Red State Impressions

The Karl Rove Pot and the Rick Perry Kettle

2011-09-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

Republicans must really hate each other. Today, Karl Rove called Rick Perry's position on social security "toxic." What's next? Is Dick Cheney going to call Michele Bachmann "evil?"

Michele Bachmann Loses Political Virginity

2011-09-02T04:51:00.000-07:00

I guess Michele Bachmann is losing her "Minnesota Nice." Having released her first nastily dishonest attack ad on Rick Perry yesterday, Bachmann joins Dick Cheney in demonstrating that Barack Obama isn't the only target of Republican viciousness.

Dick Cheney and American Average-ism

2011-08-27T21:25:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney is out with another "exciting" leak from his book. Actually, it's a leak squared because Cheney is leaking that President Bush ordered a leak to David Ignatius about the situation in Iraq in 2007.

“On Tuesday morning, May 22 [2007]," Cheney writes, "a David Ignatius column appeared in the Washington Post titled ‘After the Surge: The Administration Floats Ideas for a New Approach in Iraq.’ It quoted administration officials on the need to revamp policy in order to attract bipartisan support and to take into account the fact that the surge might not have the stabilizing effect we had hoped.

In the final analysis, what Dick Cheney has to say in his book isn't very significant. It's what Cheney did as Vice-President that counts and Cheney ultimately made the U. S. much more of an average authoritarian country. Promoting the illegal invasion of Iraq, introducing torture into American treatment of terror suspects, the emergency rendition of terror suspects to countries where they would be tortured, maintaining a set of secret CIA prisons, and perverting the whole legal structure of American government in defense of torture all made our country much more like Castro's Cuba, Mubarak's Egypt, Gaddafi's Libya, and Assad's Syria than we had been.

Of course, the extension of the Arab Spring into the Libyan Summer and the Syrian Fall means that the U. S. is losing a number of our more brutal fellow-travelers. In a rapidly changing world, it's hard to stay average for very long.

What Was I Doing for Those Two Years?

2011-08-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

Given that much as American conservatism is about the denial of reality, it's always interesting to follow the new twists in reality denial. Here, conservative Mission America commentator Linda Harvey denies that there's any such thing as gay, lesbian, bi-sexuals, or transgendered (LGBT) people.

There’s one big fact that’s not backed up. There is no proof that there’s ever anything like a gay, lesbian or bisexual or transgendered child, or teen or human. One of the other things you’re gonna see as I mentioned is a big campaign GLSEN’s gonna roll out this year calling for 'respect,' respect! Not just for people, but for homosexual lifestyle. The PR campaign to hold up gay as a good thing: the lifestyle, not the person, because there are no such humans.

During the 1980's, I worked as a cook and busboy at a gay bar in Philadelphia. Now I guess I have to wonder what I was "really" doing those two years.

Today's Supposedly Big Dick Cheney Revelation

2011-08-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney's been saying that his soon-to-be-published memoir is going to make "heads explode."

Dick Cheney is already promising there will be “heads exploding all over Washington” when his new book hits stores Tuesday. The 46th vice president made that declaration in an interview with NBC -- portions of which were aired on the Today Show Wednesday morning -- as he embarked on a media blitz to promote the book, “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir.”

I'm not sure why though. The big revelation being leaked today is that Cheney advocated the bombing of Syria. I wouldn't have been surprised if Cheney had wanted to bomb Paris and Bonn . . . or LA and New York for that matter. The fact that he wanted to bomb Syria is hardly news.

Libya: Obama Handled It Right

2011-08-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

Libyan Revolutionaries have taken over large areas of Tripoli and are reported to have captured two of Qaddafi's sons. They deserve a great deal of credit for founding a new nation on the wreckage of the dictatorship.

Also deserving credit is Barack Obama. Much as the killing of bin Laden was a validation of Obama's Afghanistan policy, the triumph of the Libyan Revolution has validated Obama's approach to the Arab spring in general and Libya in particular. Obama provided the Libyan movement with moral and military support. But the United States refused to invade Libya, overthrow Qaddafi, and win the revolution for the protesters. By limiting American support, the Obama administration forced the Libyans to win their revolution themselves and the positive effects frofm that will be felt for decades to come.

Why Sarah Palin's Going to Run

2011-08-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

Rachel Maddow caught a video in which husband Todd admitted that Sarah Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska so she could make money--thousands of dollars a day.

In my opinion, this is why Sarah Palin will ultimately run for president as well. Sarah Palin doesn't particularly want to run for president and I doubt that she wants to be president either. If Palin wanted to run and be president, she would have already jumped into the campaign. Still, Palin is constrained to run for president because she can't maintain her current standard of living unless she runs. Much as Newt Gingrich's little "American Solutions" empire depended on the "Newt for President" tease, Palin's much bigger empire of her Fox gig, television show, book deals, and speaking tours all depend on the idea that Palin could run for president as the chosen representative of right-wing America. It's not like Palin would dry up and blow away if she doesn't run, but her speaker's fees, ratings, advances on her books, and general marketability are all going to decline substantially if she doesn't answer the call of the popular white right and run for the presidency.

Todd Palin's comments are an indication that Team Palin has some sense of the connection between Sarah's income and her politics.

Bring on Rick Perry

2011-08-15T06:24:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration thinks that Mitt Romney is going to win the Republican nomination, but I bet they're hoping that the GOP chooses Rick Perry instead.

Obama surrogate Paul Begala is certainly chomping at the bit:

Does Michele Bachmann make conservative crowds swoon by saying the Lord told her to study tax law? Meh. Perry gathers 30,000 people to a controversial Christian
prayer rally. In Houston. In August. One veteran Texas politico told me, “The guy is Elmer Gantry. He could take over a conservative megachurch tomorrow and outpreach the pastor . . .

Perry told The Daily Beast's Andrew Romano that Social Security is “a Ponzi scheme,” and that both it and Medicare are unconstitutional. Never mind that the Supreme Court recently ruled that Social Security is perfectly constitutional . . .

Perry has already flirted with secession. Secession? Even Jefferson Davis opposed secession when he was a senator from Mississippi. When you’re more open to secession than Jefferson Davis was a century and a half ago, well, you've gone pretty far . . .

Begala is so pumped about running against Rick Perry that he was almost ready to run himself.

Candidates on the far right like Perry, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann are always claiming that Barack Obama or "the left" is afraid of them. But the opposite is the case. Rick Perry represents everything that is ignorant, bigoted, wrong-headed, and immoral about the conservative movement in this country. Begala's phrase for all of that is "bat shit crazy" and he's itching to oppose him.

So am I.

Slouching Toward a Hee Haw Economy?

2011-08-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

Now that the Stock Market has lost 500 points three times in the last two weeks, the economy is beginning to race a number of big questions.

Probably the most immediate question is whether the U. S. is going to move from the economic pessimism of the last two years to a long-term state of gloom and despair. One of my favorite songs from the 70's was the old Hee-Haw anthem "Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me:"

Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me.

There's reason to think the panic might be temporary. The main reason that the panic might abate is that American companies are tremendously profitable and sitting on mountains of cash.

Corporate America has bounced back impressively. The quarterly results season that is now nearly over has revealed that profits are back within a whisker of the all-time highs achieved before the downturn in late 2008. By some calculations, the rate of recovery of profits from their trough is the strongest since the end of the Great Depression.

But if the whole country decides on gloom, we're going to have a Hee Haw economy.

What is Fox News?

2011-08-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

According to the impartial observers at Fox Business News, David Brock at Media Matters for America claimed earlier this year that Fox News is the "de facto head of the GOP." In fact, that was true in 2009-2010 when Fox fanned the flames of the Tea Party Movement and led the charge against Obama's health reform legislation. But I'm not so sure that Fox is still the only organizing force in the GOP at this point.

Lady Gaga to Speak at Rick Perry's "Day of Prayer?"

2011-08-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

Before Texas governor Rick Perry became this week's Great White Hope for the Republican presidential nomination, he organized a National Day of Prayer for this Saturday.

There are a lot of questions associated with the event. Should Perry be inviting gay-baiting hate groups like the American Family Association? That question can also be asked about flame-throwing religious figures like John Hagee of "the Holocaust was a good thing because it brings us closer to the Apocalypse" fame.

Likewise, wouldn't identifying with the religious right undermine Perry with independents and moderates if he won the GOP nomination? According to Alex Castellanos:

One thing Republicans are going to demand this election is a candidate who can beat Barack Obama . . . The election is all about him. A candidate who establishes his identity on the fringe, talking about social and religious issues, when the economy is going over a cliff, risks marginalizing himself, becoming unacceptable to independents and unelectable. That would be the kiss of death.

And Alex Castellanos knows extremism, having made his career by doing racist ads for Jesse Helms during Helms' last Senate campaign.

Another problem is that Perry booked 65,000 seat Reliant stadium but only has 8,000 reservations. As Bobby Jindal could tell him, epic fails are real buzz-killers.

But the biggest question hanging over Rick Perry's Day of Prayer is whether Lady Gaga is going to make an appearance.

It certainly seems like Perry is teasing a Gaga performance.

"There will be folks who think it's [politics], that there are other motivations. But it's not about me," Perry said. "It's about Him," the exact same divinity Lady Gaga references in "Born This Way."

"It doesn't matter if you love him/or capital H-I-M."

Perhaps Perry had an inspiration while singing along with Gaga's lyrics (what rising politician doesn't think "you're on the right track baby, you were born this way?) and decided to put out an invitation to the hottest singer on the planet.

Now THAT would be a sensational way to launch a presidential campaign.

Clever of Perry to keep it a secret so long.

Nancy Pelosi Counterfactual

2011-08-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

It looks like Nancy Pelosi came close to voting "no" on the debt limit proposal. If Pelosi had voted "no," i beliee she would have been obligated to run against Obama in the 2012 primaries.

Huntsman and the Prom Queen

2011-08-02T04:33:00.000-07:00

A pretty dumb moment from Jon Huntsman. Yesterday, Huntsman claimed that the media only paid attention to Michele Bachmann because she was pretty.

In a long story running in this week's New York, Huntsman -- who recently abandoned his lackluster Mr. Nice Guy campaign in favor of taking direct swipes at his opponents -- suggested Bachmann, the only woman officially running for president, gets the attention she gets in part because she's good-looking. "She makes for good copy--and good photography," Huntsman told New York's John Heilemann. The quote came in the context of talk about Bachmann being "more an object of media fascination than a plausible nominee," as Heilemann put it.

Actually, I follow commentary on Bachmann's campaign fairly closely and there's none of the "librarian porn" fascination surrounding Bachmann that was the case with Sarah Palin. Actually, this is the first discussion I've seen of her standard-issue, politician look. I remember somebody commenting that politicians all look like class presidents or prom queens and Bachmann looks like she could have been queen at a home schooling prom.

But who besides Jon Huntsman, who really cares?

The main things about Bachmann's candidacy is that she has a constituency in the religious right and Tea Party factions, works very hard, has a potential path to the Republican nomination, and would lose the general election to Obama by about 25 points.

But why exactly is Jon Huntsman running?

About all I can see is that he has a career-killing resume as a moderate Republican, good hair, and an interesting story about growing up as a rock n' roll Mormon.

Not exactly presidential material there.

Eleven Theses on the Debt Limit Showdown

2011-07-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

Given the problems of the American economy and political institutions, it's a good time to give a nod to Karl Marx. Here's some quick ideas on the state of play in the Debt Limit Showdown modeled after Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach."

I. Are We Exceptional? You betcha. American exceptionalism now means that the U. S. has an extraordinarily large economy and an equally dysfunctional political sector. Having both the best and the worst of the bad is very American. For more than eighty years after the Revolution, we had both the best state of freedom and the worst kind of slavery.
II. The Way of the Whigs. The Debt Limit Showdown is the end of the Republican Party as we know it. The GOP used to be an alliance where global business interests were the senior partners and small business, Southern/Western regionalisms, and ultra-conservative factions provided a populist edge. The religious right, libertarians, and Confederate and frontier nostalgia buffs now dominate to such an extent that they can tell big business to take their global economy and shove it.

III. A Seat at the Table? The United States is the only advanced industrial country where large-scale business interests don't have a political home. The Democrats have a global business perspective but want more government regulation than big business can tolerate. The new Republican Party wants to end the role of government in the national economy and is willing to sacrifice the macro-economic interests of big business to do so. Big business carries a lot of weight, but can no longer advance its fundamental interests.

IV. All the Pretty Revolutions. Since the 1950's, the U. S. has been a caultron of reform movements for civil rights, women's equality, sexual freedom, gay rights, and language diversity. If Lincoln was right to characterize the Civil War a "new birth of freedom," we can legitimately view the last 60 years as "the Age of New Freedoms." Taken as a whole, these movements have changed the nature of everybody's life for the better in the United States.

V. A Critical Mass of Globalism. For all of their problems and limitations, America's urban belts, major cities, and university centers are characterized by a dove-tailing of multi-cultural diversity, global outreach, and high concentrations of financial and cultural capital. Seattle, the Bay Area, LA, Miami, the Bos-Wash corridor and other centers of commerce and technology have become global cities almost as much as they are American cities.

VI. Tea Party Agonistes. What the Tea Party represents is a pointed reaction against the social and cultural changes of the last 60 years. Both rejecting American society and feeling rejected and victimized, the Tea Party and its ultra-conservative allies would want to escape from America like the Boer trekkers or the original Mormon migrants, but can't because the authoritarian traditions they crave have died out in the West. As a result, the Tea Party is stuck with playing out the tragic farce of seeking to dominate American society without being contaminated by modern American life.

VII. A Specter is Haunting Barack Obama. When Barack Obama was elected president, both sides viewed him as the representative figure for the new multi-cultural America that had elected him. As a result, both sides have been disappointed with Obama's presidency. Progressives, African-Americans, hispanics, gay people, Jews, Asian Americans, and young people were all expecting Obama to embody their nascent vision of American society and saw it in his convention address and campaign speeches. Instead, they got a technical manager and moderate. Constituencies on the right were expecting and perhaps yearning for the anti-Christ and got somebody who was more worried about their happiness than anything else. Obama may win re-election but the stigma of disappointment will haunt him like it haunts Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

VIII. Like the Union Army. The American left is much like the Union Army before Grant--large, loosely organized, well-armed, well-fed, and led so poorly that it's painful. Weaknesses are legion, but the left is closely connected with the progressive development of American society over the last 60 years and has a diffuse structure of small groups and publications that allow it to survive defeat and disappointment. Two generations of national leadership have come and gone since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 and people on the left still deserve better. Perhaps there's a left-wing version of Grant out there waiting to find his niche and his voice.

IX. Like the Confederate Army. The Republicans and the Tea Party right has many of the virtues of the Army of Northern Virginia--audacity, organization, and effective leadership. Hell, I wish there was somebody on the left who was half as smart as Mitch McConnell. But they're fighting a losing battle for the horrible cause of yanking American society back into the 19th century.

Given the problems of the American economy and political institutions, it's a good time to give a nod to Karl Marx. Here's some quick ideas on the state of play in the Debt Limit Showdown modeled after Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach."

I. Are We Exceptional? American exceptionalism now means that the U. S. has an extraordinarily large economy and an equally dysfunctional political sector. Having both the best and the worst of the bad is very American. For more than eighty years after the Revolution, we had both the best state of freedom and the worst kind of slavery.

II. The Way of the Whigs. The Debt Limit Showdown is the end of the Republican Party as we know it. The GOP used to be an alliance where global business interests were the senior partners and small business, Southern/Western regionalisms, and ultra-conservative factions provided a populist edge. The religious right, libertarians, and Confederate and frontier nostalgia buffs now dominate to such an extent that they can tell big business to take their global economy and shove it.

III. A Seat at the Table? The United States is the only advanced industrial country where large-scale business interests don't have a political home. The Democrats have a global business perspective but want more government regulation than big business can tolerate. The new Republican Party wants to end the role of government in the national economy and is willing to sacrifice the macro-economic interests of big business to do so. Big business carries a lot of weight, but can no longer advance its fundamental interests.

IV. All the Pretty Revolutions. Since the 1950's, the U. S. has been a caultron of reform movements for civil rights, women's equality, sexual freedom, gay rights, and language diversity. If Lincoln was right to characterize the Civil War a "new birth of freedom," we can legitimately view the last 60 years as "the Age of New Freedoms." Taken as a whole, these movements have changed the nature of everybody's life for the better in the United States.

V. A Critical Mass of Globalism. For all of their problems and limitations, America's urban belts, major cities, and university centers are characterized by a dove-tailing of multi-cultural diversity, global outreach, and high concentrations of financial and cultural capital. Seattle, the Bay Area, LA, Miami, the Bos-Wash corridor and other centers of commerce and technology have become global cities almost as much as they are American cities.

VI. Tea Party Agonistes. What the Tea Party represents is a pointed reaction against the social and cultural changes of the last 60 years. Both rejecting American society and feeling rejected and victimized, the Tea Party and its ultra-conservative allies would want to escape from America like the Boer trekkers or the original Mormon migrants, but can't because the authoritarian traditions they crave have died out in the West. As a result, the Tea Party is stuck with playing out the tragic farce of seeking to dominate American society without being contaminated by modern American life.

VII. A Specter is Haunting Barack Obama. When Barack Obama was elected president, both sides viewed him as the representative figure for the new multi-cultural America that had elected him. As a result, both sides have been disappointed with Obama's presidency. Progressives, African-Americans, hispanics, gay people, Jews, Asian Americans, and young people were all expecting Obama to embody their nascent vision of American society and saw it in his convention address and campaign speeches. Instead, they got a technical manager and moderate. Constituencies on the right were expecting and perhaps yearning for the anti-Christ and got somebody who was more worried about their happiness than anything else. Obama may win re-election but the stigma of disappointment will haunt him like it haunts Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

VIII. Like the Union Army. The American left is much like the Union Army before Grant--large, loosely organized, well-armed, well-fed, and led so poorly that it's painful. Weaknesses are legion, but the left is closely connected with the progressive development of American society over the last 60 years and has a diffuse structure of small groups and publications that allow it to survive defeat and disappointment. Two generations of national leadership have come and gone since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 and people on the left still deserve better. Perhaps there's a left-wing version of Grant out there waiting to find his niche and his voice.

IX. Like the Confederate Army. The Republicans and the Tea Party right has many of the virtues of the Army of Northern Virginia--audacity, organization, and effective leadership. Hell, I wish there was somebody on the left who was half as smart as Mitch McConnell. But they're fighting a losing battle for the horrible cause of yanking American society back into the 19th century.

X. Tragic Victories. My guess is that the Debt Limit Showdown will result in a fairly lengthy period of debt default with unknown consequences to the American and world economy. If either side gains a clear victory, the other side is going to strengthen itself in defeat as the whole of politically active America stews in bitterness. In this light, the best outcome might be a mutually unsatisfactory compromise.

XI. Nothing Wrong with Interpretation. Marx was right about the need to change the world rather than interpret it. But it wouldn't hurt if we had some better interpretations.My guess is that the Debt Limit Showdown will result in a fairly lengthy period of debt default with unknown consequences to the American and world economy. If either side gains a clear victory, the other side is going to strengthen itself in defeat as the whole of politically active America stews in bitterness. In this light, the best outcome might be a mutually unsatisfactory compromise.

XI. Nothing Wrong with Interpretation. Marx was right about the need to change the world rather than interpret it. But it wouldn't hurt if we had some better interpretations.

Rick Perry's "Gay Marriage Reparative Therapy"

2011-07-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

Texas Governor Rick Perry hasn't announced yet, but the Rick Perry For President campaign has begun in earnest as Perry seeks to mend fences with the most determined haters in the social conservative movement--professional gay rights opponents.

Perry had to mend fences because he responded to the passage of gay marriage in New York by saying something that sounded vaguely like acceptance.

“Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said that marriage can be between two people of the same sex and you know what that is New York and that is their business and that is fine with me, that is their call. If you believe in the tenth amendment, stay out of their business”.

That quote was a problem for Perry because of the particular nature of his candidacy.

Rick Perry's No. 1 strategy for the Republican primaries is to beat out Michele Bachmann for the position of social conservative/Tea Party candidate and then edge Mitt Romney over the long haul.

And it's a viable strategy.

Mitt Romney is a very weak frontrunner who is incredibly vulnerable to negative advertising and many social conservative groups would tend to support Perry over any woman not named Sarah Palin. As a result, Perry has a definite path to the nomination.

But social conservatives are just as opposed to gay rights as George Wallace was opposed to civil rights for African-Americans and Rick Perry was denounced by Rick Santorum and others for his "appeasement."

So it was onto the haters for a little "gay marriage reparative therapy."

Today, Perry stopped by the radio program of Tony Perkins, the head of America's most respected hate group, the Family Research Council. The Family Research Council was named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because they publish inflammatory material that claims that gay people belong in jail among other things. Last February for example, Peter Sprigg, the senior researcher at the Family Research Council (FRC) told MSNBC host Chris Matthews that "I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior." All in all, the FRC's statements on homosexuality reminded the Southern Poverty Law Center of the Klan's statements on race. So the FRC was named a hate group.

Perry didn't exactly retreat from his view that New York had a right to legalize gay marriage, but he did manage to mollify Perkins by restating the blanket opposition to gay marriage in Texas and his own preference for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Right and that is the reason that the federal marriage amendment is being offered, it’s that small group of activist judges, and frankly a small handful, if you will, of states, and liberal special interests groups that intend on a redefinition of, if you will, marriage on the nation, for all of us, which I adamantly oppose.

Of course, that's never going to happen and Perry knows it. Support for gay marriage has been growing steadily over the years and just recently passed the 50%. The chances of conservatives passing an anti-gay marriage amendment to the constitution are exactly zero.

But reality isn't that meaningful of a concept for the FRC or any conservative group. The point for Perry was to pander enough to let the Family Research Council know that he was "one of them" and he succeeded.

And the Perry for President campaign goes on.

To Be Decided By Gallup--The End Game on Debt Limits

2011-07-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

The Last Couple of Plays in Regulation. Nobody really knows what's going to happen with the Debt-Limit Showdown. Talking Points Memo and Nate Silver think it's going to be settled before Aug. 2. Andrew Leonard of Salon thinks not. I'm with Leonard. My best guess is that Obama, the Democrats, and Congressional Republicans will NOT hammer out a compromise by the Aug. 2 deadline and that they won't come to agreement if they have another week either.

It looks to me like neither side can afford to compromise. There are two debt limit proposals out there now--one by Harry Reid which projects spending cuts of 2.7 trillion and the other by John Boehner which projects 1 trillion in cuts. Given that Boehner has already come to at least one agreement with Obama, it's likely that Reid and Boehner could come to some sort of compromise on spending if spending were the main issue.

But it's not.

The main problem is how to schedule the next debt limit vote. John Boehner is adamant about scheduling another debt limit vote in six months and making the Democrats go through the entire process again during the 2012 election campaign and Boehner is bringing up legislation to that effect today. The bill isn't all popular with Republicans because it doesn't fulfill all of the big ambitions that the GOP had for the debt limit debate. Republicans had hoped to either dramatically cut federal discretionary spending, get big cuts in Medicare and Social Security, or get a balanced budget amendment. Boehner's plan doesn't contain any of this and the only consolation that he's offering Republicans is to renew the whole depressing debate again in 2012 as a way to bog down the Obama administration and help the Republican presidential candidate.

But Senate Democrats aren't totally stupid. They're just as adamant about not putting the debt limit albatross around Obama's neck and all 51 Senate Democrats and two independents have already signed a letter indicating that they won't vote for the Boehner plan. Several Senate Republicans have expressed scepticism about the Boehner bill as well. So Boehner's bill isn't going anywhere in the Senate. But Harry Reid's legislation isn't going anywhere either. Reid's plan won't have the 60 votes needed to get through the Senate and doesn't offer anything to Republicans in the House.

In other words, none of the proposals have a snowball's chance of getting through the hell that is now the Congress of the United States.

And I don't think that there's going to be much room for compromise either.

The Republicans can't give in because of Paul Ryan's Medicare proposals. Right now, the Ryan proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher system is an unpopular albatross around the neck of every Republican candidate in the country. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell initially tried to escape the Paul Ryan problem by demanding that the Democrats accept major cuts in Social Security and Medicare entitlement cuts as the price of getting any kind of debt limit agreement. But Obama trumped that when he proposed the poison pill of accepting entitlement cuts only if the GOP agreed to eliminate many of the tax loopholes for big business. Boehner found that proposal appealing, but was overruled by the Tea Party caucus.

At this point, the proposal to revisit the debt limit debate in early 2012 is the only weapon the Republicans have to counter "The Ryan Effect" and I don't think the Republicans believe they can afford to give it up.

That's why John Boehner will ultimately choose default over compromise on his proposals.

And it's not like the Democrats are going to cave either. Obama and Harry Reid don't want to piss away all the advantages that the Dems have been accumulating since the 2010 election debacle. They want the election focus to be on Republican over-reaching and they can't do that if there's another Debt Limit Showdown.

Even more important than that, the Democrats are determined not to be seen as weak. The biggest problem for Obama and the Congressional Democrats is that almost all of the important players in American politics see them as weak. Congressional Republicans, conservative activist groups, big business, and a lot of people in the Obama administration itself view the Dems as too eager to compromise. If the Democrats and Obama cave now, they'll no longer get the benefit of the doubt from their own constituencies.

Ultimately, the last two plays in regulation will likely be votes on the Boehner Plan and the Reid Plan in the Senate.

And both plans will fail.

Overtime. You know, it wouldn't be a bad idea if political overtime was decided by penalty kicks just like soccer. But overtime in the Debt Limit Showdown is going to be decided by the polls instead.

And it could be a long overtime.

That's because there's a decent chance that the public mood has to get really ugly and angry for either side to give in.

That's certainly the case for the Republicans. The polls already show that the public favors Obama's approach of balancing enhanced revenue with spending cuts. If the Republicans were going to respond to "public opinion" in this way, they would have already caved. Conservative Republicans are in an odd position. They see their majority in the House of Representatives and the debt limit debate as a big chance to push through a balanced budget amendment and eviscerate social security and medicare. That way, conservatives could lock in "conservative government" for generations even if conservative Republicans find it impossible to win elections in any but the reddest of red states. This is part of the reason why the Republicans are unlikely to cave unless the political environment turns against them completely.

Of course, that can happen.

The political environment could turn very toxic for the GOP if markets grind to a halt, federal checks stop going out, or Republican politicians and conservative talkers start committing a lot of "we don't care how much you're suffering" gaffes. The last big Republican initiated showdown was scuttled when Newt Gingrich started whining about having to sit in the back of a plane.

But I still think that House Republicans will be very reluctant to back down and might decide to defy public opinion even if it turns very strongly against them.

For the Democrats, backing down is still "weakness" and patience with Obama administration weakness is beginning to run out among the Democrats. The Obama administration is much more sensitive to public opinion than the Republicans, but it would take a big shift for the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats to cave.

Overtime for the Debt Limit Showdown could last awhile.

Maybe they should just do penalty kicks.

Mitt Romney is Doomed! Doomed!

2011-07-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

There never was much reason to think that Mitt Romney had a fighting chance of winning the Republican nomination in 2012. Sure, Romney has all the right stuff on paper. He's a former Wall Street honcho and he saved the LA Olympics, served two terms as governor of Massachusetts, and looks great in a suit. Romney also projects oodles of alpha male leadership qualities and is going to win all of the fundraising battles because of his own personal fortune and his access to big business and Mormon cash.

But none of that means much in the Republican primaries.

Romney is what's going to be known as the classic "Mike Castle" candidate. The now former senator from Delaware, Mike Castle was experienced, popular, had lots of money and would have won a general election against a Democrat hands-down.

And I'm sure that Castle was supremely confident of election in 2010.

Nevertheless, Castle's re-election campaign folded up like origami paper after a few well-placed Tea Party attack ads on his moderation and Castle ended up with the most humiliating loss possible. He was beaten by the unemployed, dysfunctional neophyte Christine O'Donnell who promptly became a national embarrassment.

In the same way, Mitt Romney has little chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination even though he's leading in the polls. As soon as aggressive conservatives like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, or Rick Perry begin running attack ads, Romney's numbers are going to sink and his campaign's going to run aground.

And if the other GOP candidates aren't going to go after Romney, Tea Party organizations were determined to see that he didn't win.

But it turned out that none of that was necessary.

Even without a barrage of attack ads, the current polling indicates that Romney is a long-shot. A PPP poll released today has Romney 20%, Bachmann 16%, Palin 12%, Perry 11%, and the GOP riff raff corralling another 32% among them. Romney's ahead, but these are disastrous numbers for him because Bachmann, Palin, and Perry are the same woman or "guy." They're Tea Party affiliated, aggressive, religious, suspicious of government, and alienated from the multi-cultural America that's going to line up behind Obama's re-election. Bachmann, Palin, and Perry get 39% of the vote between them and that's the case even though neither Palin nor Perry have started campaigning yet. Bachman was around 5% before she announced. One positive debate performance and some hard campaigning later, Bachmann's nipping at Romney's heels in a field of ten. When Perry and Palin announce (and I'm convinced Palin will run), their numbers can be expected to go up as well.

Bachmann's actually slipping ahead of Romney on other measures, edging Romney by 1 point (21-20) with Sarah Palin not being considered and edging Romney again (44-41) in a head to head measure. Bachmann's even or slightly ahead despite not having Romney's name recognition, not having Romney's money, and not running any RINO crushing attack ads. Right now, Romney's a second choice for almost as many Palin, Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Ron Paul, Pawlenty, and Huntsman supporters as Bachmann.

Romney also seems to be the second choice of that guy in Idaho who supports Rick Santorum.

But support will eventually drift away from Romney as the super-charged emotions of the Republican primaries start building in earnest and the number of candidates drops down from the current 10 after the South Carolina caucuses.

Who becomes Romney's strongest opponent is anybody's guess. Right now, I would give slightly better odds to Michele Bachmann because she's proven to be more energetic, more determined, and more systematic than either Sarah Palin or Rick Perry.

But that could change.

Given all her charisma, Sarah Palin still has an opportunity to reignite among conservatives. Likewise, it could be the case that Perry has untapped national appeal.

Who knows?

But the battle to win the Republican nomination is likely to be determined by who's the strongest between Bachman, Palin, and Perry.

Sarah Palin's Appeal

2011-07-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

A well-stated formulation of Sarah Palin's core appeal by Jonathan Kay writing for Salon:

Sarah Palin isn’t like other politicians. I know this from personal experience, having watched her speak to a massive Tea Party event that I covered while researching my newly published book about conspiracy theories, "Among the Truthers." She is not so much listened to as worshiped. Her stock right-wing policy formulations and anti-Obama barbs are not really the source of her appeal. Rather, Palin is loved for the personal qualities she embodies: Her large family, her decision to give birth to a child she knew had Down syndrome, her son who served in Iraq, her small-town clapboard roots. There is a rapturous quality that comes over right-wing audiences when she speaks, as if they were in the presence of a Madonna figure come to deliver America from its travails.

Of course, the America that Palin's audiences view her as delivering is "white America."

The Republican Plot to Re-Elect Obama

2011-07-14T05:34:00.000-07:00

That's pretty much what the debt limit talks look like right now. Boehner, McConnell, and Eric Cantor are doing their level best to turn Obama into a "strong leader who stood up to the reckless bullying of the Republicans."

Will Sarah Palin Ever Hire a Republican?

2011-07-11T07:06:00.000-07:00

Golly! That liberal media is tough. Newsweek puffs Sarah Palin to the hilt. They even have a couple of cheesecake wilderness shots.

The hard-bitten journalism crew at Newsweek also makes it sound like Palin's a lock to run for president but hasn't decided how she's going to run a presidential campaign without actually doing any campaigning. Is Palin doing to run a stealth campaign where she swoops into a town or state without notifying anybody? Or is it going to be a Zen campaign where she sits on her porch in Wasilla (or is it Phoenix?) and focuses on her breathing.

"Sarah Palin is now breathing."

These are all questions that I'd like to see answered but that Newsweek was too breathless to address. Maybe they were just too excited by their exclusive access to ask any questions.

My own biggest question is whether Palin is going to bite the bullet and hire a living, breathing Republican to work for her campaign. Palin seems to have developed a phobia for all the consultants, campaign operatives, opposition researchers, and local officials associated with the Republican Party. She avoided them like the plague on her swing through the Eastern historical sites and didn't contact anybody in the Republican Party about her trip to Pella, Iowa ("an old Dutch town with the country’s largest working windmill") to see her campaign video "Undefeated."

To be honest, I can't blame Palin. Like a lot of Americans, I'm not particularly fond of the Republican political apparatus either. They're the kind of people who give dishonesty and corruption a bad name. But I really think that Sarah Palin has to hire at least one Republican if she's going to run for the Republican nomination.

Some Justice

2011-07-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

Today, it was announced that CNN has canceled "In the Arena," the newstalk show hosted by that former patron of prostitution and Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer shouldn't have been given such a "rehabilitation" vehicle by CNN in the first place.

If this was a just world, Spitzer would have been forced to retire and live out his days as an embarrassment to his family, friends, and neighbors.

Sort of like Larry Craig of "wide stance" fame.

Still, it looks like Spitzer is losing his program and probably his toehold in the media universe. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Begging Brooks

2011-07-05T04:52:00.000-07:00

David Brooks begs Republicans to be reasonable. Not being optimistic about that, he begs "responsible" Republican elites to ignore the "fanatics" and be reasonable.

But that ship has already sailed.

Mitch McConnell and the other people in charge of the Republican Party have decided that fanaticism is their best bet.

Obama Must Be Doing Something Right

2011-06-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

Interesting! Mark Halperin called a "dick" for the Wednesday conference. Given that Halperin's one of the biggest creeps in American public life, it's evident that Obama must have been doing something right.

In War Criminal News . . .

2011-06-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

John Yoo criticizes the Obama administration for not going through proper process in deciding on the legality of their actions in Libya. Of course, Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, is more qualified than most presidents to make up his mind on these issues.

More Rats Fleeing from the SS Newt

2011-06-21T11:48:00.000-07:00

In today's Newt News, his two top campaign fundraisers resigned today. That makes 18 senior staff people who have resigned from Gingrich's floundering campaign over the last three weeks.

The departures of fundraising director Jody Thomas and fundraising consultant Mary Heitman were the latest blow for the former House speaker who watched 16 top advisers abandon his campaign en masse earlier this month, partly because of what people familiar with the campaign spending described as a dire financial situation.

People don't realize it yet, but this presidential campaign is the end of Newt Gingrich as we know him. Newt's whole America Solutions empire is premised on the idea that Newt Gingrich is a creative guy who has real influence in the Republican Party and the American government as a whole. But now that Gingrich is embarrassing himself so thoroughly on the campaign trail, it's gradually coming out that Newt doesn't have any influence and hasn't had any influence since he resigned as speaker in 1998. It turned out that Newt Gingrich was exactly what his worst critics said along--a megalomaniac blowhard who couldn't be trusted with anything.

Sooner or later, Newt's going to get hit with a new reality. After his presidential campaign ends sometime after he gets 5% in the New Hampshire primaries, people are going to stop buying Newt's movies, videos, books and pamphlets, they're no longer going to participate in his projects, and are going to stop coming to his web sites. Sooner or later, America Solutions is going to either be dramatically downsized or go bankrupt.

My bet's on the latter.

That doesn't mean that Newt's going to starve or Callista won't be able to afford more platinum hair die. There's always room for a megalomaniac blowhard to hustle for a hard-earned buck on the right.

It's just that most of us aren't going to hear about it.

Jon Huntsman Throws His Snowball into the Deep Pit

2011-06-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

In one of the most insignificant presidential campaign announcements of 2011, Jon Huntsman has announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination.

The media gives Huntsman a lot of play because he's a "different kind of Republican" who has moderate views on social issues and served with Barack Obama as ambassador to China.

But Huntsman is almost as bad a no-hoper as you can get.

First, Huntsman doesn't have much name recognition among Republican voters. Of course, that's not necessarily fatal. But the easiest ways to pump up name recognition for an ambitious GOP politician are to drop about $100 million into advertising or make firebrand pronouncements about how Barack Obama is destroying the country because he isn't a real American. Huntsman comes from a wealthy and prominent Mormon family, but doesn't seem to have the ability to drop 50 or 100 mill like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. Likwise, he just came off a sting as Obama's ambassador to China. So, he can't make himself into Obama's "enemy from hell" either. Making things worse, Huntsman has no juice with the religious right, no cache with foreign policy neo-cons, and very little connection with the Republican religious establishment.

So, what is Jon Huntsman's constituency?

At first glance, it looks like Huntsman is going to compete for Mitt Romney votes. I should be clear that Huntsman's not going to compete with Mitt Romney for Romney votes. Huntsman has absolutely no chance of competing with Romney at this point. Instead, Huntsman is going to compete with Tim Pawlenty for the "I agree with Romney, but would never vote for Romney" vote.

That's the only competition Tim Pawlenty is going to win all year.

The Rick Perry Bubble

2011-06-20T06:04:00.001-07:00

Texas Governor Rick Perry is thinking of running to be the third president of the Confederacy--after Jefferson Davis and George W. Bush.

My impression of Rick Perry is that he's not all that smart. I've always disagreed with people on the left who thought George W. Bush and Sarah Palin were stupid. Both of them are bright, clever people who decided on ignorance as a life strategy.

Rick Perry strikes me as more like George Allen and Mike Pence--just kind of dumb.

That doesn't mean that Perry couldn't be president. His political consultant Dave Carney certainly has a good idea of the niche Perry could occupy in the presidential primaries as someone who would “take the wood to Obama.”

About 40% of Republican voters didn't think Obama was born in the U. S. until he produced his "long-form" birth certificate.

That constituency is looking for someone who would be particularly aggressive toward Obama and Perry could fill the bill.

But Perry could also find out that the media and primary voters are going to expect to make an instantaneous transition from breathy anticipation of a Rick Perry candidacy to charismatic fulfillment of their expectation.

If Perry is not up to that, there's a good chance that he'll drop like a Fred Thompson stone.

For what it's worth, my initial opinion is that Perry doesn't have what it takes.

Nail-Biting Day for Gay Rights in New York State

2011-06-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

It looks like a big vote on legalizing gay marriage is coming up in New York State today.

I'm on my second marriage, all of my brothers and sisters are either on their first or second marriages, and one of my aunts has been married five times.

It's a crime that none of my gay friends in Kentucky or Pennsylvania can say the same.

Huntsman Agonistes

2011-06-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

Matt Bai of the New York Times claims that the Jon Huntsman candidacy for the Republican nomination should be taken seriously and that he has Republican insiders who will stake their careers on Huntsman's chances.

A few deeply knowledgeable Republicans I talked to (if I told you who they were, they wouldn’t talk to me anymore) gave him something like a 1 in 5 chance of getting the nomination. Their view is that Mr. Huntsman, who is regarded as a moderate on issues like immigration and climate change, isn’t nearly as likely a choice as Mr. Romney, but he’s not substantially less likely than, say, Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota.

Ok, claiming that Huntsman has as good a chance as no-hoper Tim Pawlenty is not exactly taking a big leap.

But Huntsman doesn't have a chance at all.

What Huntsman wants to be is the Barack Obama of Republican moderates--someone who can appeal to a broad coalition of Wall Street guys, Main Street Republican businessmen, and traditional conservatives who don't like too much progress but aren't interested in re-enacting either the Boston Tea Party or the attack on Fort Sumter.

But Mitt Romney pretty much has those constituencies sewn up. That leaves Huntsman and Pawlenty fighting over the scraps of Republican voters who think like Romney but don't want to vote for Romney.

That's not a very big group.

If Jon Huntsman has a purpose in running for president at all in 2012, it's to put himself in position to be a consensus elite candidate in 2016.

But he doesn't have any chance of accomplishing that either.

Bachmann Disappoints

2011-06-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

Elite political commentators are pretty much unanimous in agreeing that Michele Bachmann helped herself last night.

To the extent that any candidate stood out as a potential anti-Romney, it was . . . Rep. Michele Bachmann, who started the debate with the surprise announcement that she had filed to run for president of the United States. The TV-friendly conservative, beloved by the tea party, introduced herself to a national audience as a “former federal tax litigation attorney” and “businesswoman,” repeatedly mentioning the 23 foster children that she and her husband have raised. And unlike the other candidates, who are largely former officeholders, Bachmann was able to point to her voting record as a sitting congresswoman to show she’s in the midst of pitched fights over health care reform, financial regulation and federal spending.

That was Politico. Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post goes on.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann came into Monday night’s presidential debate in the Queen City as an unknown commodity. She left it as the most talked-about candidate in the 2012 GOP field.

That translates to me as Bachmann "beat expectations" by sounding better than Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich, and thus stood out.

That's true.

But Michele Bachmann isn't running against those guys. She's running against Sarah Palin to be the candidate of the religious right and Tea Party against Mitt Romney.

If Palin decides to run, Bachmann will have to go toe to toe with her. But even if Palin doesn't run, Bachmann's has to show that she can catch fire like Palin did in 2008 if she wants to be beat Romney.

And Bachmann didn't do anything to indicate that she could catch fire.

As a result, I rate Bachmann's night pretty much as a failure. If she really wants to compete for the Republican nomination, she'll have to raise her game.

Zombie Night--Live Blogging the Republican Debate

2011-06-13T21:47:00.001-07:00

This is a revised version of my live-blog of the GOP New Hampshire debate on CNN tonight. The cast of contenders includes The Leader (Mitt Romney), the Zealot (Ron Paul), the Clown (Herman Cain), and the Woman from the Religious Right (Michele Bachmann). Those are the candidates who count the most. Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum are running as the Professor and Marianne candidates and the whole event is being haunted by the ghost of Newt Gingrich.

Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Donald Trump aren't here. That means there are votes to be had. Huckabee's out and the whole campaign establishment thinks that Palin's out as well. That means that religious right and Tea Party votes are up in the air. Bachmann in particular is interviewing for the position of "substitute Palin." There's a clown constituency out there as well. Donald Trump was once at 26% in the polls as the "clown candidate" who was willing to say anything about President Obama. Who's going to emerge as the clown candidate. Right now, it looks like Herman Cain has the best shot, but Pawenty is coming up with a lot of goofy proposals. Maybe he sees his path from 5% to contender status as paved with the most outlandish proposals he can make.

7:55 Wolf Blitzer blah blahed about Mitt Romney as the presumed leader, but Romney’s grip on the top position is extremely tenuous. Gallup polls have him up 2-4% over Sarah Palin, but Romney's connection with health reform, flip flops on abortion and gay rights, and general lack of authenticity make him extremely vulnerable to attack ads. He's very vulnerable.

8:01—Introductions—Cliché time. Rick Santorum mentions Pennsylvania which is very interesting because Santorum lost his last race in Pennsylvania by 19. Michele Bachmann raised 23 foster children, Newt comes out with a new cliché—“the Obama Depression,”—Mitt Romney says something that's very forgettable—Ron Paul wants to take the country back to the 1780’s—Tim Pawlenty suprises everyone by saying “I love America" and it’s all about the grandkids for Herman Cain.

The big surprise is that Michele Bachmann is practically tiny compared to the guys. Oh yeah, Bachmann also announced that she had filed papers for her candidacy and would make an official announcement tomorrow.

8:05—John King is moderating—still an idiot after all these years (for some reason, my computer stuck on all caps at this point). 8:06—How would the Republicans create jobs—Big surprise there! Herman Cain advocates Tax Cuts for the Wealthy.

8:06—Tim Pawlenty advocates tax cuts plus deregulation, says that his assumption of a 5% annual growth rate is a tribute to American exceptionalism and that anything else is "Declinism." "Declinism," another bad word for "reality."

8:09—Mitt Romney makes a nod to reality by actually citing some statistics—is still all for Tax cuts for the wealthy 8:10—Onto the Ghost of Newt Gingrich—Says something memorable

8:11—Michele Bachmann announces her Presidential candidacy, dodges “Dodds-Frank.”

8:12—Ron Paul can’t think of anything that Obama’s done right. Of course, he can’t think of anything that the U. S. Government has done right since the creation of the fed in 1913. I’m surprised he didn’t go back to George Washington. maybe he will later.

8:13—Sylvia Smith is concerned with “defunding” and” repealing” Obamacare. Wonder which candidate is most eager to overturn health reform.

8:14—In another big surprise, it turns out that all of the candidates want to overturn health reform. As a result, Michele Bachmann gets out her first and second deceptive statistics of the evening, that Health reform harmed medicare and cost jobs.

8:15—Mitt Romney now answering on analogies between RomneyCare and ObamaCare—about ready to get hammered by his esteemed colleagues.

8:16—Tim Pawlenty gets out his hammer—takes a v-e-r-y long time wielding it—totally ineffective—Mitt Romney’s going to be very vulnerable to attacks on Romney’s health care scheme—Pawlenty fails to strike and confirms his reputation as a wimp.

8:18—Onto Gingrich’s flip-flopping on individual mandate—Why nothing from “Clown Candidate” Herman Cain—Newt wants more republicans in the Senate, but forgets that he's the last guy who would ever have coattails. I guess it doesn't matter though because Newt never had a chance of being nominated. He'd poll 8-10% if he still had his whole campaign staff, and he's going to poll 8-10% without them as well.

8:20—Question from “mainstream Republican” whatever that is anymore—Rick Santorum gets a chance to talk—mentions welfare reform from 1996—sees himself as mobilizing bi-partisan support. The questioner sounded like he was thinking of voting for Obama--not a good sign for Republican candidates or the republican party. 8:22—Michele Bachman goes all gauzy about the tea Party—“take the country back” is not such a gauzy slogan though—she loves it. But the questioner still looks like he'll end up voting for Obama

8:23—Can Herman Cain build bridges from the tea party to the rest of the country? Well, he’s going to hire good advisers who can develop “common sense solutions.” Yawn. America wants red meat from Herman cain and it's getting tuna salad. If Herman Cain wants to win the Republican nomination for President, he'll have to get all the Donald Trump vote and will have to say a lot of outlandish things to get that vote. So far, Cain hasn't been mildly interesting, let alone outlandish.

8:25—Questioner wants to know how Republicans will return manufacturing jobs to the U. S.—Ron Paul wants to bring money back to the U. S. rather than jobs—makes almost no sense unless you’re a Milton Friedman freak. 8:26—Pawlenty mentions that he was the only republican who grew up in his meat-packing town—also avoids question. 8:27—Michele Bachmann doesn’t believe in job-training—wants to reduce corporate tax rates for companies that are already not paying taxes—wants to get rid of the ePA—Also dodging question

8:28—Santorum mentions that he’s from Pennsylvania yet again but declines to discuss how hated he was by the Pennsylvania electorate.

8:29-0Question about Right-to-Work legislation—Tim Pawlenty’s all for that. Even though he was in a union, he appears to hate unions

8:30—Give John King some props—he’s pretty quick on his feet—about as much depth as Triplett Creek in Morehead though 8:31—One wonders why any union worker would vote republican!

8:32—Personal Side of Candidates—Rick Santorum chooses leno over Conan O’brien

8:33—A Short break from the lameness—Mitt Romney sounds the most coherent—Daughter No. 1 thinks Michele Bachman would be the easiest to beat—She thinks Romney would be pretty easy to beat as well though. And Romney would be easy to beat unless there's a depression. Conservatives would pretty much stay at home.

8:36—Commercials for an exercise program that looks like it causes cancer

8:36—Michele Bachmann can’t choose between Elvis and Johnny Cash—Christmas with Elvis?

8:37—Question about Government subsidies—Ron Paul says that there shouldn’t be any—

8:38—Question to Herman Cain about Tarp—Cain liked the idea of Tarp but totally disagreed with implementation

8:40—Tom Fahey speaks—The questions are pretty hostile in general—Fehey hints that the auto bailout was successful—Mitt Romney disagreed because Obama “gave the company to the UAW”—I don’t think this is working and John King uses Romney’s own words against him.

8:41—I’m beginning to wonder how close the Republicans are going to come to saying they would have allowed a depression.

8:42—I’m beginning to think that Republicans are much more impressive as pundits on Fox than they are in presidential debates.

8:43—Newt Responds to a question on NASA by Fantasizing about Space.

8:44—Tim Pawlenty defends the space program—Why not Get rid of it though?

8:45—What would administration do to right the housing ship? Tim Pawlenty gives a long-winded version of “Nothing” or “getting the private sector moving again”

8:46—Ron Paul gives the zealot answer—“let’s do much less sooner”—Paul likes “corrections” but does not quite advocate “depression”

8:48—Herman Cain makes a major confession—“The federal government should be doing food inspections.”

8:49—Now it’s Disaster spending—Mitt Romney wants to send disaster relief back to the states—Wants to talk more about federal deficits than disaster relief.

8:50—Newt Gingrich reveals his deepest feelings—he likes American idol more than dancing with the stars

8:51—Another break—pretty weak stuff altogether—no wonder I didn’t watch The Republican debates during the 2008 cycle. Commercials—It looks like Cadillacs are good at dodging arrows. Who knew?

8:52—Onto Medicare—Dr. Paul Collins asks a tough question about medicare—Ron Paul responds that he would cut a lot of money from medicare—need to cut defense spending, wars, and corporate welfare—wants to opt out.

8:55—Tim Pawlenty wants to make medicare an option—fully justifies his 4% rating in the polls.

8:57—Newt deals with Medicare and the Ryan proposal—prefers the totally unknown “Tom Price” to Ryan—Goes deep and announces that he doesn’t want to pay crooks.

8:58—Santorum and Herman Cain are all for jumping off the medicare cliff.

9:00—onto Social Security—another fairly hostile question—Cain wants a personal retirement account like chile, doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in bringing back pinochet though.

9:01—Questions are actually substantive and technical—onto the debt ceiling. Mitt Romney wants Obama to exercise more leadership in doing what republicans want—doesn’t address debt ceiling.

9:03—Bachmann uses B. Obama’s words against him—Doesn’t mind default

9:05—John King wants twitter level answers—almost gets them.

9:06—Pawlenty isn’t particularly interested in the separation of church and state. Rick Santorum doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state at all—Ron Paul is a little more skeptical—Let’s see how much Herman Cain really hates Muslims—Cain emphasizes that he wouldn’t be comfortable with members of al-qaeda in his administration—big surprise there!—

9:09—John King nails Herman Cain on litmus tests for muslims in government—Newt is Really vociferous about Not hiring members of al-qaeda in his administration—

9:12—Hermain cain likes deep dish pizza—Both Dad and Daughter wish Sarah Palin were participating—But I think it’s a good idea for palin to avoid events where everybody is driving down their poll numbers—Sometimes I think that Republican presidential candidates are trying to make sure that no one votes for them.

9:15—Only 45 minutes to go.

9:17—When’s John King going to ask whether candidates like Lebron James or Dirk Nowitzki? How many would say Nowitzki?

9:17—Gay Marriage question for Michele Bachmann—Is she going to advocate a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage? Doesn’t look like it--Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, want a constitutional amendment—Bachmann as well.

9:19—back to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell—Herman Cain doesn’t want to go back, Tim Pawlenty punts to military, Ron Paul won’t go back, Romney punts, Gingrich will go back, Bachmann wants to go back, Santorum wants to go back to the Stone Age— The biggest disappointment is Michele bachmann—she isn’t doing anything to distinguish herself or earn anything more than her current 7%--Definitely not an alternative to Sarah Palin

9:24—Question about rape and incest exceptions to a pro-life position—Bachmann makes a case from the Founding fathers but abortion was very popular during the early years of the republic
9:26—Immigration up next—Question is from the far, far right—focusing on Government services to illegal immigrants—immigration is just like recreational drugs. It should be completely legalized.

9:29—Ron Paul is very confusing about immigration—Sounds like the main solution to illegal immigration is a slow economy

9:30—Herman Cain wants to end birthright citizenship—secure borders—enforce laws—which pretty much means create a police state—

9:31—Tim Pawlenty sent Minnesota national guard to mexican border

9:32—20 million illegal immigrants—What would Newt Gingrich do about it? Newt pontificates in response—transplant Homeland security Department to Border

9:34—Eminent Domain? Ron Paul wants to go back to the 1780’s, pretty much his answer to everything. If I was a Republican candidate, I wouldn’t be too happy with these questions. The Questioners are examining the contradictions of Republican positions rather than giving them an opportunity to slam Obama.

9:37—Rick Santorum wants to end Ethanol subsidies—Ethanol is a special problem for me
because it’s basically corn-based gas. Given my corn allergies, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life breathing in corn fumes. There’s that Cadillac dodging arrows again. A stunning commercial claim--Cadillac makes “Cadillacs”

9:39—Aviva is buildijng insurance “around you”

9:40—Mike Huckabee is on TV campaigning against health care reform.

9:41—Foreign Policy—Question about withdrawing from Afghanistan—Romney punts to the military—almost makes a big gaffe about handing off to the Taliban—Ron Paul wants to withdraw without consulting the military, withdraw from Iraq as well—Tim Pawlenty starts with tribute to military, then goes into a long-winded justification for bombing yemen—

9:45—Fifteen minutes to go, 9:45—Is the U. S. justified in its involvement in Libya—Michele Bachmann gets tied up in her own cliches—Doesn’t want us to be involved, but wants us to lead anyway—kind of confusing.

9:47—Newt wants us to think “Fundamentally” about withdrawing from Afghanistan but doesn’t mention Afghanistan—Herman Cain wants the U. S. to avoid complex situations

9:48—Question about withdrawing from Role of Global leadership—Rick Santorum pontificates about terrorism and wants basing around the world— The main result of this debate is that Republican voters will be choosing between Romney and Palin if Palin runs. If Palin doesn’t run, it will be Romney vs the field.

9:54—Question about lack of enthusiasm for Republican candidates—

9:56—Tim Pawlenty gets a question about Sarah Palin—gets though it without embarrassing himself—looks sick though—Romney tries to sell the field as better than Obama

9:57—Ron Paul wants to know what the other candidates think about his fetish about the Federal reserve

9:58—Ending tributes to New Hampshire--

Closing Remarks—There wasn’t much here. I think Sarah Palin was the big winner tonight. none of the Participants did anything to stand out as an opponent to Obama. I guess you could say that Mitt Romney did well because he didn’t’ do anything to lose his big lead over this group. but it wasn’t like he really helped himself either. Certainly, none of the candidates at the bottom of the polling did anything to help themselves. Tim Pawlenty gets the most press, but didn’t do anything to justify that press. Rick Santorum ducked on the question of abortion. David Gergen says that it was a good night for Michele Bachmann but I can’t see why. Most of what Bachmann showed was that she didn't have anything like the charisma of Palin. More toward the middle of the GOP pack, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul didn’t do much to help themselves while Herman Cain didn’t show any of the pizzazz needed to be a serious contender.

All in all, the GOP candidates came off as a relatively large collection of Zombies. Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and Chris Christie were probably licking their chops in anticipation of running against this group.

The End of Newt Gingrich as We Know Him

2011-06-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

The whole campaign staff of Newt Gingrich resigned today. That's right, they all quit--Newt's national campaign manager, personal spokesman, Newt's Iowa guy, his New Hampshire guy, and his South Carolina guy all resigned at the same time.

It appears that Newt wanted to run a media campaign where he got to do all the fun stuff of politics like tweeting, facebooking, and doing television interviews. but didn't raise any money and didn't

TPM claims that it's "almost beyond belief" but I think not.

Herman Cain: Clown Candidate

2011-06-06T04:45:00.000-07:00

It looks like Herman Cain is replacing Donald Trump as the leading clown candidate in the Republican presidential race.

What's a clown candidate?

Putting on my political scientist hat, I would define a "clown candidate" as "a presidential candidate who is seeking to gain support by making the most provocative statements in the field."

What made Donald Trump a clown candidate was the fact that his appeal was based solely on questioning whether President Obama was born in the United States or not. There's apparently a large constituency for clown candidates among Republican voters and Trump's birtherism pushed him up to 26% in the polls at one point.

Now, the same Republican constituencies are looking at former Godfather's Pizza CEO and radio talk show host Herman Cain as the answer to their dreams of confronting President Obama in the most provocative way possible.

Here's the kind of thing Republican voters like:

“Stupid people are running America,” Cain complained on Saturday night. “We will put a conservative in the White House, and I've got a good feeling his name is going to be Herman Cain.”

Given that Cain's economic plan is basically to empower the wealthy even more than they already are, I have a strong feeling that Cain's not going to beat Obama in 2012.

But he's got a decent enough shot at being the Republican nominee--definitely better than Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.

The GOP: A Bad Day at the Polls

2011-06-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

Sure, one day does not make a real trend in daily tracking polls.

But that doesn't mean that eyebrows weren't being raised when Republicans saw Obama's approval rating at 53-39 in today's Gallup poll.

Ben Smith of Politico raised an eyebrow as well.

The problem for the GOP is that they are the ones who should be riding high. It's not like the Obama administration has gotten a lot of good news since the bin Laden hit. The economy is stagnant, gas prices are high, the country is involved in yet another unpopular war, and leading Democratic figures like Anthony Weiner and John Edwards are deep in scandal do-do.

Moreover, the GOP is on the offensive. Republican presidential candidates are out campaigning, the GOP lead House of Representatives are standing up for entitlement cuts, and Republican governors are pursuing an aggressive agenda of fiscal austerity, putting limits on public unions, and cutting government spending.

Perhaps this is just a one day trend.

But if 2010 demonstrated that most people don't like liberalism, 2011 might be showing that Americans like conservatism even less.

The Wisdom of Will?

2011-05-30T00:13:00.000-07:00

On "This Week," George Will was pontificating about whether anybody could imagine Sarah Palin being in control of nuclear weapons.

Pretty much your everyday Palin Put-Down from the GOP elite.

Of course, I'll admit that I'm biased enough about Sarah Palin have a hard time imagining her being responsible about anything.

But I don't see any reason to view Palin as more dangerous than warmongers like George W., Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, or John Bolton.

Actually, I see Palin as a little less dangerous than that group. Being ignorant and impulsive is less dangerous than being well-informed and determined to flout international law.

Who's Afraid of Sarah Palin?

2011-05-27T21:54:00.000-07:00

Lots of people according to Rush Limbaugh (Being interviewed by the always scary-looking Greta Van Susteren).

You know the effect that she has on establishment Republicans. They are just as frightened in their own way as the Democrats are of Palin. And I -- one thing I think that is inescapable, particularly with when looking at the Democrats. The Democrats will always -- and the media -- will always tell us who they are afraid of by virtue of who they spend time trying to destroy . . . Bottom line is she scares them. She also scares the Republican establishment.

I can see where Sarah Palin and the Tea Party might scare some Beltway Democrats. They're pretty much scared of everything, including people like me. But progressives are part of the Democratic establishment as well and progressives would think they've died and went to heaven if the GOP nominated Palin next year.

I know I would.

Maybe It Would Be Better to Pair Turner with Bachmann

2011-05-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

Washington insider Ed Rogers is floating the idea of a Jon Huntsman/Michele Bachmann presidential ticket. Here's the fluff Rogers wrote about Huntsman.

Former governor and ambassador Jon Huntsman is an articulate, attractive, cerebral, urbane internationalist. He’s a proven conservative with a reassuring, moderate tone and a model family. His vast experience in state and federal government, including service as a diplomat, clearly makes him qualified to be president.

I have a hard time understanding anybody in the Republican elite would push Jon Huntsman. A moderate Republican who served as Obama's ambassador to China, Huntsman isn't any more likely to be win the GOP nomination than a socialist/atheist like me.

Michele Bachmann is another matter. Somewhere between rising star on the right and joke candidate with terminal foot-in-mouth disease, Bachmann is flirting with a long-shot presidential run and would be an attractive VP candidate because of her ability to fire up the GOP base.

The GOP would be better off nominating Paul Ryan for pres and pairing him with Bachmann. Ryan would represent the economic wing, Bachmann the religious conservative wing. It would be a balanced ticket and probably a lot more honest than what the Republicans will actually do.

Sarah Palin vs Republican Elites: Advantage Palin

2011-05-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

America is soon going to find out if Sarah Palin still matters. After more than four months out of the limelight, Palin is embarking on a historical tour of the Northeast.

The first stop will be at the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally. Palin will then travel up the East Coast in a trip that will include her first stop in New Hampshire since running as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2008.

Palin will also be stopping at other spots of symbolic national significance on the East Coast, including the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg and Antietam, and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

For Palin's sake, I hope she knows the Revolution better than Michele Bachmann, the Constitution better than Herman Cain, and the Civil War better than your average Confederate re-enactor. If Palin celebrates the Confederacy during her visits to Civil War sites and ignores the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers who gave their lives to defend the union and emancipate the slaves, she'll have hell to pay.

But the main question is whether Palin's re-emergence matters for the Republican presidential nomination. Steve Kornacki of Salon thinks that GOP elites have squelched any expectation of a Palin victory.

. . . an unofficial "stop Palin" campaign was launched by opinion-shaping GOP "elites" in the months after the midterm. Conservatives with credibility with the GOP rank-and-file -- including Charles Krauthammer, Andrew Breitbart and even Bill Kristol . . . -- began delivering the message in subtle and not-so-subtle ways: Let's find someone else . . . As a result of all of this, Palin will enter the GOP race -- if she does decide to run -- as a marginalized figure. She has plenty of fans among the party's grass roots, universal name recognition, and probably the ability to raise some serious money in small donations. But the most influential voices on the right are almost universally opposed to her now, and are committed to communicating this to the rank-and-file.

Kornacki goes on to say that GOP elites have "this one under control."

But nothing's farther from the case.

Sure, elite figures like Krauthammer, George Will, and Ann Coulter pushed Palin's poll numbers down from the low 20's into the teens and that Palin became radioactive after her "blood libel" comments on the Tucson shootings.

But Palin has basically played Republican elites to a draw.

After the "blood libel" fiasco, Palin did the smart thing and lowered her public profile. Outside supporting Scott Walker in Wisconsin and a brain-dead tweet about the bin Laden hit, Palin stayed so far out of public view that everyone started thinking that she no longer wanted to run.

Meanwhile, Republican elites were embarrassing themselves with their feckless search for the "Great White Alternative" to Romney and Palin. It's important to emphasize that Republican elites don't like Mitt Romney any more than they like Sarah Palin and Romney's numbers have been pushed down by all the carping about his work on health care in Massachusetts.

But the elite search for an alternative to Romney and Palin has been a complete debacle. Not only did John Thune, Jeb Bush, Haley Barbour, and Mitch Daniels have no chance of winning the nomination, they all had even less chance of beating Obama than Romney and Palin. It's been so bad that people like Rich Lowry of the National Review are ready to throw up their hands and start shouting "No Mas! No Mas!" before the first primary vote is cast.

And it's getting worse. Now people like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor are mooning over the currently toxic Paul Ryan and the obnoxious to the nth degree Chris Christie. The Jewish Cantor has as much hope to be raptured as he has of Paul Ryan winning the nomination.

So, where does the Republican field stand now? With the withdrawal of Mike Huckabee, the first tier is now Romney and Palin, but their numbers have been beaten down to 17% and 15% over the last six months. Romney has more money, organization, and self-discipline; Palin has more campaign charisma, a more ferocious approach to attacking Obama, and the prospect of uniting social conservatives and the Tea Party behind her. If Romney wasn't so vulnerable to negative advertising on health care and abortion, he would have the edge. But the Tea Party faction has made it clear that the GOP primaries are going to feature brutal attacks on Romney's "RINO" record.

Advantage Palin.

That is, unless another joke candidate like Donald Trump surgest to the front by making the most extravagantly stupid claims about Obama.

That's how little control Republican elites actually have.

A Brief Comment on Netanyahu's Speech

2011-05-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

Agreeing more with the protester than the standing ovations, I'd like to see the Israelis give up their illegal and brutal occupation of the West Bank.

GOP 2012: Looking for Charlie Sheen

2011-05-24T04:20:00.000-07:00

I don't know how sincere this is, but Republican possibilities now say that they're dropping out because they fear the possibilities of WINNING.

The conventional wisdom on Mitch Daniels was that his family didn't want to revisit the story of Cheri Daniels leaving the Indiana governor, getting married in California, and then coming back. Personally, I can see why she left. Given that Daniels comes off as a workaholic, policy wonk, it's not surprising that his wife might leave him in order to be more independent and have a more vital and interesting life.

It's not like it hasn't happened before.

But an adviser to Mitch Daniels is putting out the idea that the Daniels family was more worried about the impact of winning a presidential election on their future.

"It wasn't just about a campaign and it wasn't just about serving in office, but it was about the potential of enduring a campaign and then one to two terms in office, and then the rest of your life."

Daniels seems to be asking himself "what the hell happens if I win the nomination? That means I'd be campaigning for the next 18 months when you consider the primaries and general election. Then, I'd not only be stuck in the White House for at least four years if I beat Obama, but I'd be defined as an "ex-president" for the rest of my life with the inevitable 800 page memoir, a bored to death Secret Service detail, and the news papparazzi treating me like I'm the political version of Lindsey Lohan. It's just not worth it. I'm sorry but I don't want to be president."

That's the same as Haley Barbour talking about not wanting to "make a ten year commitment" by running for president.

Winning would be horrible.

Where's Charlie Sheen when you need him. Charlie knows WINNING. He embraces WINNING. He enjoys the perks that go along with WINNING.

Of course, Charlie Sheen is bi-polar and doing a lot of drugs.

But if Republican candidates really think the country is going down the tubes (and that's a big "if"), they need to be more enthusiastic about being elected president.

NY Times Super-Bad On Mitch Daniels

2011-05-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

I've never been a big fan of the New York Times, but the Jeff Zelenzy/Jim Rutenberg "story" on the Mitch Daniels decision not to run for the Republican nomination is a particularly poor example of political journalism.

The biggest weakness of the article is that it conveys an impression that the Republican primary field is just about set with Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Jon Huntsman.

“The field is largely now settled, and Republican activists and donors will begin increasingly choosing between those who are declared,” said Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and an adviser to President George W. Bush. “The process will accelerate now.”

That's just idiotic.

For anybody interested in reality, there are two big stories with the Republican primary field. Most importantly, establishment conservative manipulators failed again to come up with a candidate who can credibly unify the business establishment, neo-cons, and the religious right. George W. Bush was a nearly perfect prop for the Republican establishment in 2000. Relatively new to politics, Bush was a fresh-faced politician who could campaign as a "compassionate conservative" for general election voters but also be absolutely orthodox and willing to aggressively attack the Democrats.

No doubt Karl Rove, Ed Rollins, and Whit Ayers are still pining for those days.

But the conservative establishment couldn't come up with another version of George W for 2008. The manipulators have a dual problem. They've found it extremely difficult to find any body who combines conservative orthodoxy with the ability to make that orthodoxy new and exciting. In 2008, neither of the two major candidates were orthodox conservatives. John McCain was a lone wolf who couldn't stand business conservatives, neo-cons, or the religious right. Sure, he was a popular guy who could tack right for the primaries, but he couldn't galvanize the Republican Party for the campaign. Also outside the establishment, Mitt Romney tried to fake orthodoxy but couldn't do so in a credible manner. The Great White Hope of the conservative establishment, Fred Thompson, lost traction because he wasn't willing to campaign.

The establishment types haven't been able to find a Great White Hope for 2012 either. For one reason or another, potential candidates like Gen. David Petraeus, Bobby Jindal, Charlie Crist, and Chris Christie didn't pan out. Fox News boss Roger Ailes even made a big play to get Christie to run. So they started fantasizing over secondary figures like the non-charismatic Mitch Daniels, budget guru Paul Ryan, and former Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio, but they really didn't want to run.

I imagine they're will probably be one more push to get Christie to run.

As a result, the conservative establishment is stuck with Mitt Romney as their best hope. At best, Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman can only provide token competition for Romney. However, Romney just isn't strong enough to be the establishment standard bearer. He looks like a sure loser to Obama in the general election. Even worse, he might lose to somebody from the Religious Right/Tea Party faction and thus threaten Establishment control of the GOP.

And that's the second big story for the GOP, the emergence of a religious right/Tea Party faction that is a real threat to the conservative establishment. The problem for the Religious Right/Tea Party is that they haven't come up with a viable candidate either. At one point, the Religious Right/Tea Party looked like it was one step ahead of the Establishment because it appeared that Sarah Palin was going to be a charismatic standard bearer. But Palin was over-exposed in 2009, stumbled badly in her response to the Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords and proved to be vulnerable to criticism and thin-skinned. Right now, Sarah Palin is all question marks and no answers.

Unfortunately for the right, the Religious Right/Tea Party doesn't have a viable alternative to Mitt Romney any more than the Establishment. Mike Huckabee was a possibility but he didn't like the Tea Party and didn't want to run. Michele Bachmann could unify everybody in the Religious Right and Tea Party factions, but is probably too green to beat Mitt Romney. People like Rick Santorum and Herman Cain are too marginal to make much impact.

The major question for the Republicans at this point is whether Sarah Palin is going to run and whether she would be a strong enough figure to threaten Establishment control of the Republican Party is she does run.

Not having come up with a viable candidate for two election cycles in a row, the conservative Establishment is in danger of losing control of the Republican Party.

Running for Mr. Roarke: The Conservative World Becomes Fantasy Island

2011-05-22T05:01:00.000-07:00

One of the things that's always made Slate annoying was that so many Slate writers got their kicks out of pretending to take Republican arguments seriously and then showering the left with little gestures of contempt even though 95% of the staff was voting for Obama.

But it appears those days are over.

Slate editor Jacob Weisburg came out with an article today accusing the Republican Party of being a "Fantasy Island" in which "educated" people like Chris Christie have to choose between being viable presidential contenders and denying the reality of evolution, climate change, the fact that Obama was born in Hawaii, and the need to raise taxes to address the deficit. Weisburg could have mentioned the Republican denial of torture being a crime against humanity, the delusional arguments against gay marriage, the new nullificationism, the denial of the crisis in health care, and the rapture as other examples of Republicans living in fantasy land.

Moments like this point to a growing asymmetry in our politics. One party, the Democrats, suffers from the usual range of institutional blind spots, historical foibles, and constituency-driven evasions. The other, the Republicans, has moved to a mental Shangri-La, where unwanted problems (climate change, the need to pay the costs of running the government) can be wished away, prejudice trumps fact (Obama might just be Kenyan-born or a Muslim), expertise is evidence of error, and reality itself comes to be regarded as some kind of elitist plot.

And it's not just Republican voters either.

Weisburg is probably good friends with a lot of people in the right-wing media, but the denial of reality among conservative constituencies is actively promoted by Fox News, talk radio, the Weekly Standard, and the National Review among other outlets.

Because the conservative media presents reality denial as the only reality, it's hard for conservatives in South Carolina, Texas, and Utah to know any differently.

In the final analysis, all of the Republican presidential candidates are running to be Mr. Roarke, that is, when they're not angling to be Tattoo.

Trump and the Politics of Confrontation

2011-05-16T18:21:00.001-07:00

Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post is on the right track in claiming that Donald Trump was so popular with Republican voters because of his willingness to confront President Obama.

Commonly Subversive

2011-05-16T05:02:00.001-07:00

The family and I watched Common and Queen Latifah in Just Wright yesterday. Hard to see him as the "subversive" Bill O'Reilly says he is.

Winning the GOP's "Highest Unfavorables" Title

2011-05-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

Before Newt Gingrich announced his presidential candidacy, his "unfavorable" ratings in national surveys were high but not as high as Sarah Palin's and Donald Trump's.

Americans also already know and have fully formed opinions about Palin, Trump and Gingrich. And in many cases, their verdicts are harsh. A recent independent national poll from Quinnipiac University reflects the trio's electability problems: 58 percent of respondents said they would never vote for Palin or Trump, and 42 percent said they would never vote for Gingrich.

Now that Newt's running for president, I imagine that his negatives will start inching up to the Palin/Trump level. Maybe he'll eventually surpass Palin and Trump as the most unpopular politician in Aemrica.

Ooh! Yecch!

2011-05-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

There's a little David Williams ad on my blog. Williams might not be worse than Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot, or the King of Saudi Arabia, but he's certainly not as qualified for the job as Democratic incumbent Steve Beshear. I support Beshear.

Being Married to Newt Gingrich

2011-05-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

Newt Gingrich throws Paul Ryan and the House Republicans under the bus by referring to the Ryan budget as "right-wing social engineering."

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich distanced himself on Sunday from a House GOP plan to make cuts to Medicare, calling it “too big a jump" for the American people.

“What you want to have is a system where people voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options, not one where you suddenly impose it,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I am against Obamacare imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change.”

Newt Gingrich has been married to the Republican Party 1978. Unfortunately for the GOP, it looks like they're going to find out just how bad a spouse Newt can be.

Chest-Thumping Hyperbole Needed on Left

2011-05-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

A lot of notice has been given to the relatively grudging commendations for President Obama coming in from conservative figures like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Here's Limbaugh.

"We need to open the programme today by congratulating President Obama," Limbaugh declared on his daily syndicated radio show on Monday. "President Obama has done something extremely effective, and when he does, this needs to be pointed
out." As always with Limbaugh, his words were laden with sarcasm, poking fun at the idea that Obama single-handedly executed the mission:

Thank God for President Obama. If he had not been there, who knows what would have happened. It was only Obama who understood the need to get DNA, to prove that this was Bin Laden that we had assassinated.

And there were backhanded compliments from Limbaugh as well: "We need to never forget that President Obama deserves praise for continuing the policies established by George W Bush which led to the acquisition of this intel that led us to the enlarged hut in Pakistan that led to the assassination of Bin Laden last night."

Actually, it's unfortunate that nobody on the left is very good at the kind of chest-thumping, flag-waving hyperbole that Limbaugh would have given any kind of Republican for executing the hit on Bin Laden.

Obama deserves the hype.

The End of the Existential Threat

2011-05-03T05:33:00.000-07:00

Fareed Zakaria is fairly interesting but gets more hype than he deserves. His spin on the death of Osama bin Laden is that al-Qaeda's "existential threat" to the West is now over.

With the death of bin Laden, the central organizing ideology that presented an existential seduction to the Muslim world and an existential threat to the Western world is damaged beyond repair. We’re left with free-lance terrorists who will, of course, be able to inflict some harm. But the Somali pirates are able to inflict harm on civilians, and that doesn’t turn them into an existential threat to the Western world. That existential threat is gone.

But al-Qaeda was never an "existential threat" to the West. Al-Qaeda was a challenger in the Middle East, but the Arab world in general does not have enough economic, scientific, military, or any other kind of power to pose an "existential threat" to the U. S. and Western Europe. The 9-11 attack was a spectacular success for al-Qaeda, but it didn't change the balance of power between the U. S. and al-Qaeda in any way. The American economic and military apparatus wasn't damaged in any substantive way. As a result, the U. S. was able to flex its muscles, unleash a wave of repression, break up most of the al-Qaeda apparatus, and begin a hunt for Osama bin Laden that was always going to end in bin Laden's death.

With bin Laden's death, it is likely that the al-Qaeda organization will be finished and that "al-Qaeda" will be mostly a name adapted by small terrorist organizations to honor themselves with the association with 9-11.

But al-Qaeda was never anything but active at the margins of the global political system.

Jim DeMint's New Casting Call

2011-03-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

It looks like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina doesn't have much confidence in the current horde of potential Republican presidential candidates.

“If no one is an immediate front-runner,” Mr. DeMint said, “I think you might see a whole new cast of Republican candidates out within the next couple of months."

Luckily, the GOP has at least twenty more hot presidential contenders waiting in the wings.

The Kindness of Strangers

2011-02-16T20:32:00.000-08:00

Today, the kindness of friends and relatives reminded me of the many kindnesses I've received from strangers as well.

I just wish my car didn't have to break down for this to happen.

Today's car incident happened while travelling on Interstate 64 between my home in Morehead, KY and the city of Lexington. The car itself is in the shop waiting to be diagnosed, but it looks like a belt broke. First, the car wasn't able to accelerate, then the belt sound that we'd been hearing for the last 8 months got louder, and the battery light came on.

Then finally, the power brakes went off as I was pulling the car off the road.

For awhile, I stood outside the car hoping a cop car would come by.

No such luck. Between the state police, city police, county sheriff, university police, and Daniel Boone National Forest police, Cave Run Lake Police, and other agencies, there are at least seven police agencies in the area for a town of 7,000 and I'm likely to be followed by a cop car on just about any trip.

Unfortunately, my abusive father was a cop for 6 years. So, I find being followed by cop cars to be extremely aggravating and anxiety-provoking and the cops owed to me to actually help me the one time I needed something from them.

But a half-hour of waiting found no cop cars in sight and the cops will have to pay me back another time. I did get a student paper graded though.

Fortunately, I went off the road close to an exit with two big convenience stores within a quarter of a mile and I started hoofing my way up toward the ramp.

That's when my nephew the carpenter's assistant and his boss the carpenter/contractor pulled up to offer a hand. They were on their way to a job but were glad to lend me a cell phone and wait while I called AAA.

My nephew even left his cell phone with me for when AAA called back. Not that the cell phone did me much good. It was too advanced for me and I couldn't figure out how to use it.

Back to tech school for me.

Some minutes later, a faculty friend from my university stopped by to offer assistance. Too bad I didn't have a flat. He could have helped me change it. Given that I was just waiting for the tow truck, I had to decline. Meanwhile another friend was calling my wife and offering assistance.

Everybody was being nice and somebody would have started a prayer chain for me if I didn't get off the road soon.

Of course, it's good to know that my family, friends, and colleagues are willing to lend assistance when I need it.

But it really isn't just them.

Last year, my car troubles started when another belt broke while I was driving in Lexington. Maybe I should think about driving to Lexington so much.

I was able to pull into a Thornton's convenience store next to the Woodhill Plaza where a couple people offered me phones to call AAA (I really need to carry my phone) and were quite willing to wait for 15-20 minutes to half an hour for me to work things out with the AAA people to have my car towed back to Morehead. I also needed to call my wife to come get me.

The people who worked at Thornton's were super-nice through the whole four or five hour semi-ordeal. They let me park, invited me inside, let me use their personal cell phones, and made small talk with me the whole time.

Six o'clock eventually turned to eleven. another shift of Thornton's employees came in, and another wave of customers getting ready for graveyard shifts came through. There were white people, African-Americans, and Mexicans. One of the Thornton's folks was married to a Mexican guy and she introduced me to her 2 year old.

Like most little kids, this one dismissed me as below her standards and started crying, but the human generosity from the mom was real.

And really affecting.

By the time I left Thornton's that night, I was probably the happiest person in Lexington ecause I knew that I had experienced something extraordinary in the unthinking, routine kindness that everybody had shown to me as a stranger.

It was great and I bored my wife with endless talk about Thornton's all the way home.

Except, it wasn't Thornton's

The next time I broke down in Lexington, I limped into a Speedway where a white guy at the counter guided me to a black guy at the door and asked him to point me in the direction of a motorcycle shop. My temperature light was super-high and I needed to figure out what was going on before making the 65 mile drive back to Morehead. The motorcycle guy turned out to be super-friendly and he gave me his full attention even though it was early in the morning and he had tons of stuff to do. After making a minor repair, he sheepishly asked me for $20 and I even more sheepishly gave him $20 when I really felt that I owed him $35 for going out of his way.

But there it is, more routine kindness from strangers when I was in need.

To me, that's one of the core values of a multi-cultural nation, kindness toward strangers, and I'm glad that I've so often received it.

The Conservative "Making America Poorer Project"

2011-02-14T20:24:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman proposes that the Republican deficit plan be called "Eat the Future."

If you didn’t understand that logic, you might be puzzled by many items in the House G.O.P. proposal. Why cut a billion dollars from a highly successful program that provides supplemental nutrition to pregnant mothers, infants, and young children? Why cut $648 million from nuclear nonproliferation activities? (One terrorist nuke, assembled from stray ex-Soviet fissile material, can ruin your whole day.) Why cut $578 million from the I.R.S. enforcement budget? (Letting tax cheats run wild doesn’t exactly serve the cause of deficit reduction.)
Once you understand the imperatives Republicans face, however, it all makes sense. By slashing future-oriented programs, they can deliver the instant spending cuts Tea Partiers demand, without imposing too much immediate pain on voters. And as for the future costs — a population damaged by childhood malnutrition, an increased chance of terrorist attacks, a revenue system undermined by widespread tax evasion — well, tomorrow is another day.

There's no reason to fault Krugman as an economist, but "Eat the Future" is too conceptual for a bumper sticker slogan.

Why not call it "The Making America Poorer Project."

That's short, catchy, and accurate.

Because the Republicans don't just want to rob from the future, they want to rob from the future in a way that makes most Americans poorer.

For example, Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is proposing to roll back the collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin state workers.

According to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer "The proposal would effectively remove unions' right to negotiate in any meaningful way. Local law enforcement and fire employees, as well as state troopers and inspectors would be exempt." He also says this plan is non-negotiable -- as in, he's cut off negotiations with prison guards, teachers and other state workers.

Losing their rights to negotiate means that Wisconsin prison guards, teachers, and other state workers are going to be poorer now, and that's the intent. Tea Party guys like Scott Walker don't believe that people like teachers, prison guards, and state workers should be living as well as they do now as a result of their union rights and they're determined to neutralize the unions as a way to bring down the living standards of union members.

Walker is exempting police officers and firefighters from his efforts to make public employees poorer, but there's no reason to think that he wouldn't have also included them if he thought it was politically feasible.

Making America Poorer--that's what the Republicans are all about.

Tiger Mothers? Not Much Unusual There

2011-01-31T05:33:00.000-08:00

I just read the now infamous Tiger Mother op-ed by Amy Chua. I'm not quite sure that the Tiger Mother way isn't already pretty common model for coaching in the United States. It's hard to think of any football coach now that wouldn't qualify as a "Tiger Mother" at this point.

The New Republican Politics of Inhumanity

2011-01-31T04:24:00.000-08:00

As the House Republicans settle into leadership, it's evident that they're going to be aggressively pandering to their Tea Party/Social Conservative base. The first evidence of that is an effort to make the definition of rape even more narrow than it is now.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible.
For example, if a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would
no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. Rep. Smith's spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.

All part of the vision for a poorer, narrower, and more vindictive America that the Republicans are promoting.

Egypt: Some Permutations

2011-01-31T04:05:00.000-08:00

It looks like Egypt is going to be turning away from the Mubarak government over the last few days. What are some of the permutations?

1. The Noose Tightens around Israel. Along with Turkey, Egypt had been one of the few Islamic countries that was in alliance with Israel. Israel's friendship with Turkey went down the drain when a new Islamist government in Turkey proved to have little patience with Netanyahu and the settlement movement. Egypt will probably go the same way.

2. The Gaza Embargo. In particular, the Mubarak government had cooperated with the Israelis in maintaining an embargo of the Gaza Strip. If a new government gets established in Egypt, I imagine that will be one of the first things to go.

3. A New Wave of Repressions. The demonstrations in Egypt are not being greeted with enthusiasm by authoritarian governments in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran. Expect new waves of repressions in those countries, especially Iran.

Hope Jay Carney Does Better as Press Secretary

2011-01-27T14:03:00.000-08:00

Word is out that Jay Carney is going to replace Robert Gibbs as Press Secretary for the Obama administration.

Hopefully, Carney will up his game as press secretary.

That's because he always seemed like a pretty douchy guy while he was writing for Time magazine.

The "Anybody But Sarah" Express Moving Onto the Next Stop

2011-01-27T13:42:00.000-08:00

Think of it as the Anybody But Sarah Express. The American people don't want Sarah Palin to run for the Republican nomination for President, the GOP doesn't want Sarah Palin to run, and the media doesn't want Sarah Palin to run.

But it looks like somebody has to run from the Tea Party perspective.

It's just that so many people don't want Sarah Palin to be that person that some Tea Party honchos are picking up signals that they could jump on the "Anybody But Sarah" train and have started asking their friends, checking out fund-raising, and scheduling trips to Iowa and New Hampshire.

At various points, that's included Indiana Congressman (and major league dummy) Mike Pence, Minnesota firebrand Michele Bachmann, and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas.

Actually, I'm surprised Rand Paul hasn't scheduled a trip to Iowa.

But today, it looks like Mike Pence is dropping out of speculation.

Next stop, Michele Bachmann.

Limbaugh More Complex Than I Thought

2011-01-19T16:00:00.000-08:00

I used to think that Rush Limbaugh was just a racist toward African-Americans. But it turns out that I under-estimated the flexibility of Limbaugh's bigotry.

HuffPost has audio of Limbaugh taking an opportunity to speak mock Chinese with the visit of Hu Jintao to the United States.

Rush Limbaugh marked the occasion of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to America by mocking Hu in nonsense, ersatz Chinese on his Wednesday show. Limbaugh said he was watching Hu speak on Fox News, and that the feed was unaccompanied by any subtitles or translation.
"Hu Jintao was just going--" he began, before speaking in mock Chinese. "That's the closest I can get," he finished.

I'm waiting to see one of the conservative commentators say something like "he was only joking." That's always the bigots first line of defense.

Michael Steele Is Not Julius Caesar

2011-01-19T08:33:00.000-08:00

Recently deposed RNC chair Michael Steele is a little upset about the betrayal of his successor Reince Priebus.

"I know exactly how Caesar felt," Steele says, without a hint of irony. "It is what it is." He claims that Priebus had been planning to defect for six, seven, eight months before announcing a bid for the chairmanship. Steele was blindsided. "I trust my friends. Well, I guess the adage is right. In Washington, you should get a dog...We put a lot of resources in Wisconsin over the last two years...that's what you do for [the] team."

But Julius Caesar wasn't a buffoon. Steele should have compared himself to Nero instead.

Health Care Vote in House Today

2011-01-19T04:51:00.000-08:00

The House of Representatives is set to vote today on repealing Obama's health care reform. In my opinion, the Republicans have already lost the debate on health reform and lost political momentum more generally. The GOP leadership can sound plausble when they're in full-throated attack mode. Otherwise, they've already proven to be pretty inept.

Still wish the Democrats had used the debate to push for a public option though.

Lieberman Out?

2011-01-18T16:22:00.000-08:00

Reports are out that Joe Lieberman won't be running for re-election in 2012. Evidently he got tired of appearing on the Sunday talk shows.

King's New Birth of Freedom

2011-01-17T08:58:00.000-08:00

The Vitality of the Day. Martin Luther King's birthday means many things and it should mean many things if it is to remain a meaningful holiday. Martin Luther King was an extremely protean figure. He was the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a creative force in social protest, an advocate for non-violent social protest, and a brutal critic of American society in general and American foreign policy in particular. Since his death in 1968, King has also become a symbol for the accomplishments of the civil rights era as a whole and a symbol for what's best in American society. Moreover, MLK has become a symbol for the aspirations of humanity as a whole. Here, the reverence given to King since his death has not been unlike that accorded to Nelson Mandela after his release from prison. With the still growing fame of the "I Have a Dream" speech, the fact that many of his writings are now required readings in history classes, and the proliferation of cartoons, books, and other commemorations, Martin Luther King's public persona continues to grow with the passage of time.

Americans celebrate MLK's birthday in a variety of ways. For African-Americans, it's a way to celebrate the emergence of black people from the bondage of segregation and MLK's birthday is a particular point of celebration for African-American groups, churches, civic organizations, and political figures. For millions of others, the celebration of MLK's birthday is a way to promote Christianity, commemorate King's vision of non-violence, participate in social service projects, and reflect on both the good and bad trends in American society. This year, President Obama seems to think of King's Birthday somewhat as a generalized version of Earth Day.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama planned to mark the day by participating in a service project in Washington.

"Martin Luther King Jr. lived his life for others, dedicating his work to ensuring equal opportunity, freedom and justice for all," Obama said in a statement. "I encourage every American to observe this holiday in honor of Dr. King's selfless legacy by volunteering in their own communities and by dedicating time each day to bettering the lives of those around us."

MLK in American History. MLK's Birthday should also be celebrated because the decisive role King and his movement have played in American history. King's historical significance might be best illustrated through a reference to Abraham Lincoln. Standing on the battlefield of Gettysburg to commemorate the cemetary for fallen soliders, Lincoln resolved that "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

That's a good way to summarize what Martin Luther King worked for and what he symbolizes: a new birth of freedom that fulfills the historical promise of America's democratic republic.

In fact, King was a good deal more successful in establishing a new birth of freedom than Lincoln.

In January, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and all slaves were eventually freed and their civic rights recognized by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution.

But Lincoln's "new birth of freedom" was overwhelmed by the forces of reaction. The white supremacist backlash was nationwide, but the South also created a brutal system of segregation that was worse than South African apartheid. Slavery was over, but what was established in its place could hardly be called "freedom" for black people. The new birth of freedom imagined by Lincoln cost 600,000 soldier deaths during the civil war but did not take root in American society.

Where Lincoln and abolitionism failed, King and the civil rights movement succeeded. The Montgomery bus boycott and Brown v Board of Education inaugurated an activist era that established African-American legal and political rights, opened doors to economic opportunity, and overcame much of the pervasive stigmatizing of blackness in American society.

Once again, there was a powerful wave of conservative reaction, but reaction decisively lost during the 1970's and 1980's. It's not insignificant that it was Ronald Reagan who signed the legislation establishing MLK's birthday as a national holiday. Although Reagan himself had given a state's rights speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi only a few years earlier, Reagan's people largely decided that proving they weren't racists was more important than maintaining official conservative opposition to civil rights. By the 1980's, white racists were subject to much the same stigmatizing as they themselves visited on African-Americans and political conservatives were looking for ways to escape being stereotyped as racists.

They still are.

Generalizing the New Birth of Freedom. Martin Luther King is also an appropriate symbol for the whole range of social protest movements from the 1960's, including movements for women, gay people, the disabled, the immigrant population, Native Americans, and other groups. With the success of the civil rights movement, other stigmatized populations saw their opportunity to achieve recognition of their full humanity in American society and used the kind of creative protests that characterized the civil rights era. Feminists, gay rights activists, hispanic activists, and other groups have successfully have viewed themselves as following up on the civil rights movement and have built on the wide range of marches, rallies, civil disobedience tactics, economic boycotts, and disruptive tactics employed by civil rights activists during the 1950's and 1960's.

As was the case with the civil rights movement, all of these other social movements have made fundamental advances and those advances have proven to be permanent despite determined conservative opposition. Obviously, a full civil rights agenda has not been adopted for either gay people or immigrants, but gay people have made enormous gains in employment, housing, media representation, military service, and marriage and there isn't much of a threat that their gains will be rolled back. The presence of immigrants isn't about to be rolled back either.

All of these other movements have their own symbols. However, given that all of these movements stood on the shoulders of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King can legitimately serve as a national symbol for the accomplishments of those movements as well.

Over the last fifty years, American society has experienced a new birth of freedom on a world-historical scale and Martin Luther King is a fitting symbol for that new birth.

MLK and the Meaning of the Past. Martin Luther King wrote in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that

One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

King was claiming the civil rights movement was bringing the nation back to its roots in the founding fathers, Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. In a certain way, nothing could be farther from the truth. Many of the Founding Fathers were slave owners, Jefferson did not mean the "rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to apply to black people any more than he meant them to apply to women, and the authors of the Constitution wrote the protection of slavery into the founding document.

But King and the civil rights movement not only changed the present, they also changed the meaning of the past. Whether it's child history videos, grade school history books, or academic historical writing, the founding era has been re-evaluated in terms of it's part in the story of progress toward the civil rights movement. Looking at the Founding Fathers isn't just a matter of evaluating their part in the Revolution and Constitution, it's become a matter of examining their relation to slavery and abolition, their treatment of black slaves if they were slave owners, and their stance on the rights of black freedmen if they were not slave owners. Whether we today can identify with the Founding Fathers is now a matter of how they relate to our concerns for the broader freedoms that have been inaugurated in our era.

Some of the Founding Fathers have come off better, some worse. It's hard to find any of them who believed in full black equality as Americans do now, but we tend to follow Martin Luther King in defining meaning of the freedom promised in the Founding documents as freedom for everybody. In other words, we now look at the Founding Fathers through a political lens that was defined by Martin Luther King.

The Fourth of July. The monumental significance of the Fourth of July, 1776 is that it was the day that the Continental Congress declared independence from Britain. It's the foundation stone for a positive sense of American nationhood and the core values of freedom and equality associated with the American republic. The current age is just as important to the history of the American republic because figures like Martin Luther King greatly expanded the reach of freedom and political equality promised in the original founding. Perhaps the best way to understand Martin Luther King's Birthday is that it is the Fourth of July for the new American republic that's been created over the last fifty years.

Cracking the Disinformation Apparatus

2011-01-17T05:41:00.000-08:00

One of the frustrating dimensions of the health care debate was the perception that opposition to health reform was mostly a product of media manipulation. Bill Clinton had campaigned on health reform in 1992 but was stymied as the bill moved through the legislative process because a wave of attack ads made the legislation impossible. By the time the insurance companies got done with their campaign, Harry and Louise were better known than Bill and Hillary

Health care reform was an even bigger part of Obama's 2008 campaign, but so was the effort of the conservative media apparatus to manipulate popular opinion against health care reform. The villification of Obama as a socialist, fascist, etc., the "death panels" scare, the disinformation about the relationship between reform legislation and the deficit made the legislation so unpopular that a majority of the population wanted to see health reform repealed even before the legislation was fully implemented.

But the 2010 election is over and the conservative disinformation apparatus is no longer united. As a result, opposition to health care reform is beginning to diminish. According to an AP/GfK poll, about 41% of the population supports health care reform while 40% oppose. Of that 40%, a certain percentage would have opposed the Obama legislation because they don't think it went far enough. I wish the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had gotten the public option myself.

Moreover, support for repealing the legislation has dropped significantly.

As for repeal, only about one in four say they want to do away with the law completely. Among Republicans support for repeal has dropped sharply, from 61 percent after the elections to 49 percent now.

The movement to repeal health reform was a kind of speculative media bubble. Once the forces that created the bubble were no longer synchronized, support for repeal pretty much dissolved.

What were the forces that created the anti-reform bubble? There were several. In my opinion, the root of the anti-reform bubble was the wave of white conservative revulsion over electing a black Democrat for president. Conservatives might have revolted over any Democrat, but the fact that Obama is black and so much of conservatism is invested in feeding racial animosities made the election of Obama particularly revolting to the right.

Republican politicians, lobbying groups, and the conservative media apparatus fed the beast of Obama villification in various ways. Republican consultants and lobbying groups bankrolled the Tea Party movement, Obama was regularly villified as a socialist, fascist, and Nazi in the conservative media, Republican politicians sought to undercut any attempt by Obama to act presidential (i.e., the controversy over Obama's address to school children).

And it worked.

Republicans scored a big win in the 2010 mid-term elections.

But once the Republicans got control of the House, the forces that created the anti-health bubble began to dissolve. The Republican leadership began to compromise with the Democrats on tax cuts for the wealthy and moderate Republicans pealed off to support the repeal of Don't Ask/Don't Tell and funding for 9-11 first responders. Once Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and other Republicans split off somewhat from Jim DeMint and the Tea Party activists, the conservative media began to split as well. Instead of continuing the non-stop villification of Obama and the Democrats, Fox and other right-wing sources have had to slow down and parse out the compromises.

And that took the wind out of the conservative apparatus.

Rescuing Sarah Palin

2011-01-14T06:25:00.000-08:00

Alternet's Sarah Seltzer asks if Sarah Palin is "finally a goner."

Perhaps a good question.

But the answer is a resounding "No."

It's apparent that Fox News is committing itself to Palin as a presidential candidate and has scheduled a puffball interview with Sean Hannity for next Monday.

Call it the "Sarah Palin Rehabilitation Project."

It's not like this is the last time she's going to need it.

The Romance of Mass Murder?

2011-01-12T02:38:00.000-08:00

It appears that sales of the weapon Jared Loughner used in last Saturday's mass murder have soared.

Bloomberg reporter Michael Riley talked to an Arizona gun store owner who reported that gun sales surged after Saturday's shooting. The most popular item? The model of Glock that allowed Jared Loughner to spray 31 bullets into the crowd before being disarmed. FBI data shows gun sales in Arizona jumped 60 percent on January 10 compared to that day last year, and 5 percent nationally.
The store owner foresaw the uptick in business, telling his employees to expect a stampede of customers following the massacre. Apparently the same thing happened after Virginia Tech.

I guess one could explain the surge in gun sales by claiming that gun enthusiasts are "buying now" before the Glock 9mm is banned, but it could also be that they find mass murder really exciting and want to own the "weapon that blew up Tucson."

It seems more likely that it would be the latter.

Attempted Political Assassination in Arizona

2011-01-08T11:47:00.001-08:00

There's now a variety of reports that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and six others were assassinated while Giffords hosting a political event in her Tucson district. Here's the most recent report I've found.

NPR :
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot outside a grocery store in Tucson while holding a public event, Arizona Public Media reported Saturday.
Giffords, who was re-elected to her third term in November, was hosting her first "Congress on Your Corner” event at the Safeway in northwest Tucson when a gunman ran up and started shooting. At least five other people, including members of her staff, were hurt, according to Peter Michaels, news director of Arizona Public Media. Giffords was transported to University Medical Center in Tucson. Her condition was not immediately known. Michaels said Giffords was talking to a couple when the man ran up, firing indiscriminately, and then ran off. He was tackled by a bystander.
An MSNBC producer at the event tweeted that Giffords was shot in the head , which has yet to be confirmed. Fox News is reporting that three staffers have also been shot. UPDATE: CNN is reporting that witnesses heard 15-20 gunshots. At least nine
people were shot.
UPDATE #2: NPR is reporting that Giffords and six others have been killed by the gunman. CNN is reporting that the gunman is young, "late teens to early 20s".
UPDATE #3: Fox News is reporting that the shooter shouted something at Giffords before opening fire; that he then opened fire, killing five people; that troopers then returned fire, the shooter was hit, and then taken into custody.

I guess the main question here is whether the assassination was a standard American mass murder or whether it was inspired by Tea Party/Glenn Beck sentiments. Answering that extremely depressing question will require more information.

Update: Earlier reports of Giffords dying proved to be inaccurate. The most recent report on HuffPost is that Giffords is in surgery for a bullet to her head.

I'm Thinking About Running for the Republican Nomination

2011-01-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

HuffPost is leading with a teaser quote from China Ambassador Jon Huntsman about running for president in 2012.

Now, it appears, the ambassador is ready to make some noise of his own. Sitting in the echo-y living room of his new Washington home, Huntsman, a tall, lean man with silver hair and impeccable posture, pauses only briefly when faced with the question of presidential aspirations. "You know, I'm really focused on what we're doing in our current position," he says. "But we won't do this forever, and I think we may have one final run left in our bones." Asked whether he is prepared to rule out a run in 2012 (since it would require him to campaign against his current boss), he declines to comment.

The new media rule about prospective presidential candidates is that a prominent politician is always interested in running if he or she is unwilling to be Shermanesque in their refusal to run. Of course, Huntsman is not being Shermanesque ("if nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve"), but he doesn't seem particularly interested in mounting a 2012 presidential campaign either.

And why would Huntsman run. The former Republican governor of Utah is the kind of "big tent Republican" who got beaten by Tea Party candidates in Republican primaries. Huntsman wouldn't have any more of a chance to win the Republican nomination than I would.

In fact, if Jon Huntsman declares his candidacy, I'll also announce that I'm running for the Republican nomination for President.

If Huntsman runs, I run.

And let's face it! I would make a much better president than any actual Republican.

Pardon Fever Stops with Billy the Kid

2010-12-31T08:19:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big fan of efforts to "save the past" through pardoning of celebrity malefactors and criminals. I can see giving a symbolic justice to people like Susan B. Anthony and Medgar Evers. David Walker, the extremely brave black activist who wrote "Walker's Appeal" needs to be rescured from the historical scrap heap as well. However, the efforts to pardon people like Jim Morrison and Billy the Kid function mostly to flatten out the rough edges of a rough past.

As a result, they all have a fundamental falseness about them.

It was dumb of outgoing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to pardon Jim Morrison for obscenity. Ok, so maybe Morrison didn't pull out his dick during a Miami concert and maybe the cops were persecuting him.

Who knows?

But it wasn't like Morrison was Pat Boone either. From what I remember and have read about the Doors, everything Morrison accomplished had an underpinning of sex, drugs, drinking, and general outrageousness that can be legitimately summarized in the word "obscenity." I bought 45's of "Hello, I Love You" and "Touch Me," grooved to "Riders on the Storm" and "LA Woman" and remember where I was on the Potsdam State campus when I heard Morrison died.

I've played them for my daughters as well.

But to me, Morrison's obscenity conviction is a useful reminder that he was drinking something like two quarts of Scotch when he died.

Bill Richardson was right not to pardon Billy the Kid but shouldn't have considered it in the first place. Whether he killed nine guys or twenty-nine guys, Billy was a professional killer who shouldn't have been considered for pardon any more than Al Capone's hit guys.

Actually, it might have been better to take the New Mexico case the other way. Instead of a posthumous pardon for Billy the Kid, it might have been better to do posthumous murder convictions for Pat Garrett and everybody involved in the Lincoln County War that gave birth to Billy the Kid's career as a gunslinger.

If we ever want to have a less violent country, one thing we need to reduce the symbolic weight of murder in our popular culture. Finding ways to express our revulsion at past murders would be a good step in that direction.

A Little Less Cautious In My Optimism

2010-12-28T05:16:00.000-08:00

Nate Silver of Five Thirty-Eight and now the New York Times is very cautious in his optimism about Obama's chances of winning re-election.

I'm a little less cautious.

That's mostly because I expect Obama to be facing weak opposition.

If Obama is currently topping out at 49% in public opinion polls, Sarah Palin's ceiling is more like 43-46% and that's being pretty generous.

But I don't think Mitt Romney would do much better.

Where Palin is provocative and divisive, she at least comes off as honest and consistent. There is a sense that she wouldn't give up her core politics and personality to become president.

To the contrary, Mitt Romney gives off a air of creepiness rooted in his willingness to do anything to win..

Right now, it appears that neither of the two top Republican contenders would be as appealing as John McCain was in 2008.

Which is grounds for reasonable optimism about Obama's re-election chances.

Maybe They Should Have Tried This Earlier

2010-12-24T05:28:00.000-08:00

According to today's New York Times, the Obama administration is thinking about taking their case to the public more often with the divided Congress.

On Wednesday afternoon, even as lawmakers were approving a burst of Mr. Obama’s legislative priorities in the waning hours of the Congressional session, the president and a small circle of advisers convened to sketch out the next two months. Mr. Obama intends not only to extend a hand to Republicans but also to begin detaching himself more from Congress and spending more time making his case directly to the American people.
“In a world of divided government, getting things done requires a mix of compromise and confrontation,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “What are the things you can do without Congress? In some cases, that involves executive orders, but it also involves using the bully pulpit of the presidency to make a political argument about the direction of the country.”

Of course, there's always the possibility that Obama wouldn't be facing a divided Congress is they had done a better job of taking their case to the public.

End the Filibuster Next January!

2010-12-23T06:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, every returning Democrat in the U. S. Senate signed a letter calling for changes in Senate rules to limit filibusters and holds. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Carl Levin of Michigan are talking about making Senators actually recruit 40 votes to begin a filibuster and then staying on the floor to maintain a filibuster. Under current Senate rules, someone can anonymously file an objection to a vote and force a 30 hour delay.

The Democrats are also talking about forcing Senators to make holds on legislation public. Right now, holds are anonymous. That way, anybody who is single-handedly obstructing appointments or legislation would be publicly accountable.

I've got a better idea.

Get rid of filibusters altogether. Eliminate holds. It's the only way to make the federal government functional again.

Under Mitch McConnell's leadership, the strategy of Senate Republicans has been to use the most expansive interpretation of Senate rules concerning calling up legislation, filibustering, and holds to slow walk and obstruct every significant piece of legislation. McConnell's goal has been to make Democratic Party control over the White House and Congress so painful that the country will vote Republican just to escape the torment.

It's important to emphasize that McConnell and the Republican leadership didn't want to negotiate, didn't want to compromise, and didn't want any kind of horse-trading. The GOP has been responding to every defeat by becoming even more aggressive ever since the 1992 election that put Bill Clinton into office. Newt Gingich made his reputation by aggressively attacking Clinton over the gays in the military even before Clinton made office and the attacks continued right through the Republican Revolution of 1994. When Bill Clinton won re-election in 1996k, the GOP responded with impeachment charges. This time, McConnell and other senior Republicans viewed intransigence as a matter of survival. Barack Obama posed a particular kind of threat to them. By heavily emphasizing bi-partisanship as he took office, Obama, perhaps unintentionally, defined any kind of Republican cooperation and compromise as a win for the Obama administration. For Mitch McConnell, Dick Armey, John McCain, and a lot of other Republicans, cooperation with the Obama administration meant extinction and irrelevance. It was intransigence or death.

And it worked.

Until this week, Senate Republicans under McConnell's leadership have filibustered almost all legislation, slow walked almost all appointments, and generally made governance as frustrating and painful as possible. To further the overall party goal of frustrating Democratic Party governance, many Republican Senators have voted to oppose bills they personally supported, filibustered bills that incorporated many of their ideas, and even worked to block legislation they had intially sponsored.

And it worked.

Even though they got most of their major initiatives passed, the Democrats looked weak, ineffectual, and perpetually exhausted right up until last week and that's a major reason why the Republicans did so well in the 2010 mid-term elections.

If the Democrats want to make the federal government functional once again, they'll have to eliminate the means by which Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate leadership have kept them tied up over the last two years.

That means getting rid of filibusters and holds.

Instead of fiddling around the margins of the filibuster privilege, the Democrats should go for a simple, clean set of fixes. Right now, one Senator can block legislation from coming up for debate by filing a "hold" on the legislation. The Senate Democrats should eliminate that privilege altogether.

Second, minority filibusters can peventing legislation from coming up for debate at all. The Senate Democrats should eliminate that privilege as well and create a rule saying that it is a leadership prerogative to bring bills up for debate.

Finally, current rules require an extraordinary majority of 60 to end debate on a bill. The Dems should change the rules so that a simple majority of 51 Senators is required to end debate.

The effect of these kinds of changes would be to further the common good and bi-partisanship by forcing the Republican minority to negotiate with the Democratic majority if they want to have an impact on legislation.

The main objection to these kinds of far-reaching changes in Senate rules is that the Republicans would use those changes to their advantage to eliminate social security, medicare, environmental mandates, the public school systems and other things they don't like about American society.

My reply: let them.

If the Republicans want to overturn American government as we know it and are able to win majorities in future elections, they should have a right to enact their ideas into policy.

Given the disastrous outcomes likely from Republican policies, they'll probably get the extinction they richly deserve as a result.

A Trip Inside the Republican Poll Numbers

2010-12-22T17:26:00.000-08:00

In one of the more painful ironies of the Obama administration, President Obama's election was guaranteed by the onset of the Great Recession which put the newly elected administration squarely behind the eight ball even before Obama was inaugurated. A bad economy, go for broke opposition from Mitch McConnell, and the rise of the Tea Party movement have combined to make every step of the Obama administration seem like a exercise in pain tolerance.

What they've really needed is some easy scores.

And it looks like they're arriving.

But it looks like the Obama administration can finally see a little bit of daylight. Last week, they got very encouraging poll numbers in relation to the Republicans. President Obama was leading Mitt Romney by 7% in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll and had a whopping 22 point edge over Sarah Palin. Those numbers have some depth as well. Over 70% like Obama personally, a solid majority thinks he has the right policies, and the Democrats have an 11% edge in party identification.

What makes the NBC/WSJ poll particularly good for the president is that it came out BEFORE the current round of Obama "wins" in repealing DADT, passing the START treaty, and getting health assistance for 9-11 Responders. When the poll was taken, the Obama administration was still at bottom from the mid-term election shellacking and should therefore have some flexibility given that Obama is still well-liked personally. If the administration continues to generate positive news, Obama's numbers will trend upward.

The question is whether there's wiggle room in relation to Republican numbers as well . . . in particular, those of Sarah Palin.

My opinion of the 2012 election is that Sarah Palin will be the Republican nominee and Obama will beat her easily in the general election. I don't see how the other top tier GOP candidates can be competitive with Palin. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee might poll better than Palin against President Obama now, but they

But that's not likely to hold up.

Established Republican candidates folded up pretty badly in Republican primaries against even the weakest Tea Party opposition. It didn't even take that much negative advertising for fringe candidates like Christine O'Donnell and Joe Miller to roll up primary victories over established Republican incumbents like Mike Castle and Lisa Murkowski. With Sarah Palin, it's going to be different. Palin already has a strong conservative base, she's going to have LOTS of money for attack ads, and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are big juicy targets. In the case of Romney, Massachusetts passed Obama-style health reform while Romney was governor and Romney took credit for the legislation as well as signed it. According to at least one poll, Mitt Romney is already starting to sink among conservatives. When matched against three other Republicans, Romney finished last in seven out of eight states and that eighth state was Michigan where Romney's father had been governor. Romney scores best among Obama and would be at least plausible among moderate and independent voters. But moderate and independent voters don't matter all that much in a lot of Republican primaries.

With Huckabee, it's worse. While governor of Arkansas, Huckabee pardoned a man named Maurice Clemmons who went on to kill four cops in Seattle last year. Given that the attack ads on Huckabee are going to write themselves and that Palin hasn't been afraid of attacking other Republicans, she's going to be pounding away at Huckabee's pardon of Maurice Clemmons every ten minutes on every television station in every Republican primary state in 2012.

It's true that Romney and Huckabee could run scorched-earth attack ads against Palin, but that would be far more risky. As Jack Conway found out in Kentucky, both the media and the public have far more tolerance for brual attacks by conservatives than they have on brutal attacks on conservatives like Conway's Aqua Buddha ads. My bet would be that Romney and Huckabee would be constrained to observe Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment of not attacking other Republicans while Palin would be free to savage them.

Sometimes life just isn't fair.

Of course, it's not like Romney and Huckabee should give up. There's the real possibility that Palin will self-destruct and they'd both want to be in position in case she does. But if Palin keeps it together, she'll win in a walk because fringe possibilities like Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, John Thune, and Rick Santorum have a better chance of being nominated by the Socialist Workers Party than the Republicans.

I would say that Palin's nomination is pretty much written into stone if she decides to run and it already looks like she's running.

The question is whether there is any more wiggle room in Palin's bad general election numbers. I think so. Sarah Palin has nearly universal name recognition and a popular base in the conservative movement with 77% of conservatives approving of her. She also has a great deal of political star quality and will attract the same kinds of enormous sums of money from popular conservatives that Barack Obama raised from his liberal base in 2008.

Of course, Palin's big problem is her high negatives. The recent polling has 59% of the electorate saying that they would refuse to vote for her and over 60% saying that she's unqualified to be president. The negativity isn't just a matter of distaste for her among liberals and minorities either. Peggy Noonan, Christine Todd Whitman, and other establishment conservatives have been criticizing a potential Palin candidacy on the grounds that Palin does not have the policy/intellectualy qualifications needed to be president and that her criticisms of the "lamestream media" and Michelle Obama indicate that she is not temperamentally suited for the position either. Sixty-nine percent of voters being polled don't think that Palin is qualified to be president. Likewise, 30% of John McCain voters claimed that they wouldn't vote for Palin.

But these numbers aren't immutable.

In the same poll, 42% of respondents said they wouldn't vote for either Barack Obama or Michael Bloomberg either.

What this means to me is that the poll that has Obama beating Palin 55-33 isn't real. What's most likely real is that Palin would start with the 42% that said they're a definite "no" on Obama. The question then is whether Palin can attract the other 7% needed to get to 49% and win an election (where 2% of the vote would go to fringe candidates).

The answer has to be yes.

Much of the perception that Palin isn't qualified is tied to her disastrous interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric during the 2008 election. At the same time, the perception of her as "unqualified" lowers the expectations bar for Palin just as it did for George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. If people think Palin doesn't know anything, all she has to do is demonstrate some knowledgeability during the initial GOP debates and she would be "exceeding expectations." It's not like Palin's negative numbers would evaporate as a result, but they might significantly weaken among the 7% she needs to win.

The other thing is that it's easy to see President Obama as being adversely affected by circumstances beyond his control. Another Katina-type disaster, a terrorist attack on American soil, and big blow ups in Iraq and Afghanistan would all have the effect of making Barack Obama less appealing. Likewise, gas is up to $3.05 in our area. If it keeps rising, one can be sure that Obama would be blamed. If Obama caught a down-cycle while Palin was in an up-cycle, it's not hard to imagine her winning a general election.

Sarah Palin is not Christine O'Donnell. Her negative numbers are fluid enough that she could benefit from a last minute surge and pull out a victory in a presidential election.

And it's not exactly like the Democrats are incapable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory either.

Just Another Day on a Republican Staff

2010-09-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

There's a minor brouhaha over somebody from the office of Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss sending some hate mail to a pro-gay rights blog.

As TPM previously reported, soon after a Senate vote to block debate on the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' someone wrote "All faggots must die" on the blog of gay rights advocate Joe Jervis. Other commenters traced the origin of the comment to a senate.gov IP address located in Atlanta, Georgia, near the offices of both of the state's senators. Chambliss' office then said it was investigating the matter.

Chambliss' office did determine that the hate message came from their office. But I don't think that's the point. From everything I've ever read about Republican politician, this kind of discourse about gay people is pretty much standard operating procedure. The only difference is that the GOP's successful filibustering of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" led some anonymous guy to let down his guard and go public with his homophobia.

Maybe the media should report that as well.

Excellent Delusions from Dinesh D'Souza

2010-09-13T06:19:00.000-07:00

It appears more and more that conservative activists just live in an alternate universe. Dinesh D'Souza, a right-wing think tanker who might as well be a brand name for stunning mediocrity, has an article in Forbes on how Obama's ideas on things like health care derive from the "anti-colonial" ideology he inherited from his Kenyan father.

Back in the real world, Obama's health care ideas were quite a bit like Hillary Clinton's whose ideas were quite a bit like Joe Bidens in 2008 and pretty much the same as Joe Lieberman's in 2004.

That's pretty much the same with all of Obama's ideas. They're a lot like Democratic ideas that have been floating around for a long time.

But for conservatives, being a Democrat is not enough to explain Obama. For the right, everything Obama has to be traced back to A-f-r-i-c-a.

Not that it bothers conservatives that Obama is black.

Not that the right-wing is engaged in race-baiting.

Not that they're racists.

Well, maybe a little.

All You Need to Know About Big-Time College Football

2010-09-07T03:37:00.000-07:00

Jeff Pearlman of Sports Illustrated nails it on big-time college football coaches:

College football coaches talk to their players about loyalty and family, then do the ol' Snagglepuss (Exit -- stage left!) as soon as a better offer comes along. College football coaches talk about pride and "being a man," yet grovel at the toes of every 17-year-old child with a golden arm or 4.3 speed. College football coaches talk about "looking around this room and knowing it's not about the uniform, but what's inside," then accept $2 million annually from adidas to promote what's on the outside. They are, to be blunt, a pathetic lot, and I'd just as soon have my son stay home, obsess over the Atari 2600 and smoke 10 packs of Marlboros a day than play for the used car salesmen at schools like Alabama or Arkansas or USC.

Some college football players are better than others. I've been pretty impressed with the last two sets of coaches at Kentucky. But analogizing guys like Nick Saban and Bobby Petrino to used car salesman is really an insult to used car salesman. Maybe it would be better to say I'd rather have my children follow Glen Beck than SEC football.

Come to think of it though, I'm just glad I have daughters.

Palin Candidate Still Ahead in Alaska

2010-08-25T05:56:00.000-07:00

TPM has Joe Miller still ahead by 2,000 votes over Lisa Murkowski with 84% of precincts reporting.

Sarah Palin's Little Finger

2010-08-25T03:51:00.000-07:00

The latest reports out of the battle for the Republican nomination to the U. S. Senate from Alaska has unknown incumbent Lisa Murkowski trailing unknown Joe Miller.

Incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski was thought to be a big favorite coming into Tuesday's primary against Sarah Palin-backed challenger Joe Miller. But with over half the vote in, Miller holds a slight lead over the incumbent, 52 to 48 percent with a little over 2,000 votes separating the two.

Because Alaska has such a far flung population, Murkowski could still pull ahead.

But the fact that Miller's is at the very least putting up a stiff fight is enormous testimony to the power of Sarah Palin.

Because of Sarah Palin's support, Joe Miller is a player. Without her support, he's just another clueless wing nut who wants to invade Canada over socialized medicine.

And Palin didn't have to do much.

If I remember right, Palin put up a couple of posts on facebook and recorded a robocall on his behalf on Monday. I don't think she made any public appearances with Miller or traveled with him around the state.

Sarah Palin is not exactly known for her work ethic and here she barely lifted a finger for Miller.

But, such as they were, Palin's token efforts still put Miller into play.

This all reminds me of a comment on Ben Franklin's attempt to change Pennsylvania from a proprietorship to a royal colony in the 1750's. Franklin wanted to end the proprietorship as a way to eliminate the influence of William Penn's descendants on Pennsylvania affairs.

But one of Franklin's opponents claimed something to the effect that "the little finger of the king weighs more than the loins of the proprietor."

Sarah Palin's little finger has a lot of weight as well.

It Could Be A Lot Worse!

2010-08-18T03:57:00.000-07:00

Barbara Ehrenreich has an article on AlterNet entitled resist the Corpo-Obama-Geithner-Petraeus State. I understand the frustration with the Obama administration. But it's also clear that if progressives don't hang with Obama, we're going to get the Palin/Bachmann State and conditions are going to be a lot worse, a whole lot worse, than they are now.

Dr. Laura Goes for the Tea Party Audience

2010-08-13T07:43:00.000-07:00

Laura Schlessinger of "Dr. Laura" fame apologized profusely for using the "n-word" several times in her discussion with a black woman who was complaining about racist comments in the context of her bi-racial marriage.

It sounds like a scene from Spike Lee's Bamboozled.

During the exchange on Tuesday's show, Schlessinger said the woman who called herself Jade was too sensitive for complaining that her husband's friends made racist comments about her in their home. When the woman asked if the N-word was offensive, Dr. Laura said "black guys say it all the time," then went on to repeat it
several times.
Schlessinger did not direct the epithet at the woman, but said she used it to suggest how often she hears it, and that it should not automatically be cause for offense.
When the caller objected, Schlessinger replied: "Oh, then I guess you don't watch HBO or listen to any black comedians."
Schlessinger also said that if the caller did not have a sense of humor about race, she shouldn't have entered into an interracial marriage.

I can't decide if Dr. Laura is bringing her inner racist out of the closet, whether she's yet another conservative case of racial panic in the Age of Obama, or simply trying to get the Tea Party constituency to pay her more attention.

Whatever, I have a funny feeling that she's soon going to be using a Confederate flag as her show's logo.

The Worst Owner in the NBA

2010-08-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

With yesterday's hiring and today's withdrawal of Isaiah Thomas, it now looks like Knick owner James Dolan has displaced the Clippers Donald Sterling as the worst owner in the NBA.

A Few Words About Fancy Farm

2010-08-09T19:55:00.001-07:00

I just saw video of the speeches from Jack Conway and Rand Paul at Fancy Farm last Saturday. Conway really kicked Rand Paul's butt. Paul is a pretty weak public speaker who wasn't saying much of anything about anything. He wasn't talking about his own ideas, he wasn't talking much about the Obama administration, and he wasn't talking much about Jack Conway. Pretty much all Paul did was recite the number of pages in the tax code and federal regulations and recite the names of President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.

It was lame and fell flat.

The question, though, is whether any of this makes any difference though. Political scientists have argued for years that campaign managers, political consultants and ad agencies have become the principle figures in political campaigns rather than candidates. Rand Paul's campaign takes this one step further. Given that Paul has by-passed the Republican campaign infrastructure, his campaign is being driven primarily by Fox News.

Conway referred to Paul as trying to be the "prince of cable tv."

It's more accurate to view Rand Paul as the "puppet of cable tv."

I'll be volunteering and giving money to the Jack Conway campaign

Elena Kagan Gets Confirmed 63-37

2010-08-06T04:21:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I'm not overwhelmingly impressed with Kagan. But anybody better would have been demonized to death. So she's the best we could do.

Who's Weirder: Sharron Angle or Jesus?

2010-08-05T04:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, TPM gave some play to a Las Vegas Sun story concerning Sharron Angle's claims that the Obama administration violated the First Commandment with its health care initiatives. Here's Angle doing an interview with Christian radio in April.

"And these programs that you mentioned -- that Obama has going with Reid and
Pelosi pushing them forward -- are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government."

It's often extremely difficult for people outside the religious right to understand what they're saying and I'm no different in having problems in that regard. However, much of what Sharron Angle appears to be doing in the interview is seeking to establish her authenticity as a Christian conservative.

Authenticity is a problem with Sharron Angle.

Before her campaign for the U. S. Senate gained traction, Angle talked big about carrying out "Second Amendment solutions" in relation to Harry Reid (i.e., having Reid assassinated) and eliminating social security. Since then, Angle has admitted that she needs to "walk back" this kind of rhetoric if she wants to win her Senate race against Reid, but Angle also gives the impression that her rhetoric about Reid and Obama was always just a pose calculated to gain attention on the extreme right and that she's perfectly willing to adapt more conventional Republican language now that she's the Republican nominee. Contrary to the Tea Party image of disgust with the constant shape-shifting of politicians, Sharron Angle appears to be an "extreme politician" in the sense that she's willing to dramatically remake herself to seize the opportunity of her lifetime.

Much the same is the case with Rand Paul in Kentucky. Also remaking himself as a more conventional Republican politician, Paul characterizes himself as "spouting off" in any number of ways over the last twenty years as a libertarian gadfly and claims that nobody should take anything he said very seriously.

And that claim should be taken seriously

Gay Rights Victory Creates Moral Opportunity for Conservatives

2010-08-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

A federal judge overturned the gay marriage ban adapted by California as a result of Proposition 8. Judge Vaughn Walker was both comprehensive and direct.

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

That's the bottom line. California and every other state has a "constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis" and can only discriminate against any group if it has a very powerful "state interest" in doing so. The question then becomes whether California has some kind of over-riding interest in preventing gay people from getting married.

At which point, Judge Vaughn disposes of most of the arguments against gay marriage.

In the absence of a rational basis, what remains of proponents' case is an inference, amply supported by evidence in the record, that Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples. FF 78-80. Whether that belief is based on moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate.

And:

The arguments surrounding Proposition 8 raise a question similar to that addressed in Lawrence, when the Court asked whether a majority of citizens could use the power of the state to enforce "profound and deep convictions accepted as ethical and moral principles" through the criminal code. ... The question here is whether California voters can enforce those same principles through regulation of marriage licenses. They cannot. California's obligation is to treat its citizens equally, not to "mandate [its] own moral code."

"Lawrence" refers to Lawrence v Texas, the Supreme Court decision that overturned sodomy laws across the nation. Gay rights activism has been one of the most inspiring developments in American society during the last forty years and is like the civil rights movement and feminism in being a shining example of what the United States at its best has to offer the world. When I was growing up in the sixties and early seventies, gay people were subject to a relentless series of abuses. I remember how one of my college friends from Syracuse talked about going around and beating up gay guys while he was in high school. There were relentless rumors about the sexuality of various male teachers who didn't fit the standard mode of educational macho (such as it was). It was especially painful for me to learn that my second grade teacher Miss Taylor had been forced to live a closeted existence her entire adult life because she was a lesbian. She was a tremendously nice lady and an excellent teacher who shouldn't have had to live like that. Nobody should have to live like that. In fact, gay life was so constricted in the places where I lived that I didn't meet a single openly gay person until I started graduate school in 1976.

In my opinion, the ultimate end point of the gay rights movement is the equal embrace of heterosexuality and homosexuality as modes of sexual living. One of the things I've learned as a heterosexual over the years is the extent to which heterosexuality is promoted by schooling, the news media, movies, and popular music. Given that heterosexuals are over 90% of the population, that will probably always be the case. But I'd like to see homosexuality embraced with the same kind of enthusiasm by the general public. That's probably over-optimistic, but I don't see why gay people shouldn't have their enthusiasms, questions, problems, issues, and failings given the same kind of sympathetic public representation as mine.

Conservatives have a variety of objections to open homosexuality. There's biblical passages in Leviticus and one of Paul's letters, arguments about the traditional character of the exclusion of homosexuals from marriage, and other more ridiculous claims about the slippery slope to bestiality and conservatives being subject to penalties for not believing in gay marriage.

Judge Vaughn very appropriately dismisses these kinds of claims as not having sufficient merit to outweigh the rights of gay people to equal treatment concerning issues of marriage. It's guaranteed that this decision is going to be played up as a right v left by all types of media. I've already posted something teasing conservatives on facebook myself.

Nevertheless, I also believe that American conservatives should take Judge Vaugh's decision as an opportunity to rethink their position on gay marriage and all other issues concerning sexual orientation. The key to conservative rethinking about gay marriage should be their on-going rethinking about civil rights and gender. Conservatives used to be just as attached to racial segregation as they're now attached to the exclusion of gay people from marriage. But it now seems that most prominent conservatives reject the legacy of segregation and that many conservatives are genuinedly pained by the association of the right with racism. Likewise, conservatives have reconciled themselves enough to feminism that conservative women like Sarah Palin have emerged as powerful forces in the Republican Party. If conservatives have rethought their positions on racial integration and gender equality, they can rethink their moral stance on gay people as well.

And they should.

The "Ben Nelson Presidential Residence"

2010-07-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska announced that he would vote against confirming Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. That makes Nelson the only Senate Democrat to oppose Kagan.

Nelson has made a point of being a particularly difficult vote for the Senate Democrats over the last couple of years. First, Nelson threatened to filibuster health care reform if it included a public option and then held out for such a particularly sweet deal for Nebraska that it almost derailed the whole bill.

Nelson ultimately supported financial reform legislation as well, but flirted with the idea of derailing the bill to ensure that Elizabeth Warren wasn't named to be head of the new Consumer Bureau.

Evidently, he was holding out for Omaha native Warren Buffett.

But it's hard to figure out any reason for Nelson's opposition to the Kagan nomination. Here's Nelson's statement.

I have heard concerns from Nebraskans regarding Ms. Kagan, and her lack of a judicial record makes it difficult for me to discount the concerns raised by Nebraskans, or to reach a level of comfort that these concerns are unfounded. Therefore, I will not vote to confirm Ms. Kagan’s nomination . . .

Translating into something less obtuse and convoluted: "Yeah, I was surprised to find that some people in the largely Republican state of Nebraska had some objections to Kagan. Being too lazy to check out Kagan's nomination, I pretty much decided to vote "no" for the hell of it."

Of course, there's the possibility that I'm being unfair to Nelson. There might be some reasoning behind his opposition to Kagan after all.

Nelson not only announced his "no" vote on Kagan, he also announced that he would not support any kind of filibuster for the nomination. With five Republican votes in favor of confirmation, that means there should be 63 or 64 votes in favor of "cloture" should the Republican leadership mount their 5,000th filibuster of this legislative session.

In other words, Nelson is voting "no," but his decision not to filibuster means that Kagan's confirmation is pretty much in the bag.

Ultimately, Nelson might just be reminding the White House and Democratic leadership that they'll still have to work for his support on any important legislation in the future.

That's why I'm proposing that the White House give Ben Nelson the kind of honor he deserves as the most important member of the United States in this crucial time in American history.

That's why I'm suggesting that the Obama administration rename the White House the "Ben Nelson Presidential Residence" and start referring to their operation as the "Nelson House."

"Nelson House Tours" would begin promptly at 9:00am, pictures of Ben Nelson would be on the wall next to the pictures of George Washington, and sleeping in the "Nelson bedroom" would be the ultimate perk for friends of Obama.

That way, the Obama administration could reassure Ben Nelson that they think he's REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT.

Jack Tatum RIP--Avoid Clotheslines

2010-07-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

There's a report that former Oakland Raider defensive back Jack Tatum died from a heart attack today. If I remember right, Tatum was especially good at "clotheslining"--tacking a wide receivers by ripping your arm across his face as he's running forward with the ball. Clotheslining had very much a comical effect because the other player's face would be stopped cold while their torso and legs still spluttered forward.

During his heyday, I LOVED Jack Tatum as a former high school linebacker. He was the ultimate in "assassin cool" as a defensive player during the 1970's--even better than Dick Butkus had been during the 1960's.

That is until a trademark Tatum hit resulted in the full paralysis of New England receiver Darryl Stingley in 1978.

Jack Tatum didn't seem so cool at that point.

And he retired a couple of years later.

Tatum's memory is always going to be tarnished by Stingley's paralysis and his own lack of any remorse for ruining the guy's life.

And it should be.

I have to admit that I had remorse for Stingley's injury just for being a Jack Tatum fan.

Ultimately, the really cool, super-tough guy thing so great after all.

Poor Tony Hayward

2010-07-27T05:58:00.000-07:00

It's so unfair. BP chair Tony Hayward only gets $1.6 million plus a $928,000 annual pension. And taxes are so high too. How's he going to live on that?

All joking aside, conservatives really need to ask themselves whether the world is going to come to an end if the Tony Haywards of the world have to pay 39% rather than 36% federal income taxes on his income.

I would suggest that that's not the case.

What about Andrew Breitbart and the 9th Commandment?

2010-07-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

Ouch! That looks like a third degree burn there Andrew.

Conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart put out a heavily doctored firebrand purporting to demonstrate that a black Ag Department official discriminated against whites. Taking Breitbart at his word, Shirley Sherrod was criticized by the NAACP and forced to resign by the Agriculture Department.

But oops! It turned out that Shirley Sherrod is somewhat of a saint. The full video of her talk to the NAACP indicates that she repented her discrimination against a white family, helped them keep their farm, and then became "life-friends" with them. Instead of bragging about discrimination Sherrod's talk was a story of redemption from racism.

In other words, Breitbart was engaged in an obviously dishonest, vicious smear of an admirable woman.

Whoops!

Now, Breitbart is talking about how he was attacking the NAACP rather than Ms. Sherrod and the Obama administration is talking about hiring her back.

Of course, the Obama administration might do better to grow a backbone in relation to right-wing provocateurs like Breitbart.

But I haven't heard anything from the religious right about what a serious sin lying is.

The Ninth Commandment states very clearly that "you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." It's in both Exodus and Deuteronomy. Interestingly enough, Jesus doesn't comment on the Ninth Commandment. Perhaps that's because Jesus was sensitive to the falsehoods being spread about him by the Pharisees and priests. However, his general position on "the Law" of the Commandments is that people are condemned for thinking about sinning rather than just committing sin. Jesus condemns people for anger and not just killing and lustful thoughts, not just adultery. So Jesus would condemn people like Andrew Breitbart for even thinking about saying lies about the Shirley Sherrod's of the world rather than just saying falsehoods.

That's why I find it so surprising that nobody on the religious right has condemned Breitbart for his lies.

Of course, I haven't seen anybody on the religious right denounce the Bush administration for all their lies concerning Iraq either.

Rasmussen on Conway/Rand Paul Race

2010-07-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

The Rasmussen polling organization came out today with a poll showing Rand Paul eight points ahead of Jack Conway in the Kentucky state senate race. Rand Paul's staff was probably more cheered, but they can't feel really secure until Rasmussen has them 28 points up. That's because Rasmussen has developed such a Republican tilt in his polling that he can't be counted on to accurately gauge support for Democratic candidates. PPP polling had Rand Paul and Jack Conway tied. My assumption would be that the race is somewhere between tied and Paul being two points ahead.

The Coming Sharon Angle Fiasco on the Right

2010-07-16T18:29:00.000-07:00

There's a Mason-Dixon poll out with Sharon Angle down seven points to Harry Reid in Nevada. I hope she doesn't shoot Reid if she loses. All jokes aside, that's big news because Reid/Angle is such a high profile race. In the end, Sharon Angle could single-handedly kill all the momentum of the Tea-Party movement. Someday I hope to make that kind of contribution to American society.

TPM Not Getting It on Tea Party Racism

2010-07-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

Talking Points Memo could have done more, and should have done more, with this story on Tea Party leader Mark Williams and racism.

Jack Conway Did Several Things Well During Forum

2010-07-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway did several things well during the candidate's forum with Rand Paul. If he could only find a more exciting, charismatic way to do them though. I'm going to focus on one idea here--the idea of locating oneself in Kentucky.

At the beginning of his prepared remarks, Conway did a good job of locating himself in the context of first his family, then Union County where his father is from, and finally the general population of Kentucky.

It's too bad that Conway didn't contrast himself to Rand Paul on this point though.

Paul is an eye surgeon in Bowling Green. But I've never heard him make a reference to Bowling Green, Warren County, or Western Kentucky. There's a reason for this. Rand Paul's primarily an ideologue who locates himself in relation to debates within libertarian circles on things like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the justification or lack of justification for government regulation, and the constitutionality of the income tax. It's in these kinds of extremist circles and their hypothetical debates where Paul feels most at home. It used to be conservatives who were most rooted in the politics of specific geographical locations and the traditions of those locations. But Rand Paul isn't connected to traditions and he's not connected to traditions and Jack Conway should have hammered this home in the process of locating himself within Kentucky places and traditions.

Eliminate Super-Delegates Altogether

2010-07-11T04:13:00.000-07:00

The Democratic Party is proposing to lower the number of party official and office holder "superdelegates" for the 2012 Convention.
---
Huffpost claims this will "lower" super-delegate influence.
---

However, the super-delegates have never had any influence. So, there's nothing to lose. The idea of super-delegates was to stymy the kind of populist insurgency that resulted in the nomination of George McGovern in 1972.
---
But I can't remember an example of that happening.
---
If super-delegates were going to have an influence, it would have been in 2008 when they would have tilted the table in favor of Hillary over Obama.
---
That would have been disastrous.
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The best idea would be to eliminate super-delegates altogether. All they've ever done is run up bar bills, provide business for prostitutes, and have affairs with each other's wives and husbands. --
There will be fewer scandals if they just stay home.

Remaking the NBA

2010-07-09T21:30:00.001-07:00

Now that Lebron and his Superfriends have joined the team that used to be known as the Heat, the NBA might as well go all the way and re-organize. Specifically, the NBA should divide itself into two leagues and follow the soccer example of relegating the worst teams from the top tier league and promoting the best from the bottom tier.

Dividing the league up is pretty easy.

The NBA should set up an "A" Divison that includes all playoff teams with a slight adjustment for Western Conference superiority. Current teams from the Western Conference would be the Lakers, Nuggets, Mavs, Jazz, Blazers, Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, and Memphis Grizzlies. Representatives from the East would include the Boston Celtics, Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat, and Milwaukee Bucks. The Charlotte Bobcats and Chicago Bulls of the Eastern Conference made the playoffs, but the Rockets or the Grizzlies. So, it's Rockets and Grizzlies in "A" Division, Bobcats and Bulls in "B" division.

The key to the "A" division is that it would have teams with the managerial acumen and financial muscle needed to be competitive with the Lakers, Celtics, and Heat/Superfriends. The only teams that have questionable management/coaching in this whole group are the Atlanta Hawks and they've been pretty successful building through the draft. Now that the Heat have upped the ante, one would expect other well-managed teams to develop counter-strategies to Lebron and his Superfriends. The Lakers are already well-positioned because they have Kobe Bryant, Paul Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom. The Celtics might have enough left in their tank for another run as well. Most of the other teams from the West are capable of stepping it up as well. If not, the bottom two get relegated every year.

The "B" division would be the "Can't Keep Up" League--a major league entity that would be less major than the "A" division. Through a combination of struggling ownership, dim-witted management, poor draft decisions, lousy free agent decisions, bad luck, or all of the above, these teams have fallen behind the rest of the league and fell further behind when Lebron and his Superfriends signed with Miami. In the East, that means the Bobcats, Bulls, Toronto Raptors, Philadelphia 76'ers, New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets, Indiana Pacers, Washington Wizards, and Detroit Pistons. For the West, it's the Golden State Warriors, LA Clippers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Sacromento Kings, and New Orleans Hornets.

Of course, all of these teams aren't the same. The Bobcats and Bulls are already primed to challenge for advancement, but the Warriors, Wizards, T-Wolves, Nets, and Knicks are all dead end organizations that rely heavily on sports socialism to maintain their franchises at all. They shouldn't be playing the Lakers or the Superfriends any more than the Pirates should be playing the Yankees. The Sixers and Pacers look like they're sinking toward dead-end status as well. To the contrary, the Kings, Clippers, Hornets, Pistons, and Raptors all have some of the pieces and could challenge for advancement if everything falls into place.

One question that could be asked about this way of looking at the NBA is whether the weakest teams would still draft first. Personally, I think not. It would be better to eliminate the draft altogether and let the basketball talent be distributed over some other principles of distribution. Given that there is no apparent benefit to having an organization like the Wizards draft first, it might be that the best bet is to give the Lakers and the Heat first crack at the best talent.

Need to keep thinking about that.

The First Step in Dealing with the Tea-Party Crowd

2010-07-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

Former Bush spechwriter Michael Gerson emphasizes that the right-wing extremism of Sharon Angle, Rand Paul, and Glenn Beck "are not merely excesses; they are arguments."

Of course, what Gerson wants is the Republican leadership to develop counter-arguments before the whole GOP is defined by the worst aspects of the Tea Party movement.

It's probably too late for the GOP. The party of Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, and Dick Armey was never that far from the Tea Party movement to start with.

And it isn't like Glenn Beck came from nowhere either.

Still, the Democrats can learn something from Gerson here. Instead of mocking the Tea Party people as extremists, racists, hypocrites, and an on-going freak show, the Democrats should focus on developing counter-arguments to Tea Party claims.

By taking the Tea Party people seriously, we can hit them at their weakest point.

Note to Self--Don't Write 800 Page Memoir

2010-07-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

The ghost of West Virginia's Robert Byrd is paying the price for his decision to write an 832 page autobiography. Michael Grunwald of Time read every pompous word--and then savaged Byrd's memory for his trouble.

Here's the most telling bit:

It was only later [after 1964 when Byrd filibustered the Civil Rights Act) that racism became a liability for ambitious Democratic politicians, and it was only later that Byrd became a civil-rights advocate of sorts.
I say "of sorts" because Byrd's 832-page exercise in gasbaggery includes a creepy passage in which he describes white ethnics as "former minorities" who "sought no special status," implicitly contrasting them with modern minorities who "push and shove and demand something for nothing." When Byrd broke the Senate's longevity record, I poked fun at that passage along with others that decried "multiculturalism" and compared cities to "the jungles of Africa." But if Byrd's memoirs suggested some lingering discomfort with diversity, they revealed a much more visceral distaste for modernity, a fierce nostalgia for "the days of my boyhood," when America was great, kids had manners, the funny papers were funny and even Coca-Cola was "a more zestful and invigorating drink."
Uh, yeah — it was made with cocaine back then.

But the bottom line is that Byrd deserved it.

More on Chris Henry and Brain Damage from Football

2010-07-03T08:14:00.001-07:00

CNN is carrying a more detailed report concerning the brain damage suffered by the late Chris Henry of the Cincinnati Bengals. Here's a pretty clear summary of the Chris Henry problem.

Doctors found evidence of brain damage, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, that has been observed in retired players who've had many concussions. Unlike those older players, Henry was 26 when he died.

Later in the article, one researcher in the area cautions that no causal link has been established between chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and concussions from football. Establishing a causal link would probably be difficult because it would involve nailing down the chemistry by which concussions and recovery from concussions would result in the accumulation of Tau proteins involved in CTE.

Still, there are a number of cases of older former football players suffering from CTE. The main question is how Chris Henry's playing professional football might have resulted in early onset CTE.

What makes Henry's case especially ominous is that he played wide receiver rather than one of the "head-knocking positions" in football. At most, wide receivers would only get hit eight to ten times a game and might not get hit at all. play. To the contrary, offensive and defensive linemen can be seen as using their heads on almost every play--every running play anyway. They don't just use their heads in games either. Any kind of scrimmage or full-contact blocking drill would involve head use by linemen. The same with linebackers.

The big physical safeties use their heads as battering rams. Running backs and quarterbacks take a lot of hits to the head as well.

Football's a brutal game.

However, Wide receivers don't have passes thrown to them on most plays and therefore aren't being subject to being tackled on most plays. Likewise, where wide receivers are most susceptible to head injuries is catches over the middle of the field and my understanding is that Chris Henry was not primarily a middle of the field receiver. So, Chris Henry would have been even less likely to suffere concussions than other wide receivers.

As a result, the fact that Henry had early onset brain damage is very disturbing and raises the question of whether the game itself has become dangerous in a systematic way.

Who Would Jesus Shoot?

2010-06-29T04:38:00.000-07:00

I'm already starting to see campaign footage with Republican candidates and "conservative Christians" out on the firing range. But isn't there some video of Jesus with a machine gun?

Maybe the Knicks Should Just Kidnap Lebron

2010-06-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

Otherwise, he's probably be more likely to sign with one of the local rec teams in Akron or any of the thousands of other basketball teams in the United States that have more talent than the Knicks.

Brain Damage from Football Starts Early

2010-06-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

It appears that Chris Henry, bad boy receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, had pretty advanced brain damage from hits to his head even though he was only 26.

Among other things, this makes me glad I didn't have any sons. I had at least three concussions while playing high school football and basketball myself.