The Kindness of Strangers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to tech school for me.

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

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

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

But it really isn't just them.

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

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

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

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

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

And really affecting.

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

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

Except, it wasn't Thornton's

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

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

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

The Conservative "Making America Poorer Project"

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

If you didn’t understand that logic, you might be puzzled by many items in the House G.O.P. proposal. Why cut a billion dollars from a highly successful program that provides supplemental nutrition to pregnant mothers, infants, and young children? Why cut $648 million from nuclear nonproliferation activities? (One terrorist nuke, assembled from stray ex-Soviet fissile material, can ruin your whole day.) Why cut $578 million from the I.R.S. enforcement budget? (Letting tax cheats run wild doesn’t exactly serve the cause of deficit reduction.)

Once you understand the imperatives Republicans face, however, it all makes sense. By slashing future-oriented programs, they can deliver the instant spending cuts Tea Partiers demand, without imposing too much immediate pain on voters. And as for the future costs — a population damaged by childhood malnutrition, an increased chance of terrorist attacks, a revenue system undermined by widespread tax evasion — well, tomorrow is another day.

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

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

That's short, catchy, and accurate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tiger Mothers? Not Much Unusual There

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

The New Republican Politics of Inhumanity

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

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible.

For example, if a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would
no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. Rep. Smith's spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.

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

Egypt: Some Permutations

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

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

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

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

Hope Jay Carney Does Better as Press Secretary

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

Hopefully, Carney will up his game as press secretary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next stop, Michele Bachmann.

Limbaugh More Complex Than I Thought

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

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

Rush Limbaugh marked the occasion of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to America by mocking Hu in nonsense, ersatz Chinese on his Wednesday show. Limbaugh said he was watching Hu speak on Fox News, and that the feed was unaccompanied by any subtitles or translation.

"Hu Jintao was just going--" he began, before speaking in mock Chinese. "That's the closest I can get," he finished.

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

Michael Steele Is Not Julius Caesar

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

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

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

Health Care Vote in House Today

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

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

Lieberman Out?

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

King's New Birth of Freedom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They still are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cracking the Disinformation Apparatus

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

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

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

Moreover, support for repealing the legislation has dropped significantly.

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

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

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

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

And it worked.

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

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

And that took the wind out of the conservative apparatus.

Rescuing Sarah Palin

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

Perhaps a good question.

But the answer is a resounding "No."

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

Call it the "Sarah Palin Rehabilitation Project."

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

The Romance of Mass Murder?

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

Bloomberg reporter Michael Riley talked to an Arizona gun store owner who reported that gun sales surged after Saturday's shooting. The most popular item? The model of Glock that allowed Jared Loughner to spray 31 bullets into the crowd before being disarmed. FBI data shows gun sales in Arizona jumped 60 percent on January 10 compared to that day last year, and 5 percent nationally.

The store owner foresaw the uptick in business, telling his employees to expect a stampede of customers following the massacre. Apparently the same thing happened after Virginia Tech.

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

It seems more likely that it would be the latter.

Attempted Political Assassination in Arizona

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

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

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

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

I'm Thinking About Running for the Republican Nomination

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

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

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

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

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

If Huntsman runs, I run.

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

Pardon Fever Stops with Billy the Kid

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

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

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

Who knows?

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

I've played them for my daughters as well.

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

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

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

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

A Little Less Cautious In My Optimism

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

I'm a little less cautious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe They Should Have Tried This Earlier

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

On Wednesday afternoon, even as lawmakers were approving a burst of Mr. Obama’s legislative priorities in the waning hours of the Congressional session, the president and a small circle of advisers convened to sketch out the next two months. Mr. Obama intends not only to extend a hand to Republicans but also to begin detaching himself more from Congress and spending more time making his case directly to the American people.

“In a world of divided government, getting things done requires a mix of compromise and confrontation,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “What are the things you can do without Congress? In some cases, that involves executive orders, but it also involves using the bully pulpit of the presidency to make a political argument about the direction of the country.”

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

End the Filibuster Next January!

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

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

I've got a better idea.

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

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

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

And it worked.

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

And it worked.

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

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

That means getting rid of filibusters and holds.

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

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

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

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

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

My reply: let them.

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

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

A Trip Inside the Republican Poll Numbers

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

What they've really needed is some easy scores.

And it looks like they're arriving.

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

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

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

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

But that's not likely to hold up.

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

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

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

Sometimes life just isn't fair.

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

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

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

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

But these numbers aren't immutable.

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

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

The answer has to be yes.

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

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

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

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

Just Another Day on a Republican Staff

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

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

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

Maybe the media should report that as well.

Excellent Delusions from Dinesh D'Souza

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

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

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

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

Not that it bothers conservatives that Obama is black.

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

Not that they're racists.

Well, maybe a little.

All You Need to Know About Big-Time College Football

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

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

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

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

Palin Candidate Still Ahead in Alaska

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

Sarah Palin's Little Finger

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

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

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

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

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

And Palin didn't have to do much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It Could Be A Lot Worse!

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

Dr. Laura Goes for the Tea Party Audience

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

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

During the exchange on Tuesday's show, Schlessinger said the woman who called herself Jade was too sensitive for complaining that her husband's friends made racist comments about her in their home. When the woman asked if the N-word was offensive, Dr. Laura said "black guys say it all the time," then went on to repeat it
several times.

Schlessinger did not direct the epithet at the woman, but said she used it to suggest how often she hears it, and that it should not automatically be cause for offense.
When the caller objected, Schlessinger replied: "Oh, then I guess you don't watch HBO or listen to any black comedians."

Schlessinger also said that if the caller did not have a sense of humor about race, she shouldn't have entered into an interracial marriage.

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

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

The Worst Owner in the NBA

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

A Few Words About Fancy Farm

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

It was lame and fell flat.

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

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

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

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

Elena Kagan Gets Confirmed 63-37

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

Who's Weirder: Sharron Angle or Jesus?

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

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

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

Authenticity is a problem with Sharron Angle.

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

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

And that claim should be taken seriously

Gay Rights Victory Creates Moral Opportunity for Conservatives

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

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

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

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

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

And:

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

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

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

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

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

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

And they should.

The "Ben Nelson Presidential Residence"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jack Tatum RIP--Avoid Clotheslines

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

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

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

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

And he retired a couple of years later.

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

And it should be.

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

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

Poor Tony Hayward

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

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

I would suggest that that's not the case.

What about Andrew Breitbart and the 9th Commandment?

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

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

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

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

Whoops!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rasmussen on Conway/Rand Paul Race

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

The Coming Sharon Angle Fiasco on the Right

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

TPM Not Getting It on Tea Party Racism

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

Jack Conway Did Several Things Well During Forum

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

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

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

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

Eliminate Super-Delegates Altogether

The Democratic Party is proposing to lower the number of party official and office holder "superdelegates" for the 2012 Convention.
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Huffpost claims this will "lower" super-delegate influence.
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However, the super-delegates have never had any influence. So, there's nothing to lose. The idea of super-delegates was to stymy the kind of populist insurgency that resulted in the nomination of George McGovern in 1972.
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But I can't remember an example of that happening.
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If super-delegates were going to have an influence, it would have been in 2008 when they would have tilted the table in favor of Hillary over Obama.
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That would have been disastrous.
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The best idea would be to eliminate super-delegates altogether. All they've ever done is run up bar bills, provide business for prostitutes, and have affairs with each other's wives and husbands. --
There will be fewer scandals if they just stay home.

Remaking the NBA

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

Dividing the league up is pretty easy.

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

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

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

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

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

Need to keep thinking about that.

The First Step in Dealing with the Tea-Party Crowd

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the most telling bit:

It was only later [after 1964 when Byrd filibustered the Civil Rights Act) that racism became a liability for ambitious Democratic politicians, and it was only later that Byrd became a civil-rights advocate of sorts.

I say "of sorts" because Byrd's 832-page exercise in gasbaggery includes a creepy passage in which he describes white ethnics as "former minorities" who "sought no special status," implicitly contrasting them with modern minorities who "push and shove and demand something for nothing." When Byrd broke the Senate's longevity record, I poked fun at that passage along with others that decried "multiculturalism" and compared cities to "the jungles of Africa." But if Byrd's memoirs suggested some lingering discomfort with diversity, they revealed a much more visceral distaste for modernity, a fierce nostalgia for "the days of my boyhood," when America was great, kids had manners, the funny papers were funny and even Coca-Cola was "a more zestful and invigorating drink."

Uh, yeah — it was made with cocaine back then.

But the bottom line is that Byrd deserved it.

More on Chris Henry and Brain Damage from Football

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

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

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

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

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

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

Football's a brutal game.

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

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

Who Would Jesus Shoot?

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

Maybe the Knicks Should Just Kidnap Lebron

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

Brain Damage from Football Starts Early

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

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

Death of Robert Byrd

Robert Byrd, the senior Senator from West Virginia, died last night. Byrd was known for his incredible endurance as a member of the Senate more than anything else. He was exactly a legislative dynamo like Ted Kennedy, but he did have his moments--his early opposition to the invasion of Iraq being the most prominent.

A Pre-Written Headline on Obama

The Daily Telegraph, a newspaper in a minor soccer playing island on the edge of the European continent, has a headline saying that Obama's firing of Gen. McChrystal "shows weakness." Of course, they would have had the same headline if Obama had kept McChrystal.

Friedrich Engels Revisited

This looks like an interesting restatement of Engels classic thesis on the origins of the family and marriage-- Sex At Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality.

More Mistress Troubles on the Right

Mel Gibson has joined the long list of prominent conservatives with mistress troubles.

Legal representatives for Oksana Grigorieva - the mother of the actor's eight-month-old daughter Lucia - attended an emergency hearing at a Los Angeles court, where the judge was told the Braveheart star had been "extremely violent" towards his former partner.

At least I think it's Mel Gibson. Gibson, Mark Sanford, Jon Ensign, David Vitter, Mark Souder--the names all tend to blur together. And it's not like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh won't start collecting new mistresses now that they've both remarried for the 5,000th time.

The main difference between Gibson and the other philandering conservatives is that Oksana Grigorieva is complaining about physical and emotional abuse rather than the run-of-the-mill mistress stuff of not getting enough attention.

Well, what to say. I'm not going to call Gibson a hypocrite. That's as obvious as calling him an Australian or saying that the Pope doesn't like women and gay people.

Besides, conservatives have a decent response when they say that their moral standards are valid despite the fact that so many conservative guys have mistresses.

In exchange for my generosity on this issue, I would like conservatives to agree that feminists and other liberals have been absolutely right in their uncompromising condemnations of domestic violence.

In this case, political correctness has been an absolute benefit to society.

Who says we can't all come together?

Obama's Image Problem

Obama's image problem boils down to this.

"In Your Face" leadership responds to everything and doesn't accomplish much other than mobilizing opponents. George Bush is testimony to that.

But "In Your Face" is addicting.

People on the left want it just as much as people on the right.

HuffPost wants it just as much as Sarah Palin.

In that context, Obama's "Not In Your Face" leadership looks like "unengaged" and the right is beginning to pounce on it.

Theda Skocpol Hits Nail on the Head

Harvard sociology great Theda Skocpol on the efforts of Congressional Republicans to undercut the economic recovery as a way to better position themselves for 2010 election.

Ghana Wins!

So, the Ghanaian team elimates the U. S. 2-1 in overtime. That's twice in a row that Ghana has eliminated the American team. But the U. S. played pretty much according to its world rankings. If we want out soccer teams to play better in the World Cup, we'll have to become a better soccer nation.

Bin Laden Hunter Gary Faulker as New Hero on the Right?

It might be that the right wing is developing a new hero in Gary Faulkner, the guy who went to Pakistan on his own to hunt Osama bin Laden.

CNN reporter Jim Spellman certainly slobbers all over him.

Keep the Idiot McChrystal

Let's play the "you get to be president" game. Here's the scenario: your top military commander in your hopeless war grants a rolling interview with a popular music magazine.

That's stupid enough.

I mean, what exactly was the chance that Rolling Stone would come out with a positive story about the war in Afghanistan?

Then, it turns out that the idiot four-star general lets the Rolling Stone reporter see him and his ten man in full rap star mode, with his whole ten-man posse of "killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs" letting their hair down. Everybody's in full wise-guy mode. They're wise guys. They're "completely shitfaced" at an American bar in Paris. They're belligerent. They're t0tal assholes. McChrystal's posse doesn't just dump on President Obama in McChrystal's name. They make sure they name the name of every civilian official they don't like and why--including Joe Biden, Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, Ambassador Karl Eichenberry, and National Security Adviser James Jones.

Wait a minute! They forgot to dump on Jones' secretary. Well, thank God for that.

But they do like Hillary Clinton because she's for giving McChrystal everything he wants.

Then, to make matters worse, General Stan and his posse proceed to dump on the war he's supposed to be winning. It turns out that the General doesn't think he's winning and doesn't think the war can be won.

And of course, McChrystal's interview with Rolling Stone also provides an occasion for all the highly placed opponents of the war in Afghanistan to have their say and for all the opponents to look extremely reasonable because the general himself pretty much agrees with them.

Talk about stupid!

So, if you're president, do you keep General Stan in his job or do you fire him for being a belligerent asshole and a fucking idiot?

My considered opinion is that Obama should keep the idiot, but that he should force the idiot to replace every last person on his posse--er, staff--who talked for the Rolling Stone interview.

Every last one one of them.

The case for firing McChrystal is that he's another "idiot general" in the vein of Douglas MacArthur and that he's a threat to civilian authority over the military.

I don't think so.

McChrystal didn't make the derogatory comments about Obama himself and is not defying Obama's orders. That takes McChrystal out of MacArthur territory right there. McChrystal wasn't quoted as criticizing the president's strategy for the Afghanistan War either. In relation to McChrystal, the main problem with the interview is that he let the Rolling Stone reporter see the normal ups and downs of communication with people like Richard Holbrooke.

That's stupid, but it's not betraying the Constitution.

The other big problem is that his staff people are clueless about just about everything except fighting the war on the ground.

But the article doesn't make McChrystal and his staff look that bad in terms of fighting the war on the ground.

(to be continued)








Did I mention that McChrystal and his staff were total assholes?



It's

The Answer is No

The New Yorker asks whether Mike Huckabee is Is the wayward Republican Mike Huckabee now his party’s best hope? The answer to that question is No! Mike Huckabee is a second tier candidate behind Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. Huckabee has no sizzle in his personality. Likewise, Huckabee has no steak in his record. Even worse, he pardoned somebody who ended up killing cops in Seattle. Huckabee's well-enough known to score well in the polls two years out, but isn't going to be competitive with Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney.