Sorry guys, but it's been busy, busy, busy -- nine hours of driving on Tuesday, a lovely meal and a few cold ones with our friend Joe S. last night, and tonight a fund raiser for the Scott Walker recall election effort at the AFL-CIO. The feeling within the pro-recall forces is that the election is much closer than the polls are implying -- the internals within their polling show a race well within the margin of error. It's all going to come down to turn out, particularly among minority voters in Milwaukee. This election -- and the accompanying senate recall races -- remains hugely significant to my thinking. Stop Walker and return control of the Wisconsin senate to the Democrats and it sends a hugely powerful message. On the flip side, should Walker prevail, one of the more impressive grass roots political efforts in recent memory is going to have fallen short, emboldening Republicans in their war on unions.
Seems like it was an eventful day today.
- Really happy about the decision striking down DOMA from the First Circuit Court of Appeals. I have not read the decision yet, so can't really give any kind of detailed analysis of it, but once again it would seem historical anti-gay prejudices are not proving an adequate rationale in federal courts.
- Glad to see the Edwards jury would not convict him. I am curious to see if the U.S. Attorney will attempt another trial. I would certainly hope not, but my sense is that prosecutorial ego will compel another shot at conviction.
I was really pleased to see Tim Noah's The Great Divergence sharing front page billing in the New York Times Book Review today and garnering well deserved kudos.
The Great Divergence is a concise, lucidly argued study of rising inequality in the United States, one which starts with the premise that such escalating levels of inequity are unhealthy in a democracy. However, despite having a clear moral point of view, Noah does what all too few polemicists do these days (particularly fatuous clowns on the right like Jonah Goldberg) -- he argues using solid facts and sound history, he doesn't overreach, and he doesn't pretend to have comprehensive answers to a complex and, in some respects, a global problem. Noah traces the history of studying income and inequality in the U.S., something that began with a handful of sociologists in the Progressive Era. It is an interesting and informative chapter and one of which I knew little. Noah also discussed why he has chosen to focus on income rather than wealth, arguing that the former rather than the latter is the more important aspect of economic life over the last hundred or so years. (I understand this decision but I do not think wealth should be understated as a matter of importance, especially in an age in which pensions are becoming things of the past -- the accumulation of wealth is going to have to be part of achieving some security in old age. Moreover, the ability of a small segment of society to accumulate and then pass on wealth -- exempt from estate taxes -- is likely to further exacerbate inequality.)
Noah sees the rise of inequality as a multi-faceted process, one which has been exacerbated by a combination of factors -- political, technological, demographic, and cultural. He cites, among other things, the concerted efforts by business, in conjunction with their Republican political partners, to crush organized labor over the last thirty years (an effort that started in 1947 with the Taft-Hartley Act), the undermining of the industrial base through global trade, the dominance of right wing economic policy over the last three decades, including the erosion of the progressive income tax, the deregulation of the financial sector, and the relative shrinking of the public sector, the impact of undocumented workers on certain segments of the working class, the unbridled growth of business influence over policy, and ultimately, the growth of a culture that has allowed greed to flourish and the sense of the common good to wither. Noah discusses how the confluence of these phenomena has resulted in this world of growing inequality and much more limited social mobility.
The book concludes with a series of recommendations to attack inequality -- 1) eliminate the Bush tax cuts and add some additional brackets for very high income individuals; 2) expand government payrolls and enact some New Deal style jobs programs; 3) import highly skilled individuals from abroad; 4) universalize pre-school; 5) impose price controls on college tuition; 6) re-regulate Wall Street; 7) elect Democratic presidents; and, most importantly, 7) revive the labor movement.
All of this is set out in clear, concise, highly readable prose, with the book clocking in at 195 substance-filled pages (and about fifty pages of backnotes). It's a timely and thoughtful treatment of a subject of increasing importance. I strongly recommend it -- and would also note that Tim is a truly good guy as well -- so you can feel good about buying it for that reason as well.
That's not the only thing we owe our troops, but it should certainly be at or near the top of the list. Those who have joined the military have placed their lives and bodies at our disposal, to be used as our President, with the concurrence of Congress, sees fit. The least we can do is take that commitment seriously, particularly by:
Understanding what the stakes look like to the people in the country we're going to war in, rather than what they look like from our generally distant perspective;
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of both our allies and our enemies;
Understanding what the true obstacles are likely to consist of;
Determining whether our objectives are achievable without war, and achieving them peacefully if possible;
Not getting into a war for domestic political reasons;
Not staying in a war due to fear of domestic political fallout;
When it becomes clear that a war is placing inordinate burdens on our volunteer army, spreading the burden via conscription if popular support for the war remains, or wrapping things up and getting out if it doesn't; and
Acknowledging when we've reached the point where if we were going to achieve our goals and be able to exit on our desired terms, we'd have done so already, and acting on that acknowledgement by winding things down and getting out.
I'm sure you folks can think of others to add to the list. Basically, they boil down to going to war (and continuing to fight) for the right reasons, and having a clue about what's going on in the war.
We haven't done very well by our troops, have we? We've basically thrown their lives away by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by the tens of thousands in Vietnam before that. The best that can be said for any of these wars is that we might've been able to wrap up our involvement in Afghanistan fairly quickly, if Bush, Cheney & Co. hadn't had Iraq on their minds.
Someday, somebody ought to apologize to our troops who fought in these wars, and their survivors, for our wanton waste of their lives. Nobody will, of course, because not even the soldiers whose bodies have been mangled, or the survivors of those who were killed, want to hear that their lives were basically wasted.
I can't say I blame them. But I can't come up with any other conclusion about the meaning(lessness) of their sacrifice.
This Memorial Day, we ought to commit ourselves to no more wars where we don't have a clue about what we're getting into, and no more lives sacrificed in such wars. It's about the only way I can think of to honor the sacrifices already made by our troops in recent years.
Continuing with the Boss-town sound -- nice cover of the Joy Division/New Order song.
Sorry for the limited appearances. It's been meetings, meetings, meetings, the last couple of days. Heading off to a couple more in about ten minutes. Then hopefully a slow pre-holiday afternoon dedicated to getting my act together at the office and then home.
As I expected, the horse race coverage in the presidential race is going full throttle. It all seems a little premature to me and in the end seems to keep coming back to the same thing -- a fairly tight race with both parties having their bases largely intact, trying to persuade the few persuadables and crank up the voter turnout among loyalists. I think Obama continues to have the edge in terms of paths to 270 and in his overall appeal as a candidate, but continue to worry that things out of his control may prove problematic. I am anxious to see the next jobs report and have my fingers crossed that Europe will continue to muddle through until November. (I see no good end there -- merely the putting off of even more turmoil to come.)
It occurs to me that we are also about a month away from hearing from the Supreme Court on the Affordable Care Act. I am less optimistic than I once was and worry that a negative ruling is going to leave in place only a crumbling system with no hope of reform.
I am encouraged on the other hand by the recent polling on gay marriage. It would be great to win a couple of statewide referenda, even though I am loathe to have civil rights decided by popular vote. A couple of wins on this score would signal that the changing dynamics we see in polling have really come to fruition.
Alright, I need to get on the road, but I put things in your capable hands for the next few hours.
TPM had this brilliant video of the asshats at CNBC getting all excited about the Facebook IPO and then sinking into disappointment when the stock went nowhere. It's really amazing to watch these clowns as they relive those golden moments of the late 1990s when the NASDAQ hit 5000 and all the old rules were abolished. For a few months. And then came the deluge.
But these fools will continue to pretend that the last twelve years haven't happened, that the internet will prove to be a modern form of alchemy, that heroic entrepreneurs, delivering essential services like ways to post videos of your cat or inform people that you are at the supermarket, will provide us with a life of unprecedented abundance. We should all be proud as Americans to live in this the best of all possible worlds blessed as we are to call Facebook our own, to have Mark Zuckerberg as our fellow citizen. If only we would just let these great men have the freedom that they need and if only we would believe in their dreams and the value of their stock options.
CNBC is really a disturbing place to visit. All of these charlatans pretending to know something about economics, cheerleading for the rich like they are our champions -- "a lot of American wealth being generated." "People are very proud that this is an American company." Really, I couldn't give a fuck less and really can't imagine anyone I know feeling differently.
I actually can't imagine investing in something as ephemeral as Facebook by the way. I suspect that the company will prove to be only marginally profitable in the long run and will not be able to justify even its $38 a share price. And if it crashes and burns, I for one will be a happy American, reveling in the schadenfreude of it all.
What can I say -- I'm in a Boston kind of mood these days. (That's David Robinson, later drummer for the Cars and Jerry Harrison, later of Talking Heads, next to Jonathan Richman in the front row.)
- I actually thought the thirty day sentence for Darhun Ravi was about right. Being a jerk is not a criminal offense. If it were, our already overcrowded prisons would likely need to be expanded ten fold. Anyone interested in the case should check out this excellent New Yorker article, which leaves more questions than answers.
- I am not sure how people can read about the many wrongful convictions that take place in the United States -- for the most serious of crimes -- and still favor the death penalty. Essentially it indicates that one believes it is acceptable for an innocent person to be put to death from time to time. And this strikes me as monstrous.
- Speaking of monstrous, what is wrong with these people? It's depressing that certain aspects of the American political dialogue are unchanged over forty years.
- Update: I meant to link to this excellent article by Katha Pollitt in The Nation regarding "attachment parenting." Once again, these trends and inflammatory cover stories like that recently featured in Time all seem geared to manipulating women, to spreading guilt and promoting division, all the while remaining grossly unrepresentative of the population writ large. Men remain totally immune to this sort of thing -- basically anything we do in this sphere is seen as above and beyond the call. (From the time that our son was four months old until he was about 12 I did most of the dropping off and picking up from day care and school because we were a one car family and my wife took the subway to work while our son was in Metro inaccessible places. As a result I also did a lot of the mid-day school functions and the like. When you do this sort of thing as a man, you get treated like some kind of hero. I used to laugh about this a lot to my wife, who strangely was less amused about it than I was.) The day that a man who says he is going to "babysit" his kids gets ostracized will be the day when you know that progress has been made on this score.
Trying to get a couple of posts done on Tim Noah's The Great Divergence and a recent Wall Street Journal travesty attacking union-sponsored pension plans. In the meantime, I turn it over to you.
"Mama Kin" and "Prettiest Girl" - The Neighborhoods
Our discussion about Boston's hideous city hall made me remember this video of local legends the Neighborhoods performing on the plaza there doing a kick ass cover of an early Aerosmith song and their own should have been a hit song Prettiest Girl. This one's for oddjob and my younger sister, one of the world's biggest 'hoods fans, who is counting down the last thirty days before the school year is over (while also getting sad about having her class of kids leaving her).
- Naturally, this story in the New York Times about the fact that non-white births now exceed white births in the United States made my day. I hate to be such a self-hating white man, but I feel like this is most promising path to a better political day in this country. A United States that is a little browner, a little less religious, a little less married is a country where the present style of Republican politics will eventually become unsustainable. I am not sure how long that will take, but it will be in my lifetime. The GOP will start losing and losing badly and consistently -- and then -- but only then -- it will change although in exactly what ways I cannot predict. But I don't think that it can continue to be the whites only fest that it's been for the last several decades and prosper.
- Strangely enough, I actually sympathize quite a bit with this article in the Weekly Standard by Andrew Ferguson excoriating the pseudo-scientific claims of Chris Mooney and Jonathan Haidt regarding (mainly) conservative political attitudes. I bow to no one in my contempt for contemporary right wing thinking and the degree to which it is dismissive of empiricism. I seriously doubt, however, that such attitudes are the product of genetics or evolution or anything that can be explained through sound science. Nor do I think liberal attitudes are similarly dictated by biology. Political allegiances and attitudes are one of the most socially-based forms of behavior there is. If they were products of biology, one would expect them to be more or less randomly distributed across society and fairly stable phenomena. Does anyone seriously believe that there is a genetic explanation as to why blacks vote 90% Democratic? What bit of collective brain chemistry explains the evolution over the Twentieth Century of the states of the Great Plains from the most left wing region of the country to being among its most conservative. The answer is that they don't. Yes, people often have a poor grasp of the reasons for their political opinions. Yes, in recent years the overwhelmingly ideological nature of contemporary right wing thought has led many of its adherence to reject certain kinds of science with which their ideology conflicts. This does not render such behavior biological in nature -- unless one wants to make the meaninglessly broad point that tribalism is an evolutionary survival strategy. As Ferguson points out, this kind of biologically-based pseudoscience renders politics effectively meaningless:
The real problem with Haidt’s psychopunditry is that it shares with other kinds of determinism a depressing moral impoverishment. Haidt’s own centrism is an artifact of his Science. If the appeal of one idea versus another is explained by a man’s biology (interacting with a few environmental factors) rather than its content, there’s really not much to argue about. Politics is drained of the meaning that human beings have always sought from it. Haidt criticizes his peers for using psychology to “explain away” conservatism, and good for him. Unfortunately, he wants to explain away liberalism too, so that our politics is no longer understood as a clash of interests and well-developed ideas but an altercation between two psychological and evolutionary types.
- Having graduated from college thirty years ago today and as the parent of a child who will be starting college in three months, I found this post amusing. I cannot really imagine talking to my parents multiple times a day while a college student (as I recall once a week did the trick). (And I am and always have been quite fond of my parents.) Nor can I imagine calling my son daily -- when he was away this year doing an internship, I think I spoke to him probably about twice a week. At one point where he seemed a little down I called him on three consecutive days, which was really hovering for me. I also can't imagine scheduling my time as a college student in the way that is described in this piece. One of the great joys of college -- possibly the greatest joy -- was the sheer amount of unstructured time, time that I spent listening to music, bullshitting, falling in love, having sex, getting drunk, and bullshitting some more. It was a life for which I was made. The micromanaged life described in this post makes me think youth is indeed being wasted on the young.
You keep all your smart modern writers Give me William Shakespeare You keep all your smart modern painters I'll take Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci and Gainsborough
It seems like time for a general free for all, so please join in. Before I resume billing, here are a couple of things that I've been enjoying.
- The epic, albeit entirely predictable, failure of Americans Elect has been a source of much mirth in the lefty blogosphere and deservedly so. I found myself in the strange position of agreeing with Douthat on this -- that is, there is actually zero appeal to a party geared to the Friedmannite center -- as Atrios would say, no one really gives a shit about the deficit and no one actually wants to have their Social Security or Medicare benefits cut. I think the most promising route for a third party candidate would be a populist oriented campaign aimed at the white working class -- it would be pro-trade barriers, anti-immigration, pro-gun, and pro-growth, even if that growth was spurred by government programs and employment. It would be much more Pat Buchanan than Michael Bloomberg. It certainly wouldn't win -- but it could attract the resentful right who understand that capital gains tax cuts don't do them any good. There is virtually no constituency for the Simpson-Bowles world view other than the well-heeled folks who spend their Sundays working as talking heads.
"There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards" - Ian Drury
For some reason, Sully linked to this preposterous piece by Charles Murray -- I suppose that is a tautology -- which posits, among other foolishness, that "religiosity is indispensable to a major stream of artistic accomplishment." Murray worries that in an increasingly secular world, great art will not be created because people will cease to concern themselves with the big questions about the meaning of life. In Murray's sclerotic world view, worthwhile art largely ceased to be made in the 19th Century as secularism and nihilism have stripped life (and art) of the possibility of transcendence. (I was amused to be reminded that Murray had put together numerical ratings of past human greatness in the arts and sciences in his book Human Accomplishment- a sort of Bill James Baseball Abstract of the western canon.)
Murray is also concerned that our lives are too long and cushy. As he puts it, "can a major stream of artistic accomplishment be produced by a society that is geriatric? By a society that is secular? By an advanced welfare state?"
Murray derides what he calls the "Europe Syndrome" and claims that post-World War II Europe is essentially devoid of meaningful artistic contribution:
What are the productions of visual art, music, or literature that we can be confident will still be part of the culture two centuries from now, in the sense that hundreds of European works from two centuries ago are part of our culture today? We may argue over individual cases, and agree that the number of surviving works since World War II will be greater than zero, but it cannot be denied that the body of great work coming out of post-war Europe is pathetically thin compared to Europe’s magnificent past.
Thus Murray writes off the works of writers like Primo Levy, Albert Camus, Milan Kundera, Graham Greene, Harold Pinter, Czeslaw Milosz, Samuel Beckett, Jean Paul Sartre -- none of whom evidently can compete with Homer or Virgil or Dante -- one gets the sense with Murray that literature effectively ceased before it began, as Goethe, who died in 1832, is the most modern writer to make Murray's list of top five writers in Human Accomplishment. He ignores as well as the amazing flourishing of post-war film and popular music in Europe. Is there truly nothing of lasting value in the works of Truffaut or Fellini or the Beatles or the Rolling Stones? One gets the sense that Murray's aesthetic are those of the perennial old fogey, a world in which all art has the musty smell of the museum piece.
Most disturbingly -- and it is something I have seen in the works of other reactionary thinkers -- is the notion that a long, secure, and pleasant life, blessed with abundance leads to an inherently trivial existence:
The indirect indictment of the Europe Syndrome consists of the evidence that it is complicit in the loss of the confidence, vitality, and creative energy that provide a nourishing environment for great art. I blame primarily the advanced welfare state. Consider the ironies. The European welfare states brag about their lavish “child-friendly” policies, and yet they have seen plunging birth rates and marriage rates. They brag about their lavish protections of job security and benefits and yet, with just a few exceptions, their populations have seen falling proportions of people who find satisfaction in their work. They brag that they have eliminated the need for private charities, and their societies have become increasingly atomistic and anomic.
The advanced welfare state drains too much of the life from life. When there’s no family, no community, no sense of vocation, and no faith, nothing is left except to pass away the time as pleasantly as possible.
I believe this self-absorption in whiling away life as pleasantly as possible explains why Europe has become a continent that no longer celebrates greatness. When I have spoken in Europe about the unparalleled explosion of European art and science from 1400 to 1900, the reaction of the audiences has invariably been embarrassment. Post-colonial guilt explains some of this reaction—Europeans seem obsessed with seeing the West as a force for evil in the world. But I suggest that another psychological dynamic is at work. When life has become a matter of passing away the time, being reminded of the greatness of your forebears is irritating and threatening.
One is struck both by what a lousy and repetitive writer Murray is and the degree to which he is offended by the idea of people living pleasant lives. What becomes evident is that Murray, like many right-wingers, is opposed to genuine human freedom, especially the notion of lives where people actually choose whether to get married or to have children and they do so without the fear that not doing those things will lead to them starving in the streets in their old age. If people are embarrassed when Murray delivers his screeds about how they don't make writers like Shakespeare anymore, one gets the sense that they may be embarrassed for him and the vacuity of his numerical rankings for complex works.
Ultimately, it seems to me that anyone who has actually partaken of life -- even those of us who live in comparative ease and security -- are reminded often enough of our fragility and the contingency of our lives. Even in a society where most of us will live to see 80, enough of our cohort will fall by the wayside, victims of disease and caprice, that reminders of our mortality are never actually that far way. And for those of us who do not believe in an afterlife, there is the always serious question of how to live that one life that you have and to imbue it with meaning. Great artists have and will continue to explore these issues because there is no cure for our mortality. It is Murray's loss that he is unable to see the artistic greatness that has been out there in his own life time -- and it speaks poorly of him and his philosophy that he is filled with revulsion at the notion of ordinary people living pleasant and secure lives.
On the road again, this time back in the home town in Massachusetts to gather up the lad and bring him home for a few weeks. It's been a trains, planes, and automobiles kind of week.
- President Greg Marmalard - I haven't had a chance to weigh in on the Romney bullying story. All I can say is that it doesn't surprise me much. And yes, I do think it is indicative of his character. Choosing to be a bully -- even if you're a 16 or 17 boy -- is very much a morally revelatory act. Romney has always seems like a kiss up, kick down type of guy, so this is just seems like one more ugly aspect of the smug, entitled prick -- now we know he's a mean-spirited, cowardly, smug entitled prick. Of course, being a bully or a coward will never be deemed a disqualifying defect in the Republican Party. I assume the faithful will rally around him.
- One of the more enjoyable aspects of reading Paul Krugman over the last year or so has been his consistent practice of slapping down David Brooks (and occassionally Thomas Friedmann) without ever mentioning his name. The columns are usually brutal refutations of whatever fatuousness Brooks has pulled out of his butt and called a column a day or two before. I thought this was a very good example of the genre.
- Dean Baker makes a plea for policy makers to recognize the ongoing tragedy of widespread and long-lasting unemployment. Sadly, I would not hold my breath waiting for policy makers to respond.
- And Arianna Huffington argues against the austerity that is destroying the future of Greek youth and suggests that leaving the Euro and defaulting on its debt is likely the only reasonable path to protect the younger generation of Greeks.
Alright, time for bed to get some rest before an early flight tomorrow. Hope to be checking in in early afternoon. Until then, give us your collective wisdom.
It's nice to know that President Obama is still capable of surprising in a positive way. Today, the day after a rather bad showing for the side of marriage equality proponents in the crucial swing state of North Carolina, President Obama nonetheless came out -- as it were -- for the first time in favor of same sex marriage.
I had been worried that his "evolution" on the matter would not occur until sometime in January of 2013 and that we were going to be subject to some painful evasions of the issue between now and then. But to his great credit, he has made a stand that will serve him well from a historical perspective. How this will translate in the electoral arena remains to be seen. My gut reaction is that it will not change many votes, although it certainly may drive up enthusiasm in certain quarters.
I also hope it will prove helpful with some of the black churches in places like Maryland where there has been some real ugliness shown on the issue.
Anyway, it is something worth celebrating. And I hope that people on our side will give the President due credit for this. It is a genuine act of courage by a politician who is often accused by the left of playing things too safe. This is not one of those instances.
Update: As I suspected there is naturally some liberal quibbling ("libbling?") about the President not having done enough. In this instance it is Dan Savage, Dana Goldstein, and John Cook -- the latter with a particularly jejune post entitled "Obama's Bullshit Gay Marriage Announcement" (Jesus wept) -- all opining that Obama's announcement lacks significance because he indicates that marriage remains a state issue. Cook is especially dismissive, saying the President's endorsement "amounts to much less than meets the eye. He now believes that gay couples should be able to marry. He doesn't believe they have a right to do so." Thus, what Obama has done is actually "a half-assed cowardly cop out." [What a churlish asshole this guy is.]
There are days when being on the left is as enjoyable as having a pitch fork driven into your eyes.
Where to begin? Marriage is in fact traditionally something that is handled at the state level in our system. Obama by himself has little power to change this. At an immediate level there are a couple of approaches he can take. One is to undermine the Defense of Marriage Act, which, among other things, stands as an impediment to lawful same sex marriages being recognized in all states. And hey, what do you know, the Obama Administration has opined that DOMA is unconstitutional and has withdrawn from defending it in the federal courts. Beyond this, arguments on behalf of a constitutional right to same sex marriage are the province of the courts. Only they can decide that the equal protection clause guarantees the right to same sex marriage to all Americans. The second is to appoint judges likely to determine that such a constitutional right exists -- even after LBJ signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, interracial marriage remained unlawful in many states until the Supreme Court's decision in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 -- it was not something that LBJ was able to remedy. (But I guess given how minimal the value of Obama's efforts, that a President Romney would be just as likely to do this.) And lastly, the President can help try and move the culture writ large to recognize the dignity of all Americans and advance the cause of equality. I have faith that he will do this.
Again, I would urge everyone of good will to view this as a pretty monumental day and ignore this naysaying.
- Once again Republicans in pursuit of the ideologically pure have turned an easy Senate win into a serious contest. I don't think that Richard Mourdock is quite in the same territory as Christine O'Donnell or Sharron Angle -- in fact, I would predict he will likely win this race. Still, the loss by Lugar took what was pretty close to a sure thing and gave the Democratic candidate, Congressman Joe Donnelly, a fighting chance. I think organized labor is going to be primed for this race given what has been going on in Indiana. A win here would be a clear sign that it is going to be a very good evening for us in November.
- I see that David Brooks and Moral Hazard are going to be my new neighbors -- he'll be about a mile and half due south of where I live. Maybe Stanley and Moral Hazard can become friends. I love that Brooks is moving into a quintessential upscale urban liberal neighborhood in DC -- Cleveland Park is a really nice part of the world -- rather than opting for some virtuous red state exurb, easily available over the river in places like Loudon County Virginia. But true to form, those who pay lip service to the heartland virtues of such places seem to want the amenities associated with the godless cities of the coasts. I can't wait to run into him.
- The Wisconsin recall election is going to be an interesting harbinger for the fall. I cannot stress how important it is for Tom Barrett to prevail. If the Democrats can win the governorship and take at least one of the state senate seats that are also being contested, it would be a powerful repudiation of the worst that the Republican Party has to offer. Turnout for both parties in the primary was pretty high, with the Democratic vote only exceeding the Republican vote by about 24,000 voters.
Governor - Dem Special Primary
May 09, 2012 - 08:58AM CT
Wisconsin - 3423 of 3423 Precincts Reporting - 100%
Name
Party
Votes
Vote %
Barrett , Tom
Dem
390,109
58%
Falk , Kathleen
Dem
228,940
34%
Vinehout , Kathleen
Dem
26,926
4%
La Follette , Doug
Dem
19,461
3%
Huber , Gladys
Dem
4,842
1%
Governor - GOP Special Primary
May 09, 2012 - 08:58AM CT
Wisconsin - 3423 of 3423 Precincts Reporting - 100%
Name
Party
Votes
Vote %
Walker , Scott (i)
GOP
626,538
97%
Kohl-Riggs , Arthur
GOP
19,920
3%
This is going to be a close, close election.
- Defining deviancy down. As Ed Kilgore points out, the continued treatment of the filibuster by the press as though it were a perfectly normal thing under our constitutional system makes me crazy. The Democatic attempt to take care of the pending increase in interest rates for student loans was blocked by a party line vote of Republicans against cloture. And in the Profiles in Courage Department, lame duck Senator Olympia Snowe voted "present" on the issue. Her uselessness is hard to quantify. Truly one of the most overrated human beings on the planet.
- This chart about the recent decline in public sector employment is getting a lot of attention and deservedly so. I have to believe that at some point in time people will look back on this madness and wonder what could have possessed our political leaders to embrace such a self-defeating approach.
- The result of the North Carolina referendum on gay marriage was a sobering reminder of the fact that progress on this issue is still a hit or miss thing. And it can't have helped with respect to President Obama's evolution on this issue. The Obama campaign really wants to carry North Carolina and I don't see this helping move him along to where he should be on the issue.
- Very happy to see the Socialists prevail in the French presidential election. I am hoping that this will be the beginning of a revivial of a European left that actually considers unemployment -- not pleasing bankers and the German right -- to be the continent's most pressing problem. Yglesias has some thoughts on the constraints under which Hollande will operate. Of course, the short term concern here is that turmoil in Europe will harm Obama's re-election prospects. Ultimately though if the left is to regain its vitality in Europe it needs to move beyond the discredited deregulatory policies of the Blair-Brown (and Clinton) third way, and get people -- especially the young -- back to work.
- Meanwhile, the Greek elections seem to offer a cautionary tale about where the continued failure of the mainstream parties to meaningfully address the European economic crisis could lead. (Marine LePen's showing in the first round of the French elections are also illustrative of this potential.) The collapse of the vote for Greece's two leading parties to about one-third of the total vote is a stunning repudiation of the country's political establishment.
- Krugman is pleased to see the voters strike back at austerity. The question is whether new governments can embrace a politics of growth without destroying the Euro. Ultimately I think the Euro is a failed and anti-democratic experiment, but its demise would undoubtedly cause severe short term dislocation. Maybe the most hopeful development for the continent would be the defeat of Merkel and her coalition in next year's German elections. There are signs of slippage there, although the SPD shows disappointing strength even in the wake of Merkel's problems. Once again, fringe parties -- in this case the German "Pirate" party -- seem to be attracting voters who are disenchanted with the traditional political alternatives.
This strikes me as a pretty dangerous moment for European democracy as the established parties show themselves inadequate to the moment. I only hope that its spillover effect does not harm Obama in November.
Sorry I've been scarce here lately: in between two busy weekends with the kid, I managed to come down with a nasty cold. Better now, thanks.
The other day, Ed Kilgore related the two parties' different attitudes towards killing bin Laden to the differences between the two parties' approches to the war on terror, with the Dems being more narrowly focused on al Qaeda, and the GOP's pursuit of a much broader struggle against 'Islamofascism' (or whatever they're calling it these days) everywhere.
While I fundamentally agree with the Democratic approach for what seem like obvious reasons - sure, Hamas or Hezbollah or the Muslim Brotherhood or someone besides al Qaeda might choose to bomb an American target someday, they aren't in any hurry to do so because their focus is elsewhere - it has never made sense to me that this should have any bearing on whether or not we should track bin Laden to the ends of the earth, and capture or kill him if we find his whereabouts, no matter where that turns out to be.
You'd think that even - especially - the Right wouldn't let even their own get away with this sort of nonsense. Whether you see the enemy as al Qaeda, or all radical Islamist movements everywhere, the fact is, bin Laden is the man responsible for killing nearly 3000 Americans on September 11, 2001.
To quote Humphrey Bogart (as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon):
When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.
It's hard for me to break away from the underlying logic of that statement. If you're the President, you can't go letting people kill your countrymen. They're you're fellow citizens, and you're supposed to do something about it. It's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every American everywhere.
If there were ever a next bin Laden, would we want him to believe that if he were able to elude us for a while, the Americans would get distracted, let the trail grow cold, and eventually just let him off the hook altogether? Fuck, no. This is why tracking down bin Laden wasn't so much a matter of eliminating a threat, or even of revenge. It was a grim necessity. If someone hits us like that, we must be implacable and unbending in our pursuit for as long as it takes, just as a matter of basic statecraft.
It boggles my mind that we're in a world where the left understands this and the right doesn't. This used to be the sort of shit they were able to claim they understood and the left didn't, that any issues of war and peace implicitly favored them.
They've given up that advantage, and it's hard to see how they can get it back anytime soon. Which is fine with me.
So what's on your minds? I think all the threads are implicitly open threads these days, given the infrequency of threads, so don't feel you have to talk about bin Laden.
As for me, it's a spectacularly beautiful afternoon here in the greater DC area. I'm going to take the kid to a playground. It's too good a day to pass up.
On the road, writing from Tulsa, OK, which I am in the process of not really seeing. One of those trips where you are in a place that is not conducive to walking anywhere, which I find tends to keep me stuck in the hotel -- not really my favorite way to travel.
I really liked this piece by Tim Noah on Richard Grenell's resignation from the Romney campaign. Grenell, a vehement (and rather obnoxious) neocon and right wing true believer, is also an openly gay man who unabashedly supports gay marriage. This had not stopped him from attaining a significant degree of success in right wing foreign policy circles -- he was John Bolton's spokesperson -- until now. Although it is not completely clear what led Grenell to quit before he began as Romney's foreign policy spokesperson, it seems as though the most likely reason was the objections of members of the evangelical right to his appointment. Although closeted gay men have long been part of the right wing power structure, it seems apparent that at this point in history -- one where acceptance of gays in the U.S. is a pretty mainstream sentiment -- those who run the Republican Party dare not openly accept them. As Tim puts it:
Not to put too fine a point on it, if you are gay you'd have to be out of your mind to support today's Republican party. And if you believe in tolerance, or the necessary role of government in helping others, or the existence of global warming, or Darwin's theory of natural selection, or just about any notion of equality, you'd have to be out of your mind to vote for the GOP's presidential candidate, even though Romney likely believes in all these things (except maybe equality). The GOP will eventually learn to embrace these values, but that won't change until after Romney loses in November, as I think he will do, and it may take a few more big losses after that.
I think that a Romney loss, coupled with something like a fifty-fifty congressional result, is not going to prompt any soul searching in right wing circles. I think Romney will bear the blame, largely for not being a true conservative. I think it will require many more losses of substantial magnitude to change the minds of Republicans with respect to this and many other issues.
So what else is going on out there that's grabbing your attention?
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