Along with Charlie Cook, Stu Rothenberg is one of the two "go-to" guys for the conventional wisdom on elections and the current conventional wisdom is that the underlying trends point to an Obama victory.
The "fundamentals" are clear.
On McCain's side, there are Bush's poor approval ratings, the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, and an economy that is sliding into recession.
If that weren't trouble enough for McCain, Obama is going to have more money (bias alert: I've contributed to the Obama campaign), voters clearly prefer the Democrats, and the Democrats are more enthusiastic about the election than the Republicans. It's almost unfair to mention that Obama's a much better speaker than McCain.
For Rothenberg, this means that Obama "merely has to take advantage of the political current" in order to win the election.
But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Obama is not going to be able to just ride his advantages to victory. Obama has to go out and win the election.
The key number to consider here is that John McCain is viewed favorably by 55-60% of voters (depending on the poll). What that means in McCain's case is that he's a familiar and well-liked politician who voters are willing to support. If anything, McCain is better liked and trusted by independent voters and Democrats than he is by conservative Republicans. Most Republicans will vote for McCain because he's not a Democrat, but independent voters and some Democrats look on him favorably enough that he can be considered the "default" candidate, the candidate they know they can vote for if they decide they don't like or trust the opponent.
This is how McCain won the Republican nomination. GOP voters first tried on Rudy Giuliani, then Fred Thompson, and then Mitt Romney. When Republican voters decided that they weren't comfortable with these guys, they went back to McCain because they already knew him.
The same thing could happen in the general election even though so many "fundamentals" are going Obama's way.
In the final analysis, Obama has to prove himself in order to win and he has a lot to prove.
Obama has to prove that he has the resiliance, flexibility, and stamina needed to stand up to the Republican attack machine. Republican 527 groups are starting to roll out the attack ads. Obama needs to respond effectively. Voters of all ideological persuasions suspect the Democrats of being weak, indecisive, and unprincipled. How Obama responds to Republican attacks will go a long way toward overcoming that perception . . . or not.
Obama also has to show that he has what it takes to go toe to toe with McCain during debates, deal with McCain's caustic put-downs, and come out ahead. Obama rejected McCain's proposal for ten townhall debate. Still, Obama would be better off accepting a lot of debates whatever the format and then going after McCain once the debates start.
And Obama also has to prove that he can seize the initiative in defining public debate during the campaign. The Obama campaign did better this week because surrogates like Wesley Clark, James Webb, and John Kerry were tough on McCain's military background and judgment. But they need to keep up the momentum.
If Obama can prove himself, he'lll win handily. However, if Obama fails to define himself as a strong and decisive leader, enough voters will go back to John McCain as the default candidate that McCain can win a close election .
Of course, that assumes that McCain doesn't blow up his own campaign, something he's perfectly capable of doing.
Unless McCain self-destructs, the election is in Obama's hands.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
The Fourth of July with Obama's White Nation
That's right. I spent the Fourth of July with Obama's White Nation. But it wasn't until the end of the Fifth that I knew my holiday had so much racial significance. That's when I noticed that a friend was fingering one of those Sigg water bottles that a lot of upper-middle class white people use to differentiate themselves from the masses and those polluting plastic water bottles.
As Christian Lander observes in his Salon interview, prosperous whites have made water bottles into a competitive field where they can rank each other's "whiteness."
There are also the markers of "advanced whiteness" that Lander talks about. The big sign of advanced whiteness in this area is little experiments in rural authenticity. "Highly advanced" white people get points for camping at the storytelling festival out at the lake. Some follow that up by traveling to other storytelling festivals and camping there as well. Others bake their own bread or learn how to play the fiddle or banjo. One guy I know brews his own beer. But the big points for rural authenticity are scored by building houses as far out in the country as possible and engaging in "toy farming" activities like keeping some chickens, taking care of "rescue dogs" from the local pound, or stabling a couple of horses. One guy started a winery. A couple people we know have combined buying houses out in the country, doing various "farm" activities, and home schooling their kids. That makes them the "whitest people of all."
These folks also get all their information from NPR. Terry Gross and Prairie Home Companion are big hits out here. The Capitol Steps too. When I point out that Prairie Home Companion is one long exercise in stereotyping rural people, my friends look like I just landed from another planet. People like to listen to classical music although they never talk about it. Several of them either no longer have television or use their tv's strictly for watching DVD's. They all have gay friends and several have black friends. As Christian Lander emphasizes, this is a way for "advanced" white people to experience their own superior tolerance and all-round ethics. With a black population of 1% however, there aren't enough black people for every advanced white person to have "one black friend."
This is what Obama's white nation, rural Kentucky style looks like. People in this group went for Obama early, held Obama get-togethers, and did some calling for Obama as well. I'm sure several kicked in some money to the Obama campaign and I saw several Obama stickers on cars and vans as we pulled into driveways and parking lots.
And we had a good time. On Friday the Fourth, Mrs. RSI and I went to a gathering at the house on Sugarloaf Mountain outside Morehead. The house was a large property that was owned by a doctor and was co-hosted by the physician, a professor at the university, and his wife. The signs of advanced whiteness were all there. The doctor is gay even though her partner wasn't there. Her property is a toy farm with a large house, a nice-looking guest house, chickens, and fifteen rescue dogs. She had a guinea fowl. The doctor herself is extremely friendly and so great with kids (she treated my daughter's broken arm once or twice) that Bill O'Reilly would probably accuse her of pedophilia. But then again, nobody like Bill O'Reilly was invited to the party.
The core of the party was the on-going music jamboree on the expansive front porch overlooking the pond. There were two or three terrific fiddlers and guitar players. A woman was on bass and they kept playing for nearly the whole time we were there. It was a highly proficient group. One of the fiddle players played a number of great solos and several people sang and sang well. But it was also an open group as a couple of less-skilled fiddle players joined in the rhythm section and the group developed a democratic feel that Barack Obama himself would have been proud of.
I think Obama would have been comfortable about the fact that nobody discussed politics. As a "post-partisan" politician, Obama believes that we all fundamentally share the same values as Americans. Certainly, the "advanced" white people at the Fourth of July gathering all shared the same values of inclusiveness, toleration, and a kind of rural authenticity. Another thing that I've noticed that is that white people in these kinds of groups are extremely averse to conflict or talking about anything "negative." Given that the war, politics, and the recession are all negatives, it feels almost rude to bring such things up in that particular company.
Not that I don't sometimes break that rule.
Besides the music, there was a tremendous amount of food--ribs, home-baked bread, salads, deserts. It was great. Mrs. RSI made her oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and there were strawberry and blueberry pies which literally looked like works of art. I get tears in my eyes just thinking about them because I'm so allergic to fruit and couldn't touch the stuff.
Mrs. RSI and I left the Fourth of July Party around 8:30 so she could study for a statistics test. But we weren't done with the holiday. Not at all. On Saturday, we went out to the country again for an event at a winery that was started by one of our friends. Mrs. RSI and I walked through the vinyard and had a moment of rural authenticity as we chased a little flock of turkeys away from the grapes. Many of the people who came to the wine store had also helped our friend pick grapes in the fall and work in the store gratis. They also purchase significant amounts of pretty good wine and we snatched up three bottles ourselves.
A local blues band started playing as the party got started. The band was way too loud for the old ears of most of the people there (including me) and almost everybody had to go outside to enjoy the covers of Elmore James and Allman Brothers songs. There weren't any complaints though. Most people there knew the parents of the guys in the band, were glad to see them thrashing away on their guitars and drums, and got nostalgic over hearing bands like that when they were kids. I know I was.
And finally it was over.
The Rowan County chapter of Obama's white nation was happy, well-fed, highly entertained, and ready for the rest of the summer.
As Christian Lander observes in his Salon interview, prosperous whites have made water bottles into a competitive field where they can rank each other's "whiteness."
It's all about ranking. It's essentially a contest. It used to be that bottled water was a status symbol. You drink Evian, or you drink Fiji, or what is the most expensive water. But advanced-level white people, the higher-ranking white people, realized that they were creating a lot of waste, and so they switched over to the Nalgene bottle. That also reminded them of going camping. So then they could take a stance of superiority over the people who were drinking bottled water. And then, that whole story came out about Nalgenes leaching I don't know what the exact toxin is [Bisphenol A]. So then super-advanced white people went even further and got those metal Sigg bottles, and now you have this really solid hierarchy and ranking of white people of commercial bottled water, Nalgene bottle and either the glass or metal, twist-top bottles.That's the kind of people with whom I spent my Fourth of July and my Fifth of July, the people who are at the top of the rural Kentucky "whiteness" hierarchy of educated and prosperous professionals, business people, and teachers. All in all, the "super-advanced" white people here are nice people. They're socially aware, environmentally conscious, and sympathetic to most people around them. One guy founded a non-profit housing corporation. Another started a local coffee shop. As a group, they've been involved in food co-ops and recycling efforts. They're also up to their eyeballs in the arts and manage a storytelling festival and university folk art center as well as perform in barbershop quartets, Irish groups, jazz bands, and bluegrass groups.
There are also the markers of "advanced whiteness" that Lander talks about. The big sign of advanced whiteness in this area is little experiments in rural authenticity. "Highly advanced" white people get points for camping at the storytelling festival out at the lake. Some follow that up by traveling to other storytelling festivals and camping there as well. Others bake their own bread or learn how to play the fiddle or banjo. One guy I know brews his own beer. But the big points for rural authenticity are scored by building houses as far out in the country as possible and engaging in "toy farming" activities like keeping some chickens, taking care of "rescue dogs" from the local pound, or stabling a couple of horses. One guy started a winery. A couple people we know have combined buying houses out in the country, doing various "farm" activities, and home schooling their kids. That makes them the "whitest people of all."
These folks also get all their information from NPR. Terry Gross and Prairie Home Companion are big hits out here. The Capitol Steps too. When I point out that Prairie Home Companion is one long exercise in stereotyping rural people, my friends look like I just landed from another planet. People like to listen to classical music although they never talk about it. Several of them either no longer have television or use their tv's strictly for watching DVD's. They all have gay friends and several have black friends. As Christian Lander emphasizes, this is a way for "advanced" white people to experience their own superior tolerance and all-round ethics. With a black population of 1% however, there aren't enough black people for every advanced white person to have "one black friend."
This is what Obama's white nation, rural Kentucky style looks like. People in this group went for Obama early, held Obama get-togethers, and did some calling for Obama as well. I'm sure several kicked in some money to the Obama campaign and I saw several Obama stickers on cars and vans as we pulled into driveways and parking lots.
And we had a good time. On Friday the Fourth, Mrs. RSI and I went to a gathering at the house on Sugarloaf Mountain outside Morehead. The house was a large property that was owned by a doctor and was co-hosted by the physician, a professor at the university, and his wife. The signs of advanced whiteness were all there. The doctor is gay even though her partner wasn't there. Her property is a toy farm with a large house, a nice-looking guest house, chickens, and fifteen rescue dogs. She had a guinea fowl. The doctor herself is extremely friendly and so great with kids (she treated my daughter's broken arm once or twice) that Bill O'Reilly would probably accuse her of pedophilia. But then again, nobody like Bill O'Reilly was invited to the party.
The core of the party was the on-going music jamboree on the expansive front porch overlooking the pond. There were two or three terrific fiddlers and guitar players. A woman was on bass and they kept playing for nearly the whole time we were there. It was a highly proficient group. One of the fiddle players played a number of great solos and several people sang and sang well. But it was also an open group as a couple of less-skilled fiddle players joined in the rhythm section and the group developed a democratic feel that Barack Obama himself would have been proud of.
I think Obama would have been comfortable about the fact that nobody discussed politics. As a "post-partisan" politician, Obama believes that we all fundamentally share the same values as Americans. Certainly, the "advanced" white people at the Fourth of July gathering all shared the same values of inclusiveness, toleration, and a kind of rural authenticity. Another thing that I've noticed that is that white people in these kinds of groups are extremely averse to conflict or talking about anything "negative." Given that the war, politics, and the recession are all negatives, it feels almost rude to bring such things up in that particular company.
Not that I don't sometimes break that rule.
Besides the music, there was a tremendous amount of food--ribs, home-baked bread, salads, deserts. It was great. Mrs. RSI made her oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and there were strawberry and blueberry pies which literally looked like works of art. I get tears in my eyes just thinking about them because I'm so allergic to fruit and couldn't touch the stuff.
Mrs. RSI and I left the Fourth of July Party around 8:30 so she could study for a statistics test. But we weren't done with the holiday. Not at all. On Saturday, we went out to the country again for an event at a winery that was started by one of our friends. Mrs. RSI and I walked through the vinyard and had a moment of rural authenticity as we chased a little flock of turkeys away from the grapes. Many of the people who came to the wine store had also helped our friend pick grapes in the fall and work in the store gratis. They also purchase significant amounts of pretty good wine and we snatched up three bottles ourselves.
A local blues band started playing as the party got started. The band was way too loud for the old ears of most of the people there (including me) and almost everybody had to go outside to enjoy the covers of Elmore James and Allman Brothers songs. There weren't any complaints though. Most people there knew the parents of the guys in the band, were glad to see them thrashing away on their guitars and drums, and got nostalgic over hearing bands like that when they were kids. I know I was.
And finally it was over.
The Rowan County chapter of Obama's white nation was happy, well-fed, highly entertained, and ready for the rest of the summer.
Are You White Enough to Support Obama?
One of the poorly understood dimensions of American society is the complexity of the role of race in shaping American culture and politics. The media portrays race almost solely in terms of white racism and all its manifestations vs black grievance and all its manifestations. Of course, the media is right that there's plenty of racism among white and a strong sense of agreement among African-Americans. But America's legacy of slavery, segregation, white racism, and black resistance means that questions of who is a white or black person, how people define themselves as white or black, and what definitions of race are dominant within various white and black communities have a powerful role in shaping people's lives.
When Barack Obama started his campaign, writers like Debra Dickerson questioned whether he was "black enough" to be the first black president. But support for Obama is also a marker by which urban, upper-middle class whites show their "whiteness." According to Christian Lander of the "Stuff White People Like" blog, prosperous whites define themselves in a hierarchy of whiteness through objects like glasses, shoes, coffee, television programs, and politics. High level or "uber" white people wear chunky glasses, watch "The Wire," get all their information about the world from NPR. Here's how the hierarchy works in relation to bottled water.
But that would be valid in only the very narrow sense that racists are viewed as so repugnant that they are either seen as the "least advanced" white people or as outside the hierarchy of whiteness altogether.
Obama appeals to those who are concerned about their rating on the whiteness scale for other reasons. Obama conveys a sense of being right and being detached that works very well in a left-leaning, upper-middle class white environment. Obama's black without conveying any sense of racial politics. That's good even though his connection with Jeremiah Wright probably led to doubts on that score. The fact that Obama's a Democrat is good because that means he's not a Republican and therefore not associated with "low-level whites" like George Bush, Dick Cheney, or the religious right. It's even better that Obama seemed at first to be detached from the other Democrats as well. Likewise, Obama's right on all the issues but right in the proper, detached kind of way that's popular with upper-middle class whites. In fact, it's easy to imagine Obama listening to NPR, watching the right television shows, and drinking the right kind of coffee.
Having supported Hillary during the primaries, I'm definitely not a high-order white person according to this scale. But it's important to emphasize that there are some white perspectives where being "really" white means really supporting Obama.
When Barack Obama started his campaign, writers like Debra Dickerson questioned whether he was "black enough" to be the first black president. But support for Obama is also a marker by which urban, upper-middle class whites show their "whiteness." According to Christian Lander of the "Stuff White People Like" blog, prosperous whites define themselves in a hierarchy of whiteness through objects like glasses, shoes, coffee, television programs, and politics. High level or "uber" white people wear chunky glasses, watch "The Wire," get all their information about the world from NPR. Here's how the hierarchy works in relation to bottled water.
It's all about ranking. It's essentially a contest. It used to be that bottled water was a status symbol. You drink Evian, or you drink Fiji, or what is the most expensive water. But advanced-level white people, the higher-ranking white people, realized that they were creating a lot of waste, and so they switched over to the Nalgene bottle. That also reminded them of going camping. So then they could take a stance of superiority over the people who were drinking bottled water. And then, that whole story came out about Nalgenes leaching I don't know what the exact toxin is [Bisphenol A]. So then super-advanced white people went even further and got those metal Sigg bottles, and now you have this really solid hierarchy and ranking of white people of commercial bottled water, Nalgene bottle and either the glass or metal, twist-top bottles.How does this work for the 2008 election? "Stuff White People Like" lists Barack Obama as "something" that educated, left-wing, upper-middle class white people like. But they comment that high-ranking "white people are afraid that if they don’t like him that they will be called racist."
But that would be valid in only the very narrow sense that racists are viewed as so repugnant that they are either seen as the "least advanced" white people or as outside the hierarchy of whiteness altogether.
Obama appeals to those who are concerned about their rating on the whiteness scale for other reasons. Obama conveys a sense of being right and being detached that works very well in a left-leaning, upper-middle class white environment. Obama's black without conveying any sense of racial politics. That's good even though his connection with Jeremiah Wright probably led to doubts on that score. The fact that Obama's a Democrat is good because that means he's not a Republican and therefore not associated with "low-level whites" like George Bush, Dick Cheney, or the religious right. It's even better that Obama seemed at first to be detached from the other Democrats as well. Likewise, Obama's right on all the issues but right in the proper, detached kind of way that's popular with upper-middle class whites. In fact, it's easy to imagine Obama listening to NPR, watching the right television shows, and drinking the right kind of coffee.
Having supported Hillary during the primaries, I'm definitely not a high-order white person according to this scale. But it's important to emphasize that there are some white perspectives where being "really" white means really supporting Obama.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Time For Us To Go
Here's a Fox headline and sub-headline for a story on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki:
If President Bush really wants to help John McCain win, he would start withdrawing American troops now.
Al-Maliki: Iraq Defeated Terrorism: Iraqi prime minister says recent crackdownsDoesn't that mean the U. S. can withdraw its troops before the 2008 elections. Given that the terrorists and the militias have been defeated, we should be able to withdraw with no threat of an al-Qaeda takeover, no threat of a genocidal bloodbath, and no threat of Iraq becoming part of the Iranian sphere of influence.
against Sunni extremists and Shiite militias have lead to their defeat.
If President Bush really wants to help John McCain win, he would start withdrawing American troops now.
A Conservative Great?
Mark Levin's item about the death of Jesse Helms for the National Review Online is entitled "Death of a Conservative Great." That says a lot about the "conservative movement" and its roots in the defense of "traditions" like racial segregation, keeping women in the home, and forcing gays to remain in the closet.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Jesse Helms is Dead and the World's a Better Place
I just saw on CNN.com that former Sen. Jesse Helms from North Carolina has died at the age of 86. Having lived in North Carolina for five years myself, I can honestly say that the world will be a better place without him.
One of the tragedies of human existence is that a hard-driving hater like Jesse Helms can be just as smart, talented, and ambitious as somebody like Martin Luther King. Everything Helms did in the name of racism, homophobia, male supremacy, and militarism was so destructive because he was extremely clever, competent, and hard-working.
Coming into prominence in 1972, four years after the death of Martin Luther King, Helms dedicated his whole political career to resisting and undoing everything that King tried to accomplish. That should be no surprise. Helms was involved in segregationist politics in his first work on the Senate campaign of Willis Smith in 1950, spoke out against Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement during the sixties, and led the opposition to the King holiday during the 1980's. He was also vociferous in his opposition to abortion rights and stigmatizing of gays and lesbians.
However, the most important fact to understand about Helms and his viciously reactionary politics is that he failed. African-Americans, women, and gay people have all dramatically improved their standing in American society despite the best efforts of Jesse Helms and the conservative movement.
Jesse Helms may have fanned the fires of hate, but he could not stop progress. He may have made the United States a worse place to live than it should have been, but he could not take the country back to the segregated world of the fifties that he preferred.
The final perversion of Jesse Helms' life was that he died on the Fourth of July. Too bad he didn't live to see Barack Obama elected president.
One of the tragedies of human existence is that a hard-driving hater like Jesse Helms can be just as smart, talented, and ambitious as somebody like Martin Luther King. Everything Helms did in the name of racism, homophobia, male supremacy, and militarism was so destructive because he was extremely clever, competent, and hard-working.
Coming into prominence in 1972, four years after the death of Martin Luther King, Helms dedicated his whole political career to resisting and undoing everything that King tried to accomplish. That should be no surprise. Helms was involved in segregationist politics in his first work on the Senate campaign of Willis Smith in 1950, spoke out against Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement during the sixties, and led the opposition to the King holiday during the 1980's. He was also vociferous in his opposition to abortion rights and stigmatizing of gays and lesbians.
However, the most important fact to understand about Helms and his viciously reactionary politics is that he failed. African-Americans, women, and gay people have all dramatically improved their standing in American society despite the best efforts of Jesse Helms and the conservative movement.
Jesse Helms may have fanned the fires of hate, but he could not stop progress. He may have made the United States a worse place to live than it should have been, but he could not take the country back to the segregated world of the fifties that he preferred.
The final perversion of Jesse Helms' life was that he died on the Fourth of July. Too bad he didn't live to see Barack Obama elected president.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Obama and the Perils of Flip-Flopping
A TIME TO LEARN. Hopefully, Barack Obama is continuing to learn what it's like to be a Democratic presidential candidate. Certainly, there was a lot to learn today. At his first news conference today, Obama indicated that he might "refine" his Iraq policy upon conferring with the commanders on the ground. Obama didn't realize this, but that word "refine" would spark a media/blogosphere firestorm which would force him to call a second press conference to explain that he wasn't going to change his position on withdrawing the troops from Iraq. He still wants to withdraw American troops within sixteen months of taking office.
The main thing that Obama needs to learn is why there was a media firestorm over one little word like "refine."
THE TWO MAIN LESSONS. Obama claims not to read liberal blogs. He should really think twice about that. As any self-respecting liberal blogger would tell him, Lesson No. 1 is that the mainstream media is primarily a medium for conveying right-wing rumors and stereotyping of Democratic presidential candidates to the broader public. As Mark Halperin of Time once claimed, Matt Drudge (of the right-wing gossip site "The Drudge Report") rules their world. So do Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly.
Lesson No. 2 is that the right allows two options for Democratic presidential candidates. Either Democratic candidates are dangerous, leftist, nut jobs who hate god, raise taxes, and are out of touch with the mainstream or they are opportunistic flip-floppers who would do anything to get elected. If Democratic candidates are John Edwards types who stand for liberal or progressive principles, the right stigmatizes them as "out of touch." If they're Bill Clinton types who seek compromise, bridge-building, or common ground, the right views them as unprincipled flip-floppers, and also scorns them as "weak" and "spineless" for "caving" into the Republican agenda. It's a simple but effective formula. Whichever way a Democrat turns, the right has a stereotype for the occasion.
The links between the right-wing communication apparatus and the mainstream media is also pretty simple. First, the "out of touch nut job" and "opportunistic flip-flopper" stereotypes are conveyed as accusations by Republican spinners, conservative op-ed writers, and right-wing radio talkers and bloggers. For anyone interested in how the stigmatizing works, Sean Hannity is pretty close to being a stereotyping machine. The networks and cable then adopt the stereotypes as the main template from which they report information and "raise questions" about Democratic candidates. Most reporters and anchors might be registered Democrats but they function as an reliable funnel for right-wing views on Democratic presidential candidates. They tend to like conservative spin-masters like Karl Rove. They also like the hyped-up aggression and cynicism of the Republicans and have considerable disdain for Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.
SO WHAT HAPPENED? What happened to Barack Obama today was that the mainstream media was in Democrat as "opportunistic flip-flopper" mode because of Obama's flip-flop on the FISA bill. McCain surrogate Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas was already baiting Obama about his Iraq stance last week. Others were referring to Obama as weak and spineless. Owing to the strange alchemy of politics, last weeks's stereotypes became this week's expectations. According to Talking Points Memo, rumors were already circulating before Obama's press conference that he was going to change his stance on Iraq. By using the term "refine," Obama turned the "expectations" that he himself created with his FISA stance into the raging inferno of "breaking news."
THE CHOICE. My opinion is that Obama wants to have progressive principles and be open to negotiation, compromise, and seeking common ground with the Republicans. But I don't think he's going to be able to get away with that during the presidential campaign. He's going to have to choose his poison--either allow himself to be stereotyped as an "out of touch nut case" or as an "opportunistic flip flopper." During the Democratic primaries, Obama chose "progressive principles" and "out of touch" stereotypes and won. Maybe there's a lesson there.
The main thing that Obama needs to learn is why there was a media firestorm over one little word like "refine."
THE TWO MAIN LESSONS. Obama claims not to read liberal blogs. He should really think twice about that. As any self-respecting liberal blogger would tell him, Lesson No. 1 is that the mainstream media is primarily a medium for conveying right-wing rumors and stereotyping of Democratic presidential candidates to the broader public. As Mark Halperin of Time once claimed, Matt Drudge (of the right-wing gossip site "The Drudge Report") rules their world. So do Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly.
Lesson No. 2 is that the right allows two options for Democratic presidential candidates. Either Democratic candidates are dangerous, leftist, nut jobs who hate god, raise taxes, and are out of touch with the mainstream or they are opportunistic flip-floppers who would do anything to get elected. If Democratic candidates are John Edwards types who stand for liberal or progressive principles, the right stigmatizes them as "out of touch." If they're Bill Clinton types who seek compromise, bridge-building, or common ground, the right views them as unprincipled flip-floppers, and also scorns them as "weak" and "spineless" for "caving" into the Republican agenda. It's a simple but effective formula. Whichever way a Democrat turns, the right has a stereotype for the occasion.
The links between the right-wing communication apparatus and the mainstream media is also pretty simple. First, the "out of touch nut job" and "opportunistic flip-flopper" stereotypes are conveyed as accusations by Republican spinners, conservative op-ed writers, and right-wing radio talkers and bloggers. For anyone interested in how the stigmatizing works, Sean Hannity is pretty close to being a stereotyping machine. The networks and cable then adopt the stereotypes as the main template from which they report information and "raise questions" about Democratic candidates. Most reporters and anchors might be registered Democrats but they function as an reliable funnel for right-wing views on Democratic presidential candidates. They tend to like conservative spin-masters like Karl Rove. They also like the hyped-up aggression and cynicism of the Republicans and have considerable disdain for Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.
SO WHAT HAPPENED? What happened to Barack Obama today was that the mainstream media was in Democrat as "opportunistic flip-flopper" mode because of Obama's flip-flop on the FISA bill. McCain surrogate Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas was already baiting Obama about his Iraq stance last week. Others were referring to Obama as weak and spineless. Owing to the strange alchemy of politics, last weeks's stereotypes became this week's expectations. According to Talking Points Memo, rumors were already circulating before Obama's press conference that he was going to change his stance on Iraq. By using the term "refine," Obama turned the "expectations" that he himself created with his FISA stance into the raging inferno of "breaking news."
THE CHOICE. My opinion is that Obama wants to have progressive principles and be open to negotiation, compromise, and seeking common ground with the Republicans. But I don't think he's going to be able to get away with that during the presidential campaign. He's going to have to choose his poison--either allow himself to be stereotyped as an "out of touch nut case" or as an "opportunistic flip flopper." During the Democratic primaries, Obama chose "progressive principles" and "out of touch" stereotypes and won. Maybe there's a lesson there.
Flowers Great/Beatles Annoying?
THE TIME OF THE SEASON. A couple of days ago, I drove to Lexington on Route 64 and was glad to see the periwinkle colors of corn flowers in bloom. The delicate-looking blue of the corn flowers contrasted sharply with the bright yellows of the black-eyed susans that were also plentiful in spots. Corn flowers not only have a fragile beauty, they're hardy little things as well. Roadsides look like tough environments, but corn flowers pop up all over the place.
I also saw a lot of rust-colored grasses. I don't know enough about plants to distinguish grass from wheat, but I swear that I saw some corn growing on the highway median as well.
CONFESSION TIME. I'm completing my third year of piano lessons and I have to confess that I find Beatles music to be pretty annoying to play on the piano. I didn't like "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" at all and I'm not having a fun time with "From Me to You" either. It's like their early music had a tinny, rigid kind of sound that's sort of grating. I actually like playing "doo-wop" songs like "All You Have to Do is Dream" much better.
I know I'm a bad person.
I also saw a lot of rust-colored grasses. I don't know enough about plants to distinguish grass from wheat, but I swear that I saw some corn growing on the highway median as well.
CONFESSION TIME. I'm completing my third year of piano lessons and I have to confess that I find Beatles music to be pretty annoying to play on the piano. I didn't like "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" at all and I'm not having a fun time with "From Me to You" either. It's like their early music had a tinny, rigid kind of sound that's sort of grating. I actually like playing "doo-wop" songs like "All You Have to Do is Dream" much better.
I know I'm a bad person.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Patriotism Left and Right
The Fourth of July holiday used to be about fireworks, parades, barbecues, apple pie, and visiting relatives you were glad you moved away from.
Now the Fourth is also about who loves America more . . . or less.
In USA Today, conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg lays out a case that Barack Obama and people on the left aren't patriotic because they aren't happy with America "as it is."
According to Goldberg, that would mean that no more than 17% of the population is patriotic.
Contrary to Goldberg, I view conservatives as more dissatisfied with the current direction of the United States than liberals. Of course, there are things that liberals are unhappy about and want to change, including the war in Iraq, global warming, racism, exorbitant corporate salaries, high poverty rates, homophobia, and misogyny.
But there are many things that liberals of all stripes are fairly happy about these days. The Obama and Clinton campaigns are both strong indications of progress on the racial and gender fronts. Likewise, there's a relatively high level of personal freedom in the United States. That includes freedom of expression in various media, sexual freedom, access to contraception, abortion rights,. the increasing acceptance of gays and lesbians as full citizens, freedom of religion, and freedom to reject religion. People in the "liberal coalition" are highly aware of various kinds of oppression in American society but can realistically view the United States as a relatively progressive society despite all the resistance and backsliding on social progress.
In his patriotism speech, Barack Obama viewed the ability of the United States to make continual progress in relation to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence as the cornerstone of American greatness.
To the contrary, conservatives all over the country view the United States as in a state of terminal decline and decadence. The right-wing identifies abortion with murder, sexual freedom, liberal divorce policies, and popular culture with decadence, and secular liberals as the heirs of fascism. Conservatives are extremely suspicious of "global cities" like Miami, New York, and LA, treat the East and West coasts as foreign countries, and are even starting to view the suburbs around the cities as beyond redemption.
Conservatives identify "America" with rural life, evangelical religion, "traditional values" about sex, and traditional suspicions of African-Americans, gays, "women's libbers," labor unions, and others who were dissatisfied with social hierarchy. But they also see that America as dying out and being replaced by a multi-cultural nation that they don't view as their own.
Conservative media figures are forthright in their disgust over the current state of American life. Conservative jurist Robert Bork expressed that dissatisfaction in the title of Slouching Toward Gomorrah. More currently, popular right-wing radio talker Michael Savage cries into his mike about American decline for almost three hours a day, five days a week. Just last year, Thomas Sowell was so unhappy about American "decadence" that he started musing about a military coup as the only way to put the country back on the right track. Expect right-wing unhappiness with the U. S. to intensify if Obama is elected and withdraws the American military from Iraq.
Of course, conservatives can still stir up some positive passion for "traditional institutions" like the military and police. They also have a strong identification with the American flag. But what conservatives identify with the flag is a traditional world that no longer exists. In the South, an uncomfortably sizable minority of white people display the Confederate flag to emphasize their identification with a particularly noxious version of the American past.
It's somewhat of an irony, but when you see a conservative person handling an American flag, that person might be raising, lowering, and folding the only part of American life that he respects or cares about.
That's how narrow conservative patriotism is starting to become.
Now the Fourth is also about who loves America more . . . or less.
In USA Today, conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg lays out a case that Barack Obama and people on the left aren't patriotic because they aren't happy with America "as it is."
"Definitions of patriotism proliferate, but in the American context patriotism must involve not only devotion to American texts (something that distinguishes our patriotism from European nationalism) but also an abiding belief in the inherent and enduring goodness of the American nation. We might need to change this or that policy or law, fix this or that problem, but at the end of the day the patriotic American believes that America is fundamentally good as it is."But there's a problem with Goldberg's definition. Practically nobody in the United States thinks that America is "good as it is" right now. Recent surveys of whether the United States is on the right track indicate that an overwhelming majority of Americans are dissatisfied. The numbers range from 76% of people polled by Newsweek answering that the country is "seriously off on the wrong track" to 84% of those polled by Gallup claiming that they are "dissatisfied" with the way things are going. Others are undecided. None of the current polls have more than 17% of the population as being satisfied with the current state of affairs.
According to Goldberg, that would mean that no more than 17% of the population is patriotic.
Contrary to Goldberg, I view conservatives as more dissatisfied with the current direction of the United States than liberals. Of course, there are things that liberals are unhappy about and want to change, including the war in Iraq, global warming, racism, exorbitant corporate salaries, high poverty rates, homophobia, and misogyny.
But there are many things that liberals of all stripes are fairly happy about these days. The Obama and Clinton campaigns are both strong indications of progress on the racial and gender fronts. Likewise, there's a relatively high level of personal freedom in the United States. That includes freedom of expression in various media, sexual freedom, access to contraception, abortion rights,. the increasing acceptance of gays and lesbians as full citizens, freedom of religion, and freedom to reject religion. People in the "liberal coalition" are highly aware of various kinds of oppression in American society but can realistically view the United States as a relatively progressive society despite all the resistance and backsliding on social progress.
In his patriotism speech, Barack Obama viewed the ability of the United States to make continual progress in relation to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence as the cornerstone of American greatness.
". . . Patriotism is always more than just loyalty to a place on a map or a certain kind of people. Instead, it is also loyalty to America's ideals - ideals for which anyone can sacrifice, or defend, or give their last full measure of devotion . . . I learned that what makes America great has never been its perfection but the belief that it can be made better. I came to understand that our revolution was waged for the sake of that belief."
To the contrary, conservatives all over the country view the United States as in a state of terminal decline and decadence. The right-wing identifies abortion with murder, sexual freedom, liberal divorce policies, and popular culture with decadence, and secular liberals as the heirs of fascism. Conservatives are extremely suspicious of "global cities" like Miami, New York, and LA, treat the East and West coasts as foreign countries, and are even starting to view the suburbs around the cities as beyond redemption.
Conservatives identify "America" with rural life, evangelical religion, "traditional values" about sex, and traditional suspicions of African-Americans, gays, "women's libbers," labor unions, and others who were dissatisfied with social hierarchy. But they also see that America as dying out and being replaced by a multi-cultural nation that they don't view as their own.
Conservative media figures are forthright in their disgust over the current state of American life. Conservative jurist Robert Bork expressed that dissatisfaction in the title of Slouching Toward Gomorrah. More currently, popular right-wing radio talker Michael Savage cries into his mike about American decline for almost three hours a day, five days a week. Just last year, Thomas Sowell was so unhappy about American "decadence" that he started musing about a military coup as the only way to put the country back on the right track. Expect right-wing unhappiness with the U. S. to intensify if Obama is elected and withdraws the American military from Iraq.
Of course, conservatives can still stir up some positive passion for "traditional institutions" like the military and police. They also have a strong identification with the American flag. But what conservatives identify with the flag is a traditional world that no longer exists. In the South, an uncomfortably sizable minority of white people display the Confederate flag to emphasize their identification with a particularly noxious version of the American past.
It's somewhat of an irony, but when you see a conservative person handling an American flag, that person might be raising, lowering, and folding the only part of American life that he respects or cares about.
That's how narrow conservative patriotism is starting to become.
Bush Takeover of the McCain Campaign
John McCain rearranged the deck chairs on his presidential campaign today. Evidently unhappy with a string of gaffes and poorly staged events, McCain handed over the keys to his campaign to Karl Rove acolyte Steve Schmidt and Schmidt responded first by giving a "Rudy" style inspirational speech to the McCain campaign staff.
Color me cynical, but I bet they were not overly impressed by that. Professional athletes are known to be unimpressed with inspirational talks. The same is probably the case with professional political operatives.
My guess is that the changes in McCain's campaign aren't going to accomplish much. Rick Davis, the guy that McCain removed from day to day control of the campaign was the last of the real "McCain guys." Rick Davis, John Weaver, and Mike Murphy were the guys who were with McCain from the first days of the "Straight-Talk Express" in 1999 and were instrumental in helping McCain shape his "maverick" image. These guys didn't get along with each other at all and weren't very good at organizing a national campaign, managing finances, or overseeing the daily battle over the news cycle. But they knew John McCain, were loyal to John McCain over everything, and their style was McCain's style.
Now that Davis has been kicked upstairs to "long-range planning," the McCain guys are out of the McCain campaign and the "Bush people" are in charge. Steve Schmidt earned his spurs as a communication aid for Bush-Cheney 2004 before moving on to Arnold Schwarzennegger's 2006 re-election bid. Other veterans of the Bush/Rove team include Nicolle Wallace, Greg Jenkins, Mike Duhaime, Taylor Griffin, and Matt McDonald.
The expectation is that the Bush/Rove people will be more disciplined and aggressive. Rove campaigns focus on driving the daily message, orchestrating smear campaigns, and micro-targeting potential supporters. But it's difficult to see this working with McCain's campaign. How is McCain going to settle on a single overarching theme when his positions are so consistently inconsistent? McCain wants to address climate change and override environmental protections, support campaign finance reform and violate campaign finance laws, clean up politics and rely on lobbyists to run his campaign, and represent a clear break from the Bush administration and support the war in Iraq, more corporate tax cuts, and torture. Boiling all those contradictions and more into an overriding theme will require more genius than the Rove people might be capable of.
Likewise, the Bush people now running McCain's campaign can be expected to get a lot tougher with Obama. That means launching smear campaigns like the Swift Boat ad of 2004. But swiftboating Obama is dangerous because he's African-American and Republicans are broadly seen as unethical and racist. Derogatory racial comments would damage McCain more than they would damage Obama. The same also seems to be the case for Willie Horton-style racial stereotyping. Karl Rove and the right-wing blogs have been experimenting with racial innuendo for months (here and here) but haven't hit on anything that would make Obama look bad without opening the Republicans up to accusations of racism. Plausible deniability is the name of the race-baiting game and nobody on the right has figured a way to cast aspersions on Obama as an African-American without being stigmatized themselves as racists.
It looks like 2008 is a tough year for smear artists.
There's also the candidate. Most of the dumb moves and gaffes coming out of the McCain campaign have been committed by John McCain himself. John McCain, not Rick Davis, has been referring to Putin as the President of Germany, mixing up the al-Qaeda and Iran, and committing similar blunders. Now McCain's in Columbia chasing the chimera of illustrating how Obama would be the first "protectionist president since Hoover." Talk about a waste of time and resources. The Bush people in McCain's campaign might be thinking that John McCain can become as disciplined and on-message as George Bush or Ronald Reagan. But efforts to discipline McCain might backfire and cause the candidate to be alienated from his own campaign.
In the final analysis, John McCain's main problem is "the man in the mirror." I doubt that the Bush people now running his campaign have a cure for that.
Color me cynical, but I bet they were not overly impressed by that. Professional athletes are known to be unimpressed with inspirational talks. The same is probably the case with professional political operatives.
My guess is that the changes in McCain's campaign aren't going to accomplish much. Rick Davis, the guy that McCain removed from day to day control of the campaign was the last of the real "McCain guys." Rick Davis, John Weaver, and Mike Murphy were the guys who were with McCain from the first days of the "Straight-Talk Express" in 1999 and were instrumental in helping McCain shape his "maverick" image. These guys didn't get along with each other at all and weren't very good at organizing a national campaign, managing finances, or overseeing the daily battle over the news cycle. But they knew John McCain, were loyal to John McCain over everything, and their style was McCain's style.
Now that Davis has been kicked upstairs to "long-range planning," the McCain guys are out of the McCain campaign and the "Bush people" are in charge. Steve Schmidt earned his spurs as a communication aid for Bush-Cheney 2004 before moving on to Arnold Schwarzennegger's 2006 re-election bid. Other veterans of the Bush/Rove team include Nicolle Wallace, Greg Jenkins, Mike Duhaime, Taylor Griffin, and Matt McDonald.
The expectation is that the Bush/Rove people will be more disciplined and aggressive. Rove campaigns focus on driving the daily message, orchestrating smear campaigns, and micro-targeting potential supporters. But it's difficult to see this working with McCain's campaign. How is McCain going to settle on a single overarching theme when his positions are so consistently inconsistent? McCain wants to address climate change and override environmental protections, support campaign finance reform and violate campaign finance laws, clean up politics and rely on lobbyists to run his campaign, and represent a clear break from the Bush administration and support the war in Iraq, more corporate tax cuts, and torture. Boiling all those contradictions and more into an overriding theme will require more genius than the Rove people might be capable of.
Likewise, the Bush people now running McCain's campaign can be expected to get a lot tougher with Obama. That means launching smear campaigns like the Swift Boat ad of 2004. But swiftboating Obama is dangerous because he's African-American and Republicans are broadly seen as unethical and racist. Derogatory racial comments would damage McCain more than they would damage Obama. The same also seems to be the case for Willie Horton-style racial stereotyping. Karl Rove and the right-wing blogs have been experimenting with racial innuendo for months (here and here) but haven't hit on anything that would make Obama look bad without opening the Republicans up to accusations of racism. Plausible deniability is the name of the race-baiting game and nobody on the right has figured a way to cast aspersions on Obama as an African-American without being stigmatized themselves as racists.
It looks like 2008 is a tough year for smear artists.
There's also the candidate. Most of the dumb moves and gaffes coming out of the McCain campaign have been committed by John McCain himself. John McCain, not Rick Davis, has been referring to Putin as the President of Germany, mixing up the al-Qaeda and Iran, and committing similar blunders. Now McCain's in Columbia chasing the chimera of illustrating how Obama would be the first "protectionist president since Hoover." Talk about a waste of time and resources. The Bush people in McCain's campaign might be thinking that John McCain can become as disciplined and on-message as George Bush or Ronald Reagan. But efforts to discipline McCain might backfire and cause the candidate to be alienated from his own campaign.
In the final analysis, John McCain's main problem is "the man in the mirror." I doubt that the Bush people now running his campaign have a cure for that.
Rare Good News for Clippers
As a fan of perennially struggling teams like the LA Clippers, Atlanta Falcons, and Pittsburgh Pirates, I'm glad to see reports that the Clippers are on the verge of signing point guard Baron Davis away from the Warriors.
They could use the good news.
It also gives the Clippers a decent team of Baron Davis at point, Elton Brand and Joe Thornton at forward, Chris Kaman playing center, and some combination of recently drafted Eric Gordon and Cuttino Mobley at shooting guard. Last year's leading scorer, Corey Maggette, might also re-sign.
That's not murderers row but it's a team that would compete for a playoff spot in a tough Western conference.
They could use the good news.
It also gives the Clippers a decent team of Baron Davis at point, Elton Brand and Joe Thornton at forward, Chris Kaman playing center, and some combination of recently drafted Eric Gordon and Cuttino Mobley at shooting guard. Last year's leading scorer, Corey Maggette, might also re-sign.
That's not murderers row but it's a team that would compete for a playoff spot in a tough Western conference.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Anne Boleyn's Biting Cat
NOT REALLY. This was the best title I could come up with as I was watching the truly wretched movie "The Other Boleyn Girl." I don't know who was the most miscast--Eric Bana as Henry VIII, Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn, or Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn. But I really felt sorry for Kristin Scott Thomas as the Boleyn girls' shrewish mother.
Onto the Cat. Lawyers, Guns, and Money has a "Friday Cat Blogging" feature. But I'm not in such a generous frame of mind toward domestic felines. Yesterday, the RSI family experienced an all-too-typical comedy of errors with a cat that our daughter was pet-sitting and ended up with Mrs. RSI getting a nasty injury.
First, I got a call from Miss Teen RSI about the cat being injured. Using all of my "veterinary expertise," I then determined that the cat had three puncture wounds (from another cat) and needed to go to the vet. Lucky for me, the cat didn't bite me as I was loading it into the pet carrier.
Mrs. RSI wasn't so lucky. It turned out that I couldn't take the injured cat to the vet. I was so allergic to the dear little thing that I had to hand him off to Mrs. RSI after a mere mile of driving.
Mrs. RSI completed the journey, but she ended up being bitten three times on her fingers as she was helping the vet's assistant. Mrs. RSI sought medical attention after her little fingers began to swell. Those little fingers kept swelling after Mrs. RSI started first on anti-biotics, then on pain medicine. Finally, Mrs. RSI went to the emergency room at 10:30pm where they subscribed yet another anti-biotic.
The Movie is truly wretched. The Other Boleyn was a semi-trashy historical novel but it had some bounce to it. That's not the case with the movie which has about as much bounce as a pillow that's been thrown. A lot of the actors look like they're in pain.
Then, there was the unconvincing rape scene.
Back to the Cat Again. Mrs. RSI's finger kept swelling and getting more painful overnight. So, there were more visits to medical personnel and a couple more trips to the pharmacy. Before the swelling began to abate, it looked like she was going to be admitted to the hospital so the anti-biotics could be administered by IV.
Oops. Jane Seymour just made her first appearance. Henry doesn't love her. The pressure's on. She's going to have sex with her gay brother. I think Anne might lose her head over this.
Tomorrow, Mrs. RSI goes to yet another doctor. It turns out that fingers are delicate things even if cats aren't.
Onto the Cat. Lawyers, Guns, and Money has a "Friday Cat Blogging" feature. But I'm not in such a generous frame of mind toward domestic felines. Yesterday, the RSI family experienced an all-too-typical comedy of errors with a cat that our daughter was pet-sitting and ended up with Mrs. RSI getting a nasty injury.
First, I got a call from Miss Teen RSI about the cat being injured. Using all of my "veterinary expertise," I then determined that the cat had three puncture wounds (from another cat) and needed to go to the vet. Lucky for me, the cat didn't bite me as I was loading it into the pet carrier.
Mrs. RSI wasn't so lucky. It turned out that I couldn't take the injured cat to the vet. I was so allergic to the dear little thing that I had to hand him off to Mrs. RSI after a mere mile of driving.
Mrs. RSI completed the journey, but she ended up being bitten three times on her fingers as she was helping the vet's assistant. Mrs. RSI sought medical attention after her little fingers began to swell. Those little fingers kept swelling after Mrs. RSI started first on anti-biotics, then on pain medicine. Finally, Mrs. RSI went to the emergency room at 10:30pm where they subscribed yet another anti-biotic.
The Movie is truly wretched. The Other Boleyn was a semi-trashy historical novel but it had some bounce to it. That's not the case with the movie which has about as much bounce as a pillow that's been thrown. A lot of the actors look like they're in pain.
Then, there was the unconvincing rape scene.
Back to the Cat Again. Mrs. RSI's finger kept swelling and getting more painful overnight. So, there were more visits to medical personnel and a couple more trips to the pharmacy. Before the swelling began to abate, it looked like she was going to be admitted to the hospital so the anti-biotics could be administered by IV.
Oops. Jane Seymour just made her first appearance. Henry doesn't love her. The pressure's on. She's going to have sex with her gay brother. I think Anne might lose her head over this.
Tomorrow, Mrs. RSI goes to yet another doctor. It turns out that fingers are delicate things even if cats aren't.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Attacking McCain's War Record?
As a person of the left, I'm not going to pretend to be neutral here. I'm supporting Obama and I believe the Democrats should criticize McCain and go after him hard.
But I also have to admit that people on the left have never been very good at the fine art of mixing personal and political criticism.
During the 2000 election campaign, there was a drumbeat of liberal sneering about George W. Bush being "stupid." All that sneering did was make liberals look like snobs while ignoring Bush's long history as a party animal and the fact that he had driven two businesses into the ground. Bush isn't stupid, but he's always been immature, reckless, and lazy. The left should have done a better job of bringing that into focus.
Now, there are some on the left who are attacking John McCain's war record. Wesley Clark does raise a valid point that serving as a fighter pilot doesn't qualifiy anybody to be president. But the good folks at America.blog are also reminding people that McCain cracked under torture and made a propoganda video. According to the Politico, others are suggesting that McCain "must have killed civilians" during his 23 sorties over North Vietnam.
What progressive activists and liberal bloggers need to do is to be tough with McCain in a way that raises doubts McCain's ability to govern effectively.
Let me give a couple of illustrations of how John McCain could be effectively attacked.
McCain proposes to lower taxes on corporations like Cindy McCain's $100 million beer distribution business. Given that Cindy McCain already owns seven houses, it's more than fair to point out that she doesn't really need another tax break. Lowering corporate taxes is an incredibly bad idea and John McCain's personal affairs can be used legitimately to illustrate the point.
McCain also advertises his ability to work "across the aisle." However, McCain actually does very poorly at working the Republican side of the aisle and a number of his colleagues think of McCain as a preening narcissist who blows his top if his doesn't get his way. Thad Cochran of Mississippi is one of the more emphatic Republian critics: "The thought of [McCain's] being president sends a cold chill down my spine . . . He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
How does John McCain propose to govern as president if he can't any support from his fellow Republicans? If his proposals get filibustered by Senate Republicans?
These are the kinds of tough questions that need to be asked about John McCain. But people on the left need to start being as smart as we think we are.
But I also have to admit that people on the left have never been very good at the fine art of mixing personal and political criticism.
During the 2000 election campaign, there was a drumbeat of liberal sneering about George W. Bush being "stupid." All that sneering did was make liberals look like snobs while ignoring Bush's long history as a party animal and the fact that he had driven two businesses into the ground. Bush isn't stupid, but he's always been immature, reckless, and lazy. The left should have done a better job of bringing that into focus.
Now, there are some on the left who are attacking John McCain's war record. Wesley Clark does raise a valid point that serving as a fighter pilot doesn't qualifiy anybody to be president. But the good folks at America.blog are also reminding people that McCain cracked under torture and made a propoganda video. According to the Politico, others are suggesting that McCain "must have killed civilians" during his 23 sorties over North Vietnam.
"I wouldn't characterize anybody who fought in Vietnam as a war hero," said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the theatrical anti-war group Code Pink. "In 23 bombing sorties, there must have been civilians that were killed and there's no heroism to that.""Must have?" Ms. Benjamin is implying that McCain killed civilians (and is thus a kind of war criminal) without any evidence. Talk about stupid! And ineffective. If people actually want to hear those kinds of smears, they'll dial up Karl Rove or Grover Norquist instead of a Democrat.
What progressive activists and liberal bloggers need to do is to be tough with McCain in a way that raises doubts McCain's ability to govern effectively.
Let me give a couple of illustrations of how John McCain could be effectively attacked.
McCain proposes to lower taxes on corporations like Cindy McCain's $100 million beer distribution business. Given that Cindy McCain already owns seven houses, it's more than fair to point out that she doesn't really need another tax break. Lowering corporate taxes is an incredibly bad idea and John McCain's personal affairs can be used legitimately to illustrate the point.
McCain also advertises his ability to work "across the aisle." However, McCain actually does very poorly at working the Republican side of the aisle and a number of his colleagues think of McCain as a preening narcissist who blows his top if his doesn't get his way. Thad Cochran of Mississippi is one of the more emphatic Republian critics: "The thought of [McCain's] being president sends a cold chill down my spine . . . He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
How does John McCain propose to govern as president if he can't any support from his fellow Republicans? If his proposals get filibustered by Senate Republicans?
These are the kinds of tough questions that need to be asked about John McCain. But people on the left need to start being as smart as we think we are.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Bad News for Miley
Miss Tween RSI, age 11, has totally sworn off Hannah Montana--says that Miley Cyrus is getting to be too much like Britney Spears.
Now she is watching The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
That's bad news for the Hannah franchise. Britney too I guess.
Now she is watching The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
That's bad news for the Hannah franchise. Britney too I guess.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Will Obama Ever Get It?
Barack Obama delivered a couple of lessons to his supporters on the left this week. As he stated over and over in The Audacity of Hope, Obama has considerable empathy with conservative values and Republican positions on issues. As a result, he was able to view the current FISA legislation as furthering American national security and as a genuine compromise between the Bush administration and the Democratic leadership. Liberal bloggers were outraged by Obama's perceived "cave" on the FISA bill but Obama decided to view the issue of national security as overriding blogger concerns about Bush administration and telecom immunity.
Obama's view seems reasonable. Obama's view also seems like it rises above partisanship. And the left needed to know that Obama was not one of them just as Obama has always said that he's not one of them.
But now it's Obama's turn to learn a lesson. The Republicans don't believe in compromise.
According to M. S. Bellow of Huffington Post:
That's the "heads I win" part.
The Bush administration also sets up a "tails you lose" dynamic. In the case of the FISA bill, the Bush people put in a number of "poison pill" provisions that would allow them to engage in extensive data mining, by-pass the FISA courts and immunize the telecoms from civil lawsuits. The point of these provisions was to ensure that the Democrats would not like the bill and that Democratic acquiescence would be a "capitulation" to the Bush administration. This allows guys like Brownback to gloat about the Democrats as "spineless," "weak," and "craven." Here, the Republicans can bask in a sense of their own strength, power, and toughness and sneer at the Democrats for not being willing to stand up for their own principles.
From their point of view, the Republicans win either way. If the Democratic leadership opposes FISA, the Republicans call them weak on terrorism. If the Democrats give in, the Republicans get to treat them as just simply soft and weak.
It's important to emphasize that the Republicans normally don't see political issues the way that Barack Obama views them. Unlike Obama, the Bush administration and the right does not recognize Democratic politicians, liberal interest groups, or Democratic constituencies as having legitimate concerns or points of view. Unlike Obama, the Bush administration doesn't see politics in terms of mutual respect, compromise, or finding common ground. Unlike Obama, the Bush administration views the political game strictly in terms of domination and submission in which giving ground is appeasement, compromise is "surrender," and mutual agreement is selling out.
From this perspective, Obama is weak because he views conservatives as having legitimate viewpoints. Obama's support for the FISA bill is just confirmation of his spinelessness and guarantees that Obama will knuckle under on Iraq when he starts feeling the pressure.
Everything I've said is common sense to liberal bloggers like Glenn Greenwald, Huffington Post, Digby, Atrios, Daily Kos, and Jane Hamsher. Unlike the Congressional Democrats and Obama, liberal bloggers figured out the political gamesmanship of the Bush administration from an early date.
Barack Obama brags that he doesn't read blogs. Maybe he should start.
Obama's view seems reasonable. Obama's view also seems like it rises above partisanship. And the left needed to know that Obama was not one of them just as Obama has always said that he's not one of them.
But now it's Obama's turn to learn a lesson. The Republicans don't believe in compromise.
According to M. S. Bellow of Huffington Post:
In a press conference call this morning, John McCain surrogate Sam Brownback (R-KS) pointed at Barack Obama and essentially called him a spineless panderer -- and welcomed it, saying he expected Obama to cave in on Iraq withdrawal next. McCain senior policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, with tremendous self-assurance, described Obama's support for the FISA bill -- a bill McCain also supports! --as an example of Obama's supreme commitment to his own "political fortunes" above all else . . . Brownback said Obama's spinelessness on the D.C. gun ban, campaign funding, and, most importantly, on FISA, meant he probably would eventually cave in on Iraq. Brownback even "set down a marker" -- dared Obama -- to concede on Iraq just like he's said he'll do on FISA.What bloggers know and Obama doesn't is that this kind of "heads I win, tails you lose game" is how the Bush administration and the right-wing sets up most issues in American politics. In the case of the FISA bill, the Bush administration set up the issue so that they could characterize opposition to the Bush administration position as being "weak on terrorism," "putting America in danger" and "surrendering" to al-Qaida and Iran.
That's the "heads I win" part.
The Bush administration also sets up a "tails you lose" dynamic. In the case of the FISA bill, the Bush people put in a number of "poison pill" provisions that would allow them to engage in extensive data mining, by-pass the FISA courts and immunize the telecoms from civil lawsuits. The point of these provisions was to ensure that the Democrats would not like the bill and that Democratic acquiescence would be a "capitulation" to the Bush administration. This allows guys like Brownback to gloat about the Democrats as "spineless," "weak," and "craven." Here, the Republicans can bask in a sense of their own strength, power, and toughness and sneer at the Democrats for not being willing to stand up for their own principles.
From their point of view, the Republicans win either way. If the Democratic leadership opposes FISA, the Republicans call them weak on terrorism. If the Democrats give in, the Republicans get to treat them as just simply soft and weak.
It's important to emphasize that the Republicans normally don't see political issues the way that Barack Obama views them. Unlike Obama, the Bush administration and the right does not recognize Democratic politicians, liberal interest groups, or Democratic constituencies as having legitimate concerns or points of view. Unlike Obama, the Bush administration doesn't see politics in terms of mutual respect, compromise, or finding common ground. Unlike Obama, the Bush administration views the political game strictly in terms of domination and submission in which giving ground is appeasement, compromise is "surrender," and mutual agreement is selling out.
From this perspective, Obama is weak because he views conservatives as having legitimate viewpoints. Obama's support for the FISA bill is just confirmation of his spinelessness and guarantees that Obama will knuckle under on Iraq when he starts feeling the pressure.
Everything I've said is common sense to liberal bloggers like Glenn Greenwald, Huffington Post, Digby, Atrios, Daily Kos, and Jane Hamsher. Unlike the Congressional Democrats and Obama, liberal bloggers figured out the political gamesmanship of the Bush administration from an early date.
Barack Obama brags that he doesn't read blogs. Maybe he should start.
Why Shaun Alexander?
In other words, why doesn't Shaun Alexander get any football respect. Having gained almost 10,000 yeards and been named NFL MVP in 2005, Alexander should at least have gotten a solid lead on a football job after Seattle decided to go another way. Sure, he's 30 years old and has been plagued by injuries for the last couple of years. But a lot of high profile guys who've been hurt for a couple of years get another chance.
Why not Alexander?
One NFL general manager ran down a long list of Alexander's weaknesses for CBS.com sportswriter Clark Judge:
"Don't trust him" to what? The GM sounds like a Walmart manager talking about a union activist.
According to Shannon J. Owens of the Orlando Sentinel (in an article that appeared in today's Lexington Herald-Leader), Alexander's attitude gets questioned because of he wears his Christianity on his sleeve and is such a community activist.
That sounds good. But Warrick Dunn is a big-time community activist who's gained about 10,000 yards and he didn't have any trouble landing a position after getting released by Atlanta. And Dunn's 33 where Alexander's only 30.
So, why the hostility towards Alexander?
It's an interesting question because Alexander was getting the business even when he was a star at Boone County high school in Kentucky. In Alexander's senior year, Boone County lost to one of the Louisville powerhouses (either Trinity or St. Xavier) in the state finals and I can still remember the winning coach sneering at Alexander's "pitty pat" or "tippy toe" running style.
My own speculation is that Shaun Alexander has always been the kind of stud athlete who plays his game and plays it extremely well while maintaining a psychological distance. As Alexander puts it himself:
Unfortunately, Alexander's problem is also an American problem. The obsessives--the fanatics--the guys and women who only sleep three or four hours a night looking for that thin sliver of an angle are the people in charge of American politics, sports, and business right now. It's one reason why there's such a warped quality to everything we do.
In a sane world, Shaun Alexander wouldn't have such a hard time finding work. But it's not a sane world.
Why not Alexander?
One NFL general manager ran down a long list of Alexander's weaknesses for CBS.com sportswriter Clark Judge:
"He doesn't have anything left . . . People are always talking about the numbers, but the numbers don't tell the story. There's the injury factor. And the hands factor. And a desire and competitiveness that don't seem to be there. He's never been known as a very tough player, and there have always been questions about his attitude. I'm not saying that because he's out there (unsigned) now. I would have told you the same thing four or five years ago. Basically, I don't like him (as a back), and I don't trust him."
"Don't trust him" to what? The GM sounds like a Walmart manager talking about a union activist.
According to Shannon J. Owens of the Orlando Sentinel (in an article that appeared in today's Lexington Herald-Leader), Alexander's attitude gets questioned because of he wears his Christianity on his sleeve and is such a community activist.
That sounds good. But Warrick Dunn is a big-time community activist who's gained about 10,000 yards and he didn't have any trouble landing a position after getting released by Atlanta. And Dunn's 33 where Alexander's only 30.
So, why the hostility towards Alexander?
It's an interesting question because Alexander was getting the business even when he was a star at Boone County high school in Kentucky. In Alexander's senior year, Boone County lost to one of the Louisville powerhouses (either Trinity or St. Xavier) in the state finals and I can still remember the winning coach sneering at Alexander's "pitty pat" or "tippy toe" running style.
My own speculation is that Shaun Alexander has always been the kind of stud athlete who plays his game and plays it extremely well while maintaining a psychological distance. As Alexander puts it himself:
"Because I don't carry football around everywhere I am, it kind of throws people off. They're never really sure . . . I've never made football my identity, and that's where God has graced me."The problem for Alexander is that scouts, coaches, and GM's are guys who were often marginal athletes who were dedicated to the game in a fanatical, obsessive way. Mike Shanahan of the Denver Broncos is a good example. He petitioned everyone at Eastern Illinois to allow him to continue playing even though he's lost a kidney. The only thing that guys like Shanahan respect and trust is their own kind of fanaticism and they look suspiciously at a guy like Alexander who leaves the game on the field. They tolerate Alexander while he's piling up big numbers but treat him like a pariah as soon as he has problems.
Unfortunately, Alexander's problem is also an American problem. The obsessives--the fanatics--the guys and women who only sleep three or four hours a night looking for that thin sliver of an angle are the people in charge of American politics, sports, and business right now. It's one reason why there's such a warped quality to everything we do.
In a sane world, Shaun Alexander wouldn't have such a hard time finding work. But it's not a sane world.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Should Addington and Other Stonewallers Be Arrested?
David Addington, VP Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, and John Yoo appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to testify about how the Bush administration developed its policies concerning the interrogation of suspected terrorists.
Members of the Judiciary Committee were acting in their capacity as the members of Congress charged with oversight of the executive branch's legal operations. Specifically, were investigating whether John Yoo's "torture memo" functioned to justify illegal practices like waterboarding, stress positions, and fake executions at Guantanamo and other facilities.
Not that Yoo or especially Addington cared. Both men were intent on showing their contempt for Congress in general and the legislative oversight of the Judiciary Committee in particular.
When Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers asked about Addington's "unitary theory of government," Addington disdainfully replied:
When the final questioner, Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), asked about waterboarding, Addington refused to answer altogether
"I can't talk to you -- al-Qaeda may watch these meetings."
Members of the Judiciary Committee were acting in their capacity as the members of Congress charged with oversight of the executive branch's legal operations. Specifically, were investigating whether John Yoo's "torture memo" functioned to justify illegal practices like waterboarding, stress positions, and fake executions at Guantanamo and other facilities.
Not that Yoo or especially Addington cared. Both men were intent on showing their contempt for Congress in general and the legislative oversight of the Judiciary Committee in particular.
When Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers asked about Addington's "unitary theory of government," Addington disdainfully replied:
"I frankly don't know what you mean by unitary theory," Addington replied.And on and on.
"Have you ever heard of that theory before?"
"I see it in the newspapers all the time," Addington replied.
"Do you support it?"
"I don't know what it is."
The usually mild Conyers was angry. "You're telling me you don't know what the unitary theory means?"
"I don't know what you mean by it," Addington answered.
"Do you know what you mean by it?"
"I know exactly what I mean by it."
When the final questioner, Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), asked about waterboarding, Addington refused to answer altogether
"I can't talk to you -- al-Qaeda may watch these meetings."
What should the Congressional Democrats do when Bush officials like Addington stonewall, refuse to answer questions, or refuse to testify altogether as in the case of Joshe Bolten and Harriet Miers.
Perhaps Congress should just arrest them for contempt.
That was the solution proposed by Judge John Bates in a hearing over Congress' lawsuit over the refusal of Miers and Bolton to appear before a committee in relation to the fired prosecutor scandal. According to Judge Bates:
"Congress has the authority to hold someone in contempt . . . Did it really need to go to court?"
The problem for the Democrats is that the Bush administration is eager to play chicken on issues great and small and dare the other branches of government to override them.
Let's give some quick examples. First, the Bush administration enacted its detention and interrogation policies in knowing defiance of American and international laws against torture. Likewise, Bush's warrantless wiretapping policies defied the 1978 FISA law. When these policies were overturned by the courts, the Bush people then demanded that Congress counter-act the courts and immunize all the people who violated the law.
Further, the Bush administration basically threatened to shut down the federal government last fall if Congress did not fund the Iraq War without deadlines or conditions on troop rotations. The president was going to veto any budget that did not have funding on their terms. If the government shut down or the military ran out of funding in Iraq, so much the worse for Congress.
Finally, Bush administration officials have either refused to respond to valid Congressional subpoenas, refused to testify when they do appear, and refused to answer questions in any kind of honest way when they do testify.
Of course, there is no doubt that much of the answer to the Bush administration's constant efforts to force showdowns is for the Democrats to develop more political backbone. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid should have called Bush's bluff on Iraq War funding and passed legislation that only allowed funding for a withdrawal.
It would have been an appropriate and popular measure.
But Congress should also look at using more of its tools. Congress has the power to defund defiant units like the Vice-President's staff and put David Addington out of work. They could also defund various offices in the Department of Justice like the Attorney General's staff
They should be much more willing to do so.
Congress should also think about revising the special prosecutor law in a way that sets up a permanent investigatory agency that is not answerable to the President.
But Congress can start by putting administration officials in jail when they are "in contempt of Congress."
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Gun Rights and Gun Regulation: The Court Upheld Both
I'm rather surprised that President Bush, John McCain and the National Rifle Association view today's Supreme Court decison in DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER as such a stupendous triumph for gun rights.
To Review Briefly. The Supreme Court held today that District of Columbia laws banning the possession of handguns in one's home were unconstitutional. They also overturned a requirement that any other types of guns in one's home be either fitted with a trigger lock or disassembled.
Specifically, Justice Antonin Scalia held for the majority that the Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" was a right of individuals. The amendment itself is worded in an ambiguous way that also allows the interpretation of rights to bear arms to be associated more with militias. According to the Constitution:
For the court majority, this language means that the amendment refers to individuals rather than the militias mentioned in the first part of the amendment.
A Muddy Picture. This was the first time that the Supreme Court had held that the Second Amendment applied to individuals. The NRA, President Bush, and John McCain were ecstatic. Here's the NRA:
I'm not sure why the NRA is being so triumphalist here. Given that the decision was 5-4, there's a good chance that it won't be "a real permanent part of American Constitutional law."
More precisely, Scalia's opinion goes also goes far to validate government regulation of guns as weapons. The Court majority ordered that Washington, D. C. allow Heller and others to register their handguns according to the city's weapons registration laws. However, it left those registration laws standing. The implication is that the registration of guns is as constitutional as registering cars.
The Court also held that the individual right to bears arms did not extend to "dangerous and unusual weapons" (p 55) which appears to mean that the states or federal government might legitimately regulate or ban items like assault rifles, armor piercing bullets, and perhaps automatic pistols. Of course, there's plenty of room for debate about what constitutes "dangerous and unusual weapons" but Justice Scalia specifically mentions M-16 rifles as weapons that might be legitimately banned.
If people in the anti-gun movement had imagination, they would start drafting legislation that expansively defined "dangerous and unusual weapons." By doing so, they might cripple the gun industry by banning their most profitable products.
Finally, Justice Scalia was emphatic about individuals having the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of defending their own homes. But he did not give a clear indication at all that individuals had a right to keep and bear arms in any other context whatsoever. In other words, Scalia formulated the right to bear arms as a much more narrow kind of right than First Amendment rights of free speech, religion, and assembly. It was especially ominous for the gun faction that Scalia did not mention hunting, target practice, or any other recreational use for guns. People generally think of these practices as sacrosanct, but Scalia's opinion provides no basis for thinking that they might not be further regulated or banned altogether.
Conclusion. In other words, the Court majority recognized gun ownership as a constitutional right, but also allowed for expansive government regulation of that right. In the future, a more liberal court majority might expand the scope regulation in ways that actually reduce gun ownership.
And that would be a good thing.
To Review Briefly. The Supreme Court held today that District of Columbia laws banning the possession of handguns in one's home were unconstitutional. They also overturned a requirement that any other types of guns in one's home be either fitted with a trigger lock or disassembled.
Specifically, Justice Antonin Scalia held for the majority that the Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" was a right of individuals. The amendment itself is worded in an ambiguous way that also allows the interpretation of rights to bear arms to be associated more with militias. According to the Constitution:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
For the court majority, this language means that the amendment refers to individuals rather than the militias mentioned in the first part of the amendment.
A Muddy Picture. This was the first time that the Supreme Court had held that the Second Amendment applied to individuals. The NRA, President Bush, and John McCain were ecstatic. Here's the NRA:
“This is a great moment in American history. It vindicates individual Americans all over this country who have always known that this is their freedom worth protecting,” declared NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. “Our founding
fathers wrote and intended the Second Amendment to be an individual right. The
Supreme Court has now acknowledged it. The Second Amendment as an individual
right now becomes a real permanent part of American Constitutional law.”
I'm not sure why the NRA is being so triumphalist here. Given that the decision was 5-4, there's a good chance that it won't be "a real permanent part of American Constitutional law."
More precisely, Scalia's opinion goes also goes far to validate government regulation of guns as weapons. The Court majority ordered that Washington, D. C. allow Heller and others to register their handguns according to the city's weapons registration laws. However, it left those registration laws standing. The implication is that the registration of guns is as constitutional as registering cars.
The Court also held that the individual right to bears arms did not extend to "dangerous and unusual weapons" (p 55) which appears to mean that the states or federal government might legitimately regulate or ban items like assault rifles, armor piercing bullets, and perhaps automatic pistols. Of course, there's plenty of room for debate about what constitutes "dangerous and unusual weapons" but Justice Scalia specifically mentions M-16 rifles as weapons that might be legitimately banned.
If people in the anti-gun movement had imagination, they would start drafting legislation that expansively defined "dangerous and unusual weapons." By doing so, they might cripple the gun industry by banning their most profitable products.
Finally, Justice Scalia was emphatic about individuals having the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of defending their own homes. But he did not give a clear indication at all that individuals had a right to keep and bear arms in any other context whatsoever. In other words, Scalia formulated the right to bear arms as a much more narrow kind of right than First Amendment rights of free speech, religion, and assembly. It was especially ominous for the gun faction that Scalia did not mention hunting, target practice, or any other recreational use for guns. People generally think of these practices as sacrosanct, but Scalia's opinion provides no basis for thinking that they might not be further regulated or banned altogether.
Conclusion. In other words, the Court majority recognized gun ownership as a constitutional right, but also allowed for expansive government regulation of that right. In the future, a more liberal court majority might expand the scope regulation in ways that actually reduce gun ownership.
And that would be a good thing.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
In Praise of Political Correctness
Recently reinstated Don Imus got in trouble again for making a comment about Adam "Pacman" Jones of the Dallas Cowboys getting arrested multiple times because he was "black." I'm not sure whether Imus meant that Jones was arrested so many times because cops target black men or that Jones was arrested so often because black guys are such criminals.
But I don't care either. Imust should have been booted out of the talk radio permanently after his "nappy headed hos" comment about the Rutgers Women's basketball team and a lot of other racist nonsense.
But Jimi Izrael of The Root, an African-American blog, begs to differ and argues that "the race police" should lay off Don Imus.
But that gets it exactly wrong. The American army of race police has had a huge role in making it easier for black people to speak out and be heard. One of the effects of stereotyping is that it tends to both keep black people from talking and guarantee that anything they say won't be heard. It's been documented hundreds if not thousands of times that stereotypes of African-Americans as lazy, criminal, unintelligent, angry, and outside the magic circle of beauty are extremely painful and debilitating. In the classic The Alchemy of Race and Rights, Patricia Williams posed racial stereotyping as literally driving her crazy.
If that weren't bad enough, racial stereotyping makes it more difficult for even well-intentioned whites to get free of white supremacy. With the constant circulation of racial jokes and people like Don Imus and Rush Limbaugh on the air, whites always have access to racial put-downs, innuendos, and sneers for every occasion. And it's not only all very clever, it also has a powerful legitimacy because famous and famously cool people are talking that way.
This brings us back to the contribution of political correctness. Because it's the only effective counter-weight to racial stereotyping in American society, the purveyors of "political correctness" have performed invaluable service in making the United States a less racist society. Writers like bell hooks, activists like Al Sharpton, professors, lawyers, and thousands of everyday people do their bit to advance the cause of racial justice by refusing to tolerate racial stereotyping, calling people out who make derogatory comments or tell derogatory jokes, and pushing for remove the worst purveyors of the stereotyping genre--people like Don Imus--from their lucative careers.
Hardly anybody likes politically correct people--I know I don't--but we're all much better off because of them. Because political correctness provides a constant reminder that racial stereotyping is morally wrong, inappropriate, and rude, it helps people--especially white people--to look at African-Americans and their abilities and accomplishments in new ways and hear what African-Americans have to say. Political correctness helped create a cultural space for Oprah Winfrey to become an entertainment dynamo, Michael Jordan to become a hero for everyone, and Barack Obama to become the leading presidential candidate. Political correctness has enhanced free speech because it has helped create conditions under which African-Americans can speak more freely.
In the final analysis, politically correct people deserve much more credit than they get--certainly more than a creep like Don Imus.
But I don't care either. Imust should have been booted out of the talk radio permanently after his "nappy headed hos" comment about the Rutgers Women's basketball team and a lot of other racist nonsense.
But Jimi Izrael of The Root, an African-American blog, begs to differ and argues that "the race police" should lay off Don Imus.
Imus is in the business of talk radio, and his business is caustic wit and irreverence. But if Imus can't order a cup of coffee—black—without a special dispensation, without the need of some kind of interpreter or co-signer, then soon he'll be out of business, along with a lot of other folks. Black folks. Because when you start trying to censor other people, you're next.
But that gets it exactly wrong. The American army of race police has had a huge role in making it easier for black people to speak out and be heard. One of the effects of stereotyping is that it tends to both keep black people from talking and guarantee that anything they say won't be heard. It's been documented hundreds if not thousands of times that stereotypes of African-Americans as lazy, criminal, unintelligent, angry, and outside the magic circle of beauty are extremely painful and debilitating. In the classic The Alchemy of Race and Rights, Patricia Williams posed racial stereotyping as literally driving her crazy.
If that weren't bad enough, racial stereotyping makes it more difficult for even well-intentioned whites to get free of white supremacy. With the constant circulation of racial jokes and people like Don Imus and Rush Limbaugh on the air, whites always have access to racial put-downs, innuendos, and sneers for every occasion. And it's not only all very clever, it also has a powerful legitimacy because famous and famously cool people are talking that way.
This brings us back to the contribution of political correctness. Because it's the only effective counter-weight to racial stereotyping in American society, the purveyors of "political correctness" have performed invaluable service in making the United States a less racist society. Writers like bell hooks, activists like Al Sharpton, professors, lawyers, and thousands of everyday people do their bit to advance the cause of racial justice by refusing to tolerate racial stereotyping, calling people out who make derogatory comments or tell derogatory jokes, and pushing for remove the worst purveyors of the stereotyping genre--people like Don Imus--from their lucative careers.
Hardly anybody likes politically correct people--I know I don't--but we're all much better off because of them. Because political correctness provides a constant reminder that racial stereotyping is morally wrong, inappropriate, and rude, it helps people--especially white people--to look at African-Americans and their abilities and accomplishments in new ways and hear what African-Americans have to say. Political correctness helped create a cultural space for Oprah Winfrey to become an entertainment dynamo, Michael Jordan to become a hero for everyone, and Barack Obama to become the leading presidential candidate. Political correctness has enhanced free speech because it has helped create conditions under which African-Americans can speak more freely.
In the final analysis, politically correct people deserve much more credit than they get--certainly more than a creep like Don Imus.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Which Poll To Believe--the 12 or the 3
There's a couple of new polls out that pose a little bit of a conundrum. LA Times/Bloomberg has Obama ahead by 12 (15 with Nader and Barr added) while Gallup has Obama up by 3 which is within the polls margin of error.
Hopefully, the Obama people are taking Gallup as the real number.
That's not because Gallup is the more accurate survey because there's no way to predetermine the accuracy of the polls for this election. The accuracy of any election poll depends on its ability to project the size of voter turnout among various segments of the population. But nobody knows the extent to which Obama's candidacy is going to bump up turnout among African-Americans or 18-25 year old voters. There's also no way to be sure about how much conservative disenchantment over John McCain is going to depress Republican turnout.
Another monkey wrench is the impact of race on polling. As much as 10% of the electorate is willing to lie to pollsters about their willingness to vote for African-American candidates. That number might be down in this election, but nobody knows whether and to what extent that will be the case in 2008.
In other words, there are so many unknowables that nobody can have much faith in either the LA Times/Bloomberg or Gallup.
That's why the Obama campaign should go by Gallup and assume they have a 3 point lead at most. That will keep Obama's top staff anxious, edgy, and seeking ways to seize the initiative.
Here's what I think the Obama campaign needs to do.
1. Maintain Its Focus. McCain and his people are throwing out a lot of gimmicks, the most recent of which is the idea of a $300 million award for the person who invents the next big leap in the kind of automobile battery technology that would lead to lower fuel consumption. When the Obama campaign responds to these gimmicks, they need to do so in a way that reminds voters of their main themes of bringing people together, lessening the influence of corporate money on politics, and developing a new approach to foreign policy. Don't let McCain get them off track.
2. Overcome the Surrogate Deficit. I'm not sure that McCain asked Bush to do this kind of thing, but Bush started serving as a McCain surrogate as soon as he referred to Obama's foreign policy ideas as "appeasement" and called for more off-shore drilling. McCain has Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and Carly Fiorina talking for him as well. These guys might not be doing McCain any good yet, but Obama needs to recruit some heavy duty surrogates of his own. Tom Daschle and Wesley Clark are both pretty good at going after McCain, but people like Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher just don't have the zing needed to be effective political surrogates. Obama's already started to use Jon Corzine to talk about the economy. Hillary Clinton and Robert Rubin can also be very effective and it wouldn't hurt Obama to recruit a number of fresh new faces--some Barack Obama types--as well.
3. Take the Initiative. As already mentioned, the McCain camp has been able to take the political initiative through its gambits about traveling to Iraq, holding 10 Townhall meetings, and off-shore drilling. The Obama campaign should start thinking of ways to take the initiative themselves, challenge McCain, and force him to respond. One way would be for Obama to challenge McCain to end the Bush administration's efforts to politicize the federal government. The Bush administration is drowning in scandals. The Obama campaign should challenge McCain to demand that the Bush administration allow Karl Rove and Harriet Meiers to testify before Congress. Over the last couple of days, a new Justice Department scandal has emerged over the efforts of Bush appointees to favor conservatives. Obama should challenge McCain to spell out what steps he would take to de-toxify federal agencies if he is elected.
Hopefully, the Obama people are taking Gallup as the real number.
That's not because Gallup is the more accurate survey because there's no way to predetermine the accuracy of the polls for this election. The accuracy of any election poll depends on its ability to project the size of voter turnout among various segments of the population. But nobody knows the extent to which Obama's candidacy is going to bump up turnout among African-Americans or 18-25 year old voters. There's also no way to be sure about how much conservative disenchantment over John McCain is going to depress Republican turnout.
Another monkey wrench is the impact of race on polling. As much as 10% of the electorate is willing to lie to pollsters about their willingness to vote for African-American candidates. That number might be down in this election, but nobody knows whether and to what extent that will be the case in 2008.
In other words, there are so many unknowables that nobody can have much faith in either the LA Times/Bloomberg or Gallup.
That's why the Obama campaign should go by Gallup and assume they have a 3 point lead at most. That will keep Obama's top staff anxious, edgy, and seeking ways to seize the initiative.
Here's what I think the Obama campaign needs to do.
1. Maintain Its Focus. McCain and his people are throwing out a lot of gimmicks, the most recent of which is the idea of a $300 million award for the person who invents the next big leap in the kind of automobile battery technology that would lead to lower fuel consumption. When the Obama campaign responds to these gimmicks, they need to do so in a way that reminds voters of their main themes of bringing people together, lessening the influence of corporate money on politics, and developing a new approach to foreign policy. Don't let McCain get them off track.
2. Overcome the Surrogate Deficit. I'm not sure that McCain asked Bush to do this kind of thing, but Bush started serving as a McCain surrogate as soon as he referred to Obama's foreign policy ideas as "appeasement" and called for more off-shore drilling. McCain has Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and Carly Fiorina talking for him as well. These guys might not be doing McCain any good yet, but Obama needs to recruit some heavy duty surrogates of his own. Tom Daschle and Wesley Clark are both pretty good at going after McCain, but people like Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher just don't have the zing needed to be effective political surrogates. Obama's already started to use Jon Corzine to talk about the economy. Hillary Clinton and Robert Rubin can also be very effective and it wouldn't hurt Obama to recruit a number of fresh new faces--some Barack Obama types--as well.
3. Take the Initiative. As already mentioned, the McCain camp has been able to take the political initiative through its gambits about traveling to Iraq, holding 10 Townhall meetings, and off-shore drilling. The Obama campaign should start thinking of ways to take the initiative themselves, challenge McCain, and force him to respond. One way would be for Obama to challenge McCain to end the Bush administration's efforts to politicize the federal government. The Bush administration is drowning in scandals. The Obama campaign should challenge McCain to demand that the Bush administration allow Karl Rove and Harriet Meiers to testify before Congress. Over the last couple of days, a new Justice Department scandal has emerged over the efforts of Bush appointees to favor conservatives. Obama should challenge McCain to spell out what steps he would take to de-toxify federal agencies if he is elected.
Should Obama and Dobson Keep Jesus in the Closet?
One of the big unknowns of the 2008 presidential campaign was how, when, or if Christianity was going to come up as an object of controversy.
Whether most American voters, especially white voters, are eager to inject religion into the presidential campaign is an open question. The two main centers of Christian politics in the United States are the religious right and African-American churches. If religion does become more central to the campaign, voters might have to learn more about the religious right or African-American Christianity than they want to know.
But the parameters of religion as an issue might emerge in the current manuevering between Barack Obama and Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Initially, the question is about embracing diversity. Obama envisions a multi-cultural America in which many religions exist and everybody sees value in everybody else's religion or lack of religion.
He especially wants leaders on the religious right to acknowledge "the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."
And as an atheist, I appreciate the shout out to non-believers.
Obama also wants figures on the religious right to recognize the beauty, or at least the legitimacy, of various views among Christians as well.
Personally, I agree with Leviticus about shellfish and avoid them at all cost.
To paraphrase a children's story, all this makes James Dobson "grim and grumpy," and he emphasizes the need for conservatives to fight for their views on abortion. If Dobson had been really expansive, he could have mentioned gay marriage here as well.
But does Obama really want people in the United States to take the Sermon on the Mount as a guide. That's because the radicalism of the Sermon on the Mount goes far beyond the Defense Department. It touches the economy, running for President, and managing religious empires as well. In fact, it's hard to see much about American life that isn't condemned by Jesus in one way or another.
Jesus is especially emphatic about condemning wealth. It's not just the camel getting through the eye of the needle. In the Luke version of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims:
Needless to say, this kind of thought condemns people as popular, privileged, and "full" of themselves and this life as Barack Obama and James Dobson to the "woe" of eternal torment rather than the blessings reserved for the poor and suffering.
Conversely, Jesus values the poor, hungry, and grieving because their lives are saturated with suffering and bereft of human happiness. One of the striking dimensions of the biblical narrratives of Jesus is the intensity of his identification with the poor, suffering, sick, and tormented.
The poor, suffering, and persecuted are especially blessed and allowing them to suffer is exactly the same as allowing Jesus to suffer. Taking it upon yourself to relieve your suffering or take revenge is also forbidden. This is what I take to be the logic of Jesus' invocations against resisting evil, striking back at those who strike us, and hating our enemies.
But the injunction to "resist not evil" doesn't allow non-violent protest, bus boycotts, or other kinds of resistance to segregation either. Or escaping from slavery. From the perspective of "Resist not evil," Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King are just as wrong as Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush.
For that matter, it wouldn't allow resistance to abortion either.
As I read the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew and Luke, being a Christian means following Jesus on the road to suffering some form of perseution or martyrdom in the manner of the early saints. As a result, I'm not sure what specific meaning "biblical" Christianity can have in a society like American society that does not persecute people for Christian belief.
Likewise, much of what is involved with government can be summed up by the ideas of working to "resist evil" and helping people be as "blessed" as they can be in this life. These are both things that Jesus explicitly condemns. Perhaps government can legitimately give aid to the poor. Otherwise, it's hard not to think that those who are concerned with government either have to ignore the doctrine of Jesus or set themselves in opposition to Jesus.
Maybe Dobson and Obama should just think of keeping Jesus in the closet for the next five months.
Whether most American voters, especially white voters, are eager to inject religion into the presidential campaign is an open question. The two main centers of Christian politics in the United States are the religious right and African-American churches. If religion does become more central to the campaign, voters might have to learn more about the religious right or African-American Christianity than they want to know.
But the parameters of religion as an issue might emerge in the current manuevering between Barack Obama and Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Initially, the question is about embracing diversity. Obama envisions a multi-cultural America in which many religions exist and everybody sees value in everybody else's religion or lack of religion.
He especially wants leaders on the religious right to acknowledge "the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."
And as an atheist, I appreciate the shout out to non-believers.
Obama also wants figures on the religious right to recognize the beauty, or at least the legitimacy, of various views among Christians as well.
Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles."
Personally, I agree with Leviticus about shellfish and avoid them at all cost.
To paraphrase a children's story, all this makes James Dobson "grim and grumpy," and he emphasizes the need for conservatives to fight for their views on abortion. If Dobson had been really expansive, he could have mentioned gay marriage here as well.
But does Obama really want people in the United States to take the Sermon on the Mount as a guide. That's because the radicalism of the Sermon on the Mount goes far beyond the Defense Department. It touches the economy, running for President, and managing religious empires as well. In fact, it's hard to see much about American life that isn't condemned by Jesus in one way or another.
Jesus is especially emphatic about condemning wealth. It's not just the camel getting through the eye of the needle. In the Luke version of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims:
Blessed be ye poor for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. But woe unto you that are rich! For ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! For ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! For ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets. (Luke 6:20-24—20).What makes the wealthy condemnable isn't so much the money itself, but what money signifies to Jesus--fullness and satisfaction, laughter and happiness, friendship and popularity. Having riches represents the ability to buy things that make one full and it represents the social status that makes others "speak well of you." Generally speaking, wealth represents a promise that "this life" can be blessed. These are all things that Jesus condemns in no uncertain terms and he condemns them throughout the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Needless to say, this kind of thought condemns people as popular, privileged, and "full" of themselves and this life as Barack Obama and James Dobson to the "woe" of eternal torment rather than the blessings reserved for the poor and suffering.
Conversely, Jesus values the poor, hungry, and grieving because their lives are saturated with suffering and bereft of human happiness. One of the striking dimensions of the biblical narrratives of Jesus is the intensity of his identification with the poor, suffering, sick, and tormented.
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
The poor, suffering, and persecuted are especially blessed and allowing them to suffer is exactly the same as allowing Jesus to suffer. Taking it upon yourself to relieve your suffering or take revenge is also forbidden. This is what I take to be the logic of Jesus' invocations against resisting evil, striking back at those who strike us, and hating our enemies.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you (Matthew 5: 38-44)Resist not evil? The logic is there. Don't resist evil because suffering and persecution are blessed and it will ultimately be doubled blessed because they resemble the suffering of Jesus himself. This must be where Obama views the Sermon on the Mount as disallowing the Department of Defense. The invocation to "resist not evil" forbids defending oneself against Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the Soviets, and the Nazis. If you should not defend yourself, why need a Defense Department?
But the injunction to "resist not evil" doesn't allow non-violent protest, bus boycotts, or other kinds of resistance to segregation either. Or escaping from slavery. From the perspective of "Resist not evil," Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King are just as wrong as Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush.
For that matter, it wouldn't allow resistance to abortion either.
As I read the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew and Luke, being a Christian means following Jesus on the road to suffering some form of perseution or martyrdom in the manner of the early saints. As a result, I'm not sure what specific meaning "biblical" Christianity can have in a society like American society that does not persecute people for Christian belief.
Likewise, much of what is involved with government can be summed up by the ideas of working to "resist evil" and helping people be as "blessed" as they can be in this life. These are both things that Jesus explicitly condemns. Perhaps government can legitimately give aid to the poor. Otherwise, it's hard not to think that those who are concerned with government either have to ignore the doctrine of Jesus or set themselves in opposition to Jesus.
Maybe Dobson and Obama should just think of keeping Jesus in the closet for the next five months.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Karl Rove and the Politics of Weenie Macho
One of the interesting cultural dimensions of the 2008 election is the two strands of dominant masculinity represented by John McCain's hot-tempered fighter jock and Barack Obama's androgynous, intellectual cool.
They might seem like opposites, but that isn't quite the case.
A tough-guy who likes to remind everybody how tough he is, John McCain's always bristled against, defied, and ignored the rules and expectations that were set for him. But McCain also had the savvy needed to realize his ambitions despite not toeing the line. McCain not only broke the rules at the Naval Academy, he in fact graduated. McCain might be cynical about his public image, but he's also worked hard enough to promote far-reaching proposals on areas as diverse as campaign finance reform, immigration legislation, and military affairs. In U. S. Senate terms, McCain's both a "work horse" and a "show horse," and he's been effective at both.
Barack Obama hasn't played by the rules either. Not that he had much choice. Being bi-racial, Obama had to feel his way gradually toward an African-American racial identity. Then, Obama was the "first black this" and "the first black that," but had the brains, flexibility, and equanimity needed to succeed in both the African-American world of people like Jeremiah Wright and the white worlds of Harvard Law School, Illinois politics, and the U. S. Senate. Where John McCain refused to play by the usual rules and won, Barack Obama couldn't play by the usual rules and still won.
Cue Karl Rove.
According to ABC's Christiane Klein, Karl Rove talked fairly extensively about Barack Obama's character at a Republican fund-raising breakfast.
In his own way, the same is the case with John McCain.
Talking Points Memo thinks that Rove's image is portraying Obama as an "uppity," overly-ambitious black person. There's something to this. Like other conservative activists, Rove's been searching for a formula for casting aspersions on Obama's blackness while maintaining a "plausible deniability" about racism. Here Rove characterizes Obama as having a "cool arrogance" which I take as meaning that Obama has the "arrogant" presumption to think that he can socialize in "our" white clubs, date "our" white women," and still makes snide comments about "us" white people. Michelle Obama gets lots of criticism for her lack of "gratitude" for all her opportunities. Here, Rove is saying the same thing about Barack.
But Rove's has another layer of mendacity about Democratic politicians like Barack Obama.
Cue Jake Tapper.
In his column on Rove, Tapper asks where Karl Rove would be and poses possibilities such as "the brainy guy with all the sports scores" before getting to his cheeky bottom line that Rove would "be the guy who vandalizes your car and blames it on the kitchen staff."
But it seems more likely that Karl Rove would just be standing against another wall, wishing that he were dating a woman like Obama was dating, or dating any woman at all. Karl Rove's a dough-faced, homely kind of guy who's not comfortable with women (he barked "don't touch me" at Sheryl Crowe once when she touched his arm). Whether it's height, looks, maturity, having the easy confidence that impresses people, or being comfortable with themselves, there's a lot of guys who have a hard time getting ahead in high school, college, business, or the country club. They don't do well with people in general and don't interact comfortably with women in particular. In fact, these kinds of guys do their best at obsessive type things like video games, following professional wrestling, memorizing "all the sports scores," handling their guns . . . or politics.
In this sense, Karl Rove wouldn't just resent Barack Obama as a black guy, he's resent Obama as a guy who is too well-liked, overly comfortable with himself, and comes by his success with such apparent ease. Given that success didn't come nearly as easily for Rove, it ticks him off to think that Obama can just walk into the "club" and take it over.
Rove didn't like McCain either and did his best to destroy McCain's war hero reputation with an orchestrated campaign of innuendo during the 2000 South Carolina primary.
The right-wing and the Bush administration are filled with Rove-type guys--"weenies" for lack of a better word. George W. Bush didn't having the size, coordination, or self-discipline to be an athlete himself and embarrassed his father well into his father's presidency. Rush Limbaugh's idea of a good time with women is sex tourism in the Dominican Republic. And the list goes on. Tom DeLay and Scooter Libby are tiny little guys. So is Alberto Gonzales and Gonzales has a high, reedy voice to boot. Bradley Schlozman of fired prosecutor fame has such a high voice he sounded like he had been sucking helium before his Congressional testimony last year. In fact, one of the interesting dimensions of the fired prosecutor's scandal is that fired prosecutors like Bud Cummins and David Iglesias were conventional "big man on campus" types while the political appointees doing the firing looked like guys who didn't get dates.
How does the weeniness of someone like Karl Rove become a kind of macho politics? Rick Pearlstein claims in Nixonland that one of Richard Nixon's innovations in politics was his way of appealing to the men and women who were outside the magic circles of conventional ideals. The same is the case with Karl Rove and the contemporary right. During the late nineties and the early years of the Bush administration that the right invented a new politics of outsized macho gestures. Lining themselves up with the gestures of old westerns, professional wrestling, violent video games, trash-talking sports heroes, and action or horror movies, the Bush administration started bumping chests, relishing their opportunities to exchange threats with enemies like Kim Il-Sung and Mohammed Ahmadinejad, and calling out America's enemies with lines like "Wanted Dead or Alive" and "Bring it On."
For awhile, the politics of weenie macho succeeded as the right succeeded in making its fantasies of out-sized masculinity into the dominant image of political manhood in the United States. This is what killed Al Gore and John Kerry. Both Gore and Kerry were embodiments of conventional "big man on campus" masculinity. They were popular, relatively secure guys who were ambitious, served in the military, and worked their way up the ladder. With the cooperation of the media, however, the conservative weenies were able to trump the conventional masculinity of Gore and Kerry and make the "natural," "assumed" manliness of the Democrats look artificial, contrived, and effeminate.
But the relentless failure of the Bush administration has delegitimized the politics of weenie macho just as much as it's delegitimized the Republican Party and conservatism. Power is about to shift back to the guys like Obama and McCain who make it look too easy and part of the election is going to be about which form of the dominant masculinity people want to see in the White House.
They might seem like opposites, but that isn't quite the case.
A tough-guy who likes to remind everybody how tough he is, John McCain's always bristled against, defied, and ignored the rules and expectations that were set for him. But McCain also had the savvy needed to realize his ambitions despite not toeing the line. McCain not only broke the rules at the Naval Academy, he in fact graduated. McCain might be cynical about his public image, but he's also worked hard enough to promote far-reaching proposals on areas as diverse as campaign finance reform, immigration legislation, and military affairs. In U. S. Senate terms, McCain's both a "work horse" and a "show horse," and he's been effective at both.
Barack Obama hasn't played by the rules either. Not that he had much choice. Being bi-racial, Obama had to feel his way gradually toward an African-American racial identity. Then, Obama was the "first black this" and "the first black that," but had the brains, flexibility, and equanimity needed to succeed in both the African-American world of people like Jeremiah Wright and the white worlds of Harvard Law School, Illinois politics, and the U. S. Senate. Where John McCain refused to play by the usual rules and won, Barack Obama couldn't play by the usual rules and still won.
Cue Karl Rove.
According to ABC's Christiane Klein, Karl Rove talked fairly extensively about Barack Obama's character at a Republican fund-raising breakfast.
"Even if you never met him, you know this guy . . . He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."Outside the "beautiful date" idea, the image is ridiculous. Judging by Michelle Obama, it's easy to see Obama as dating attractive women. But after that, it's all distortion. The Obamas of the world--the class presidents, big men on campus, the Harvard Law School editors, the stalwarts of the local mega-church-are well-liked by most people, and chat amiably with "everyone who passes by." Comfortable in their own skins, they're comfortable with other people and don't have the resentment level needed for constant snideness.
In his own way, the same is the case with John McCain.
Talking Points Memo thinks that Rove's image is portraying Obama as an "uppity," overly-ambitious black person. There's something to this. Like other conservative activists, Rove's been searching for a formula for casting aspersions on Obama's blackness while maintaining a "plausible deniability" about racism. Here Rove characterizes Obama as having a "cool arrogance" which I take as meaning that Obama has the "arrogant" presumption to think that he can socialize in "our" white clubs, date "our" white women," and still makes snide comments about "us" white people. Michelle Obama gets lots of criticism for her lack of "gratitude" for all her opportunities. Here, Rove is saying the same thing about Barack.
But Rove's has another layer of mendacity about Democratic politicians like Barack Obama.
Cue Jake Tapper.
In his column on Rove, Tapper asks where Karl Rove would be and poses possibilities such as "the brainy guy with all the sports scores" before getting to his cheeky bottom line that Rove would "be the guy who vandalizes your car and blames it on the kitchen staff."
But it seems more likely that Karl Rove would just be standing against another wall, wishing that he were dating a woman like Obama was dating, or dating any woman at all. Karl Rove's a dough-faced, homely kind of guy who's not comfortable with women (he barked "don't touch me" at Sheryl Crowe once when she touched his arm). Whether it's height, looks, maturity, having the easy confidence that impresses people, or being comfortable with themselves, there's a lot of guys who have a hard time getting ahead in high school, college, business, or the country club. They don't do well with people in general and don't interact comfortably with women in particular. In fact, these kinds of guys do their best at obsessive type things like video games, following professional wrestling, memorizing "all the sports scores," handling their guns . . . or politics.
In this sense, Karl Rove wouldn't just resent Barack Obama as a black guy, he's resent Obama as a guy who is too well-liked, overly comfortable with himself, and comes by his success with such apparent ease. Given that success didn't come nearly as easily for Rove, it ticks him off to think that Obama can just walk into the "club" and take it over.
Rove didn't like McCain either and did his best to destroy McCain's war hero reputation with an orchestrated campaign of innuendo during the 2000 South Carolina primary.
The right-wing and the Bush administration are filled with Rove-type guys--"weenies" for lack of a better word. George W. Bush didn't having the size, coordination, or self-discipline to be an athlete himself and embarrassed his father well into his father's presidency. Rush Limbaugh's idea of a good time with women is sex tourism in the Dominican Republic. And the list goes on. Tom DeLay and Scooter Libby are tiny little guys. So is Alberto Gonzales and Gonzales has a high, reedy voice to boot. Bradley Schlozman of fired prosecutor fame has such a high voice he sounded like he had been sucking helium before his Congressional testimony last year. In fact, one of the interesting dimensions of the fired prosecutor's scandal is that fired prosecutors like Bud Cummins and David Iglesias were conventional "big man on campus" types while the political appointees doing the firing looked like guys who didn't get dates.
How does the weeniness of someone like Karl Rove become a kind of macho politics? Rick Pearlstein claims in Nixonland that one of Richard Nixon's innovations in politics was his way of appealing to the men and women who were outside the magic circles of conventional ideals. The same is the case with Karl Rove and the contemporary right. During the late nineties and the early years of the Bush administration that the right invented a new politics of outsized macho gestures. Lining themselves up with the gestures of old westerns, professional wrestling, violent video games, trash-talking sports heroes, and action or horror movies, the Bush administration started bumping chests, relishing their opportunities to exchange threats with enemies like Kim Il-Sung and Mohammed Ahmadinejad, and calling out America's enemies with lines like "Wanted Dead or Alive" and "Bring it On."
For awhile, the politics of weenie macho succeeded as the right succeeded in making its fantasies of out-sized masculinity into the dominant image of political manhood in the United States. This is what killed Al Gore and John Kerry. Both Gore and Kerry were embodiments of conventional "big man on campus" masculinity. They were popular, relatively secure guys who were ambitious, served in the military, and worked their way up the ladder. With the cooperation of the media, however, the conservative weenies were able to trump the conventional masculinity of Gore and Kerry and make the "natural," "assumed" manliness of the Democrats look artificial, contrived, and effeminate.
But the relentless failure of the Bush administration has delegitimized the politics of weenie macho just as much as it's delegitimized the Republican Party and conservatism. Power is about to shift back to the guys like Obama and McCain who make it look too easy and part of the election is going to be about which form of the dominant masculinity people want to see in the White House.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Bummer: George Carlin's Dead
I just saw an announcement of the death of George Carlin due to heart failure. That's too bad. I thought I was going to die from heart failure once back in 1999 because I was laughing so hard at one of Carlin's HBO specials.
Luckily for Carlin and his fans, his death won't be greeted with the endless media blathering that accompanied the death of Tim Russert.
Luckily for Carlin and his fans, his death won't be greeted with the endless media blathering that accompanied the death of Tim Russert.
The Unofficial John McCain Campaign Song
One of my ideas for the campaign is to make suggestions about how John McCain can goof his campaign as badly as George McGovern blew it in 1972.
After all, if McCain's going to lose, he might as well lose big time.
So far, my suggestions have been limited to nominating really bad vice-presidential candidates like Karl Rove or Rudy Giuliani.
Today, I'd like to propose a tune that John could adopt as his campaign song. It's bold. It's brash. It also has the kind of not-so-deeply-embedded drug message that only John McCain would have the guts to adopt.
The John McCain Campaign Song
To the tune of Casey Jones (with major apologies to the Grateful Dead and their fans)
Flying that plane, high on McCain,
Hey Big John, you’d better watch your speed.
Flip flops ahead, no money behind,
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
Running for office takes all his time,
Straight Talk Express leaves at quarter to nine,
Flying to Baghdad, St. Louis too
At a quarter to ten you know he’s flying again.
Flying that plane, high on McCain,
Hey Big John, you’d better watch your speed.
Recession ahead, failed war behind,
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
Trouble ahead, there's crowded air space,
Deregulation ain't always so safe,
Pilots are Sleeping, Green Airline 02 is
in the wrong quadrant, now he's heading for you.
Flying that plane, high on McCain,
Hey Big John, you’d better watch your speed.
Obama’s ahead, bad poll numbers behind,
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
Trouble with you is the trouble with me,
Big John’s flying but he still don’t see.
Too many townhalls, you know its the end,
John's down in a cornfield, straight-talkin' while dead
Flying that plane, high on McCain,
Hey Big John, you’d better watch your speed.
Flip flops ahead, no money behind,
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
After all, if McCain's going to lose, he might as well lose big time.
So far, my suggestions have been limited to nominating really bad vice-presidential candidates like Karl Rove or Rudy Giuliani.
Today, I'd like to propose a tune that John could adopt as his campaign song. It's bold. It's brash. It also has the kind of not-so-deeply-embedded drug message that only John McCain would have the guts to adopt.
The John McCain Campaign Song
To the tune of Casey Jones (with major apologies to the Grateful Dead and their fans)
Flying that plane, high on McCain,
Hey Big John, you’d better watch your speed.
Flip flops ahead, no money behind,
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
Running for office takes all his time,
Straight Talk Express leaves at quarter to nine,
Flying to Baghdad, St. Louis too
At a quarter to ten you know he’s flying again.
Flying that plane, high on McCain,
Hey Big John, you’d better watch your speed.
Recession ahead, failed war behind,
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
Trouble ahead, there's crowded air space,
Deregulation ain't always so safe,
Pilots are Sleeping, Green Airline 02 is
in the wrong quadrant, now he's heading for you.
Flying that plane, high on McCain,
Hey Big John, you’d better watch your speed.
Obama’s ahead, bad poll numbers behind,
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
Trouble with you is the trouble with me,
Big John’s flying but he still don’t see.
Too many townhalls, you know its the end,
John's down in a cornfield, straight-talkin' while dead
Flying that plane, high on McCain,
Hey Big John, you’d better watch your speed.
Flip flops ahead, no money behind,
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
And you know that notion just crossed his mind.
McCain: It Is What It Is
This stage of the John McCain campaign is taking shape in interesting ways. Here are some key themes.
McCain: The Gimmicks. Taking the initiative is important in any contest whether it's sports, war, or politics. John McCain has been able to seize the initiative in not insignificant ways. First, he made news by challenging Barack Obama to travel to Iraq with him and set up a little countdown of the number of days since Obama has visited Iraq. McCain then made a little more news by challenging Obama to hold a series of ten weekly town hall meetings. It's all kind of gimmicky, but McCain is forcing Obama to respond to him rather than attack.
Expect more such gimmicks in the future.
McCain: The Schizophrenia. Republican insiders have been complaining to the media about McCain's inability to settle on a particular theme. Last week, McCain trumpeted that he had stood up to George Bush on global warming one day, then went out and called for more off-shore drilling the next. It looked particularly bad to insiders that Bush then rushed out to endorse McCain's drilling ideas.
This might sound inconsistent. It might sound schizophrenic, and it might sound like the kind of unprincipled flip-flopping that killed John Kerry.
But the McCain campaign needs to be brazenly inconsistent if McCain hopes to win. It all might sound schizophrenic, but "it is what it is."
McCain: The Man. Actually, the McCain campaign is pursuing the consistent theme that John McCain is a highly principled man and proven leader who will do what's right whatever other people think. To promote this image of McCain the Man, the McCain campaign relies heavily on McCain's image as a war hero, his reputation for having defied George Bush in 2000, and his affinity for Gen. Petraeus. It helps McCain that the mainstream media buys into this view and portrays McCain as a principled man who will be a strong leader in office even if he has to contradict himself and pander to get elected. Call it "principles pandering."
McCain: The Danger. But this is where McCain's gimmicks and schizoid inconsistency might wreck his campaign altogether. McCain's campaign is doomed if his pandering backfires in a way that sticks in the public imagination as their image of McCain the man.
This is essentially what happened to Rudy Giuliani. After months of dodging bullets on his arrogance and corrupt associations, Giuliani's front-running campaign fell completely apart when it was revealed that New York City police had provided security for his mistress. After that, it was impossible for opponents, the media, voters, or anyone else to take Giuliani seriously.
The same thing could easily happen to John McCain if he's not careful with strategies that are ultimately pretty risky.
McCain: The Gimmicks. Taking the initiative is important in any contest whether it's sports, war, or politics. John McCain has been able to seize the initiative in not insignificant ways. First, he made news by challenging Barack Obama to travel to Iraq with him and set up a little countdown of the number of days since Obama has visited Iraq. McCain then made a little more news by challenging Obama to hold a series of ten weekly town hall meetings. It's all kind of gimmicky, but McCain is forcing Obama to respond to him rather than attack.
Expect more such gimmicks in the future.
McCain: The Schizophrenia. Republican insiders have been complaining to the media about McCain's inability to settle on a particular theme. Last week, McCain trumpeted that he had stood up to George Bush on global warming one day, then went out and called for more off-shore drilling the next. It looked particularly bad to insiders that Bush then rushed out to endorse McCain's drilling ideas.
"I'm baffled that the McCain guys have somehow managed to take a guy who practically had 'reform' tattooed to his forehead and turned him into the bastion of the status quo," said one Republican strategist, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity.The conflicting themes sound like political schizophrenia, but we'll probably be seeing a lot of this from the McCain campaign. Because Bush, Republicans, and conservatism are unpopular, McCain needs to convince voters an independent maverick willing to stand up to to Bush. But it's just as important for McCain to attack Obama as well. Given that McCain is hardly going to attack Obama from the left, he needs to push standard conservative views on the few issues where such views might be popular. Given $4.00 gas, there's a decent chance that McCain might be able to score some points by calling for more drilling. So he has to go for it.
This might sound inconsistent. It might sound schizophrenic, and it might sound like the kind of unprincipled flip-flopping that killed John Kerry.
But the McCain campaign needs to be brazenly inconsistent if McCain hopes to win. It all might sound schizophrenic, but "it is what it is."
McCain: The Man. Actually, the McCain campaign is pursuing the consistent theme that John McCain is a highly principled man and proven leader who will do what's right whatever other people think. To promote this image of McCain the Man, the McCain campaign relies heavily on McCain's image as a war hero, his reputation for having defied George Bush in 2000, and his affinity for Gen. Petraeus. It helps McCain that the mainstream media buys into this view and portrays McCain as a principled man who will be a strong leader in office even if he has to contradict himself and pander to get elected. Call it "principles pandering."
McCain: The Danger. But this is where McCain's gimmicks and schizoid inconsistency might wreck his campaign altogether. McCain's campaign is doomed if his pandering backfires in a way that sticks in the public imagination as their image of McCain the man.
This is essentially what happened to Rudy Giuliani. After months of dodging bullets on his arrogance and corrupt associations, Giuliani's front-running campaign fell completely apart when it was revealed that New York City police had provided security for his mistress. After that, it was impossible for opponents, the media, voters, or anyone else to take Giuliani seriously.
The same thing could easily happen to John McCain if he's not careful with strategies that are ultimately pretty risky.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
