nots a limited choice. So Ohioans still are in a 50’s movie, play football in high school and Dad’s job will be waiting for you.

NAFTA did not kill the manufacturing jobs in Ohio; they were going, going, gone, before the agreement. But Ohioans have been waiting for some miracle to bring them back, and if their children do get an education, the children leave the state for better opportunities.

So we are in a state very much fighting the culture wars of the last century, educated in the last century, looking for the last century’s solutions.

The vote and the e-mails have overwhelmingly been against adding comments (check out the final tally here). Here’s the majority consensus:

Please do not add a comment section. I already spend way too much time reading your blog.  Some of my favorite posts begin with "a reader writes."  Most comment sections are clogged with drivel, invective, or redundancy. I cherish your editorial control over what we get to read from other readers. The problem with the blogosphere is precisely this lack of editorial overview, whether in regard to fact checking, or relevancy.

Editorial control? On the internet? Actually, that has become an attraction almost, hasn’t it? In an auto-pilot, populist web, old-fashioned editors are almost chic at this point. I don’t want to be like the Washington State Republicans, but there doesn’t seem much point in keeping the polls open any longer. We’ve had 12,000 votes so far, and the proportion – 60 – 40 against – has barely budged in 24 hours. You decided: to silence yourselves. More feedback after the jump.

Another against comments:

When I first started reading your blog, I was curious as to why there were no comments. As I kept reading, I noticed that I was calmer than when reading blogs with comments. Here is my theory for why that is:

Upon reading a comment that I disagree with, my first thought is often something like "Who ever wrote that is a freakin’ idiot." However, you are a known non-idiot and things you write that I disagree with are given time for reflection.

So, no comments.

A known non-idiot? There are a few bloggers out there who would take issue with that. A reader in favor of comments argues:

It has always bothered me that you didn’t have comments on your blog and one of the reasons I can’t understand about the issue is this: if you enable comments people who don’t want to read them don’t have to and those that do want them will be able to read/participate ( in other words everyone will be happy).  If you don’t enable them, the people who don’t want to read them will be happy, but the people who want them won’t.  Enabling comments is a rare way in which you can make everyone happy without making anyone unhappy.  Despite being a fan of you and the daily dish, there are issues I disagree with or points in articles that I disagree with and it would be great for us, your readers, to interact with each other in a comments section.  The comments will certainly take on a life of their own and I would argue that a goodly portion of it wouldn’t necessarily interest you, but every day there would be a gem of a point in the comments section that would shine a new facet on some topic or another (for you…and for us) and without that gem, you might miss an important pov on something.

A reader’s counterargument to this argument:

Readers of your blog could opt to not read the comments section, but in truth we would rarely opt not to read them — on your blog or any other blog. Blog comments have the power to hammerlock one’s attention. I think, humans being highway rubberneckers,  we’d be impotent to resist looking over the rantings and counter-rantings that would make their way into your Comments Section. Not only would comments be an incredible drain on one’s time (especially if we check your blog several times a day from work), but it also exposes readers to the nasty underbelly of blogging. I like your blog because it is a civil outpost
on the internet — not one stained by cursing, profane speech, or perhaps more importantly one person posting and posting and posting.

Another reader in favor:

Can you not just have people register and ban their account or IP from commenting if they break certain clear ground rules (anti-HIV, excessively and unnecessarily personal, etc.)  I think readers would get behind this, and it would be relatively easy to enforce.  I think people should be able to make personal comments if it entails calling you an "idiot" or "emotional" or whatever, but there is obviously some content which has no place on a civil website (e.g. HIV/faggot/barebacking comments which I’ve read elsewhere).  So I’m for comments, with conditions.  And if they prove impossible even with conditions, then you can always take them down. I think comments would only encourage debate and input;  I know I myself often do not email because I don’t want to take the time if I feel you are unlikely to read it (I have no way of knowing) and are even more unlikely to post it.  We’re busy people, your readers, and we don’t like to blow half an hour on an email that for all we know disappears into cyberspace.