Hey GOP! Worry about Texas!

Kimberley Strassel writes for the Wall Street Journal that Republicans need to figure out ways to win in the Northeast.

This is different from a message of outreach, which the party also desperately needs, but is accomplished primarily in the field. It involves members explaining to younger constituents why old-fashioned principles of choice and freedom still work for modern problems like health care. It means transmitting a welcome to those attracted to even one part of the conservative philosophy --free markets, strong national security, social values -- even if not all. It requires recruiting candidates who aren't held to stiff litmus tests, but who have a shot of winning in the Northeast, say, or Illinois.

But the Republicans need to worry about the basics first.

There's a great deal of commentary about the Republican Party becoming mostly a southern, Plains, and Rocky Mountains regional party.

But they're slipping in the South and on the Great Plains as well.

Obama won Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida and looked to have a shot in Georgia before fading. Some core Confederate states like South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana are safe. But the Republicans are much more likely to lose more of the South than they are to regain any footing in the Northeast or Midwest. If the Republicans are smart, they'll think first about protecting their dominant but slipping position in Texas and Georgia and maintaining their competitive status in Florida and North Carolina.

Better hold off on those dreams of reconquering the Northeast. There's a marker on Cemetery Ridge in Gettysburg, PA that marks the "high water mark" of the Confederacy.

But right now, the Republicans are barely putting up a fight in Virginia, let alone Pennsylvania.

The same is the story in the Plains and Mountains. The Republicans are safe in Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho, and Kansas, but Obama won Montana and Colorado, came very close in Missouri, took an electoral vote in Nebraska, and was competitive in North Dakota and even Alaska for awhile.

The Republicans need to worry first about maintaining their position in Missouri and remaining competitive in Colorado and Montana before they think too much about flipping states on the West Coast.

The Arlen Specter defection highlights just how bad things are for the Republicans now. But the Republicans are like General Motors. Things are likely to get worse and the Republicans need to focus on protecting what they still have before they don't have anything at all.

Escape from Michele Bachmann: Republicans Launch New Group

It sounds like the Republicans are starting to try to pull themselves off the bottom.

Generally, people in government call for a commission when things go really bad and they don't know what to do about it. One way to tell that things are going horribly for the Republicans is that they're launching a "commission-like" entity entitled the National Council for a New America as an effort to re-brand the Republican Party.

Here's the official gobbledygook that Eric Cantor's office supplied to the Washington Post.

"The NCNA [National Council for a New America] will bring together citizens from across the country to begin a dialogue with the American people through a series of forums, town halls, and an online effort that will engage people in a discussion to meet our common challenges and build a stronger country through common-sense ideas," the letter says. "The NCNA will be a dynamic, forward-looking organization that will amplify the common-sense and wisdom of our fellow citizens through a grassroots dialogue with Republican leaders."

The letter says the group is not "a Republican-only forum." But GOP sources said House Minority Whip Eric Cantor played a top role in creating it. The group seems aimed at offering a conservative alternative at time when Democrats are lambasting the Republicans as the "Party of No" that simply attacks President Obama without offering policy ideas of its own. Its leadership does not include any Democrats.

"We do this not just to offer an alternative point of view or to bedisagreeable," the group's letter says. "Instead, we want to ask the American people what their hopes and dreams are. Since January, the President and the Democratic Majority in Congress have - rightfully so - put forward their plan for the future, now we must listen, learn and lead through an honest, open conversation with the American people that will result in building policy proposals that will yield the best results for our nation's long-term success."

Let me translate this into better political English. Republican political heavyweights have lost control over the Republican Party apparatus, the Republican Party brand, and the Republican Party message. Instead of Republican political, lobbying, and think tank elites disseminating a relatively unified Republican message, the heavyweights see a motley collection of has-beens, right-wing media types, political relatives, and lightweights out there killing the Republican Party with random chatter. Right now, the three most talked about Republicans are Michael Steele, Michele Bachmann, and Glenn Beck and that's just killing the Republican Party.

What the National Council for a New America (NCNA) represents is an attempt by the political leadership to re-assert control over the Republican message. The NCNA is going to send out big names like John McCain, Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, and Eric Cantor to talk about Republican views on energy, health care, and foreign policy in a way that seems less self-indulgent and stupid than Michele Bachmann. In this way, the leadership hopes to cut through all the "conservatives in crisis" chatter and re-establish themselves as the primary spokespeople for the Republican Party. The leadership also hopes to showcase potential Republican presidential candidates like Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and Bobby Jindal as well as "elder statesmen" like John McCain. If the Republicans hope to have a credible presidential campaign in 2012, they know they will have to start undoing the damage of the last nine years now.

Don't be surprised if Michael Steele isn't locked in a hotel room somewhere for the first NCNA event next Saturday in Virginia.

What are the chances of the NCNA initiative working? Like most commissions, the odds are something close to zero that they'll any impact. In the case of the Republican Party, the inmates really have seized the asylum and I seriously doubt that party elites are in position to regain control. Far from being a sign of rebirth, the NCNA looks more like evidence of how badly the Republicans are sinking.

Olympia Snowe Wrong--GOP Reaching for Diversity

In response to Arlen Specter switching from the Republicans to the Democrats, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe wrote an op-ed for the New York Times criticizing the Republican Party for its lack of diversity:

When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn from the devaluation of diversity within the party that contributed to his defection . . .

In that same vein, I am reminded of a briefing by a prominent Republican pollster after the 2004 election. He was asked what voter groups Republicans might be able to win over. He responded: women in general, married women with children, Hispanics, the middle class in general, and independents.

How well have we done as a party with these groups? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious from the results of the last two elections. We should be reaching out to these
segments of our population — not de facto ceding them to the opposing party.

The problem with Snowe's analysis is that thinking of diversity in such a conventional manner causes her to miss the current dynamic in the Republican Party. Generally, Americans think of diversity in terms of a specific language of race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. In race, white is the norm and African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans are diversity. With gender, it's a male "norm" and female "diversity." In terms of sexual orientation, heterosexuals are the norm and gay men and lesbians are diversity and middle-class people are the norm and poor people the diversity. This kind of social language is ground into people through all kinds of the media and public education. By the time American students start attending colleges like the one I teach at, most of them have adopted some version of diversity language as a second nature.

This kind of view is continuously and rightly criticized for defining the "norm" as white, male, heterosexual, and middle-class. But it's also hard to get away from. Like every college professor I know, I criticize diversity language and still end up relying on it all the same.

But the conventional language of diversity clearly does not apply to the current situation in the Republican Party. The Republican Party is becoming more diverse despite not fitting within contemporary diversity frameworks. I don't remember seeing a lot of African-Americans or Hispanics among the crowds at the recent Tea Party events. But the Tea Parties were still very diverse affairs with one world conspiracy theorists, Ayn Randians, survivalists, laissez faire purists, anti-immigration activists, libertarians, white racists, the far reaches of the anti-abortion right, and other kinds of groups in attendance. All these strands of white, right-wing sentiment are highly distinct in relation to each other as well as "mainstream" politics. The people who hold these views also highly conscious of that distinctiveness and they also have been very marginalized in American politics and American society to a certain extent. What's happening within the post-Bush Republicans is that Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and Fox News are reaching out to these constituencies and bringing them into the Republican Party orbit. Unlike Olympia Snowe, I think they're making the Republican Party a significantly more diverse party in the process.

Still, reaching out to these groups is a strategy for losing lots of elections and declining as a party. In fact, the conventional language of diversity locates "diversity" in much larger groups than the groups to which the Republicans are directing their appeals. Women are 52% of the population and vote at higher rates than males. Independents constitute almost 30% percent of the voting public. Hispanics and African-Americans are both about 13% of the population. To the contrary, the strands of right-wing thought represented at the Tea Party rallies are much smaller populations. In fact, I doubt that all the groups who appeared at the Tea Party rallies would equal the Jewish or Muslim populations at about 3%.

The Republican Party is not shrinking because it's not trying to broaden its appeal, it's shrinking because it's broadening it's appeal to such small groups. In the wake of their 2006 and 2008 defeats, the Republicans have reaffirmed their commitment to conservative orthodoxy and are seeking growth by integrating smaller, heretofore marginalized categories of right-wingers into the party apparatus. In other words, they're more committed to the identity politics of the right than winning elections in any but the safest Republican areas.

If Olympia Snowe is going to keep thinking in terms of the conventional discourse of "diversity," she's either going to have to accept increasing marginalization within the Republican Party or leave the party.

Missed the Obama Event Tonight

I've never really liked politicians in action that much--must be the political scientist hostility to "politics" in me. So I tend to avoid Obama events even though I think he's doing an excellent job as president.

Ouch! Economy Shrinks by 6.1%

Suddenly, those "green shoots" and "glimmers of hope" don't look so promising. The Commerce Department reports today that the economy shrank by 6.1% in the first quarter. That's a lot worse than most economists expected. Unemployment is expected to top 10% by the end of the year.

Oops! Hundreds Sick from Swine Flu in NYC

I've always been a kind of pandemic skeptic and had hoped that the swine flu outbreak would be as limited as the avian flu outbreak several years ago.

That seems unlikely now though.

There's a report out of New York City that "many hundreds of schoolchildren" are sick with swine flu and reports of people in several countries who got sick as a result of traveling to Mexico.

Swine flu is not exactly the bubonic plague.

All the cases in New York have been pretty mild.

But it seems real.

Pressure Up Slightly on Maine Twins

Now that Arlen Specter has switched to the Democrats, the pressure is going to increase slightly on Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe to do the same.

Collins and Snow are a little more liberal than Specter and have been rated somewhat higher on liberalism scales and lower on conservativism scales than the new Pennsylvania Democrat.

Ranking by American Civil Liberties Union: Collins: 71, Snowe: 86, Specter: 57.
Ranking by American Conservative Union: Collins: 36, Snowe: 28, Specter: 40.

Arlen Specter was barely enough on the liberal side of absolute moderation to justify his claim that the Republican Party had moved away from him. Collins and Snowe are both significantly on the liberal side and least as liberal as Democrats like Ben Nelson (who scores only 60% on the ACLU scale) or Mary Landrieu (at 75%).

Now that Specter is moving to the Democrats, the pressure will increase somewhat on Collins and Snowe to either follow the party line or do the same. From the conservative point of view, the Republican Party doesn't have anything to lose by pressuring the Maine senators to leave because they've already lost the filibuster and Snowe and Collins wouldn't have supported that many filibusters anyway. Actually, I've read somewhere that Collins (an acquaintance of mine from St. Lawrence University) is voting more than 50% with the Obama administration. Maine Republicans don't seem to be as conservative as Pennsylvania Republicans, but Snowe and Collins could find themselves under pressure to vote with the highly conservative Republican caucus as a matter of political identity.

This isn't to say that either Collins or Snowe is ready to switch parties. But they may find themselves such pariahs within the Republican Party that they'll eventually decide to make the change.

Time to Read Those Torture Memos

Mrs. RSI is leaving this morning for two days in Lexington. So, I'll have our daughters by myself. Hmm, it's probably a good time to finish reading those torture memos.

No Need to De-Nuke Iran

I like the last line of this rant from right-wing extremist columnist Mark Steyn about "post-exceptional America":

You'll recall that, in a gimmick entirely emblematic of post-exceptional America, Hillary Clinton gave the Russians a (mistranslated) "Reset" button. The button has certainly been "reset" – to Sept. 10, to a legalistic rear-view-mirror approach to the "war on terror," in which investigating Bush officials will consume far more time and effort than de-nuking Iran.

Given that Iran doesn't have any nukes, "de-nuking Iran" won't take any effort. Hopefully, we won't be creating a missile defense system to protect us against Iran's non-existent nukes either.

Swing Flu and Industrial Hog Farming?

We have so much to thank conservatives for. I just saw an article tracing the current outbreak of swine flu to the hog factory operations of Smithfield Foods in Mexico.

How does this connect to conservatives? One of the interesting dimensions of the problem is the reluctance of government officials in either Mexico or the U. S. to deal with the problems caused by factory farms. Local people in both countries complain about respiratory illnesses connected to manure lagoons on hog farms. But governments are reluctant to address the issue.

Like the global recession, swine flu might be a consequence of deregulation. Hopefully, the health authorities will be able to limit the spread and virulence of the disease.

With only 21% of the country identifying themselves as Republicans, it appears that conservatism is no longer as virulent as before.

Maybe that would be "Green" Nuclear Power

Today on the GOP radio broadcast, Republican senator from Tennessee LAMAR!! Alexander proposed building 100 nuclear power plants as an answer to the energy crisis.

But, given the degrading of the regulatory apparatus over the last 30 years, it's hard to believe that the federal government can adequately regulate the nuclear power plants we already have.

Let alone a hundred more!

How Far Are Conservatives from Being Terrorists?

My good friends at the right-wing magazine Human Events sent me an e-mail with the title "FIRE JANET NAPOLITANO: CONSERVATIVES NOT TERRORISTS."

Of course, this refers to the recent report on right-wing threats by the Department of Homeland Security. As vague and allusive as the report was, it stuck to known extremist configurations like the Klan, Nazis, skinheads, anti-abortion assassins, and the like and made nothing that could be reasonably construed as a reference to everyday conservatives.

Not that this stopped the right-wing media from accusing them of doing so.

But all's fair.

Now, the question is how close the various grades of conservatism actually are to right-wing extremism.

And the answer is that they've gotten closer.

Political conservatism is best thought of as a spectrum that is defined on its left by John McCain and on its right by Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck. McCain is the Republican version of a neo-liberal Democrat. Neo-liberals like Joe Lieberman may be Democratic loyalists, but they view liberal Democrats as their main opponents and are open to Republican ideas. Conversely, John McCain is a Republican loyalist who has pushed Democratic good-government ideas like regulating tobacco and has often viewed the conservative Republican establishment as his main political opponent.

The right edge of conservativism used to be occupied by Tom DeLay, James Dobson, and Rush Limbaugh--conservatives who defined themselves in terms of relentlessly attacking liberalism and promoting an aggressive foreign policy, cutting domestic programs, and the goals of the religious right. The Bush administration adhered to this kind of hard conservative agenda to the extent that they thought politically feasible and this is one of the reasons why Dick Cheney was a popular guest on the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity programs.

But political conservatism has shifted farther to the right since the election of Barack Obama as president. What Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck have done is to integrate themes like the "one world currency," "re-education camps," and social breakdown into their everyday political discourse. These are militia, survivalist, and neo-Nazi ideas that are the province of figures like Alex Jones (a talk radio host who has raised money to rebuild David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound outside Waco).

To my knowledge, Alex Jones isn't involved in any "right-wing extremist" activities. But the fact that he uses and promotes right-wing extremist ideas means that he is only one degree of separation away from the kind of right-winger who could be a terrorist threat.

The fact that Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Newsmax, Human Events, and other outlets are using the same ideas within the dominant political/media apparatus gives them a second degree of separation from right-wing terrorism.

Despite his racism, homophobia, and general repulsiveness, Rush Limbaugh has been so far from the discourse of the "really extreme right" that one could reasonably speak of a "wall of separation" between political conservatism and right-wing extremism.

But no more.

With the new prominence of the "extreme right" within the Republican Party and its media apparatus, the separation between political conservatism and domestic terrorism is not nearly as solid as it used to be.

The separation is still there, but one wonders for how long.

GOP Plot to Promote Hugo Chavez Scores Early Success

Yesterday, Red State Impressions revealed the Republican plan to nominate Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez as their presidential candidate in 2012. Having noticed the enhanced popularity of socialism after the GOP criticized Barack Obama as a socialist, the Republicans now seek to make Hugo Chavez more popular by condemning Obama for shaking his hand. If they condemn Chavez often enough, the Republicans believe they can make him a viable presidential candidate. That way, the GOP won't have to suffer the humiliating defeat that would occur if they nominated Romney, Gingrich, or Sarah Palin.

Today, Republicans saw the first signs of progress with their plan.

According to Chris Bowers of Open Left, Hugh Chavez' nation of Venezuela is now more popular than the Republican Party, with Venezuela being rated positively by 42% and the Republicans by 39% (actually a high rating for the Republicans).

This is where the brilliance of Republican planners and consultants can be seen. With admirable objectivity, top Republicans now recognize that the Republican Party is repugnant to most of the American public and that actual Republican leaders like Sarah Palin are unlikely to become popular even if they don't have all the personal problems plaguing Palin.

So they've decided that the only way to be competitive is to nominate someone who has absolutely no connection with the Republican Party.

And who has less connection with the Republicans than a Latin American Marxist like Chavez.

But making Chavez more popular than the Republican Party is only the first step in the plan to nominate Chavez. Now the Republicans need to work on making Chavez as popular as Barack Obama himself.

No doubt, we'll very soon see Republican spokesmen comparing Chavez to Adolf Hitler.

If being criticized by the Republicans is the key to political popularity, this kind of scorching Republican criticism should boost Chavez' ratings even further.

I just hope it doesn't boost Hitler's ratings in the process.

Sympathy for Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter has a column out today on the death of her mother, Nell Husbands Martin Coulter. My sympathies to Ms. Coulter on the occasion.

Apart from recognizing the obvious fact that she's a gifted writer, I don't have a ton of positive things to say about Ann Coulter.

That's the price of being on the other side of the political fence.

But I'm glad Coulter remembers her mother for continually telling her "what a wonderful, precious daughter I was."

Everyone should have these kinds of memories.

The Republican Plan to Nominate Hugo Chavez for President

For those readers who thought the Republicans were clueless, you're about to see the error of your ways.

They have a plan for winning the 2012 presidential election.

They're going to nominate Hugo Chavez!!

The first step in the insidious plot unfolded today when Iowa Republican Steve King went on C-Span to claim that Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez had similar economic policies.

"But something that comes to mind when I see this image, too, is here are two world leaders that have both, within the last month, nationalized huge private-sector companies," said King. "In the case of President Obama, General Motors and Chrysler, at least in effect if not in actuality, and moved it down that path, when he fired the CEO of General Motors, and when he ordered that Chrysler merge with Fiat."

One might think that King's purpose was to make President Obama less popular by claiming that he was like the demonized Venezuelan leader.

But NO! Actually, the idea is to make Chavez more popular.

Aware that socialism became much more popular after the Republicans spent six months calling Obama a socialist, the GOP leadership has secretly decided to pump up approval ratings for Hugo Chavez by claiming that Obama is "just another Chavez."

Top Republicans consultants know that the American public has developed a strong conviction that anything the Republicans criticize must be good. As a result, they calculate that a year of Republican attacks will boost Chavez' approval ratings up to 50% and give the Venezuelan president a better chance of beating Obama than any of the leading Republican contenders. Republican planners don't worry about the constitutional requirement that presidents be natural-born citizens of the United States. Given that their conviction that Obama became president despite being a citizen of Kenya, Republicans believe that Hugo Chavez certainly would be eligible to run.

And that Chavez could win.

So, the next time you see a Republican criticize Chavez, just remember that they want him to be your next president.

If Destroying the Republican Party Makes You a Great President . . .

I was surprised to see an item on the Morehead State University web page on some recent writing by IRAPP professor and future colleague Mike Hail:

“Overall, President Bush was a very good president. He demonstrated the vision and character that define executive leadership,” said Dr. Hail. “Bush had both success and failure with his policy agenda. However, history will record George W. Bush as one of our greatest presidents and, in time, there will be a collective acknowledgement of his superb leadership in a time of war, international pressure, and economic challenge.”

Of course, all of this is nonsense. At best, George W. Bush will be rated in the second-lowest tier of presidents and his historical BFF's (best friends forever) will be Martin Van Buren, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Franklin Pierce, and Richard Nixon. However, the current deep recession could turn into a depression and Iraq could still end up looking a lot more like Somalia and Pakistan than a stable democracy. If these things happen, Bush will be closely associated with helpless figures like Warren Harding, James Buchanan, and Herbert Hoover at the bottom of presidential rankings.

There's also a wild card that needs to be played out. The main thrust of my blogging over the last several weeks is that George Bush could be the last Republican president this country ever sees. In that case, future historians will be evaluating the role of the Bush administration in destroying a major political party and permanently marginalizing a political conservatism that was ascendant before he took office. It could very well be that killing the Republican Party will force historians and political scientists to view George Bush as a uniquely failed president.

Of course, it really is hard to beat Buchanan for ineptitude. So Bush probably won't be seen as the worst president in American history--just the biggest failure.

Not So Much Fun for Sir Allen

Jon Stewart made soon-to-be-indicted financier Allen Stanford famous for saying that he had "fun" being a billionaire.

But it's not so much fun anymore now that his main reputation is for running a multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme.

Here's Sir Allen fantasizing about throttling a New York Times reporter.

Tears welling in his eyes, Mr. Stanford came out swinging in an interview Monday in his lawyer's office. He accused the Securities and Exchange Commission of squandering the assets of his financial companies and engaging in "Gestapo tactics", [TPMmuckraker ed note: that echoes a line DeGuerin first tried out on us] asserted the court-appointed receiver was "not up to the job" and accused the media of making him into a "caricature" of a maverick, unruly Texan who threw money around the Caribbean.

"It's devastated me to the core of my soul," Mr. Stanford said, "to see over 25 years of blood, sweat and tears -- my life's work -- to be taken from me."

He said the credit cards in his wallet were worthless and he did not even have money to pay his lawyer.

"It's debilitating, devastating, horrific," he said, wearing a double-breasted blue suit and conservative tie, his legs moving constantly. "But I am going to fight for my name and I am going to win."

The anger of the man came close to boiling over when he told a photographer taking his picture that the clicks of the camera shutter made his respond like "Pavlov's dog." He added, "I start to get an itch to grab somebody by the throat." Later in the interview, he asked the photographer if he wanted to take a picture of him strangling the reporter doing the interview.

It just broke my heart to read that.

Jesus Weighs In on Hugo Chavez Controversy

The United States is one of the few advanced countries where Jesus means something. Few people stop and consider the importance of Jesus in American life because we're saturated with things Jesus. There's a massive and diverse set of organizations that promote Christianity ranging from national church bureaucracies, television networks, big voluntary organizations like the Salvation Army, and local churches in your home town and mine. Christian social and political views are such a powerful force in American life that secular organizations routinely give into various kinds of pressure to promote Christianity. The fact that the specific influence of religious conservatives has dipped recently doesn't mean that Christianity is going away. If anything the election of Barack Obama as president means that African-American Christianity might become more nationally prominent and influential than it used to be.

Of course, Jesus doesn't have much to say about many of the controversies surrounding the functioning of government. Even though Jesus condemned wealthy people ("But woe to you who are rich/for you have received your consolation"--Luke 6:24), it's tough to figure out what Jesus would have to say about the bank bailout, the federal deficit, or other financial issues. Jesus liked weddings and alcohol, but it would be hard to apply his various sayings to issues like marijuana legalization, pornography, abortion rights, or gay rights.

But there are some issues where Jesus speaks clearly, authoritatively, and with some depth.

And one of those issues is how to treat one's enemies.

The question of how to treat your enemies has come up in relation to President Obama's conversation with Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the America's last weekend. Despite the fact that Chavez is a well-known opponent of American interests, Obama shook hands with the Venezuelan president, smiled while conversing briefly, and accepted a book from him. It was all very polite, cordial, even friendly in an official kind of way. Obama had let it be known during his campaign that he would treat American opponents very differently from George Bush and his attitude toward Hugo Chavez seemed to fulfill that relatively minor campaign promise.

Nevertheless, President Obama caught a lot of criticism from the Republicans concerning his general friendliness to the Venezuelan leader. Newt Gingrich was especially harsh in his criticism.

Gingrich argued, for example, that President Obama's decision to shake hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americans will be seen as proof that Chavez "is legitimate . . . ."

Meredith Vieira followed by asking about the value in mending U.S. relationships with other world leaders. Gingrich responded, "How do you mend relationships with somebody who hates your country? Who actively calls for the destruction of your country? And who wants to undermine you?" When Vieira noted U.S. talks in the past with Russia and China, Gingrich said, "We didn't rush over, smile, and greet Russian dictators."

Newt Gingrich has been heavily criticized by the Daily Kos and other sources for ignoring the fact that American presidents did "rush over, smile, and greet Russian dictators."

And, of course, the critics are right.

But I want to focus on the fact that Gingrich is a recent convert to Catholicism and could thus be expected to be particularly mindful as what Jesus has to say about how to treat your enemies.

According to Matthew 5:43-48 (New Oxford Annotated Bible):

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you great only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

But what if your enemies are really bad? Jesus actually gets more insistent about a person's obligations to those who are genuinely evil. He says in Matthew 5:38 "Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also."

The King James version is even more plain about the matter: "Resist not evil."

From the perspective of Jesus then, Barack Obama probably did not do enough to make Hugo Chavez his friend. Smiling, shaking hands, and accepting a gift from Chavez are all well and good, but Jesus demands that people are to "love" their enemies. As a result, following Jesus' prescription here would mean that Obama should have performed acts that would show a spirit of love toward the Venezuelan president. If Obama had Jesus in mind, he might have inquired after Chavez' family, asked about conditions in Venezuela, and perhaps inquired about how the United States could help Chavez in improving the conditions of the poor in Venezuela.

Newt Gingrich seems to think that showing consideration for one's enemies is a sign of weakness. To the contrary, Jesus viewed love for one's enemies as a sign of spiritual strength (the only strength that mattered). He emphasized that anyone could love their brothers, sisters, and friends. Even the lowest of the low--the tax collectors and publicans--could do that. Those who could be viewed as "children of heaven" needed to answer to a higher standard of loving their enemies.

And of course, for Jesus the highest form of love was the willingness to sacrifice one's life. But that's not a standard that poor humans like us (especially myself, being an atheist) should be expected to meet.

However, it's pretty clear from the biblical text that Jesus would have expected Obama to show more love toward Hugo Chavez not less.

Perhaps Newt Gingrich should be mindful of that.

Not Much Fire On Jane Harman Front

Last night, a lot of smoke emerged in the vicinity of California Democrat Jane Harman. A member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Harman was caught making promises to "suspected Israeli agents" on an authorized wiretap to help get charges reduced in the case of AIPAC officials (AIPAC is a pro-Israeli lobby) accused of spying.

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think
it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

But there's less here than meets the eye. Harman is making promises but she doesn't appear to be making those promises in return for anything. Harman just says she'll try "if it will make a difference." Harman can be criticized here for being so gung ho for the Israelis. What have the Israelis ever done to justify that kind of knee-jerk support in a case where pro-Israeli officials were spying on the United States? Harman can also be fairly criticized for her support of warrantless wiretapping and other Bush administration causes when she was a high-ranking Democrat. However, it doesn't appear from this transcript that Harman is exchanging her support in any kind of corrupt way. As the CQ article claims, Harman doesn't appear to like the idea of "the suspected Israeli agent" trying to help her in return and cuts off the conversation.

If Jane Harman's going to be hung out to dry, there needs to be a lot more evidence that she did something unethical, corrupt, or criminal besides being overly supportive of Israel.

I don't see it here.

Sarah Palin: Staying Home for the 2012 Campaign

The Moderate Voice has an interesting little note on Sarah Palin's moment of indecision about whether to continue with her most recent pregnancy because of the baby's Down syndrome.

In relation to this, I want to mention that I don't think Sarah Palin is going to run for the presidency in 2012. It's always struck me that Palin never moved to Juneau to take up the governor's position. Her Indiana speech was also her first trip outside Alaska since the election. That doesn't make any sense to me and I've come to the conviction that Palin has a hard time leaving Wasilla for some reason and will give up on presidential campaigning because she wouldn't want to move to the White House.

Call it a gut feeling, but I'd still be surprised if she ran.

Megan McCain Moves Toward New Party

One of the most surprising developments of the early Obama era is that Meghan McCain has become a compelling political personality.

Who could have predicted that?

Most commentators probably see Meghan McCain's appearance at the meeting of the Log Cabin Republicans as part of the Republican Party civil war between "staunch conservatives" and those who want the Republican Party to appeal to moderates, independents, African-Americans, Hispanics, gays and other constituencies.

Certainly that's what Meghan McCain sees:

"feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes. There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being “more” conservative. Worse, there are those who think we can win by changing nothing at all about what our party has become. They just want to wait for the other side to be perceived as worse than us. I think we’re seeing a war brewing in the Republican party, but it is not between us and Democrats. It is not between us and liberals. It is between the future and the past. I believe most people are ready to move on to that future."

But I don't see it that way.

If there's a war between the "future and the past" in the Republican Party, the past has already won. Most of the Republican Party core wants to move backwards--backwards to the traditional male-dominated family, backwards to Calvin Coolidge economic policies, backwards to Ronald Reagan military triumphalism, and backwards to school prayer, religious tests for office-holding, whites-only immigration, and nice warm closets for gays. It's fair to say that conservatives don't want to roll back civil rights for African-Americans but they'd certainly demand that African-Americans be "grateful" for everything they've been "given." Witness the criticism of Michelle Obama for not being grateful during the presidential campaign.

So what does it mean for Meghan McCain to be a "new progressive Republican."

"What I am talking about tonight is what it means to be a new, progressive Republican. Now some will say I can’t do that. If you aren’t this and that, then you’re clearly a “Republican in Name Only,” also affectionately known as a RINO.

Suggesting the notion that one can be faithful to the original core values of the GOP while open to the realities of our changing world has really hit a chord with people. And it seems to be the next, natural stage of the journey I’ve been traveling."

In my opinion, what Meghan McCain is doing is groping her way toward a new political party that's more conservative than the Democrats but abandons the rejection of the post-60's world. Given that the Republican Party has renewed its pointless rejection of the New Deal, the only way forward for a moderate conservative like Meghan McCain is to get involved with a more moderate political party.

David Axelrod--Wrong on Tea Parties, OK Otherwise

Former Obama campaign manager and now "Senior White House adviser" David Axelrod really blew it when he referred to the right-wing tea party protests as "unhealthy."

Axelrod was asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" about the "spreading and very public disaffection" with the president's fiscal policies seen at the "Tea Party" rallies around the country last week.

"I think any time you have severe economic conditions there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that's unhealthy," Axelrod said.

Axelrod appeared to backtrack when pressed on whether the movement is unhealthy. "Well, this is a country where we value our liberties and our ability to express ourselves, and so far these are expressions," he said.

Backtrack indeed! Unfortunately, David Axelrod doesn't really get a chance to backtrack from this kind of statement. President Obama's political opposition is eager to portray him as a closet authoritarian and Axelrod just gave them a couple days worth of headlines that can't be taken back.

David Axelrod is also wrong on the merits. People have a constitutional right to assemble to express their opinions and doing so is also very good for the political health of the country and the Obama administration as well.

One of the underappreciated facts of American political life is the way in which the weakness of the Republican Party is functioning to bring the farther edges of the American right into the political arena. Suddenly liberated from Karl Rove's suffocating embrace, a wide variety of survivalists, secessionists, Ayn Randians, one world conspiracy theorists, and small government purists have been pushing forward into the public light.

And why shouldn't these folks get their moment in the sun?

What the tea parties accomplished was to give a cohesive political focus to a lot of people who would otherwise be very marginalized from American politics.

That's healthy.

I also think the Republican Party leadership is working to see if it can come to an accommodation with these kinds of constituencies. The Republican Party and its Fox News, talk radio, and right blogosphere affiliates seem to be feeling their way toward a political identity that's even more right-wing and less welcoming to independents and moderates than it was during the Bush years. Promoting the tea parties and bringing in all the marginal constituencies was their first big thrust in that direction and it did make at least somewhat of a splash.

Ultimately, that's healthy too. One could argue that it's not a good thing for the Republican Party to move farther to the margins of the right-wing? But the Republican Party wants to become more of a purist party and if they and their affiliates want to mobilize constituencies from the farther right to accomplish that goal, that's their decision. Perhaps Republicans are seeing that moderates and independents just aren't going to accept right-wing points of view anymore and are moving farther right in an effort to regain some kind of momentum.

The political landscape has changed significantly over the last eight years and the Republican Party needs to make a serious adjustment. If their first instinct is to lurch further to the right, I have no problem with them finding out if that works or not.

Given that nothing lasts forever, it's a healthy thing for the Republicans and the various constituencies of the right to be able to experiment with new ideas (or at least new versions of old ideas) and political line-ups.

How Big a Hack is The Politico's Mike Allen?

In his blog post for today's Salon, Glenn Greenwald gives The Politico's Mike Allen about as bad a journalistic drubbing as you'll ever see.

The initial stimulus to the controversy was Greenwald's criticism of Allen for letting a Bush administration figure make anonymous criticisms of Obama.

But Allen's hackery wouldn't be worth noticing if he had just stopped there. But Allen wrote in a reply to Greenwald that the still anonymous Bush official had e-mailed him an incendiary criticism of Obama without even asking for anonymity. At that point, Allen asked the Bush official if he could quote the e-mail and the Bush official declined because it would make him look bad to be so critical of our very popular president.

According to him, all Bush officials other than Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are too cowardly to criticize Barack Obama on the record -- "They have new careers, and they know it’s a fight they’ll never win. He’s popular; they’re not; they get it" -- so what is a poor reporter like him to do other than agree to anonymity?

What are they scared of? Is criticizing Obama going to keep them from getting jobs with the Republican Party? Apparently agreeing that he didn't want to make the Bush official look "so" bad, Allen let the e-mail be quoted anonymously. In other words, Allen had a "story" of an incendiary e-mail from a former high official in the Bush administration and deluted the story because he felt sorry for the guy.

Give me a break!

But it gets worse. Allen had to write this little gem in his reply to Greenwald (Quoted from Greenwald's Salon post):

I figured that readers could decide whether the former Bush official’s comments sounded defensive or vindictive. . . . So at the bottom of the Axelrod story, I tacked on an ellipsized excerpt of the former Bush official’s quotes, removing several ad hominem attacks on Obama. I quoted less than half of the comment and took out the most incendiary parts -- a way to hint at the opposing view without giving an anonymous source free rein.

Let me translate this into a plainer version of the King's English. Seemingly still feeling sorry for the former Bushie, Mike Allen redacted more than "half of the comment and took out the most incendiary parts" as a way to make the Bush official look like less of an asshole. That way, the "readers could decide whether the former Bush official's comments sounded defensive or vindictive" because he himself had edited out all the material that made the vindictiveness of the Bush official obvious.

I guess my title was misstated. A real hack would have left in the juicy parts of the Bush official's comments as a way to titillate the reader. Mike Allen was so invested in protecting this Bush official that he couldn't bring himself up to the hack level.

What an embarrassment!

Inside Steve Bradbury's Crime Against Humanity

Tonight, I was reading in one of the recently released torture memos, the May 10, 2005 memo from Steven Bradbury to John Rizzo, Deputy General Counsel of the CIA entitled "Techniques That May Be Used in the Interrogation of High Value Detainees."

I'm not a lawyer but it seems obvious that Bradbury's memo is itself a crime against humanity in that it authorizes waterboarding, hosing people down, sleep deprivation, stress positions, enclosed spaces, and other forms of torture for suspected terrorists.

According to Bradbury, Congress defines torture in this manner:

In defining the federal crime of'torture, Congress required that a defendant "intend to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering," and Congress narrowly defined "severe mental pain or suffering" to mean "the prolonged mental harm caused by" enumerated predicate acts, including "the threat of imminent death" and "procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality."

Torture is also listed as a "crime against humanity" under Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In this sense, Bradbury's memo would be a crime against humanity because it authorizes and justifies the use of practices that fall under the legal definition of torture.

As Bradbury describes them within the memo, the CIA's "intensive" interrogations obviously fall within the definition of torture as "inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering" on suspected terrorists. Despite Bradbury's arguments to the contrary, causing "severe mental pain or suffering" is the manifest intent of all those interrogation techniques.

Two points.

What I found chilling about Bradbury's justifications of these techniques is that they took the reader "inside" the carrying out of American war crimes. There was a tremendous amount of detail about how Americans tortured prisoners and almost no balancing information about the background of 9-11, the need for information, or any information actually obtained from the prisoners. It was all war crimes all the time.

The second point is that the entire rhetorical force of Bradbury's document was geared toward creating sympathy for the torturers. In this sense, Bradbury's memo was equivalent of an insider's "how to" manual for mob hits, drug murders, lynchings, and other heinous crimes in that it sought to get the reader to identify with extremely horrible acts.

As a result, Bradbury's whole document conveyed a fetid, rotting sensation of trafficking in sweat, pain, and despair. I have to admit that I'm not a good enough writer to convey my whole sense of disgust with Bradbury's memo. I guess the bottom line was that it made me embarrassed to be a human being let alone an American.

That Catchy New Republican Slogan: *%#@ the Republican Party

Matt Cooper argues in Talking Points Memo that the Republicans should let Al Franken be seated out of their own self-interest. That's because the Republicans have failed to find a viable target for their attack-dog politics and Franken is an inviting target.

Franken is arechetypical Republican villain. His name has such an infuriating effect on the GOP that he could be just what they need in an age where the villains are lame. Franken, a friend of mine who I like a lot, is, O'Reilly aside, is I think a basically temperate and smart guy despite his role as a provocateur and comedian. He really didn't give the GOP much to work with in the 2008 campaign; they had to dig up his comedic past to really nail him. But he's the perfect foil for Republicans and conservatives. If Coleman wins, Republicans will have one more senate vote but they will have lost the kind of Democrat they instinctually love to hate.

Despite the left credential that comes from working with TPM, Cooper is basically an out-of-touch mainstream media guy. When was the last time that anyone remembers the Republican Party leadership acting in its own self-interest. As the various versions of conservatism have become less and less popular, Republican leadership on all levels has been ever more adamant about appealing to their shrinking activist base. While promoting the surge policy in Iraq, Dick Cheney was emphatic that "We didn't get elected to be popular. We didn't get elected to worry about the fate of the Republican Party." Now "Fuck the Republican Party" has practically become the mantra of everybody associated with the Republican Party.

In other words, the Republican leadership is not going to give in or compromise on Al Franken--or anything else.

The Tea Parties: A Bottom Line

Success vs SUCCESS. I have to admit that I wasn't as put out as a lot of left-wing people by all the anti-Obama tea parties. Street theater is not exactly the most effective politics in the world, but I've done some ineffective street politics myself and it's certainly a lot better than joining a militia, going on a killing spree in a liberal church, or pulling a Rich Poplawski and ambushing a bunch of cops.

So, I was glad to see the tea parties happen and I think everybody on the left should be glad to see people on the right have such a healthy and harmless outlet for their views.

There's a certain way in which the numbers tell the story of the tea parties. I've seen estimates of 2,000 anti-Obama tea parties and claims that 184,000 people attended. Estimates for the largest crowds were for 4,000 and came from Cincinnati and Lansing, Michigan. Only a few hundred attended in Boston. There weren't any tea parties announced for my home town of Morehead, KY.

And there's some significance to the lack of a tea party here.

I wouldn't discount the tea party turnout at all. All in all, getting 100,000 people to do anything in politics is very good. Certainly, the tea parties were a success.

However, it's useful to measure the success of the tea parties against the appeal of Barack Obama. My town of Morehead, KY has a population of about 11,000 when the college is in session. If Barack Obama showed up completely unannounced to speak in Morehead, he would draw more than 4,000 people to a speech just on word of mouth. Obama is far more popular than Bill Clinton but Clinton drew a crowd of about 4,000 to a 2008 campaign speech on one day's notice. Actually, six hundred people gathered when Clinton stopped at a Dairy Queen in Flemingsburg, KY (population, 3,000) on his way to Morehead.

And Obama only won this relatively liberal county in the very red, rural, state of Kentucky by 500 votes. Just think how many people Obama would draw in urban areas like Boston, New York, Philly, or Miami if he came to an event that was as much anticipated or highly publicized as these tea parties. The numbers would be in the tens if not the hundreds of thousands.

It's a sad fact of conservative life. Even when they have successful events, they're still dwarfed by the charisma and popularity of Barack Obama.

It Looks Like Newt's Gearing Up for 2012

The right-wing magazine Newsmax has an article today on a possible Newt Gingrich presidential candidacy in 2012.

Gingrich has managed to keep himself in the public eye since leaving the House, but the blitz of public appearances in recent months is reminiscent of the run-up to 2007, when he toyed with a presidential run only to abandon it before the primaries began. Now, some are speculating that the former congressman from Georgia is laying the groundwork for a White House bid in 2012.

Why not?

Newt's smart, he has a lot of big ideas (just ask him), and he's good at identifying issues that play well for Republicans. Gingrich was behind the "Drill Here, Drill Now" slogan that temporarily played well for Republicans during the 2008 campaign. Newt is also popular with activists and would be the most prominent candidate of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Of course, conservative activists found out in 2008 that they're not a majority of the Republican Party when they couldn't defeat John McCain. But Gingrich doesn't need a majority. He might be expected to pull down as much as 30-35% of the primary vote and that would be enough to win the early states comfortably and nail down the nomination by February or March of 2012.

I'm sure Gingrich has already made this calculation. That's why he's "out there hustling" according to Grover Norquist and also why he's on "nearly every Republican short list" for the 2012 nomination.

Newt's main weakness is that non-conservatives dislike him. In 2007, his unfavorability ratings were over 40% and were up as high as 56% during the 1995 budget debacle. Of course, that means that the Obama camp isn't exactly shaking in their boots at the thought of running against Gingrich. But it need not matter in running for the Republican nomination. Like George Bush, Gingrich is popular among Republicans despite unpopular with everybody else. Moreover, it's not like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, or Mark Sanford have all that much appeal themselves.

Gingrich wouldn't have much chance of beating Obama in a general campaign, but he would be a viable "bridge" candidate until the next generation of Republicans is ready for serious presidential bids.

Do I hear a "Run, Newt, Run" chant?

The Religious Right Wasn't Winning in the Eighties Either

James Dobson has gotten a lot of belated attention for saying that the religious right had lost the culture wars in his farewell address to the staff of Focus on the Family.

James Dobson, 72, who resigned recently as head of Focus on the Family - one of the largest Christian groups in the country - and once denounced the Harry Potter books as witchcraft, acknowledged the dramatic reverse for the religious Right in a farewell speech to staff.

“We tried to defend the unborn child, the dignity of the family, but it was a holding action,” he said.
“We are awash in evil and the battle is still to be waged. We are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly speaking, we can say we have lost all those battles.”

The religious right definitely knows losing. Having been born in the lost battle of Southern white evangelicals against racial integration, the religious right has lost its battles over school prayer, abortion rights, popular culture, and gay civil rights. They're still fighting a rearguard actions against gay marriage rights and teaching evolutionary theory to high school students. However, people like Dobson sense that they're failing there as well.

And they are.

That's why Dobson claims we're "awash in evil." He thinks that the ability of women and gay people to live freely, the fact that kids can go to school without being forced into religious exercises, and the teaching of contemporary science are all manifest evils. It's hard to see much difference between Dobson's opinion of America and Osama bin Laden's. They both think we're a decadent, evil country.

But Dobson consoles himself that the religious right did make progress during the 1980's.

The battles that we fought in the Eighties now, we were victorious in many of those conflicts with the culture, trying to defend righteousness, trying to defend the unborn child, trying to preserve the dignity of the family and the definition of marriage. We fought all those battles and really it was a holding action.

But that's nonsense. The religious right wasn't winning in the 1980's either. Yes, Ronald Reagan got elected, but the religious right wasn't able to "preserve the dignity of the family" against pre-marital sex, divorce, drug use, rebellious children, or any of the other phenomena of sixties cultural turmoil. College students didn't have any problem getting high, getting laid, and then going out and campaigning for Reagan. Moreover, the right of American women to get abortions was just as broad at the end of the eighties as it was at the beginning.

Kids weren't praying very much in public schools either.

But the real defeat for the religious right was on the issue of gay rights. After the initial panic over AIDS and the founding of gay advocacy groups, American society began a long, steady march toward fully recognizing the civil rights of gay people.

As was the case with the civil rights movement, bigots like James Dobson made it an ugly, vindictive, and often brutal battle. But the progress has been steady. People can now live openly as gay people who would have once felt constrained to remain closeted. Gay people can work in a lot of professions from which they were previously excluded and gay people are able to live much more openly in places like Morehead, KY or my home town of Waverly, NY.

That doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of homophobia, discrimination, and violence for gay people out there. I recently heard a terrifying and heartbreaking story about a young woman whose mother attacked her with a knife when she came out.

But more than enough progress has been made that even James Dobson can see that the side of bigotry, discrimination, and unprovoked violence is going to lose.

It's just that religious right was losing in the 80's as well as the 50's, 60's, 70's, 90's, and 00's. They've just always been losing.

Conservatives and the Authentic Obama

One of the things I found as a Hillary supporter during the Democratic primaries was that it is very difficult to get a handle on Barack Obama. Obama initially had cache on the left because of his early opposition to the war, but he also had a magic with moderate Democrats that I had a hard time understanding. Obama never quite fit the usual dichotomies. To give one example, when Obama started running, he was a relatively young guy for a presidential level politician and he played around with generational themes of displacing baby-boomers like Hillary (and myself). But I also view Obama as having a stern, fatherly quality that especially came through in talking about issues of responsibility. That makes him seem old in a way that Bill Clinton or George Bush will never be old.

So what was Obama, the young up and comer or the fogie waiting to get old. I never came up with an answer and the question seemed somehow awkward and irrelevant.

Not that anybody else did any better. Tons of ink were spilled by smart writers like Debra Dickerson trying to figure out whether Obama was not black enough, too black, or whether and how blackness figured into Obama's personal and political equation.

They got nowhere for the same reason I got nowhere. For some not quite definable reason, the black/not black dichotomy dichotomy wasn't applicable when applied to Barack Obama and there wasn't a good substitute for that dichotomy in thinking about Obama in relation to race.

Conservatives are having an even harder time nailing down Obama's personality and it's not just a matter of failing to attach the usual pejoratives to him. Obama definitely hasn't had a moment where he reveals the "weakness" that right-wingers see in all non-conservatives. Apparently, Obama did not kowtow to the Saudi king. He didn't show weakness with the Somali pirates. He hasn't backed down on Timothy Geithner's weird hybrid approach to the bank bailout either.

And this has left some political conservatives wondering if there is any real core to Obama. According to Rex Murphy of the Toronto Globe and Mail:

Of the many speeches Mr. Obama has made, which one has said to you this is him? This is the irreducible, essential Barack Obama - this is why he's in politics. You will find it a frustrating challenge: His statements blur into one another, no one speech distinguished by the authentic charge of words spoken from the deepest part of himself . . .

What are the most important issues for Mr. Obama? What are the cornerstone beliefs of this new President? What does he have "within which passes show"? He glides from one part of his mammoth agenda to the other, smooth, cool and charming all the way. But his effortless equanimity poses the question: If it were another agenda, a contrary agenda even, would he glide equally smooth, cool and charming over it? I don't think we know. He doesn't offer any real affective clues.

Having written about Obama's "cool androgyny" myself, I've experienced Murphy's uncertainty in dealing with Obama's "smooth, cool and charming" personality. Conservatives have a special problem with this though. The right has a taste for a politics of big, showy gestures that both reveal the core beliefs of a political actor and define the nature of a political moment. For conservatives, the biggest moment of Ronald Reagan's presidency was the gesture of calling on Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." By doing so, Reagan defined both himself as an authentic conservative and champion of freedom and the real nature of the U.S./Soviet conflict at the end of the Cold War.

George Bush was forever in search of this kind of "perfect gesture" and tried to demonstrate his own authentic personality a number of times. His post-9-11 appearance with a bullhorn in New York, the "either you're with us or against us" speech, and all of the "dead or alive" and "mission accomplished" prattle were attempts for Bush to provide illumination concerning the inner Bush and the true nature of the war on terror.

None of it worked, but conservatives have a hunger for this kind of showy authenticity. This is one of the factors behind the Fred Thompson boomlet in 2007 and a big reason why conservatives were ultimately able to unite behind John McCain even though they thought he was a phony.

If there's anything McCain is good at, it's revealing his "authentic self" in dramatic ways.

With Obama, conservatives are always going to be very frustrated because he avoids using the bully pulpit of the presidency as a way to reveal his true nature.

As somebody who likes to have a grasp on people in leadership, I share that frustration.

But ultimately, the difficulty of pinpointing Obama's personality is a good thing. It means that all of us can focus on the extent to which his policies and actions measure up to the current demands of his position. It's somewhat of a mixed bag with me. I'm highly favorable toward Obama's foreign policy and domestic agenda in relation to health care, energy, and education, disagree with the Obama administration's policies on secrecy and the legal culpability of the Bush administration and am up in the air on the bank bailout. At the same time, I think Obama's doing a great job of measuring up to the full demands of the presidency in the post-Bush era. Given the tremendous damage the Bush administration did to American prestige and the governing capacity of the federal bureaucracy, the Obama administration has had to act on a large number of fronts at once and they've done an admirable job of stopping up many of the holes in the dykes.

And I suspect that one of the reasons Obama is doing so well is that he doesn't feel much of a need to show off his "authentic self."

Should Dick Cheney be at the Bush Reunion? Should Anybody?

It looks like Dick Cheney isn't going to attend this weekend's long-awaited Bush administration reunion. It's been almost three months since the Bush administration left office. I'm surprised they haven't had two or three reunions by now.

Some people think Cheney's being peevish over Bush's failure to give Scooter Libby a full pardon, nuke Iran, or just turn the whole government over to the Likud.

But let's give Dick Cheney some credit.

What he's being is consistent.

Cheney and his lawyers always denied that the "Office of the Vice-President" was part of the executive branch.

Why should Cheney go to a Bush administration reunion if he wasn't really IN the Bush administration.

Bad Genes Will Out

Today, Miss Teen RSI wanted to know what time midnight mass at the Catholic Church was tonight. I don't know whether I wanted to die of laughter or embarrassment.

But I guess bad genes will out.

Is Sean Hannity an America Hating/Socialist Parent

In my Hotmail account today, I had a "personal message" from Sean Hannity. As a blogger who keeps track of the right, I get a lot of deeply personal letters from people like Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and the guy at Newsmax.

Not that my inbox isn't fair and balanced.

I also hear from President Obama, Michelle, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden about issues they know I'm concerned about.

For some reason, Glenn Beck doesn't seem to care. At least not yet.

Today, I had a hard time deciding whether Sean Hannity was promoting a socialist parenting agenda or just hated America.

Perhaps knowing that I'm the parent of 11 and 14 year old daughters, Sean wanted me to learn about a new book by Rebecca Hagelin entitled 30 Ways in 30 Days to Save Your Family. Here's what he has to say:

Most parents pray that their children will grow up to be strong, productive, and patriotic, with a robust moral sense.

But as soon as you bring your children into the world, others try to pry them from you. Crass marketers try to lure them into commercialism. "Experts," from doctors to teachers, try to replace your good values with theirs.

Now, thankfully Rebecca Hagelin has brought the ammunition that all of us, as parents, have long needed. In her terrific new book, 30 Ways in 30 Days to Save Your Family, she's given us the perfect guide, the perfect handbook, to keep a toxic culture at bay while forging a closer, deeper, more meaningful relationship with our children.

"Crass marketers?" "Lure them into commercialism?" I assume Sean means all those nice companies that sell pink and blue baby clothes and all the baby stuff with primary colors that keeps parents mesmerized for hours at a time. I imagine he's thinking of all the companies that sell baby books as well. We liked stories like Goodnight Moon, the House That Jack Built, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and those fairy tale collections. My kids always liked all the various versions of the Cinderella story. We must have watched the Whitney Houston/Brandy Cinderella movie hundreds of times.

Come to think of it, I guess Sean must have especially meant the Disney corporation which has their hands in just about everything connected with kids.

Now, if someone's a normal person, they'll know that all of these companies really care about children and want to do everything they can to help parents raise their children in today's demanding world.

Someone would have to be a socialist to think of all these companies as "crass marketers."

I guess that makes Sean a socialist.

Not that there's anything wrong with socialism. Sometimes I think I'm a socialist myself.

Now that I'm thinking, it looks like Sean probably hates America as well.

Certainly, anybody hates America who would recommend a book by Rebecca Hagelin. This is from the product description for Hagelin's Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture that's Gone Stark Raving Mad:

In Home Invasion, Rebecca Hagelin proves that in today's all-consuming culture of corruption there is nowhere left to hide-American homes have already been invaded by this insidious enemy that seeks to twist our minds and poison our hearts through the unmonitored Internet, television, magazines, and music that our families ingest on a daily basis. Speaking as a nationally known social commentator and as a mother of three, Hagelin shows through specific examples and alarming statistics how the enemy has infected the family van, our neighborhood schools and textbooks, the stores in which we shop, and even the churches in which we worship. With warm words of encouragement and practical suggestions, she coaches parents on how to arm themselves with information, strategically plan the movements of their family members, secure allies in the battle, and most of all, muster the guts and the resolve to lead their families to victory against the great beast.

Homes, schools, television, music, stores, churches, even the family van--the "great beast" is everywhere in our country. Actually, Hagelin believes that the great beast is America and she's at war with the rest of American culture and society when she "coaches parents on how to arm themselves with information, strategically plan the movements of their family members, secure allies in the battle . . . and "lead their families to victory." Just reading the product description made me want to reach for my AK-47. Hagelin might just as well have followed Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini and referred to the United States as "the Great Satan" or gotten her book published by a bin Laden front company.

In promoting Hagelin's new book, Hannity obviously wants everybody to hate America as much as Rebecca Hagelin. Given Hannity's support for Hagelin, it wouldn't surprise me if he soon announces that he's leaving for Pakistan to join bin Laden. Not having served in the American military, Hannity will finally get to show his guts by joining in the crusade against "the great beast."

Rick Warren Calls My Atheist Number

Jon Meacham's Newsweek article on the "End of Christian America" isn't that compelling. I mean was there really a "Christian America" that could come to an end. It would be reasonable to say that the culture wars were an attempt by the religious right to assert a predominance for Protestant fundamentalism after the cultural ferment of the 1960's and 1970's. But the fundamentalism of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson might never have been dominant outside the South--certainly not after the repeal of Prohibition. The Moral Majority was never a majority in the first place.

But I thought Rick Warren might have some interesting things to say about the issue. So I read the transcript of Warren's interview with Hugh Hewitt today.

Boy, I was wrong there:

All Warren comes up with is this:

One of them is will America return to the historic roots, Christian roots, that are foundational for every one of our institutions. Or will we go the way of Europe, and go secular. The bottom line is that secularism doesn’t last, because no faith will always be filled by something else, and so that’s why Islam is making strong inroads into Europe, because faith of any kind will always beat no faith.

To which "historic roots" would America return--Puritanism, high church Anglicanism, the Catholicism of Irish and Italian immigrants, or the African-American church? Puritanism and high church Anglicanism no longer exist in any way that would be meaningful to Warren and there's no need to "return" to immigrant Catholicism because Hispanic immigrants are already there. Actually, I have a feeling that Warren isn't thinking about Hispanic immigrants in these comments. He doesn't seem to be thinking about African-American Christianity either. Or Mormons. Or Pentecostals.

Like Meacham, Warren mostly has Europe in mind and wonders if the U. S. is drifting toward a situation where 20% of the adult population attends church. That seems highly unlikely given the power of Protestant evangelism as well as the growth in Pentacostalism, Mormonism, and the largely Catholic Hispanic population. To the contrary, it looks like the United States is going to remain relatively religious compared to Western Europe and also have a great deal of religious diversity compared to either Europe or the U. S. of the 1950's.

Is that so bad? I don't know why it would look too horrible from a Hispanic, Pentacostal, or Mormon perspective. Their religions would have a shot at national cultural influence for the first time. Religious multi-culturalism has obvious advantages from an atheist/agnostic or liberal Protestant perspective as well. Within a diverse environment, a secular public sphere would be seen in its best light as defending the rights of all religious perspectives rather than just denying religion. I also think it's a good thing for atheists and agnostics to have contact with religious people and develop an interest in religious views. It's certainly been good for me.

The only question is whether evangelical conservatives will ever develop a respect for non-evangelical points of view. If so, religious multi-culturalism is a good thing for evangelicals. If not, then the best thing for everybody in the U. S. is for evangelicals to lose any hope of ever attaining precedence again.

But Rick Warren does get my number as an atheist in one way. Here's Warren stressing that the extent to which atheists reject their fathers.

Paul Vitz, who is an author with New York University, wrote a very fascinating book called Faith Of The Fathers, in which he went and studied the 72 most well-known atheists in history, the Bertrand Russells, the Voltaires, the Freuds, and the only thing he could find in common with every one of them is they all hated their dads. Every one of them. They had distant dad, demeaning dad, a dead dad, they had no relationships with their fathers.

I'm not going to make any list of "most well-known atheists," but I certainly hated my abusive father for a long time. Actually, I became an atheist after reading Freud's The Future of an Illusion, but did not explode into rage in relation to my father for about three years after that. Likewise, I began to "testify" to my atheism in public at about the same time that my father and I established something like a civil relationship 20 years later. But Warren's point still holds for me. I'm an atheist who's hated my father for most of my adult life. There isn't any way around it.
I guess I'll have to live with my lack of uniqueness in that regard.

Steele Should Worry About Keeping the 36

RNC Chairman Michael Steele was in Florida yesterday trying to increase GOP registration by getting Florida Republicans to seek out the black and hispanic vote.

He urged party members to create a grassroots movement by doing things like door-to-door voter registration and community service, as well as reaching out to blacks and Hispanics and seeking new minority leaders.

''Please send some folks to the convention that look like Florida,'' Steele said. ``Could you help a brother out? No more national conventions with [only] 36 people of color in the room.''

Steele should worry first about making sure those 36 black Republicans stay in the GOP tent. As Republican Party like Michele Bachman and conservative media outlets move farther to the far right, they're targeting their appeals to neo-Nazis like Pittsburgh shooter Richard Poplawski instead of African-Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities.

Maybe Steele's new slogan should be: Keep the 36!

All Things Must Pass

Miss Tween RSI is too cool for High School Musical 3. What's next? Is she going to lose interest in Scooby Doo?

UNC-Michigan State Near the Half

I'm watching North Carolina vs Michigan State on the CBS web site.

Carolina is ahead by 18 with 2:30 to go in the first half. They're making Michigan State look like Morehead State.

Actually, Morehead State looked better against Louisville.

Did I mention that I have two degrees from Carolina.

Some Resistance to the Left's Pittsburgh Narrative

According to Dave Neiwert of Crooks and Liars, today's shooting of three police officers in Pittsburgh to fear-mongering about guns from freak-show conservatives like Glenn Beck and the NRA:

Some of the early reports out of Pittsburgh indicate the man who shot three cops today was fearful that the Obama administration was going to "take away his guns."[...]

He feared an Obama gun grab? Gee, I wonder where he could have heard that.
Indeed, a story replete with NRA-style fearmongering about the looming "grab" -- which has been fueling a run on guns at local shops -- ran just three days ago in the Pittsburgh Tribune..

Prominent liberal blogger Digby followed up Neiwert with further reflections the dangers of fanning gun zealotry.

This is one of the weird fault lines in American politics --- the police who have to face the armed citizenry and the macho right wing zealots whose only answer for anything is for everyone to carry more guns. It's incidents like today's that bring home the fallacy of that argument in living color -- the cops are all armed and three of them got mowed down today by a gun nut.

The black helocopter crowd went underground during the Bush years, blithely unconcerned with the Cheney police state, (which proves just what a bunch of gullible tools they really are.) They only get aroused when someone tells them a liberal is in
office and so it's time to stock up on weaponry to repel the jack-booted thugs.

I don't want to say that the focus on the NRA and wing nuts is mistaken, but I still think there should be some resistance to this kind of strictly political narrative in favor of some reference to the rural-urban and class fault lines in this country.

Starting with guns, I'm bothered by the question of whether or not Pittsburgh shooter Richard Poplawski would have thought that Obama was "coming to take his guns away" even if the NRA never existed.

Looking at it from an Eastern Kentucky perspective, I'd have to say the answer is yes. Guys like Richard Poplawski would worry about liberals "taking their guns" even without the NRA and other fear-mongerers. Out in rural areas like this one, guns are many things for the guys who own lots of them. Guns are hunting instruments where hunting is often an orgy of drunken recklessness. Guns are also fetish objects for heterosexual guys who are more comfortable with their "buddies" than women. Likewise, guns are an important way in which guys mark out their symbolic distinctiveness from a lot of the cultural authorities who've judged them, including public school teachers, preachers, the educated people they think look down on them, and the city-dwellers who view rural people negatively.

I want to expand on this last point a little. I've lived most of my life in rural areas of upstate New York and Eastern Kentucky but have also spent a lot of time in urban or intellectual areas like Philadelphia, Portland, Oakland, Chapel Hill, NC, and Ann Arbor, MI. The liberal intellectual types I hang out with in places like Philadelphia have often been condescending toward the rural areas around them. But the condescension doesn't have a lot of energy to it because people in cities give so little thought to the rural areas around them. I remember one television station in Philadelphia once ran a special series on "the rest of Pennsylvania" so people in Philly would have an idea of the state outside Philadelphia, its suburbs, and Pittsburgh.

This is one reason why the "they're coming to take out guns" fantasy would be virulent here even without the NRA. People in areas like Eastern Kentucky and rural Pennsylvania know that middle-class and educated people in the cities have little use for guns. They also assume that city-dwellers have the same animus for them that rural people have for urban areas. The rural people I've known can't believe that people in the cities just don't think about them that much. When I'm talking with a "they're coming to take our guns" guy, that's precisely the point I make--they don't care about your guns, they don't care about you, and they don't care about Eastern Kentucky.

But nobody ever believes me. People in rural areas believe that Obama's coming to get their guns because they assume that they're important to Obama and can't believe they aren't.

It's also important to think about class in relation to these kinds of shootings. Three of the recent shooters had failed to establish any kind of solid footing in the working class. Binghamton shooter Jiverly Wong was ridiculed for his poor English and recently lost his job. Pittsburgh shooter Richard Pawlawski got involved in fist fights with his neighbors, washed out of the Marines for attacking a drill sergeant and also lost his job. Alabama shooter Michael McLendon didn't do any better with the Marines or the local police force, was involved in some sort of family dispute and had lost his job before he shot up his family and neighborhood.

All of these guys had failed with their class aspirations and weren't doing any better at their fall-back positions either.

All of them also seemed determined to commit suicide as they planned their shooting sprees. Richard Pawlawski called a friend to tell him he was going to die as he got ready to shoot the first wave of cops to come to his door. In a way, the impulse isn't surprising. What kind of self-respect does our culture offer to men or women who are struggling in the ways these guys were struggling? Not much that I can think of. Most people I know would think of these kinds of guys as "losers," "dumb-asses," "assholes" or some other pejorative term. I wouldn't be surprised if they all thought of themselves that way as well. There isn't much respect for working-class life in American culture. There's even less respect for not succeeding at working class life.

I imagine that Neiwert and Digby are right about fear-mongering on the right having a significant role in relation to the Pittsburgh shootings. But I also think it's important to resist viewing this kind of event strictly in terms of political manipulation. The fear-mongering of the right has an impact in the context of the larger patterns of people's lives and it's important to keep these larger patterns in mind as we think about these kinds of events.

Mass Murder in Binghamton

Fourteen people are dead in Binghamton, NY as a result of another mass murder. With the recession, the mass murders are building up as the Binghamton killing follow hard on the murders in Alabama and Oakland.

I'm originally from a little town less than 40 miles west of Binghamton on Rt 17 (now I-86 I think) and know the area well.

As Fingerlakeswanderer says in the Open Salon blog, Binghamton is an industrial town that's lost most of its industry. According to the elementary school social studies books I read as a kid, Binghamton was supposed to be an up and coming city during the sixties.

But it never took off.

Binghamton was a crossroads city on the interstate highway system but never developed much in the way of restaurants, malls, or even gas stations around the highways.

IBM was big in the Binghamton area but it never seemed to get any bigger and none of the other computer/techn0logy companies located to the area. Then IBM got a lot smaller.

Binghamton University is a great university but the city hasn't been able to build on that in the same ways as other college towns.

I remember going to downtown Binghamton while I was in high school and wondering where the downtown was. It was just kind of a faceless place. My friends and I didn't even think enough of Binghamton to stigmatize it as the "armpit of the universe" like we stigmatized Utica and Rome (places none of us had ever been).

It also seems like the whole Southern Tier of upstate NY has become more "country" and impoverished over the last 20 years. I hear stuff on and off about Klan organizations, survivalists, and guys abandoning civilization for the woods. There's also a lot more NASCAR symbolism around my home town and I've even seen a confederate flag on the NY/PA border. Today's my mother's birthday and she talked a lot about how more attention needed to be paid to poor people who needed help but weren't eligible for government assistance.

The area didn't use to be that poor.

What's this have to do with the shootings?

Probably nothing.

All over the U. S., there's just an extremely volatile mix of rage, guns, and role models of mass murderers. Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold have become cult figures among the copycat killers at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, and other places. Watching the Dark Knight, I wondered if the Joker's blowing up the hospital wasn't modeled after Harris and Klebold's plans for Columbine High. Guns are ubiquitous and accumulating one's own little personal arsenal is a cultural style in places like Eastern KY.

Likewise, the mostly male rage has so many sources in popular culture (video games, porn, music, movies, cop shows, sports, the broad condemnation of any kind of failure, etc., etc.,) that it's almost useless to point to any one source of the problem.

That whole mix of rage, guns, and mass murder models has come under a great deal of pressure as a result of the recession and I think that what's happening is that there have been a lot of little murder explosions like the one in Binghamton. To give folks an idea of the volatility, my 14 year old daughter told me today about three boys talking about ways to torture people during her geometry class and that's WITH the counseling the school is providing for them. I disagree with Fingerlakeswanderer about gun control being the answer. I think limits on gun possession are a good idea, but the murder problem is so broadly cultural at this point and that eliminating the mass murders would have to involve major adjustments in American values and popular culture as well as gun policy.

Given that I don't see that happening, I just hope the recession eases so there's fewer triggers on the rage.

The Republicans May Be The Third Party Newt's Waiting For

Yesterday, Newt Gingrich came out with a warning that the Republican Party may be facing a challenge from a third party in 2012.

“If the Republicans can’t break out of being the right wing party of big government, then I think you would see a third party movement in 2012,” Gingrich said Wednesday during a speech at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri, the local television station KY3 reported.

I imagine Gingrich might be right. Perhaps there will be some alliance of the religious right, small government idealists, and neo-conservatives that no longer views the Republican Party as a suitable vehicle for their ambitions.

Maybe there's a younger, more credible version of Gingrich himself ready to take charge of a new kind of conservative coalition.

But I don't think so.

The bottom line is that the Republican Party is moving farther to the right grows as the right grows less popular. If anything, there's less chance of a new conservative party emerging now than there was in 2008 when conservatives thought John McCain was a dangerous liberal.

But that doesn't mean there won't be a third party in America's future. Actually, that third party might be the Republicans.

Despite the hesitations and hedging of the Obama administration, the Democrats have charted a much more liberal course on a multi-lateral foreign policy, universal health care, a green economy, and dramatically expanded education.

And I'm happy to see it.

But the fact that the Dems have shifted to the left and the Republicans have moved right means that there's a lot of ideological space in the mushy middle for another political party.

One of these days, people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Bloomberg, Charlie Crist, Evan Bayh, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter might realize they have more in common with each other than they have with either of the current major parties.

They might also find a charismatic presidential candidate who occupies the middle ground in a compelling manner, sparks some new party organization, and wins lots of converts among current office holders.

I don't particularly like moderate politicians or moderate voters. But "moderation" could be the next big thing in American politics. It's easy to see a moderate political party replacing the Republicans as the leading opposition party and becoming competitive with the Democrats in New England, New York, the middle Atlantic states, large sections of the Midwest, and the West Coast.

The situation of Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania is a good example of the potential of a moderate party. Specter might not be viable in either a Republican or Democratic primary, but he would be the initial favorite in any three-candidate race.

It's not beyond the realm of imagination to see a moderate party replacing the Dems as the leading opposition party in states like South Carolina or Utah either.

That kind of development could mean that a moderate party would be a threat to the status of the Republicans as the "second party" in American politics.

The opportunity for a "moderate moment" has been there in the past.

Colin Powell could have seized it in 1996 when he was polling almost 30% versus Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. John McCain was the most popular politician in America in 2000 and might have won as an independent over Gore and Bush.

Barack Obama has proven to be extremely adept at occupying both the middle and the left. So, there might not be a realistic opportunity for a moderate political party in 2012.

But that doesn't mean that the opportunity won't open up again after Obama leaves the scene. Gingrich might get his wish for a third party. It's just that the third party might end up being the Republicans.

Is Newt Still a Christian?

So, Newt Gingrich has converted to Catholicism and joins Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush, Sam Brownback, and a bunch of other prominent Republican converts to the Catholic faith.

There have even been reports about a possible George W. conversion.

That's fine with me. I'm an atheist who's married to a Catholic woman. My Irish Catholic in-laws are the nicest people in the world and my two daughters count themselves as Catholic.

And I have to admit, they're really nice kids.

So, I'm about as down with Catholicism as someone can be who's horrified by the whole Judeo-Christian thing of a god who ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son, angrily destroyed the whole world in a flood, and then sent forth his own son to be killed for mankind's sins.

Living out here in Eastern Kentucky though, it's impossible not to notice that many Protestants who deny that Catholics are Christians and would therefore deny that Newt Gingrich is still a Christian just as much as they would deny that Mitt Romney is a Christian.

And it's kind of a pain to the little Catholic congregation in Morehead, KY.

I've known for years that many of my college students don't view Catholics as Christians. Also, the local "Bible Baptists" have picketed the Catholic Church after Mass seeking their own converts to "Christianity" from "popery."

But it struck home when a social studies teacher announced to my daughter's class that Catholics weren't Christians.

That bothered us enough as parents that we complained and got the teacher to stop.

Gingrich has been traveling in elite circles for a long time. So, he might have forgotten the extent to which the Protestant evangelical tradition denies the Christianity of Catholicism and condemns Catholics to damnation.

But it's something that's out there.

John Calipari--From Specter To Coach

Needless to say, I'm feeling pretty smart in focusing on John Calipari as a UK coaching candidate even before the hapless Billy Gillispie got fired.

It looks like the University of Kentucky is in for a new era of recruiting crime.