It will probably come as a shock to liberals like Joe Conason and Eric Alterman that, yes, some of us do find snippets of "analysis" like this to be both extraneous and biased:
Never mind that John Ashcroft was one of the most popular governors ever in the swing state of Missouri (something I never see mentioned) -- I would just like to point out that we never see the following descriptions:The former Missouri senator and governor, who once flirted with a presidential bid as a candidate of the religious right, says he is untroubled by the increased focus on his anti-terrorism policies, and has shown no sign of tempering his rhetoric.
John Edwards, a candidate of the trial-lawyer left.
or
Richard Gephardt, a candidate of the labor-union left.
or
Ted Kennedy, a candidate of the teacher-union (anti-swimmer) left.
or
Al Sharpton, a candidate of the religious left!
Never. I've never seen those descriptions.
But there's no bias in mainstream news reporting. Not at all.
Since the professional political scientists are all gathered in Philadelphia this weekend (instead of obsessing over college football like they should be), it's probably worth pointing to this essay by Charles Kesler:
With the possible exception of Teacher's College at Columbia, there is probably no institution more reflective of the ideals and substance of Progressivism than the American Political Science Association.The new political science mandarins, many of whom had earned their degrees in Germany (which then had the most advanced university system in the world), looked forward to a "rational" democratic state that would give full reign to popular will, which was almost by definition rational. This new state would be organized, administered, and evaluated along the lines of the latter-day social sciences; its multiplying programs and agencies would mirror the reformist agendas in sociology, economics, public administration, and other fields. Thus the modern state and the modern university were born twins, and in the course of a few decades, Wilson and many lesser lights would step smartly from the one to the other. As a political movement, Progressivism would have been inconceivable apart from these developments.
It's worth keeping all this in mind when one considers the California recall. Progressivism is, of course, the father of direct democracy in California, though it was Governor Hiram Johnson's name on the birth certificate. There's no more vivid canvas of Progressive hopes and illusions than California.
Don't be lulled into thinking that the recall of Governor Gray Davis is merely an eruption of left-coast weirdness or Hollywood hype. The recall is a test of a theory, an experimental application of populist and Progressive notions concerning human nature and government. And it deserves to be the occasion for taking stock of this theory and what it's done to California.
We'll second Professor Kesler's notion of a recall.
I commented nearly a week ago on the constant references to DOCTOR Howard Dean.
Apparently Bob Tyrrell has noticed it as well. His article is interesting substantively, but I was most amused by the references to the good doctor.
Okay, so I'm feeling juvenile today. It probably won't be the last time.
Jane Galt has a spectacular post on Judis & Texiera's Emerging Democratic Majority:
The Democrats, on the other hand, are a veritable festival of interest groups: unions, teachers, minorities, feminists, gay groups, environmentalists, etc. Each of these groups has a litmus test without which they will not ratify a candidate: unfettered support for abortion, against vouchers, against ANWAR drilling, whatever. A lot of groups means a lot of litmus tests, because with the possible exception of the teachers, no one group is powerful enough to swing an election by themselves.
This causes two problems. First, it drags the party platform marginally farther to the left than the Republican platform is to the right, which in a 50/50 nation is bad news, and it narrows the well of political talent. At the local level this doesn't matter, since districts go reliably for one party or another, but nationally it's a problem, which is why the Democrats are struggling to hold onto the senate and the presidency. It took a politician of the skill and charm of Bill Clinton to make it work.
But the larger problem is that those interest groups are increasingly coming into conflict. African-americans want vouchers, but the more powerful teacher's union says no. Latinos trend strongly pro-life, but don't let NARAL catch them at it. Environmentalists want stricter standards that cost union members jobs. The more interest groups under the tent, the looser the grip the party has on any one group. And as social security and medicare turn into the sucking chest wound of the budget, the money for the programs that Democratic politicians have traditionally used to cement those interest groups to them is disappearing.
I don't necessarily agree with the notion that it pulls the party to the left so much as it makes the party feel that much more disjointed, leaving more cracks for non-liberal whites to fall through. Without the FDR-style unified platform, and without the appealing to a particular American instinct, the reasons for people who don't fit into one of their groups to vote for them is dwindling.
Once upon a time, the Democratic Party had a very populist feel. A lot of that was FDR, but anti-segregation Southern Democrats latched on to that train. The Republicans were the party of the elites and the Democrats were the party of the people.
Democrats still view it that way, of course, but they're having a rough time touching the populist insticts in Red America, where it thrives the most. As liberalism has become dominant in academia and media (entertainment and news), and as liberal programs become more established and the party seeks to merely preserve the status quo or build upon it marginally, liberals come across as anti-reform (in "reform"s truest sense, not the "throw more money at it" reform that they now advocate).
Clinton managed to hold it together largely through the support of the middle class suburbanites. They, like Clinton, didn't wish to make any waves. It's concievable that a Democrat could step forward and recapture that naturally make-no-waves conservative-minded vote, but Gore took a misinformed turn to populism and, given the current face of the party (Hollywood, minority groups, etc) and given the awkwardness of the nerd-gone-populist, it failed.
In many ways I think it was bound to. While Jane talks of the dominance of small interest groups, I think this is in many ways the symptom rather than the problem. Absent an overarching message, their party becomes their demographics. With "former ethnics" Roman Catholics starting to trend Republican, the numbers simply aren't there like they used to be and the lack of a message is that much more apparent.
By reading Galt's post, one would imagine that their inability to rally behind a candidate is because there is a black candidate, a Latino candidate, a gay rights candidate, a teacher's union candidate, and so on. Instead, there are the Nine Dwarves, candidates without much of a vision or appeal who are reduced to meeting with group after group.
A long time ago, Spencer Tracy was in a movie called State of the Union in which he plays an insurgent Republican presidential candidate gearing up for a run against Harry Truman in 1948.
The further into the campaign that he gets, the more his handlers tell him to go in front of the Italians and badmouth the Irish and vice-versa. "It's not what you're for," an aide explained, "it's who you're against."
In a sense, the identity politics of the left run the same way. Except, unlike Tracy in the movie, the enemy is always the same group of people: White men.
Without a draw, there is not terribly much to induce white men to the party. Indeed, the numbers bear out that theory. White women are generally married to white men and therefore feel closer ties to the "enemy."
To be sure, I'm not saying that the Democratic Party demonizes whites, but in the same way that Republicans have historically been off-putting to minorities with equating crime and minorities, Democrats often juxtapose being "white" with being a "have" instead of a "have-not."
Justified or not, most whites don't feel like "haves." They resent affirmative action because it makes that same assumption. They see that the gays can be proud, the blacks can be proud, the latinos can, but they're unable to. Further, they see President Clinton going to foreign nations apologizing for our actions.
Clinton was a special case in that he was extremely charismatic and for every person whose back hair stood up when he opened his mouth, two felt comfortable with him. Further, Clinton came with a moderated message ("mend affirmative action, don't end it") and people got a good feel for who he was and what he was for.
Yet when even the "moderate" Clinton feels the need to apologize for America, for whites, for men, and so on, it does not go unnoticed. When Howard Dean says that the US shouldn't go to war without the UN's permission, it does not go unnoticed. Very popular with displaced Americans, not very popular with the Americans that it takes to actually get elected.
Yet Americans are a forgiving lot. Bush got elected despite the immense unpopularity of the Republicans going after Clinton. Clinton got elected despite American discomfort with standard fare Democrats. They're willing to overlook negative things indirectly being said about them, but only if they feel that there is a cause they can latch on to.
Democrats have yet to find that cause, and absent that, those waiting for the emerging Democratic majority had better be patient.
I was watching an episode of West Wing earlier in the day. President Bartlet was filling a vacancy in the Supreme Court and the presumptive nominee was a judge by the name of Harrison.
At the 11th hour, Sam Seaborne (Rob Lowe), the aide in charge of investigating Harrison, comes across something scandalous. Scandalous!
Well what is it? I wondered. Was he caught having sex with an underage girl? An underage boy? What could make Seaborne flip out so much?
Even worse.
Harrison does not hold the belief that there is a constitutional right to privacy. When asked if he would have a problem with New Hampshire passing a law banning cream in coffee. Harrison said that he would, but that since the Constitution does not protect the right to cream in coffee, it is not something to be decided by the bench.
Scandalous!
What followed was a conversation outlining both why I don't make a regular habit of watching West Wing and why I feel as disconnected from Democrats as I do. It was sanctimonious dribble that culminated in Seaborne equating the privacy struggle with the civil rights struggle of the last generation.
It should be noted that I am an advocate of privacy. I am against all sodomy laws, uncomfortable with the War on Drugs, and a staunch advocate of the right to put cream in coffee.
That said: fire up a text document of the Constitution and search for "right to privacy" or "right to get strung up on heroin" sometime. Or don't, because I can tell you right now that it's nowhere to be found.
Seaborne and a number of liberal advocates argue that the "nature" of several amendments assumes a right to privacy. To borrow a phrase from grade school: Assuming makes an ASS of U and ME.
Individual amendments don't add up to phantom ones. One plus one plus one plus one does not equal ten. Protecting some rights does not equal protecting unrelated ones.
The cream in coffee argument put forth is a particularly interesting example because it's parallel isn't the right to fornicate with whomever you choose but rather the right to take any drug you see fit. Now, maybe Sorkin wrote the episode while he was in prison on marijuana charges, but I don't think that's what he was getting at.
He was getting at that there is right and there is wrong and the courts need to step in when the legislature does something wrong, like ban cream in coffee.
We saw this before in Florida in 2000 and New Jersey in 2002 where laws needed to be adapted to cosmic justice and whatnot and we see it quite regularly when it comes to abortion. The right to slaughter thousands upon thousands of unborn a year trumps that of Constitutional law and logical consistency, both notably absent in Roe v. Wade. Even people who agree that it was a poorly founded decision will fight to the death to keep it in place because good is right and bad is wrong.
On a last note, it's interesting how the first, forth, fifth, and fourteenth amendments add a privacy amendment that conspicuously leaves out the right to privately own weaponry when that one is actually mentioned in the constitution.
But that's a different argument for another day, I suppose.
Despite his gig on CNN, it would seem General Wesley Clark isn't quite ready for prime-time:
A little megalomania here?"The White House actually back in February apparently tried to get me knocked off CNN and they wanted to do this because they were afraid that I would raise issues with their conduct of the war," Clark told Newsradio 620 KTAR. "Apparently they called CNN. I don't have all the proof on this because they didn't call me. I've only heard rumors about it."
Given how wrong Clark turned out to be just about every time he opened his mouth, I would think he HELPED the White House case. But honestly, why would they care? Nobody watches CNN anyway!
Of course, the nutty general seems to have a streak of paranoia when it comes to the White House:
Ah, I see.Previously, Clark claimed publicly that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he was pressured by the Bush administration to link the attacks directly to Iraq. When pressed on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes show, Clark refused to name White House names and instead fingered a public policy think tank in Canada.
"I personally got a call from a fellow in Canada who is part of a Middle Eastern think tank who gets inside intelligence information. He called me on 9/11," Clark said.
Maybe a few months from now, it will come out that someone from a Canadian/Middle East think tank called CNN and tried to get the nutty general knocked off the air.
And this is the Dems' "serious" foreign policy candidate?
My goodness. That unfortunate. For the Dems.
What a pretentious old windbag.
There's not much else to say.
You didn't really think getting rid of Howell Raines was actualy going to result in anything really changing at the New York Times, did you?
I'm starting to think a good new motto might be, All The Hearsay That's Fit To Print.
The fringe Left (or is it simply the mainstream Left at this point) grows increasingly hallucinatory:
The rest is just the usual nonsense. Complaints that "neoconservatives" Perle and Gingrich dominate policy (never mind that they are relatively far removed from the DoD bureaucracy that actually DOES things, that the actual bureaucracy moves at a snail's pace, and that neoconservative is simply a term these days for people liberals don't like), that Clinton Generals like the retired Shinseki are the real "professionals" (give me a break), that Rumsfeld undercuts Powell (rather than Powell being undercut by his own distaste for international travel, or his own lack of vision), blah blah blah.Relieve Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary.
The president needs a Defense Department in which professional views about what military force levels hold sway, change can occur without perpetual turmoil and military planning avoids undermining diplomacy. None of that is likely under the domineering Rumsfeld.
Here's the conclusion:
Rumsfeld is the bright, abrasive boss whose usefulness expires quickly. If the president has any thought of a more international approach to security threats, he must remove Rumsfeld from his leadership team.The Left really just doesn't get it. They haven't grasped, in three years time, that Secretary Rumsfeld was brought on by this President to transform the DoD from the archaic Cold War institution it had become to an institution capable of meeting the threats of THIS century. They haven't grasped that personalities like Rumsfeld, and Cheney, and Ashcroft, and Powell (all of whom have, at some point, expressed an interest in running for President) were selected by this President to bring strong leadership to his Administration (as opposed to lightweights like Cohen, Albright, Berger, et al). And they certainly haven't grasped that the President, rather than being upset with their leadership, seems to think they're doing a fine job. Rumsfeld perhaps more than most!
Fire Rumsfeld. What a laugher.
DOCTOR Howard Dean (he seems to be using this title a lot lately -- is this in response to VIETNAM VET John Kerry?) has this to say about the economy:
His solution?The economy is going through tough times. The average American family is in trouble. The economy has been losing good jobs, and the benefits that went with them, at an astonishing rate.
Raise taxes!
What a Mondale moment. I love it.
Here's a funny satirical piece on Leo Strauss.
As with all good satire, there's an element of truth to it (as anyone who's ever been around a hardcore Straussian can probably attest).
Apologies to those who are sick to death of Strauss. :)
It continues to amaze me why it's considered news when the least impressive Secretary of State in modern times criticizes the foreign policy of an Administration with so many heavy hitters on foreign policy.
Yet there it is, a writeup in the Washington Post describing her article in Foreign Affairs.
I know I should go read the article, but I just can't motivate myself at the moment. It's sure to be a snoozer. Maybe if Quincy Carter and the rest of the offense look really inept tonight, I'll get around to it.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has weighed in on her perceived need to boost troop strength because of Iraq and other commitments (sadly, John Tower she ain't. Neither of my state's senators are overly impressive).
Senator John McCain has weighed in on his perceived need to commit "whatever it takes" to Iraq.
And here's the most sensible take I've seen today:
Can we run Orrin Judd for Senator? I'd trade a Hutchison or a McCain, and maybe even throw in a Cornyn!It's long past time to put Iraqis in charge of Iraq and let them do what must be done. Bring our guys home for some family time before they move on to the next battle.
So, California Governor Gray Davis unveiled his recall strategy tonight, and it's vintage Davis: slash and burn every opponent in sight, and spare no rhetorical excess.
Check out this red meat:
Crafty to shift the blame to President Bush. Any of the Nine Dwarves running for Prez on the Dem side might have said this on any given day. It would have been even better to work in a reference to Tom DeLay.We got no help from the federal government. In fact, when I was fighting Enron and the other energy companies, these same companies were sitting down with Vice President Cheney to draft a national energy strategy.
The recall is an effort to "steal" an election. Let me translate: when Republicans use ill-advised Progressive direct-democratic reforms to conservative ends, that's unfair. At least according to the liberal dictionary.This recall is bigger than California. What's happening here is part of an ongoing national effort to steal elections Republicans cannot win.
Never mind that impeachment was politically unpopular, was probably never going to be successful, and in some ways was political suicide (but was, it can be claimed, a matter of principle). How is holding true to principle no matter the cost an effort to "steal" an election? Who cares -- the Dems love Bill, and this speech was red meat for Dems.It started with the impeachment of President Clinton, when the Republicans could not beat him in 1996.
THEY did that, you know? Of course, the other THEY tried to disqualify military ballots and cherry-pick recounts in counties where they thought they could manufacture votes. But THAT isn't an effort to "steal" an election. Oh no! That's Democracy. If you're a frothing-at-the-mouth liberal, that is.It continued in Florida, where they stopped the vote count, depriving thousands of Americans of the right to vote.
He neglects to add, by legal and constitutional means. It's not "stealing." Indeed, "stealing" votes happens most often in heavily Democrat precincts in Dade County, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri (since we're on the topic). Dead men can also "steal" elections in Missouri (and vote for Dems in Chicago)!This year, they're trying to steal additional congressional seats in Colorado and Texas, overturning legal redistricting plans.
All 100+ candidates are Republicans? Wow. It really IS a Vast Right Wing conspiracy! Oh wait, the leading Republican isn't even conservative. In fact, Arnold of late seems only nominally to be a Republican. Oh well. Why let the facts interrupt fantasy?Here in California, the Republicans lost the governor's race last November. Now they're trying to use this recall to seize control of California just before the next presidential election.
There are many reasons to be against the recall process, mainly conservative reasons concerning representative/republican government versus direct democracy. But it's the epitome of democratic. Oh, wait. By democratic, he must mean, a process that ensures the elections of Democrats. Okay, it's unDemocratic.There are many reasons to be against this recall. It's expensive, it's undemocratic, it's a bad precedent, and it almost certainly will breed more recalls.
Well, I don't know about kingergarten. But he's shamed me into admitting this: yes, I wanted to kick the most obnoxious children out of the local chocolate store. Oh, the horror of being one of those responsible conservative types!This year in Sacramento, believe it or not, the Republicans wanted to kick 110,000 kids out of kindergarten.
Look, I've had fun with parts of this silly speech from a fundamentally unserious man, but it's a relatively clever speech for what it does. And what it does is take Democrat/liberal conventional wisdom, and splice it firmly into the context of the California recall. Those paragraphs I've reproduced could have been said by any of the Nine Dwarves running for the Dem Presidential nomination any day of the week. The Democrat base believes these things. I have no idea whether it will have any impact on the decision to recall the silly fool, or to select his lightweight lieutenant governor. But California IS a liberal stronghold. And if these are the issues that will be in play, how many Dems stray from the liberal reservation to vote for a Republican? Even if his name is Arnold?
Patrick Ruffini emails that the official Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election website has launched today.
It's a nicely done website (and plays nice with Mozilla Firebird, which pleases us), with some features aimed at bloggers (notably the news feeds).
I have a long post today on my regular blog about the California recall. I invite readers (there) and comments (here).
To sum it up, there is plenty of evidence that Republicans can only get 45% of the California vote in a normal election. The recall strategy makes sense because it makes it a three-way race. Assuming, of course, that conservatives can offer only Simon OR McClintock, not both. Arnold changed the math a fair bit since most people thought the moderate Republican would be Riordan (Gray would go liberal and conservatives could solidify the base), but there is still a chance that a conservative can win if you believe the results of the latest Field poll and a conservative candidate can make the provable case that Arnold is nothing more than an actor who is unwilling to make serious policy stands. While my cynical side figures that conservatives will prove true to form and politically destroy themselves on stands of principle, I can only hope that they choose a strategy that requires Simon to bow out and endorse McClintock. And that is why it all hinges on what Simon Says.
This would be an example of why I refer to the local news rag as the Houston Comical:
Dear gawd.Gloria Starr, a Palm Beach and Toronto-based consultant on impression management, style and etiquette, speculated that Bush's new sartorial flash is no accident.
"Now that we are seeing colored shirts come in, it shows that he is secure in his position, he is broadening his base and bringing in more flair and openness," said Starr.
Heading into his re-election campaign, however, Bush could use some sprucing up, Starr said.
"I see a man that needs to take better care of himself," Starr said. "This is a very tough time to be a leader in America. It's a tough time and a tremendous burden, and I think he needs to remove some of that stressed, burdened, exhausted look."
One thing that might be stressing the president out is his sinking approval rating.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found Bush's job approval rating at 53 percent, down from 58 percent in mid-July and 60 percent in early July.
Starr said Bush could improve his standing by improving his appearance, which suffers in comparison to his serene and composed wife, Laura.
"She doesn't show any wrinkles, she has considerable poise. However, he is looking just a little more mature, older, more tired than she is. We need someone cutting edge as president who is not looking so exhausted," she said. "I would consider Botox mandatory."
What is amazing to me is that the President can essentially disenagage from politics from July through August, and suffer only a 7 percent drop in his approval, despite constant pounding from the Nine Dwarves. That suggests to me that he may not need to bring in the Botox Brigade when he re-engages after Labor Day.
New Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey is shocked -- SHOCKED -- to find a real-life Houston example of a medical facility engaged in cost shifting for a patient whom it initially thought had private insurance, but later turned out not to be covered. His actual bill turns out to be several times more than would have been paid under his insurance.
Welcome to the disastrous political economics of health case in this country, Mr. Casey.
Now if more well-meaning journalists like yourself would educate yourselves on basic economics, healthcare policy, and the mess that government has generally made of the healthcare "market," maybe we could make some headway on bringing back a true healthcare market.
But I won't be holding my breath. It's more fun for nitwit journalists to scream "gouging!" and for pols to screw up the system even more.
It's always been about satisfying the desires of the perpetually selfish one:
This should surprise... exactly nobody.The San Francisco Giants were already uncomfortable on Tuesday night when former president Bill Clinton showed up at Shea Stadium wanting to meet Barry Bonds. Bonds is currently at war with the media over comments he made during the All Star break in which he claimed we would eclipse all memories of Babe Ruth. Initially, according to a member of the San Francisco Giants staff, Bonds did not want to meet with the uninvited former president, in part because it would open him up questions from the press. But Giants officials prevailed upon their star, and Bonds spent several minutes listening to Clinton prattle on about his apparently expansive knowledge of Giants baseball lore.
"His visit complicated things for us because they had to basically shut down the clubhouse, delaying our meals, and with the heat it was hot as hell in there," said a Giants beat reporter.
Owen Courreges posts two of the more sensible paragraphs I've seen on the Dems/anti-catholicism judicial debate:
Sure, I still believe that the charges of anti-Catholicism are overblown, but that fact remains that the Democrats have no moral authority to oppose them. They are the ones, after all, who came up with the 'disparate impact' theory of racial discrimination, which holds that an act of government is racist even if there is no racist intent. By the same logic, then, Democrats should consider themselves anti-Catholic for attempting to thwart the nominees to federal judgships who hold to Catholic doctrine. Their intent may simply be to further a political policy, but the effect works against Catholics.Nope, not a shred.I've noted that the 'Texas 11' have invoked disparate impact as an indictment of Texas Republicans, arguing that they are racist for proposing maps that dilute minority voting strength. Now California Democrats contend that support for Proposition 187 is racist. I wonder if they follow the same logic when it comes to Senate Democrats for opposing Pryor? Are they 'blatantly' anti-Catholic? Personally, I believe that intent is always a necessary element of bigotry, but the Democrats seem to believe otherwise, save when that principle becomes a political liability. They have no credibility on these issues.
Whether it's criticism of the Progressive reforms enabling a recall of their governor in California, or the politics of "disparate impact," the Dems just aren't very consistent, are they? Except in their holier-than-thou rhetoric.
I've written elsewhere (in connection with the Texas Dems claims about Republican redistricting attempts) that "disenfranchise" has become one of the least meaningful terms in American politics (right up there with neoconservative).
And while mainly our friends on the Left use the term in connection with policies with which they disagree, even conservative John Fund broke out the term yesterday, in a discussion of redistricting engineered to protect incumbents:
Incumbent-protection schemes are one of the most significant remaining barriers to voters' ability to express their preferences adequately in elections. The outcome for almost all U.S. House races last year was preordained by devices such as gerrymandering, made easier than ever by computer mapping software that allows both parties to manipulate district lines until they have the perfect political DNA to ensure the re-election of incumbents. Senate races remain more competitive because no one has yet figured out a way to gerrymander a state’s boundaries. But the House -- the body intended by the founders to be closest to the people -- has become an elite preserve for incumbents who have walled themselves off from competition.Liberals do this all the time, but Fund sets it out explicitly: the lack of adequate (by whose standard?) choice for voters is disenfranchisement!Disenfranchising voters became a bipartisan exercise last year, when the new census mandated redistricting. If Democrats moan that they have little chance of taking back the House in the next election, they can in large part blame themselves for allowing their incumbents to greedily build political castles at the expense of more competitive districts that would have left House control more in doubt.
Sorry, but it's not.
Disenfrachisement, properly understood, means to take away a person's rights (in this case, to vote). In this country, felony disenfranchisement is the typical mechanism. People do not lose the right to vote simply because they live in an area that tends to vote differently than they do, and hence their preferred candidates rarely, if ever, win (or in some cases, don't even run). People do not lose the right to vote simply because constitutionally mandated redistricting takes account of changing demographics and could render their area subject to the political cirumstance previously described. Your right to vote has not been taken away! You are not disenfranchised!
Redistricting does stir passions in people, and it's become a much more precise science than it once was. But that doesn't change the fact that it's always been a relatively partisan exercise. The design virtually ensures it in our two-party republic. And once upon a time, theories of "Responsible Party Government" would have thought this was a good thing! Now, even conservatives like John Fund are lamenting the partisan nature of redistricting, never mind that it's part of the constitutional design across the nation.
Some states have adopted technoratic "nonpartisan" approaches to redistricting, which tend to give independents disproportionate sway in the process and may or may not produce better policy. Too often, the intellectual progeny of the Progressives who are most in favor of these (unaccountable) technocratic solutions to the "problem" of redistricting seem to think that, somehow, more competitive elections will produce better policy. That's the real heart of their argument. But why should that be the case? Why will better policy necessarily result if we elect more people from the murky middle, and the legislative/policy marketplace has fewer options at the extremes to pick and choose from?
No answer. Proponents of "fairer" redistricting never pursue that line of thought.
Nor do they address the problem of incumbency directly. The advantage of incumbency is nothing new, after all: incumbents tend to win elections. But most of the same people who favor "fairer" redistricting tend to oppose term limits legislation, arguing that voters should have the right to retain "good" legislators. Fine. So why, if a legislator clearly acts in a manner opposed by his constituents, can't he be turned out, even in a protected, gerrymandered district? Ask Dan Rostenkowski and Tom Foley about that. Why is some unaccountable, technocratic redistricting board somehow going to provide an easy fix for the problem of incumbency? A fix that's any better than, say, term limits?
No answer. Not from John Fund (who, I imagine, favors this approach as a substitute for term limits), and not from the Left (which generally has not been a supporter of term limits).
Whatever the case, one thing is clear: you are not disenfranchised simply because you are a Democrat who lives in an area that votes Republican (or vice versa). You are outnumbered. That's how simple majority-rule works. There's always John C. Calhoun's notion of the concurrent majority, I suppose, but somehow I don't think anyone is really advocating THAT? Well, aside from Lani Guinier, who sort of advocated such a thing (but, I digress).
Yet more proof (if any was needed) that the FCC's equal time rule needs to be abolished.
Why a Republican Congress has let this rule stand for this long is something I don't understand. There's really no excuse with control of the executive branch as well.
Of course, it is a blessing Different Strokes will not be seen as a result.
I don't know what to make of this story, but here goes.
Off the Kuff started this chain here.
Today's op-ed pages contain this piece by a recently retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who spent the last three years in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Under Secretariat for Policy. She started out as a Bush fan, but after seeing how decisions were made before, during, and after the invasion of Iraq, she's not any more. Check it out. Thanks to reader Melanie for the tip.Kevin quickly jumps on board here.
Then I find this column on Town Hall. It's by Frank Gaffney, I've admired him because of his opposition to the Chemcial Weapons Convention.
Divided loyaltiesI found the story from a link on Lew Rockwell's blog. It was sent by Norm Singleton, who I consider a friend.They are welcome to join the public debate from outside but, as they do so, they should make clear the political or ideological leanings that rendered them unable to work for the incumbent and his team.
Kwiatkowski GaffneyedNow, since I know some of the commentators and/or admire so many peoples' opinions on this story, I don't know what to think.Once I debated Frank Gaffney about the first war on Iraq, which he heralded and promoted. He is a militarist, an imperialist, an Ashcroftian on civil liberties, a welfare statist, and a man who doesn't heed George Washington about inappropriate crushes on foreign governments. A neocon, in other words. Today, reports Norman Singleton, "the evil Frank Gaffney smears Karen Kwiatkowski":
I guess it is only fair to formally introduce myself now that I have made contributions and Kevin has made it clear who I am.
My name is James Clarke and I maintain a blog called Right On Everything. I am new to blogging, but not new to having an opinion. I grew up in Hawaii and have lived in California, Texas, Florida, and Utah. I have an undergraduate degree in Economics, have worked as a computer systems consultant and now I am back at school to get an MBA. My first political memory was the first inauguration of Ronald Reagan. Ever since then I have been a Reagan conservative. Along the way I have challenged myself to evaluate all of the assumptions that this view implies and I still return to the same conclusion.
Kevin has welcomed my voice onto his blog. I assume he will tolerate me as long as I don't drive any readers away:) I hope that this will not be the case. From comments on things I have already said I can see that there is a healthy mix of readers who will definitely disagree with me. I welcome this. I think it is one of the great things about the medium we are using to discuss issues.
While I am reluctant to simply say I am a conservative, I am. I do however find myself in odd places on some issues because I am able to see that my conservative views are not always politically realistic. For instance I recently posted a comment that conservatives need to challenge President Bush to be more conservative even to the extent of offering a conservative alternative in the primaries. However, this masks my realism that Bush is pretty conservative and is a great political horse to ride into battle (please don't read too much into that metaphor). I voted for him, intend to vote for him, and have defended him to friends who viewed him as a crook or dumb. It is precisely this realism that leads me to conclude that he will only pay attention to conservatives if it is in his political self-interest.
In fact it is this conflict between the conservative ideal and the political reality that interested me in being affiliated with this blog. While I haven’t checked the background of all contributors, Kevin’s biography makes clear that his conservative ideals are tempered by realism. If I can be a strong voice for the ideal while being balanced by the realism of Kevin I think that readers will find a clear benefit to reading the discussions on this site. Do I realize the realities? Sure, but I want to push for the ideal and let the politician find a way to compromise.
That all being said I can not promise to post in a timely or continuous manner, but I can promise to post from strong view points.
I hope you enjoy.
The Financial Times recently checked in on Noam Chomsky: 
Yet Bush, it appears, inspires something more than Chomsky's routine disapproval. He warns that the president is ruling through fear. "The only way people are kept in line is by terrifying them with phantoms," he says. "Bush can't win on economic policy or social issues. [Bush political strategist] Karl Rove says, 'Frighten them'. And they do. And it works. This is a very frightened country." A man with "Impeach Bush" written on his hat cheers Chomsky on.Woo hoo, go the wackos!
Seriously, are you frightened? Very frightened? Because I'm not. Sorry Noam.
And here's a bit of liberal advocacy posing as journalism to conclude:
Most Americans won't notice this speech. And many who hear it later, when it is broadcast on radio, are likely to write off Chomsky and his followers as off-the-wall leftists.Wrong on the first point -- we do notice when the Wacky Left gets all riled up and starts carrying on nonsensically. It's kind of like a Chia Pet, amusing in a retro sort of way. But then sensible people move on to more serious matters. Or, to concede the journalist's second point, dismiss Chomsky and his followers as amusing wackos.
Nice of the liberals to pass a (constitutionally suspect) campaign finance law and then immediately work to circumvent it.
I suppose political speech should only be regulated when it's non-liberal, eh?
More reporting on the liberal hypocrites here.
You'll note below a post (and some comments) from James Clarke, who's joined the posting crew here. His regular weblog is over here. James is the purifying conservative influence on the blog, to balance my more Judd-ian tendencies. :)
Also, a thank you to the SCSU Scholars weblog, which has linked to us.
The webmaster here (me!) has some work to do on the blogroll this weekend, it would seem.
I know that this is a fact that needs little demonstration to most conservatives, but it is always enjoyable to note actual instances. I have a great one today. The article implies that Halliburton is getting all the work in Iraq to the exclusion of all competitors. What the article avoids mentioning is that Halliburton and Bechtel are in very different businesses (look at their own websites) and that Bechtel is doing all kinds of work in Iraq. Shame on the NY Times!
Notice the package deal that Richard Roeper wants to slide by you:
But now I have a question for all the conservatives, in California and across the nation, who believe Schwarzenegger will make a fine candidate: If you think this actor's views should be taken seriously, then you must agree that the opinions of Sean Penn, George Clooney, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon should be heard and respected as well, right? Because if your answer is "no," that would mean you want to hear only from those Hollywood figures whose opinions agree with yours--which sounds rather un-American to me.The implication is that Republicans (he says conservatives, but conservatives aren't really enamored with the Terminator) are hypocrites because we think liberal dimwit actors shouldn't "be heard and respected" yet we support the Terminator.
Problem: Not one mainstream conservative has advocated silencing liberal dimwit actors. We just think they're wrong, and quite often, goofy. In that sense, yes, we disrespect them. As a tactical matter, though, I think they should talk more. They make fools of themselves when they do!
But let me make this clear for you Richard, in case you are stupid instead of intellectually dishonest: no thoughtful conservative has said actors AS A CLASS OF PEOPLE shouldn't have opinions about politics or shouldn't speak about politics. It's their right, of course, as individuals living in this nation. But just because people have a right to express political opinions doesn't mean those opinions are equally right (hard for the relativist left to grasp that concept, I realize).
Via Martin Devon, I discovered that the beleaguered DLC has taken a poll and put the results in a nice presentation. Of course, it's the DLC and once you start getting to the part exalting the polling virtues of the "New Democrat" and the push-poll questions on how bad, bad, bad Bush is you can safely skip it to the more interesting data. But there were some interesting tidbits nonetheless:
I think I'm driving local blogger Greg Wythe to distraction with my comments that Joe Lieberman should become a Republican.
But I can't help it if he sounds more and more like one in his more sensible moments, can I?
However painful it may be for committed Democrats.
And now James Taranto echoes the thought:
Lieberman's own career illustrates how the demands of the Democratic Party pull usually reasonable politicians to the left. He deserves great credit for recognizing, as few of his fellow Dems do, that the nation's security is more important than partisan politics. On domestic issues, though, Lieberman has abandoned his former moderate positions.
During the 2000 election, he groveled before the Congressional Black Caucus to make amends for his previous opposition to racial discrimination. He abandoned his support of school vouchers and Social Security reform. When he first ran for Senate in 1988, he reportedly said he would have voted to confirm Robert Bork for the Supreme Court. In 1991 he announced his support for Clarence Thomas, reversing himself only when Anita Hill came forward with her claims of naughty language. Now he votes with others in his party to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees. And although he claims not to share the other Democratic candidates' support for high taxes, he has felt compelled to vote against every single Bush tax cut.
As a Republican, Lieberman would have the freedom to be his moderate self. He would also be in the Senate majority--and unlike the last senator to bolt his party, Jim Jeffords, he would probably stay in the majority for a good long time. (Both the 2004 and 2006 Senate cycles look very favorable for the GOP.) And if anyone asked why he left his party, he could repeat the words of another famous Democrat-turned-Republican: "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me."
He's surely more conservative than some of the liberal Republican Senators. He even mentioned God in a speech the other day, which can't speak well of his chances for his party's Presidential nomination.
Come on over, Joe. You'll be much more effective in the majority. We'll even let you say what you think!
Bruce Bartlett has turned in the latest of a new genre of commentary from conservatives that (other than Rush Limbaugh) nobody really pays a whole lot of attention to anymore:
In recent weeks, George W. Bush has started to come in for the first meaningful criticism from mainstream conservatives during his presidency. While nascent, it could become the only real barrier to his re-election next year unless dealt with quickly.
[snip]
Conservative dismay over Taft's liberal agenda led directly to massive Democratic gains in Congress in 1910 and his own loss in 1912. The same dismay over Nixon's liberal agenda led to massive Democratic gains and his ouster from office in 1974.
I am sorry to say that I see Bush traveling the same path. He has concluded that the Democrats are very likely to nominate a candidate so far to the left as to be unelectable. Howard Dean's ascension to the head of the Democratic pack supports this conclusion. But ironically, rather than making Bush feel more comfortable pursuing a conservative agenda, he continues to move left on domestic issues -- especially the budget-busting prescription drug subsidy bill.
Bush has also signed into law a campaign finance reform bill that most conservatives view as blatantly unconstitutional, endorsed an education bill written by Ted Kennedy and initiated more trade protectionism by any president since Nixon. But against these, Bush continually plays his trump card: the war against terrorism. And just as Nixon played the anticommunist card in terms of the Vietnam War, it has been enough to keep most Republican voters under control -- so far.
The only substantive difference between Nixon and Bush, in terms of policy, is that the latter cut taxes while the former raised them. Of course, there are also important personal differences. Nixon was sleazy and dishonest, while I don't believe that such can be said about Bush. But if it turns out that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- the reason why most people who supported the war supported it -- then he is going to have a "credibility gap" as big as Nixon's to overcome.
The only substantive difference? What a bunch of pap. So much pap it's hard to know where to begin.
Mr. Bartlett, like so many others, seems oblivious to the fact that this President has traditionally come in for criticism from all quarters over the mid-July to Labor Day period. Why? Because the White House seems to believe voters are disengaged in the summer, and takes the summer off. They have every summer thus far. And so chatter from left and right has dominated the media while the President has vacationed in Crawford. Politics abhors a vaccuum. Not that it has mattered, because the White House thus far has been proven right in thinking that voters disengage in the summer. The President's ratings have bounced back as soon as he has re-engaged.
Mr. Bartlett's substantive complaints can all be dismissed fairly easily:
1) The same Campaign Finance Reform bill that Bartlett finds so onerous will almost certainly be found unconstitutional, but in the meantime it gives the GOP an incredible advantage in fundraising. President Bush has already defied history by increasing his party's majority in a mid-term election, and has pledged no hollow victories like the Reagan 1984 landslide, which had no impact on Congress. Bartlett is talking about the GOP losing seats, while Karl Rove is plotting to gain a working majority. Perhaps President Bush should have vetoed Campaign Finance on principle, but if it increases the GOP majority and results in more conservative policy formation, what will the substance of Bartlett's complaint then be?
2) That education bill supported by Ted Kennedy that Bartlett laments also includes standards that provide a back door to vouchers, something that neither libertarians nor conservatives could have gotten any other way. Was the cost in terms of ideological purity worth it? Time will tell.
3) More trade protection than any President since Nixon? Bartlett concludes this on the basis of steel tariffs, despite numerous free trade initiatives being pursued by this Administration (and documented almost daily by Orrin Judd)? Come on, Mr. Bartlett. Perhaps Mr. Bush could have been more ideologically pure in that one instance, but does that make him a stark raving mad protectionist when the entire record is considered? No.
4) The prescription drug plan blows the budget? Yes, it does. And it's not ideologically pure. But maybe purity is not better than the alternative. Imagine this from the Dems in 2004 if the President vetoes bipartisan prescription drug legislation: "While this President has given tax cuts to the rich and spent millions on a Middle East war to enhance Israel's security, he's denying needed drugs to Granny." If you don't think the Dems would do that and worse, you must be forgetting that despicable James Byrd ad that ran in 2000. This issue will be removed as one that can damage the President and the GOP. Granted, at the expense of sacrificing some purity.
5) Bush uses the war on terror to keep conservatives in line (just as Nixon used Vietnam). Or maybe conservatives support this President's foreign policy more broadly? And maybe they support his other conservative policies?
Bartlett seems to think that the President can effect sweeping conservative change, despite a divided electorate and a narrow, often unreliable, majority in Congress. The reality is that, institutionally, a focused President can effect change in a handful of areas at best. For this President, that focus has been taxes, the war on terror, and to a lesser extent, education (the foundation has been laid to make choice a bigger issue) and the judiciary (this President's nominations have been solidly conservative, and I suspect this will be a big issue in 2004). As conservatives, we can debate which areas deserve more focus, and which political compromises we find distasteful, but the notion that President Bush is somehow like Nixon -- in terms of not being a true conservative -- is just silly.
So now comes Dr. Fukuyama and his piece in today's WSJ, The Real Intelligence Failure. It's a new take on the Iraq WMD question. How 'bout we sum up the whole piece with this line:
Assuming weapons are not ultimately found, the Iraqis must have disposed of them at some point.He's very careful about the way he phrases things in this piece, he's doesn't exactly say "Iraq destroyed the chemical weapons." But he might as well. Just as the "Bush lied" crowd makes a logical leap that isn't responsible, so does Dr. Fukuyama.
Let's take a look at what he could mean by "disposed":
Options 1. and 2. are pretty hard to buy. Incineration would require a big old incinerator. There'd be a whole bunch of burnt shells in one location. We've been running incineration operations here in the US for quite a few years and have a lot of people who would know what that kind of operation looks like.
If there's any evidence of incineration by the Iraqis, I'd like for it to be put out there.
Neutralization (converting chemical agent to an inert substance by a chemical reaction) is a tricky technology to pull off. The US government doesn't want to try it and after learning about the Russians' plans in that regard I'm not sure I'd want to advocate it as a public policy. I don't think the Iraqis have the sophistication to do that either, and even if they did there'd be quite a bit of post-neutralization substance in the country. (I believe it was a unique kind of salt that doesn't have many uses.)
If there's any evidence of neutralization by the Iraqis, I'd like for it to be put out there.
Number 3., dumping at sea, is an attractive option to many governments, including the US government who has used that disposal method. I kind of doubt that Iraq could have pulled that off. They would have had to get a whole bunch of chemical shells on a ship, taken it past quite a few Navy ships and then dumped them in the sea without anyone noticing.
If there's any evidence of sea dumping by the Iraqis, I'd like for it to be put out there.
Option 4. is the scariest one. I certainly hope that US intelligence would have picked up on that. If this is what happened and they didn't catch it, then this is the real intelligence failure.
I like to think that Dr. Fukuyama and everyone else doesn't consider the burial method (#5) to be a destruction method. For the purposes of our conflict with Iraq we should conisder that a concealment method, not a "disposal" method.
So what are the other options? I can't think of any, unless the Iraqis came up with a magic way to make chemical rounds disappear.
This is the key mistake of Dr. Fukuyama's piece. The absence of proof is not proof. It's only a basis for more questions.
Charles Kuffner calls attention to this article by a retired military officer who served in DoD's policy shop, and now is free to report she didn't like the way things worked there.
That's her right, of course, and I'm sure the Bush haters will jump on this op-ed as vindication of their worldview. More thoughtful people will be a little more analytical.
It's important to keep in mind her perspective -- she's a military staffer who was pulled into the Policy shop under OSD civilians with a charge from their president to remake the military. Further, this administration largely reconstructed the very STRONG institutional fingerprint of the Policy shop in DoD that was present during the Reagan Administration (Feith, Crouch, and Rodman are fairly strong personalities -- and not career military guys, to be sure; contrast that with the Clinton Administration, which didn't run much of a policy shop at all in DoD, largely deferring to careerists who had no interest in remaking the military or doing anything at all differently). It's hardly surprising she has some disagreements, and that she's carrying water for career military types who feel ignored (Ralph Peters, Wesley Clark, and Barry McCaffrey have done the same thing).
Those disagreements don't constitute treason, nor do they necessarily constitute a problem with the decisionmaking processes in Policy. But since she wants to throw out "groupthink," let me throw out another polisci concept: "where you sit determines what you think." Once again, it's hardly surprising that career military types are not so keen to see civilians challenging their status quo (instead of just approving more funding than the last guy).
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, and crew are probably going to upset quite a few more career military types at Dod before they are done. The President brought them in to remake the place, and assert an influence over foreign policy that the particular DoD shop in question hasn't since at least 1990, probably before.
Okay, it's not quite as stupid as that image of Michael Dukakis bouncing around in the tank.
But does this image from the NY Times really make you think John Kerry is one of us? Just a common guy on a bike?
Now if Cabana Boy were hauling ass with a pizza for his millionaire wife on the back of a delivery bike, yes, I could see it.
But I don't think that's what is going on here, hmmm?
With NFL training camps under way and August being a slow political month, I must admit that my political reading fell off a bit this weekend. But in catching up on my blog reading, I've run across these interesting tidbits from some of the fine folks on the blogroll to your right:
Noel at the Sharp Knife says that John Ashcroft is doing a fine job, despite some of the hysterics from social libertarians and lefties like Ted Kennedy.
Steven at the Shark Blog explains that even if Saddam Hussein was bluffing about WMD, taking out the dictator when we did beat waiting until he inevitably reconstituted his programs after "beating" the U.S. at the inspections game once again.
Nicholas Antongiavanni calls our attention to a new (Straussian) translation of Machiavelli, thereby completing the work of literal translation of his four most political works (as an aside, there's also a literal translation of Mandragola that is praised by Straussians I have known, although I do not know if the translator is a Straussian). Antongiavanni also responds to a fairly weak (but certainly smug) attack from Iain Murray. Newsflash to Mr. Murray: Antongiavanni didn't actually WRITE what you CLAIM, and he is NOT, in himself, the whole of the Claremont Institute. Like I said, weak.
And finally, Sean at the American Mind describes the controversy over President Bush's 16 words with the best 16-word description of the non-issue I've seen:
This is a scandal started by the administration's attempt to fix a mistake that didn't happen.Good stuff all around. Thanks for the good work guys!
Nick Gillespie seems to be smoking some of what Novak was yesterday (or maybe Novak dropped by the Reason offices and they both wrote their columns afterwards):
A successful run for major office by Arnold had the potential to seriously alter the American political landscape.It had the potential seriously to alter (we don't like split infinitives here) American politics about like the relatively recent candidacies of Ross Perot, John McCain, and Jesse Ventura did -- which is to say, not a great deal.
Sure, we're intrigued with populists, and with people like Schwarzenegger who call themselves a member of one political party even as they endorse policy positions that seem more like the other party's. Or maybe "we" aren't, but the elite media surely are.
But really, such figures don't have much of an impact on American politics, certainly not a transforming effect. Ask John McCain (R, Media).
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