The GOP’s Great New Jerseyan Hope?

Favorables

Barro feels that Chris Christie is the GOP’s best bet for 2016:

If you’re a political party whose problem is that your appeal is not broad enough, nominating the candidate with broad appeal should be a no-brainer.

Christie is sure to face conservative resistance over substantive policy issues (like his acceptance of the Medicaid expansion) and stylistic ones (like his literal embrace of President Obama last October). But his actions that have antagonized conservative base voters are the same ones that allow Christie to maintain a broad appeal.

And Christie seems to be sufficiently conservative for the Republicans who follow his governing actions most closely. Ninety-six percent of Republicans in New Jersey approve of the job he’s doing as Governor, according to a June Quinnipiac poll.

Yglesias doubts that Christie could run successfully as a moderate. He notes the last two GOP nominees could have touted their moderate credentials:

[C]ompared to their major rivals both Mitt Romney and John McCain were the moderates in the field. But while both Romney and McCain had some major moments of moderation in their records, they didn’t have any moderation in their platforms as presidential candidates. The deal struck by party leaders in both cases was basically we’ll overlook a record of heterodoxy in exchange for clear indications that you plan to govern in a totally orthodox manner. It would have been child’s play for Romney to draw a contrast between the pragmatic, ideologically flexible, “get things done” approach he took as Governor of Massachusetts and the uncompromising conservatism and obstructionism of the hideously unpopular Boehner/McConnell GOP but Romney chose not to draw that contrast because despite Romney’s personal record the Romney operation was founded on orthodoxy.

Meanwhile, Kornacki points out that, should he run, Christie would face a tough choice over whether to remain governor or not:

If the polls are right and Chris Christie wins a lopsided reelection victory this fall, it will put the New Jersey governor in position to seek the presidency in 2016. That’s the conventional wisdom, at least, and there’s plenty to be said for it. After all, by racking up a big margin in a deeply blue state, Christie would be making a powerful statement to Republicans across the country about his electability.

What’s not getting much attention is the flip-side: the severe consequences that winning a second term as governor could have for Christie’s ability to raise money for a national campaign – and the possibility that he might be compelled to resign his office during his second term if he’s going to seek the White House.

Egypt’s Inbetweeners

Steven A. Cook offers the pros and cons of the new interim government:

There are reasons to like the transition that [interim President Adly] Mansour and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) have set up, notably its sequence. The generals have put constitutional revisions before parliamentary and presidential elections, which will avoid the destabilizing politics that occurred during the transition from Mubarak to Morsi, when Egyptians voted for a parliament and a president whose responsibilities had yet to be enumerated. Once elected, politicians sought to maximize their powers and, in turn, enshrine their prerogative in a new constitution. Even so, there is an undeniable flaw at the heart of the new process — it does not match the politics of the moment.

Egypt’s new cabinet is an emblem of that problem. It is a transitional body intended to guide Egypt for a mere nine months, yet it took two weeks of navigating a thicket of competing personalities, with axes to grind and conflicting worldviews, to put together. The result is far from stellar. It is basically a collection of retreads with backgrounds in the transitional cabinets of Essam Sharaf (prime minister between March and November 2011) and Kemal Ganzouri (prime minister between December 2011 and August 2012), as well as a group of second-rung Mubarak officials. This means that, collectively, Egypt’s new leaders have nothing to show in the way of accomplishments during their previous stints of service.

Recent Dish on Egypt here and here.

Every Single Single

A Pethead critically examines every PSB single. I’ve read so much dreary, dumb criticism of the last album “Elysium” that I think I’ll have to defend it when I get around to actually reviewing “Electric.” Elysium is a sublimely beautiful series of laconic reflections on getting older. The second is well, Chris Randle gets it:

“Calling Neil Tennant a bored wimp is like accusing Jackson Pollock of making a mess,” Robert Christgau once wrote, back when they were known for irony rather than sincerity. But the two have always been complementary in Pet Shop Boys songs, scabbard and shield. “Vocal” begins at the other end of the party “Being Boring” looked back on, a rave anthem that anticipates its own recollection: “Expressing fashion, explaining pain/Aspirations for a better life are ordained.” Yet when the synths build up to Tennant marveling “everything about tonight feels right and so young,” the only distance in his 59-year-old voice is the kind that accompanies reverence.

The Capitulation Of Samantha Power

Senate Committee Holds Nomination Hearing For Samantha Power To Become United Nations Representative

In totalitarian states, it is not unusual to see public officials mouth official slogans and mantras that they do not fully believe in. It’s part of the kabuki dance required to maintain the status quo ideology that undergirds the entire polity. In democracies, there is, of course, no threat of physical coercion or imprisonment or torture or assassination if someone actually speaks truth to power, or simply speaks their mind. There is merely a reverse impulse against truth-telling: ambition. And since Robert Bork testified honestly in front of the Senate, and was effectively hounded from smeared by Ted Kennedy for doing so, no appointee has said anything but the minimal amount of horseshit to survive the process. Nomination hearings are a farce, an orchestrated dance of deception and banality, signifying nothing but grease on the political pole.

And so it’s as unsurprising as it is repellent to read Samantha Power’s testimony yesterday, in which she basically said anything she thought she needed to get approved, regardless of her past views, worldview, passion and intelligence. In that eternal contest between ambition and principles, there was, it turns out, no contest. Just capitulation to the powers that be. The main threat was from the neocons:

Mort Klein, head of the Zionist Organization of America, the nation’s oldest pro-Israel group, said he opposes Power’s appointment based on a 2002 comment she made suggesting the U.S. stop spending money on the Israeli military and instead invest billions of dollars in a new Palestinian state. Power recommended the U.S. send “a mammoth protection force” in order to create a “military presence” in Israel and rationalized that the move would alienate a powerful pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. which she referred to as “a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import.”

Yet yesterday, she all but sounded like a member of Netanyahu’s cabinet. David Rieff is as dismayed as I am:

Hers was, to put it mildly, a supremely chameleon-like performance.

In addressing Wyoming senator John Barrasso’s anxieties about recent UN efforts to forge a treaty on the international trade in small arms and the effect it might have on the virtually unfettered right of U.S. citizens to own rifles and pistols, Power was quick to concur that the Second Amendment was sacrosanct. On Israel, about which in some of her earlier journalism she had been somewhat critical, Power’s testimony was, to the senators’ evident satisfaction, so stridently one-sided as to be almost wholly indistinguishable from the talking points of Israeli diplomats.

Her prepared statement emphasized the United States had “no greater friend in the world than the State of Israel,” when a more clear-eyed assessment surely would be that it is the other way around. And she went on to say that addressing the “disproportionate” critical focus on Israel would be a central priority for her. Later, in an answer to a question, Power opined that the real reason Israel is so often singled out for such criticism at the UN is because “50 percent of the countries [there] are not democratic.”

Who came up with that? Charles Krauthammer? Bill Kristol? But it was what Rand Paul rightly called non-responsive responses that stick in the throat. Rieff again:

Power conceded at the hearing that her “perspective” on a number of important questions had been changed by “serving in the executive branch.” But whatever her real views now are, they were nowhere in evidence either in her prepared statement or in her responses to senators’ questions.

Senate hearings are, effectively, a tragicomedy of vacuity. But boy, did Samantha Power know her part well.

(Photo: Samantha Power, the nominee to be the U.S. representative to the United Nations, testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 17, 2013. Power has received broad bipartisan support for her nomination. By Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Breaking: Man Gets Off Online

Anthony Weiner Holds Press Conference As New Sexting Evidence Emerges

It’s worth noting, I think, that yesterday, a little before before the new Weiner “news” broke, we had a post that explored online dating and hook-ups. For increasing numbers of people, this is their primary arena for sexual flirting, dirty-talk, “selfies”, fantasy, and – much more rarely – actual sex. As Ross Douthat noted, this trend is not a gradual one:

College has also dipped since 2000 as a place to meet, but only modestly; bars and restaurants have ticked upward, and the internet, predictably, has exploded.

With countless interactive hook-up sites, and ever more apps that combine sexting with GPS, a huge proportion of the current and future generations will have sent pics of their boobs or butts or junk as a form of sexual play, fantasy, virtual interactive pornography, and, to a lesser extent, getting laid. That’s simply the reality. Humans are sexual beings, and given a new obsessive-compulsive toy to play with, the Internet, their first instinct was to see how they could use it to get off. Porn and virtual sex sites not only power the web, they helped create it.

I see nothing here that any sane society would try to stop or regulate. Men are more prone to this instant, impulsive, fantasy-driven sexual gratification (testosterone is a powerful drug), but women are also involved. And if you display every detail of every sext-chat in public, both parties will be as embarrassed as if someone had taped the sex talk in their bedroom and broadcast it on the radio.

But embarrassment is not shame. And as long as both parties are adults acting consensually – and in virtual space, no coercion is really possible – I fail to see any scandal. In fact, I see it as a way to blow off steam, without the risk of STDs or pregnancy. It can indeed distort one’s view of sexuality; it can objectify people with ruthless efficiency; it can make actual sex more difficult (see our NO-FAP thread). But it’s nothing different than another arena for us to court, display and preen our sexual selves. It was ever thus.

Obviously, running for mayor of New York City exponentially increases the risk of exposure and embarrassment.

But even then, for any married man, the core ethical question, it seems to me, is whether the behavior is with his spouse’s awareness and consent – or not. As I’ve argued before, couples should be allowed some flexibility in managing their marriages, as they see fit. No one outside a marriage can fully know what’s in it, or what makes it work. For my part, I favor maximal privacy for all married couples in navigating the shoals of sex and life online and off.

Monogamous, monogamish, and open relationships are all up to the couples themselves and all have risks and advantages. But ultimately it is up to the spouse to decide if there has been a transgression or not, and whether to forgive and move forward or not. The truly awful spectacle yesterday was seeing Huma Abedin being forced to undergo another public humiliation as the price for her husband’s public career. But she clearly stated she was not abandoning her husband. And for me, as for us, that should close the matter.

And let’s be clear, there is no victim here. A flirty, horny 22-year-old who talks a great sex game is not a victim. She’s a player – and good for her. This nonsense about her being “immature” and Weiner being “predatory” is belied by the facts. She knew he was married when she sexted him and he returned the favors. The only salient question is whether, having lied in the first place about sexting, Weiner was caught deceiving the public again by claiming he had stopped sexting and re-built his marriage, while the compulsion was clearly not over. That’s a question of public trust, and there’s little doubt that Weiner has squandered it. On the question of lying, the NYT’s harrumph this morning is a valid one. Once a politician has deceived people, he gets a second chance. When he deceives them a second time on the same issue, he loses whatever public trust he might have hoped for.

But I see no reason why that trust should not be tested where it should be: at the ballot box. Weiner should not, er, withdraw prematurely. He should do us all a favor, if his wife agrees, and plow on until we can all smoke a collective cigarette. In this new Internet Age someone has to be the person who makes sexting not an excludable characteristic for public office. If it becomes one, then the range of representatives we can choose from in the future and present will be very, very different in experience and background than the people they are supposed to represent.

And so I’m more than sympathetic to Amanda Hess’s yawns:

What would the American public find if it combed through all of your Facebook messages, Twitter DMs, and Gchat history? If it had an exclusive peek into your webcam, or could scroll through your iPhone pics at will? This great nation is littered with hard drives full of poorly lit topless pics, broken promises to former lovers, and messages that sounded sexy at the time but look very stupid now. Anthony Weiner’s sexts don’t make him look like a sexual predator or even a freak. They make him look very, very ordinary.

Ambers has mixed feelings:

It wouldn’t bother me if Weiner continued to sext after his resignation so long as he admitted that, to him, such behavior was not immoral, not wrong, and not a violation of whatever boundaries he and Huma Abedin have set for their marriage. Also, discreet. He had to be discreet. Instead, he insists that the behavior is wrong, that he learned his lesson, and that his wife has forgiven him. What lessons has he learned? Not clear.

Ambers is right about the core contradiction. Weiner’s concession that he did something wrong – when he never had sex with anyone other than his wife – undermines his entire position. He’s also shrewd to home in on the way in which Weiner used his public persona for sexual power. This was not sexting anonymously with strangers for fantasy and fun. It was sexting liberal activists who get turned on by healthcare reform (poor dears). Hence the ethical issue:

It’s unseemly that he seemed to promise his paramour a blogging job in exchange for getting rid of the incriminating messages, which surely must have signaled to her the enormous power that she held over him. That a potential mayor is willing to put himself in this position, a position where he basically plea-bargains against blackmail, is a strike against his competence.

It sure is. But let’s not pre-empt this. Let’s recall that Weiner, unlike Eliot Spitzer, committed no crime, and had sex with no-one but his wife. It seems absurd that the one with actual, serious transgressions should sail through, via cable TV news, to public life again and the other, whose sin is primarily online flirting, should be ritually drummed out of a race.

The future of Weiner’s marriage and career is in the hands of his wife and the voting public, respectively. One has made her choice. Let the people, with all the facts at their disposal, make the second.

(Photo: Anthony Weiner, a leading candidate for New York City mayor, stands with his wife Huma Abedin during a press conference on July 23, 2013 in New York City. By John Moore/Getty Images.)

Reality Check

Nate Cohn believes that “the wave of new polls showing a decline in President Barack Obama’s approval rating are potentially important:”

 It’s not that these polls show Republicans poised to take back the White House by 2016, or something. That’s way too far away. Instead, the polls give us an idea of which voters Obama White Working Classare peeling away from Obama and, therefore, might be most receptive to switching sides if the GOP could craft a message for them. Trying to win over the voters sticking with Obama would presumably be more difficult.

Today’s Pew Research poll paints a clear picture of the Obama defectors. They’re almost exclusively white voters without a college degree. Obama’s standing among minorities, college educated whites, and affluent whites has actually improved since the final Pew Research poll before last November’s presidential election. Instead, Obama’s support among white working-class voters has taken a huge hit, opening an unprecedented 41 point education gap among white voters. Incredibly, the poll now even shows Obama with a stronger approval rating among affluent whites than downscale whites—something that’s never happened for a Democrat in a presidential election.

Immigration reform? Still-lagging economy? Ailes propaganda? Guns?

It’s Not Racist … Ctd

Conor Friedersdorf spots a “glaring contradiction” between Victor Davis Hanson’s opposition to affirmative action and his support for racial profiling:

I don’t fault Hanson for opposing affirmative action (though I reject large chunks of his rhetoric on race). I nevertheless find it perverse that he insists on the scrupulous treatment of young black males as individuals anytime they would benefit from group preferences, and then, when they’d most benefit from being treated as individuals rather than dark-skinned objects of suspicion, he prejudges all young black males based on statistics about the racial group to which they belong.

For Hanson, it is a miscarriage of justice worth lamenting if an Asian American applicant to UC Berkeley loses a spot to a black applicant due to racial preferences. And perhaps that is an injustice. Maybe the Asian American is the child of an impoverished family of Hmong refugees and the black applicant is the president’s daughter. What is the likely result of that injustice? The Asian American applicant must attend UCLA or UCI.

What are the consequences of racial-profiling, the form of individuality-effacement Hanson defends? Countless innocent black men — that is to say, the vast majority who will never rob or assault anyone — walking around under constant, unjust suspicion from fellow citizens and law enforcement; racial tension heightened in America; prejudice passed down across generations; and some innocent blacks killed while under wrongful suspicion. Opining on affirmative action, Hanson wrote, “It is well past time to move on and to see people as just people.”

He should take his own advice.

Cameron’s Online Porn Crackdown

Cameron And Theresa May Visit Hertfordshire After Results Show A Reduction In Crime In The UK

On Monday, while Brits were enthralled with the new royal baby, the prime minister unveiled a sweeping anti-porn campaign requiring citizens to tell their ISPs if they want to look at dirty pictures. Oliver Wright reports:

Under his proposals, by the end of next year all households will have to “opt out” of automatic porn filters, which would come as standard with internet broadband and cover all devices in a house. Possession of the most extreme forms of adult pornography will become an offence, while online content will have the same restrictions as DVDs sold in sex shops. To tackle child abuse images, search engines have been told they will have to redact results from specific searches, while anyone accessing websites shut down by the police for containing such images will see a message warning them that what they were doing was illegal.

Cracking down on child porn is critical of course, but there are a lot of problems with the PM’s plan. For one, not even Cameron seems to know what it entails:

Mr Cameron said he did not “believe” written pornography, such as erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, would be blocked under the plans. But he added: “It will depend on how the filters work.” … He then added: “I’m not saying we’ve thought of everything and there will be many problems down the line as we deal with this, but we’re trying to crunch through these problems and work out what you can do and can’t do.”

Loz Blain highlights the potential for abuse:

The very fact that your web will effectively be censored unless you specifically ask your provider for access to porn raises all sorts of issues. For starters, the famous British gutter press will be delighted to reveal the names of famous people who have asked for the filter to be disabled. Somewhere, there will be a very useful list of people who are porn users, and one day it will leak.

And many of them, if the past is any guide, will be the most uptight Tory MPs. What’s more, some parts of the plan seem designed to apply to the web of yesteryear. For example, Cameron said that Google has a “moral duty” to “blacklist” certain words. David Nosowitz pounces:

This is absurdly, insultingly presumptuous. A prime minister is demanding a foreign corporation kowtow to his demands and implement a childishly naive proposal based on his own showy morality. …

Many of the illegal corners of the internet aren’t indexed by Google, anyway. Try searching for child porn right now; you won’t find any. Try searching for an online store that’ll mail you heroin. You won’t find that, either. But both exist, and you will find news stories or forums about both that can lead you there. Discussion of illegal activities isn’t illegal, but makes any indexing restriction on Google pretty much worthless.

A former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, Jim Gamble, raised the same point:

Gamble said Mr. Cameron’s plan to tackle child abuse images by removing results from search engines like Google would be “laughed at” by pedophiles. “There are 50,000 predators … downloading abusive images on peer-to-peer, not from Google,” he said. “Yet from CEOP intelligence only 192 were arrested last year. That’s simply not good enough. We’ve got to attack the root cause, invest with new money, real investment in child protection teams, victim support and policing on the ground. Let’s create a real deterrent. Not a pop-up that pedophiles will laugh at.”

And of course civil libertarians aren’t thrilled:

Jim Killock, from the Open Rights Group, said Cameron’s plan was not only bound to fail but also sets a dangerous precedent of government intervention when it comes to freedom of expression and access to information. “I’m not sure censorship is ever the answer,” he said. “It’s a shocking attempt to claim the moral high ground. … I don’t think he fully understands what he is proposing.”

Meanwhile, Leo Mirani hasn’t missed the irony that a British tabloid is one of the initiative’s few supporters:

[Cameron] may be trying to appease the highly influential right-wing British newspaper, The Daily Mail, which has been running a campaign against online porn for months. The prime minister released his speech to the paper a day in advance. In its coverage of the speech, the paper quotes Cameron as saying, “The Daily Mail has campaigned hard to make internet search engine filters ‘default on.’ Today they can declare that campaign a success.” Yet the Daily Mail has built the world’s most trafficked news website largely on the basis of pictures of celebrities in various stages of undress. Considering the unpredictable and overly enthusiastic nature of filtering algorithms, it is not inconceivable that the Daily Mail may find itself a victim of its own success.

Well, that would be too delicious an irony, wouldn’t it?

(Photo: PC Kris Seward shows the Prime Minister David Cameron the mobile device as he visits community police in Hertfordshire on July 17, 2013 in Cheshunt, England. Cameron was observing the their new crime prevention initiatives, including targeted CCTV and a new PC based mobile device. By Paul Rogers – WPA Pool/Getty Images)