The Dish

Dickerson compares Palin to Gore. His piece ends up near David Brooks:

If you want to think about how Republicans will govern in the real world or look at the GOP philosophy in practice, there are vibrant examples to examine in New Jersey, Mississippi, California, and Virginia. In these places, conservatives are struggling to put ideas into practice that require real trade-offs and bring real consequences. These places are a better starting point for a legitimate debate about conservative politics and policy.

My argument for why Palin still matters a lot – a terrifying lot – is here. Of course, I hope John and David are right.

(Illustration: a bumper sticker spotted by a reader in Juneau.)

Even a two-termed president is not allowed to leave his country. His destination? A nuclear disarmament conference in Japan.

Via reddit.

Jonathan Bernstein thinks that this somewhat bizarre post by McArdle, in response to Julian Sanchez's posts on the conservative cocoon, is an attempt to hijack the thread. Matt Steinglass engages respectfully. Chait goes after Jonah Goldberg, who leans heavily on Megan's post:

So Goldberg concedes that maybe there's a wee bit of epistemic closure on the right, but it's really just the same thing as on the left. Conservatives have Fox News, but liberals have the New York Times. I suppose there's nothing to say in response to this — if you believe the mainstream media is an organ of the progressive movement and the functional liberal equivalent of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, then yes, liberals do have epistemic closure. I think that,whatever you think about the liberal bias charge, the mainstream media is far more receptive to news and viewpoints that challenge liberalism than conservative outlets are to news and viewpoints that challenge conservatism. (Uniformly liberal programs, like Rachel Maddow's, do exist, but they occupy a small portion of the MSNBC schedule, and function as supplements to the news rather than substitutes for it.)

Friedersdorf also responds to Jonah. And to Megan. Conor's Goldberg critique is gentler than mine would be but cutting nonetheless:

In his most formulaic work, Mr. Goldberg takes the topic at hand, sidesteps any critique aimed at the right, and transitions to talking about how the problem is actually liberal in origin, or that liberals do it more often, or that the left is actually more guilty of it, or whatever. This is persuasive at times, less so at others, and too often beside the point.

Ah, yes. In the middle of the Bush administration's extreme extension of executive power and secrecy in the war against Jihadist terror, as the GOP was spending like inebriated seamen on pork, entitlements and defense, as Wall Street was gambling in a manner that wild-eyed liberals like Richard Posner and Alan Greenspan have conceded was recklessly irrational, as the Republicans embraced successful nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan as the sine qua non of American national security … Mr Goldberg decided that the real crisis was "liberal fascism."

To do so in that context is simply surreal. But inordinately successful in the ideological-industrial complex that is enriching so many pundits and killing conservatism as a serious attempt to govern the world as it is. It's successful because the untethered bromides of the utopian right are far easier to market than the awful choices and hard compromises that the US now has to grapple with. But contemporary "conservatives" – a lethal blend of denial, distraction and derangement – are not interested in hard choices. They are interested in an alternative reality, sustained by exactly the epistemic closure Goldberg wants – ah, the circle closes – to distract from.

But seriously, read Friedersdorf's post. It is punctiliously fair, open and thereby all the more devastating.

Tom Bartlett reports:

A recent study in the Journal of Marketing Communications found that men with beards were deemed more credible than those who were clean-shaven. The study showed participants pictures of men endorsing certain products. In some photos, the men were clean-shaven. In others, the same men had beards. Participants thought the men with beards had greater expertise and were significantly more trustworthy when they were endorsing products like cell phones and toothpaste.

But, oddly, men with beards were slightly less effective than smooth-cheeked fellows in underwear advertisements. Apparently we don't want Zach Galifianakis selling us boxers.

Make up your own joke, ok? My ambition is now the Matt Stone version.

Marc Thiessen responds. Friedersdorf goes another round:

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, a case where a detainee who was water-boarded gave up information that he would’ve otherwise withheld. In this circumstance, Mr. Thiessen would claim vindication, point to the American lives saved by the information, and assert it as proof that the CIA’s entire “enhanced interrogation” program “works.”

What is myopic about that assumption, and the whole body of Mr. Thiessen’s writerly output, is that overall efficacy, overall impact on American lives, and overall impact in the War on Terrorism is the actual metric that determines whether or not an interrogation program “works.”

A reader writes:

I found myself more agreeing with Colbert when I watched that clip than not. I'm not 100% sure what happened that night when the Apache crew fired on the van and I'm sorry for both the victims and the perpetrators who I'm sure feel much regret. Setting aside that event and the consequences, I'm commenting only on the interview.

Where I saw Colbert get angry was when the editor tried to say all they are about is transparency; no secrets. When the guy admitted that they edited and titled the tape, but it was okay because they put a link to the unedited footage that to me was the crux. Colbert then pointed out correctly that Wikileaks knew they were establishing the mindset and they knew the majority (turns out 90%) wouldn't take the time to view the whole footage. What Colbert and Stewart do, rather masterfully, is take clips of politicians and media figures and play them in a light that is embarrassing (and funny, though sometimes it's just sad). They don't claim to be legitimate news. But seeing that same tactic being used by Wikileaks, which claims to be about transparency and above it all was too much. (Plus the guy did come across as a rather smug twit.)

Yes Colbert was defending the military that he loves, but I think what made him angry was that a tactic that he and Stewart use was being used as the weapon against the soldiers in uniform. If he only wanted to give his support to the military or if he only wanted to pick on Wikileaks, he didn't need to do the interview. That's why I think the anger was genuine and an in the moment reaction. I don't see much point in criticizing Colbert or Stewart in matters like this.

I see Stewart and Colbert as jesters that have found themselves in a position of responsibility in an increasingly irresponsible newscape. While I always hope that they'll stay funny, I don't begrudge them wanting to be serious once in awhile. Oh, and as far as Colbert getting angry at parties responsible for the war, that will have to wait until Mr. Cheney or Mr. Bush agree to come appear on his show. There are contributors and then there are architects.

David Brooks wants everyone to stop talking about her:

She is not going to be the leader of any party and doesn’t seem to be inclined in that direction. The Sarah Palin phenomenon is a media psychodrama and nothing more. It gives people on each side an excuse to vent about personality traits they despise, but it has nothing to do with government. She is in 2010 what Jerry Falwell was from the mid-1990s until his death — a conservative cartoon inflated by media. Evangelicals used to say that Falwell had three main constituency groups — ABC, CBS and NBC.

I understand why David would rather she go away; but like his dismissal of the power of the Christianist right in American conservatism and culture, this dismissal of Palin misses, I think, several critical things.

The first is the psychological appeal of the beautiful female warrior. Palin is not appealing to the Republican super-ego (in so far as one has survived the last ten years); she is directly, umbilically connected to the Republican id (and some other male organs). Her appeal is visceral not rational. And if modern post-Nixon Republicanism has always had a thread of class resentment sustaining it, Palin concentrates it into a heady brew. If Nixon was cocaine for the resentful psyche, Palin is meth. 

Secondly, she fuses both Tea-Party anti-government sentiment with neocon conviction about the necessity for American empire.

Of course, none of this makes any sense, but Palin, unlike some of her rivals who feel some kind of lingering need to relate their policies to fiscal and global reality, is a thoroughly post-modern creature. She creates her own reality, and that is an incredibly important talent for a party base that desperately wants to live in another reality (a kind of souped-up version of 1950s culture and late nineteenth century economy). Her book – a fictional account of an imagined life – sold well with the GOP base because they too want a fictional account of America's current standing in the world and an imagined set of viable policy positions. She so lives and breathes this magical-realist culture she doesn't need to channel it. She knows we can keep social security and Medicare and global power for ever and balance the budget without any taxes – because that is what she wants to know. And she has never let reality get in her way. Reality is one of those doors she keeps crashing through.

Thirdly, she has a child with Down Syndrome. If you see Trig as a political tool, the near-appalling exposure of him in the campaign and book tour is not so bizarre. For a pro-life base that suspects that all Republican leaders, including even Bush, are phonies on the life issue, Palin has, in their eyes, walked the pro-life walk. Since this issue motivates the base in deeply powerful ways, Palin's ace has always been her youngest son. He proves her political authenticity – or at least seems to.

Who else puts all this together for the GOP? No one. Huckabee is crippled by a record of spending and leniency. Romney is crippled by being Mitt Romney and Mormonism. Pawlenty: seriously? Santorum? Ditto. Brown? We are beginning to see the depth of his predicament. DeMint? Rubio? C'mon.

Yes, many tea-partiers do not think Palin is "qualified" to be president. But primaries are won by enthusiasm and star power. Palin has both. And she has money. And, most important, she has a media machine dedicated to promoting her outside of any real scrutiny or questions. She has never faced a real press conference and speaks to "pre-screened" questioners at debates and speeches. She is a test-case of how willfully divorced from reality a segment of America can remain, and how irrelevant reality is for today's niche-targeted media. All of this makes Palin the most potent force in American politics since Obama.

Acknowledging that requires a grasp of the depth of the crisis on the right. I think David still under-estimates how deep that crisis is. I think he still thinks the current Republican party is salvageable as a credible governing force. I don't.

(Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty.)

Yes, it's come to this:

The “crazy” side of this debate (Goldman, Ledeen) believes that President Obama’s mother’s choice of male companions is hugely relevant to understanding his plans for surrendering to the Islamofascists. The “sane” side (Podhoretz, Wehner) thinks that President Obama’s mother’s choice of male companions is irrelevant to the fact that President Obama doesn’t like America very much.