just some more bullshit

Hola amigos. I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, but sometimes, life just gets in the way of making a blog that nobody will ever read.

I have about 6 posts in draft form, where I dropped a link into a new post, intending to comment later, but never got around to it. But today I wanted to drop in and comment about the huge swings in the polls that have been going on lately (with the exception of Mitt Romney, who, as always, is just kind of there).

Because I've been in the process of moving, and was without tv or internet for like 10 days, I didn't get to see either of the recent GOP candidate debates, but apparently Rick Perry was not a top-flight performer, and Herman Cain came out the winner. The subsequent bump in the polls seems to be sticking, too. What's also interesting is the drubbing Michele Bachmann has taken since she seemed to sign on to the anti-vaccine lunacy that has taken hold of some of our nation's hotter celebrities. 

Before we go further, though, yes, I know the vaccines against which Bachmann injected herself is not the same as the one that is alleged to cause autism. But I do think it's interesting that Bachmann took a huge hit from the right for her comments. The linked post rightly points out the difference in media treatment when someone like Bachmann makes such a stupid claim, and when somebody like, oh say, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. does. I think the reaction, and the subsequent drop in her polls numbers, give lie to the anyways absurd claim that Republican's are somehow "anti-science." It's dangerous and bad politics to crow loudly about how one party is "anti-science," while the other throws away billions on bullshit technology to little political consequences. Again, as the PowerLine post says, Bachmann rightly points out some serious political and constitutional problems with Perry's mandating vaccination, but one can certain make those points without wandering off into McCarthyism.

But I also wanted to comment on Cain's surge. First, I want to say that I hate this kind of rhetoric, whether it comes from the left or the right. Nobody is brainwashed here, ok? Not people who vote Republican, and not people who vote Democrat. And second, I think it takes a very, very special kind of stupid to argue that political gains by a black candidate somehow prove that that candidate's constituency is racist, though, but that's a whole nother post.

The audacity of hope

Politico: Obama Plan: Destroy Romney
I wanted to note this so I can come back to it over the next year while this strategy plays out, and Obama supporters try to pretend the attacks aren't personal. Does "weird" mean "mormon?"

Meanwhile, the objective media picks a photo of Michelle Bachmann that I'm sure is not meant to imply anything...

Rick Perry's confederate past?

Texas governor Rick Perry's name has been bubbling just under the surface for a few months now as a possible late entrant into the presidential race. Conservatives and Tea Party folks are eyeing him closely, as he has a solid record of job creation during his tenure, even during the current depression recession jobless recovery. Texas' balanced budget, and friendly business climate, also are attractive, as many believe these types of measures are just the thing we need to pull the country out of its slump.

Perry is so attractive to some folks, he's even ahead of President Obama in a poll here in North Carolina, which Obama narrowly won in 2008. Perry hasn't even declared his candidacy yet, and he's already a front-runner 1000 miles from his home state. That's nothing to sneeze at.

It is, however, entirely predictable that some news organization would run the obligatory hit piece on Perry, and so Salon.com unironically posts their cliche. While nowhere near the vile, vicious attack on Michelle Bachmann that Rolling Stone ran a few weeks ago, the mud it slings is still pretty thin. Perry was apparently endorsed by a secessionist/Confederate organization when he was running for governor. The Perry campaign denies he was ever a member, although he does seem to have had a connection with one officer of the organization that endorsed him, which is sort of to be expected. But smearing a candidate with the reputations of those who endorse him is just as lame as when Republicans made hay over Osama bin Laden pining for a John Kerry administration (although, it should be noted that it was Al Jazeera that originally broadcast the tape about which Kerry complained so loudly, and not, say, Fox News).

I've been reading Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs, Known and Unknown. As a bit of context, Rumsfeld has been in and around the federal government since the early '60s, when he was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican in suburban Chicago. He helped engineer Gerald Ford's ascent to Speaker of the House, served as NATO ambassador in the Nixon administration, was Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense to President Ford, turned around a struggling pharmaceutical company (the one that invented The Pill, interestingly), was tapped to study the issue of ICBMs, and famously was President George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense for most of Bush's two terms. While I found Bush's memoirs to be shallow and uninteresting, a missed opportunity, Rumsfeld is clearly a very bright guy with insight and experience to burn. I'm sure I'll have more to say about him and his book in the future, but what has struck me most from the early parts of the book is this passage, about the campaign of Barry Goldwater:

"The [Lyndon] Johnson campaign's strategy soon became clear-- to exploit Goldwater's outspokenness and try to depict him as a dangerous crackpot who would take America into a nuclear war... The "Daisy" ad on television that the Johnson campaign aired... was undoubtedly the most cynical campaign ad ever aired by an incumbent president. It also was among the most effective.... The Johnson campaign didn't stop there. They ran ads showing someone tearing up a Social Security card, implying Barry Goldwater intended to abolish Social Security. Capitalizing on his vote against civil rights, they also prepared a commercial showing a Ku Klux Klansman saying, "I like Barry Goldwater. He needs our help."

(Unfortunately, Amazon does not have a "search inside this book" feature yet for this book that I can use to link to the quote, so you'll have to trust me on my transcription.)
Now, Rumsfeld takes some shots at the media throughout the book as being uninformed, manipulative, and biased, and I haven't even got to the part about the war in Iraq yet. But what struck me about the quote above is how accurately it still describes the media environment today. Republicans still get smeared as wanting to end Social Security, and supremely unfairly carry around the "racist" tag. In fact, it's tough to find a narrative about a Republican official today that is not one constructed of accusations of hypocrisy, crypto-racism, sexism, and homophobia. Taibbi's piece on Bachmann is a good example. What's the first thing you think of when I say "Tea Party?" Chances are you think, "a bunch of racists." Quick, is Barack Obama for or against gay marriage? What about George W. Bush? Nope. They're both against it. But only one gets smeared as a homophobe for having that position. (Which is not to say that Obama's base of support is not disappointed in that position. But I think it's a tough case to make that Obama did not get a free pass on the issue, whereas Republicans with the same position, who may even belong to a church as stridently anti-gay marriage as Obama's is, get constantly hammered from all sides.) (There may well be other reasons than media bias that this is the case. For example, often it's asserted that Republicans have more to answer for on issues of morality than democrats, and a failure to have what some see as a perfectly consistent stance on moral issues opens them up to more attacks. The issue of morality in politics, and the difference between how Democrats and Republicans are faced with it, will be tackled in a later blog post.)

All this is not to say that there are not hypocrites, racists, sexists, or homophobes out there. But it doesn't pass the smell test that every single Republican candidate over the last 50 years can be credibly tagged with these labels. While the country at large may not know all that much about Rick Perry yet, it's very telling that those in the media are seemingly so worried about his chances that a pre-emptive strike against him as a racist (or at least a wacko secessionist) was required. (And don't try to tell me that the article specifically disclaims any association with racism. The inflammatory headline, and the Photoshopped juxtaposition of Perry with a Confederate flag is proof that that's precisely the association the author sought to make.)

Two treatments of Michelle Bachman

I don't know much about Michelle Bachman other than what I've posted so far, and a hazy impression of her from a scattering of TV appearances. I've gathered that she is religious, outspoken, and has made inroads with some Tea Party folks. But I've also seen a lot of support for her from some conservative blogs, and a lot of "lookit the crazy!" reactions from the left. So I thought it would be instructive to compare two recent profiles of her from two different media sources: a Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi, and a Weekly Standard  article by Matt Continetti.

Both authors can be seen as having a sort of bias (Taibbi to the left, Continetti to the right) without, I would hope, too much consternation.

Having read both in succession, the thing that is most striking is the difference in tone between the two articles. Taibbi's article is frankly astonishing in just how viciously he treats Bachmann, her husband, and especially her supporters. One must read the article to get the full effect, but briefly, he refers to Bachmann as a "religious zealot," "the T2 skeleton," "ignorant," "batshit crazy," a "psychopath," and "six-faced." And that's all just on the first page. Taibbi calls Bachmann's husband, Marcus, "doltish," and implies that he is a repressive authoritarian of the Bill Henrickson type.

Taibbi's contempt for religion and those who subscribe to it is obvious, but plain ol' elitist condescension seems to be the motivating factor behind all the vitriol:

 She has brilliantly piloted a media system that is incapable of averting its eyes from a story, riding that attention to an easy conquest of an overeducated cultural elite from both parties that is far too full of itself to understand the price of its contemptuous laughter. All of those people out there aren't voting for Michele Bachmann. They're voting against us. And to them, it turns out, we suck enough to make anyone a contender.

In other words, it is the fault of the "media system" (whatever that means) that indulges the crazy Bachmann instead of righteously ignoring, or perhaps outright deriding her. This will lead to her fooling all the slope-headed fools in fly-over country into voting for her, because they don't know any better, and can't possibly agree with her. The media and these rubes can't be trusted. No, only the "overeducated" can see through her, and even then, it takes Taibbi, such a brave truth-teller, to bring the Truth to light!

What a pile of bullshit. There is little in modern American politics that I disdain more than the notion that Americans are too stupid to govern themselves, to vote in what they perceive to be their own interests, and thus what they're REALLY voting for is something else, something hidden. Voting for smaller government and less taxes is inconceivably stupid, because if you just vote for Democrats, the government will give you jobs, a place to live, food, a car, a cell phone, etc. etc. etc.  The Tea Party doesn't actually want smaller government and less taxes, they're crypto-racists looking for a socially acceptable way to vote against the black man. They can't be voting for Bachmann because she seems to stand for smaller government and less taxes, no, they're actually voting against the "overeducated elites!"

I could go on about the numerous other flaws in Taibbi's article, flaws that have nothing to do with Bachmann, but let's leave off by saying that I no longer trust assertions like...

She launched a fierce campaign against compact fluorescent lights, claiming that the energy-saving bulbs contain mercury and pose a "very real threat to children, disabled people, pets, senior citizens." She blasted the 2010 census as a government plot and told people not to comply because the U.S. Constitution doesn't require citizens to participate, when in fact it does. She told her constituents to be "armed and dangerous" in their resistance to cap-and-trade limits on climate-warming pollution. 

...unless there are links provided. I mean, shit, does mercury NOT pose a threat to people? And no, Matt Taibbi, the Constitution does NOT require citizens to participate in the census. The Constitution requires the federal government to conduct a census, but citizens are required to participate only via federal law. When Bachmann told her constituents to be "armed and dangerous" when talking about cap-and-trade, she wasn't referring to actually wielding guns, she was talking about being armed with facts. See? That's just one paragraph. I mean, Oral Roberts did NOT become Regent University. That's an even easier one. What else is Taibbi hiding with all that name-calling?

Anyway. Enough. Suffice to say that Taibbi's vitriol does little to help me get an unbiased picture of Bachmann's policy views, or to get me to believe she's too stupid to be president. That's not an endorsement, mind you. I'm just saying that I can't really trust that article to give me solid reasons to vote against her.

Continetti's article is kind of the polar opposite. It's so respectful that it's boring. It contains basically the same uncontroverted facts about her background (he gets her law degree correct, however), and even has a few more, such as her time in Israel, and her disillusionment at the failure of the Carter presidency. Continetti uses some nice adjectives ("Energetic, charismatic, intelligent, and attractive," he writes), but restrains from fawning praise that could dilute Taibbi's raving hatred. Continetti explains her popularity thus: "Her combativeness will delight conservatives eager to fight Barack Obama." With Obama's approval ratings at historic lows, this seems to me to be a somewhat stronger thesis than "let's pretend to want smaller government, but vote for Bachmann because we can tell she hates fags too!" Continetti glosses over her strange encounter with some lesbian protestors, which yeah, that's weird, and probably needs to be explored further. But unlike Taibbi, Continetti explores Bachmann's Tea Party credentials: she's openly challenged what many perceive to be the Obama administration's predilection for crony capitalism ("gangster government," she said), opposed health care reform, and opposed the stimulus plan. Like it or not, these are legitimate political positions that one can hold without being "batshit crazy" or "ignorant." 


We can end, for now, on a note of unity: both authors agree that Bachmann has only lost one election for public office in her career, and that her base of support makes her an extremely formidable candidate. 




UPDATE: And one more thing: The argument that the Tea Party folks are just racists in disguise is based on the notion that none of them objected to the increasing amounts of spending under Bush (a white president), so what other motivation could they possibly have to object to spending by a black president? But once again, those who fancy themselves as belonging to the "reality-based community" are ignorant of relevant history. Nobody seems to remember the PorkBusters movement, or how a guy named Tom Coburn was a hero to small government types before he apparently went all Anakin on them. 

Eliot Spitzer, moving the goalposts

Eliot Spitzer's piece on Slate is a near-perfect example of how Republican politics are misunderstood, at best, and flat-out lied about at worst. He's ostensibly writing about the recent debate among some Republicans who have either declared their candidacies, or are dipping a toe in the water, checking the electoral temperature. It's such a disappointing article, because while there is plenty of room to criticize Republican policy or the candidates themselves, this article simply moves the goalposts in an attempt to portray literally ANY nominee as "extreme."

The article is subheaded: "The Republican presidential debate revealed how alarmingly far right the mainstream GOP has shifted." His subtly-stated example of a centrist Republican is George W. Bush. The same Bush who, just a few scant years ago, was called Nazi, facist, Hitler, warmonger, worst president in history, the real mastermind behind 9/11, and any and every other slur and smear a fevered mind could think of. Now, Spitzer wants us to think Bush was a moderate, compassionate example of what GOP candidates should aspire to? It should be pretty obvious that the article is not a serious exploration of policy at this point, but let's look a few specific examples.

Read more...

On Social conservatives vs. Tea Party conservatives

The NY Times has a story about how social conservatives in Iowa could complicate an election strategy for Mormon candidates (or potential candidates) like Mitt Romney and John Hunstman (former governor of Utah, and recently stepped down from his position as Obama's ambassador to China), and for candidates who may be more popular with the Tea Party crowd. I'm not sure I'm buying it.

The Times frames the story as "evangelicals don't like Mormons, so Romney and Huntsman are skipping the upcoming straw polls." However, the story seems to undermine itself immediately by then listing several political positions that may have done just as much work in affecting the poll's outcome.

First, although Huntsman does indeed seem to be skipping the straw poll, he's not even an announced candidate yet, so I think it's lame to attribute this to some sort of anti-Mormon bias. Further, his statement says he's skipping because he's against ethanol subsidies, believes in global warming, and hasn't embraced the Tea Party movement. Considering this, the decision to skip Iowa makes perfect sense. If a guy is going to run for president, he's going to need an obscene amount of money. Donors don't want to waste money, so they're going to give it to a guy who they think can win. Those three positions do indeed put Huntsman at a disadvantage, and when you combine that with almost zero name recognition, you're writing a recipe for single-digit support, not an auspicious way to kick off a campaign (or the fund raising for one).

Second, the article goes on to list several political problems that Romney may have with Iowa voters, namely the fact that the health care plan for the state of Massachusetts that passed while he was governor has been cited as the model for the federal legislation (derisively, but handily known as "ObamaCare"). This paragraph of the story, in particular, immediately contradicts itself:

Mr. Romney’s decision, in particular, suggests that candidates who are viewed suspiciously by the state’s religious conservatives may stand little chance there. Mr. Romney, who was once a pro-choice governor and passed a health care plan that served as the inspiration for President Obama’s, has struggled in Iowa for years.

(Emphasis mine.) It seems to me that the Times is setting up to spin a poor Romney showing as based either in sectarian animosity, or on Tea Party opposition.

Next, the story holds out Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum out as candidates with Tea Party support. While Bachmann is certainly a Tea Party favorite, she is also known as a social conservative. Santorum is also a serious social conservative, not known for significant Tea Party support at all. Again, I suspect the Times is conveniently lumping social and Tea Party conservatives together so as to tar the two with the same brush.

What's my evidence for this? In the story, there is a link to a March 26 story, also from Iowa, where the Times asserts that social conservatives are flexing their muscles. The story distinguishes Bachmann and Santorum from Romney as candidates with social conservative followers. Somehow, in the intervening four months, they gone from social conservatives to Tea Party candidates?

But the real point, according to the story, is this:

Here in Iowa, whose caucuses next winter will open the campaign, social and religious conservatives are pressing the likely candidates on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion rather than on jobs, the budget deficit and other economic concerns that leaders of both parties expect to dominate the general election.

... 

 While social conservatives have long wielded a greater influence in Iowa than in many early-voting states, a bitter fight here over same-sex marriage and rivalries among some of the state’s conservative leaders have amplified the issues and might help define the message of Republican candidates in ways that could resonate nationally.

So, by conflating social conservative candidates with Tea Party candidates, and by defining Mormon candidates with serious political problems as victims of evangelical bigotry, the Times seems to be putting together a narrative where whoever emerges from Iowa's contest can be painted as hand-picked by evangelicals. This will "define the message" of the candidate, and will "resonate nationally" even though the election will be dominated by budgetary and economic issues.

Personally, I think the claims on anti-Mormonism amongst evangelicals are overstated. While tricky to prove, I don't think that if Romney loses in Iowa, or nationally, that this will be due to his religion. I think this election is about policy, and in particular, the size, scope, and proper role of the federal government. I think this is the motivation of the Tea Party folks, too, despite thinly-sourced accusations of racism, nativism, or anti-intellectualism.

For a variety of reasons which I hope to explain further as the campaign progresses, I don't support candidates because of religious affiliation, or because of antagonism to one denomination or to religion as a whole. I should hope it obvious that the pre-eminent issue facing the country right now is, broadly stated, the economy. Further, I think the role of the federal government in the economy is an issue  inextricably linked to "the economy." While there are certain to be plenty of distractions along the way, I hope that this is what we're all talking about for the next 17 months.

What it's all about

Since the demise of the late, lamented John Adams' iPod, your humble correspondent has had but a few limited outlets for his political musings. Sputtering incoherently to the person across from me at the bar is ill-conceived on a number of levels, not the least of which being that the thought processes of one's interlocutor have been altered precisely never by the putrid potency of halitosis and stale Bass ale. Twitter, well... quite simply, one does not Twitter. Finally, I think I speak for all when I say that those who know me have likely had quite enough of my clogging up their Facebook feeds with disjointed taunts and links.

Thus, a new blog, where one can voluntarily engage with these musings, or more likely, ignore them entirely. Either is fine, frankly, as I begin this venture only partly to make these musings available to others. The other half of the point is that I need to work some things out. First, and primarily, there is an enormously important presidential election coming up next year, and as of now, I have absolutely no idea for whom I'm going to vote. This blog will serve mostly as a way for me to honestly work this out. The added benefit is that I get to share this with those who care. I've often felt that my political beliefs, when not being outright derided by some of my friends, are distinctly misunderstood. I hope to not only explore who I'll end up voting for, but to explain how each candidate gels with beliefs I hold, and perhaps more importantly, why I hold those beliefs.

For those who read JAi, I want to be clear that I intend on making this a very different experience. The title of the blog notwithstanding, I take politics and policy very seriously, which may have not always been entirely clear in my previous undertaking. I intend to steer clear of snark (which will be enormously difficult), and hopefully to eschew minor stories and scandals, unless their exploration will serve a larger point. Whenever possible, I will strain to verify my assertions with links to credible sources, or to not make them at all, and I'd ask those that chose to comment do the same. As the well-worn trope goes, all are entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts. Let's honestly look at what was said or done, and go from there.

In the coming posts, I think I'll begin by noting and remarking briefly on those candidates who have declared for the race, and a few who haven't (or have declared that they won't be running). Since I don't anticipate a primary challenge to President Obama, this blog will necessarily focus almost exclusively on Republican or perhaps 3rd-party candidates until the eventual challenger becomes clear.