… now Sulu. George Takei has been with his de facto husband for 21 years. Finally, they hope to marry soon. Does the right really want them to be forced into a divorce a few months later?
The NYT and The Race II
Another nugget from that Patrick Healy story. He describes Oregon as a "largely, white, affluent state", compared with Kentucky which is regarded as "working class". But when you look at the census data, the similarities are as striking as the differences. Male median income in Oregon: $41,536; Kentucky: $39,595; Female median income in Oregon: $32,390; Kentucky: $29,392. Oregon is slightly more prosperous than Kentucky, but its share of blue collar jobs is not far off Kentucky’s. These caricatures are part of the Clinton camp’s bid to keep a certain line in the public mind. They deserve complicating, not reinforcing.
The NYT And The Race
Pathetic reporting:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is entering the Kentucky and Oregon primaries on Tuesday with one of the most pugnacious political messages of her campaign: That she is ahead in the national popular vote when all votes are counted, including from the unsanctioned primaries in Michigan and Florida and that party leaders who have a vote as super-delegates should reflect this level of appeal.
This argument is of a piece with Mrs. Clinton’s increasingly populist image, as a fighter on behalf of average people, but it is also a debatable claim: Most tallies of the national popular vote put Mr. Obama in the lead, especially when Michigan and Florida are not counted.
Isn’t there an empirical issue here? If by popular vote, you mean actual votes, the only way this claim is credible is if you count all Clinton’s votes in Florida and Michigan and count no votes in Michigan for Obama. It is not hard for the NYT to explain this and show that Clinton’s claim is fallacious – not "pugnacious." So why do they punt?
Enhanced Interrogation
A reader writes:
Last night I was clicking back and forth between the Mets/Yankees game The Empire Strikes Back on cable. I hadn’t watched Empire in a long time. There’s a scene where Darth Vader tortures Han Solo (which occurs off-screen, but Han’s screams are audible). Han is then dumped into the room with Lando and Pricess Leia, and the Imperial thug says contemptuously, "Don’t worry. He won’t be permanently damaged." So include Darth Vader — Darth fucking Vader — among the prestigious company we’re keeping with our sure-it-hurts-like-hell-but-if
-it-doesn’t-leave-a-mark-it
-ain’t-torture approach to interrogation.
The Nazis came up with this argument first. It took half a century before Bush and Cheney followed their lead.
The Pendulum Is Swinging
In Britain, the anti-incumbent mood, intensified by Boris Johnson’s win in London, is benefiting the Tories. The parallels with the US are too close for GOP comfort. And Blair, like Bush, got out just in time. Interesting to see this description from former Times editor, William Rees Mogg:
Mr Cameron is himself much more convincing and a natural leader of the liberal centre.
The latest poll is here.
Dept Of Desperation, Ctd
Now from K-Lo’s in-tray:
In Bob Shrum’s memoir, he writes about his experiences with McGovern in 1972 as they crisscrossed ¾ of the country, skipping over the South. Nearly four decades later, and nothing’s changed.
South Carolina doesn’t count? And North Carolina? And Mississippi? Virginia? All states Obama won handily and campaigned in. I could go on. Sometimes, these people just seem to be talking to themselves.
From The Dept Of Desperation
How many people showed up for Obama’s rally in Kentucky? Oh, he didn’t campaign there?
When The Rove Gambit Sputters
George Packer documents the fall of conservatism. Here’s a taste:
…the polarization of America, which we now call the “culture wars,” has been dissipating for a long time. Because we can’t anticipate what ideas and language will dominate the next cycle of American politics, the previous era’s key words—“élite,” “mainstream,” “real,” “values,” “patriotic,” “snob,” “liberal”—seem as potent as ever. Indeed, they have shown up in the current campaign: North Carolina and Mississippi Republicans have produced ads linking local Democrats to Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor. The right-wing group Citizens United has said that it will run ads portraying Obama as yet another “limousine liberal.” But these are the spasms of nerve endings in an organism that’s brain-dead.
Among Republicans, there is no energy, no fresh thinking, no ability to capture the concerns and feelings of millions of people. In the past two months, Democratic targets of polarization attacks have won three special congressional elections, in solidly Republican districts in Illinois, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Political tactics have a way of outliving their ability to respond to the felt needs and aspirations of the electorate: Democrats continued to accuse Republicans of being like Herbert Hoover well into the nineteen-seventies; Republicans will no doubt accuse Democrats of being out of touch with real Americans long after George W. Bush retires to Crawford, Texas. But the 2006 and 2008 elections are the hinge on which America is entering a new political era.
In Defense Of Patti Solis Doyle
A reader writes:
Don’t discount her that quickly… Not for a moment do I believe Axelrod & Co. will allow anything to tamper with their clearly finely-tuned machine. It’s very possible that one of the primary problems with Solis Doyle in the Clinton campaign was her intimate relationship with HRH. That would certainly not be an issue with Obama.
Remember, Solis Doyle is a Chicagoan. Her brother, Danny Solis, has been the alderman for one of Chicago’s most deeply Hispanic wards for well over a decade, and a powerful ally of Mayor Daley (not, to me, a badge of honor). Surely, Obama and Axelrod have known the Solis family for some time. If Solis Doyle can help Obama with the Hispanic community in the general, she very well may be of value.
The Legacy Of Perez v Sharp
A reader writes:
You mention in a post today, "Haste on Marriage?" that you were conflicted about the California ruling, that perhaps the court should have exercised judicial restraint. On the other hand, you point out that the same could have been said 60 years ago about Perez. On the other hand–in your best Tevye impression–you say it will be argued that Perez was based on racial discrimination which has a clear jurisprudential lineage.
Those who would argue the latter are possibly forgetting when Perez was decided. Perez was decided in 1948 before Brown v. Board at a time when "separate but equal" was still the law of the land. There was jurisprudential lineage, but it was all in the opposite direction. Plessy v. Ferguson was good law at the time and stood for the proposition that it was constitutional to enforce racial segregation. Pace v. Alabama was also good law at the time. That was a case that said a law giving far harsher penalties for interracial fornication was constitutional since the law applied equally to both races. As the dissent in Perez noted every single court in the country that had looked at the issue of anti-miscegenation laws had declared them valid (many of the opinions going to say that they were in fact a good thing). The idea of "strict scrutiny" for racial discrimination did exist but was very new being established by the Supreme Court of the US only four years earlier in Korematsu v. US (dealing with internment of Japanese-Americans). But even that only applied to laws which curtailed the rights of a single race.
The unanimous view until this time was that of Pace which said these laws didn’t single out a race and so were valid. In fact the 10th circuit had decided four years earlier (coincidentally the same day as Korematsu came down) in Stevens v. US that Oklahoma’s laws banning interracial marriage did not violate the 14th amendment. And unlike in this week’s case, the court in Perez was applying Federal law and thus was bound by US Supreme Court decisions including Plessy and Pace (although not bound by the 10th circuit decision).
The key to California’s decision in both 1948 and 2008 was to look more closely at an issue that had often before been rejected out of hand. In 1948 the court said that yes "separate but equal" was the law but looked at from the point of view of the individual there was no equal substitute for one’s chosen marital partner. In 2008 they said yes the "right to marry" had been stated before with the idea of a marriage being the union of a man and a woman, but if one looked at the reasons for why marriage was a fundamental right it was clear that they would apply equally to unions of the same sex. In both cases it was the careful examination that led to what I believe was the correct decision on the law. Even if you believe one or both cases were incorrectly decided, though, when it comes down to fundamental rights and minorities that have not always been treated justly, it is no virtue for a court to ignore the issue in deference to the wishes of a majority. They should strive instead strive in good faith to apply the constitution regardless of the popularity of the decision. Those that disagree should argue on against the reasoning used and the legal principles applied and not rely on overstated cries of judicial activism.
