All the initial press about Allen Iverson's trade demand was about controversy--missed practices, conflicts with Larry Brown, skipping a bowling event, not getting along with Mo Cheeks, and diddly things like that. Of course, the media has a template in which what is newsworthy about players like Iverson, Chris Webber, Shaquille O'Neill, Kevin Garnet, and Ben Rothlesberger are their controversial incidents and failures rather than their importance to an organization.
What exactly does a guy like Iverson do for an organization?
In the case of the Philadelphia 76ers, they've known for eleven years that they had a very special player in Allen Iverson. When there is an Allen Iverson on board, the problem for management is to create an environment where Iverson's special efforts have the best opportunity to produce team success. That means bringing in coaches, complementary stars, role players, trainers, and other people who can complement, play off, assist, or otherwise team up with the special players or players in order to win games and contend for championships.
The problem for ownership is to bring in a management team that can put all of these pieces together in an effective way. The Chicago Bulls of the Michael Jordan era had enormous success in bringing in coaches and players who played off, worked well with, complemented, and helped Jordan. The Dallas Mavericks and Detroit Pistons are great examples of recent success. They've put presidents and general managers in place who had a nose for the trades and draft choices that worked with their players.
The Sixers management has failed pretty miserably. Nathaniel Friedman of Slate tries to develop a case that Iverson's talents don't mesh well with other players. How would anybody know? Allen Iverson has been in Philadelphia for eleven years and the Sixers have yet to bring in a power forward or center who has any prime time left in them. Say what you will about Jerry Krauss, but he did draft, sign, or trade for Scotty Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and John Paxson while getting some good mileage out of Bill Cartwright. The Sixers have traded for long-past-their-primes Glenn Robinson and Chris Webber while making almost singularly undistinguished draft picks. Their best pick-up was Derrick Coleman while neither Kyle Korver, Andre Iguodala, nor Samuel Dalembert could start for any other team in the NBA. Iverson has grown as both an offensive and defensive player but neither ownership nor management have done their jobs well enough for the Sixers to give their Hall of Fame guard really fruitful employment.
The deep irony of the situation is that the Sixers have been so anxious to get rid of Iverson now that he's expressed a desire for a trade. They won't let him play, wouldn't let him shootaround, took his nameplate off his locker, and seemed to efface all evidence of Iverson around their facilities. Management seems to think that banishing Iverson will mean that they will no longer be reminded of their own failures. Their next losing streak will disagree.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Deeper Into the Wilderness
Obama v Bush. The rise of Barack Obama is further evidence that American politics is more unsettled than it's been at any time since the sixties. Obama's admirers view him as a person who can get the country out of the intense partisanship of the Clinton/ Bush years. However, I would like to suggest that the Obama boom is fueled by the dream of a world without the right-wing--an America without the right's viciousness and arrogance, an America without the drumbeat of wedge issues, an America without the Iraq War, and an America that is more at peace with itself. Obviously, the Obama surge is bad news for Hillary Clinton, but it might be even worse news for the future of the Republican Party. If the Bush administration is not careful, the war in Iraq could keep the Republicans in the wilderness for the next generation as the nation lurches away from the era of right-wing government.
The Nightmare Option. One of the real dangers of the present is the disconnect between the Bush administration and the American public. The Bush administration has conducted the war so poorly that large majorities of the public have given up and want to withdraw. As a result, the U. S. no longer has a government that is credible with the American public. Ironically enough, it looks like the Bush administration is preparing reckless new initiatives in Iraq to re-establish a credibility that was lost because of their arrogance and recklessness. The outlines of President Bush's response to the Iraq Study Group are emerging and it looks like he wants first to reshuffle the Iraqi government to exclude Moqtada al-Sadr and then to attack Sadr's Mahdi Army in the Sadr City slum of Baghdad and other cities in Southern Iraq. The idea is that the removal of Sadr and his militia will make it possible for Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd politicians to form a government of real national unity.
This idea is so breathtaking in its foolishness that only the Bush administration could have thought of it. Of course, there wouldn't be much difficulty in defeating the Mahdi Army militarily and either arresting or killing Sadr. The problem is the the U. S. military would have to turn all of the towns and cities dominated by the Mahdi Army into more Fallujahs and Ramadis in order to destroy Sadr's military and social apparatus. Without Sadr, the Shiite militia movement would fragment in the same manner as the Sunni insurgency with Shiite guys from all over Baghdad and the Southeast taking up arms to fight the American occupiers and their Sunni "terrorist" allies. Not only would the anarchic situation in Baghdad get worse, but other Shiite towns and cities would start looking more like Baghdad.
Back to America. Projecting into the future, it looks like the Bush administration and the American right-wing are going to go down swinging in Iraq. This will only compound the current disaster. In many ways, the weak solutions offered by the Iraq Study Group have served as an indication of the extent to which the current American elite is not capable of devising a credible strategy for dealing with Iraq. If the Bush administration goes after Sadr over the next couple of years, the situation will be that much worse when a new President is elected. By that time, Bush will have led our country much deeper into the wilderness.
The Nightmare Option. One of the real dangers of the present is the disconnect between the Bush administration and the American public. The Bush administration has conducted the war so poorly that large majorities of the public have given up and want to withdraw. As a result, the U. S. no longer has a government that is credible with the American public. Ironically enough, it looks like the Bush administration is preparing reckless new initiatives in Iraq to re-establish a credibility that was lost because of their arrogance and recklessness. The outlines of President Bush's response to the Iraq Study Group are emerging and it looks like he wants first to reshuffle the Iraqi government to exclude Moqtada al-Sadr and then to attack Sadr's Mahdi Army in the Sadr City slum of Baghdad and other cities in Southern Iraq. The idea is that the removal of Sadr and his militia will make it possible for Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd politicians to form a government of real national unity.
This idea is so breathtaking in its foolishness that only the Bush administration could have thought of it. Of course, there wouldn't be much difficulty in defeating the Mahdi Army militarily and either arresting or killing Sadr. The problem is the the U. S. military would have to turn all of the towns and cities dominated by the Mahdi Army into more Fallujahs and Ramadis in order to destroy Sadr's military and social apparatus. Without Sadr, the Shiite militia movement would fragment in the same manner as the Sunni insurgency with Shiite guys from all over Baghdad and the Southeast taking up arms to fight the American occupiers and their Sunni "terrorist" allies. Not only would the anarchic situation in Baghdad get worse, but other Shiite towns and cities would start looking more like Baghdad.
Back to America. Projecting into the future, it looks like the Bush administration and the American right-wing are going to go down swinging in Iraq. This will only compound the current disaster. In many ways, the weak solutions offered by the Iraq Study Group have served as an indication of the extent to which the current American elite is not capable of devising a credible strategy for dealing with Iraq. If the Bush administration goes after Sadr over the next couple of years, the situation will be that much worse when a new President is elected. By that time, Bush will have led our country much deeper into the wilderness.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Fly-Over Notes
Where I am. My day job is teaching at one of the nation's real fly-over schools--Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky. As a rural, regional state university in a poor state, Morehead State is very low on the educational totem pole. Sure, we're above community colleges and regional state universities in states like Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alabama. However, Morehead has a hard time measuring up even to other regional universities like Western Kentucky and Murray State in Kentucky let alone places in wealthier states like Appalachian State in North Carolina.
Drafting. Today, I piled through drafts of take-home exams and research papers. Unlike places like Oberlin, Morehead State students need to be taught and examining early drafts is one of my most effective teaching techniques. It's a lot of work, but students benefit from having simple things pointed out to them like the need to refer to the assigned readings, the benefits of correlating their ideas, and the beauty of carrying out their arguments to the next permutation. It's simple editing work on my part, but the result is often rapid improvement on the part of students. Interestingly enough, the students have a lot of talent that only needs minor tweeking to come out.
Students. Students at Morehead State generally go to crummy high schools and usually don't have very good skills or much confidence as a result. Even the best students have a hard time believing that they're any good. But there's considerable advantage to that. Being poorly trained, Morehead State students aren't as wedded to the conventional wisdom as students at places like Oberlin which means that they are capable of highly original work. A fair number of Morehead State students burn with new ideas and original perspectives. Students often respond to small pointers or a little encouragement by embarking on first-rate work. Last year, a white student tore through a long paper locating herself within black feminist thought. Earlier this evening I read through an intense and tough-minded feminist reflection on virginity in a world of abstinence.
Needless to say. My work as a professor is usually very satisfying even if it's not taking me to the big time.
The Student Double Shift. Saturday, I took a walk down to the coffee shop where one of my students named Lindsey was working at the counter. That evening, my family went to the little Italian restaurant in town and there was Lindsey again working as a waitress. It turns out that she also has a work study job and baby-sits. Even though she has four jobs, Lindsey carries a 3.6 as a junior in the honors program. That kind of educational heroism is much more routine at Morehead than it is in the Ivy League. Almost 25% of the students in one of my classes work 40 hours a week with no guarantee that it will work out for them at all.
That's one of the reasons why I keep reading their drafts.
Drafting. Today, I piled through drafts of take-home exams and research papers. Unlike places like Oberlin, Morehead State students need to be taught and examining early drafts is one of my most effective teaching techniques. It's a lot of work, but students benefit from having simple things pointed out to them like the need to refer to the assigned readings, the benefits of correlating their ideas, and the beauty of carrying out their arguments to the next permutation. It's simple editing work on my part, but the result is often rapid improvement on the part of students. Interestingly enough, the students have a lot of talent that only needs minor tweeking to come out.
Students. Students at Morehead State generally go to crummy high schools and usually don't have very good skills or much confidence as a result. Even the best students have a hard time believing that they're any good. But there's considerable advantage to that. Being poorly trained, Morehead State students aren't as wedded to the conventional wisdom as students at places like Oberlin which means that they are capable of highly original work. A fair number of Morehead State students burn with new ideas and original perspectives. Students often respond to small pointers or a little encouragement by embarking on first-rate work. Last year, a white student tore through a long paper locating herself within black feminist thought. Earlier this evening I read through an intense and tough-minded feminist reflection on virginity in a world of abstinence.
Needless to say. My work as a professor is usually very satisfying even if it's not taking me to the big time.
The Student Double Shift. Saturday, I took a walk down to the coffee shop where one of my students named Lindsey was working at the counter. That evening, my family went to the little Italian restaurant in town and there was Lindsey again working as a waitress. It turns out that she also has a work study job and baby-sits. Even though she has four jobs, Lindsey carries a 3.6 as a junior in the honors program. That kind of educational heroism is much more routine at Morehead than it is in the Ivy League. Almost 25% of the students in one of my classes work 40 hours a week with no guarantee that it will work out for them at all.
That's one of the reasons why I keep reading their drafts.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Two Shadows Over Bushland
Pinochet is dead. Today, Augosto Pinochet died at the age of 91. I'm sure that I'm not the only one to notice it, but the point needs to be made anyway. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez, John Ashcroft, John Yoo, and other Bush administration figures are going to spend the rest of their lives under the same shadow of arrest and trial as Pinochet. Theoretically, all of the inmates at Guantamo, prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and suspected terrorists who were tortured in European and Middle Eastern prisons who have a case against the Bush administration will get to pursue charges. Perhaps the U. S. will still be able to stiff the International Criminal Court, but Bush administration figures won't be able to travel abroad in the future any more than Henry Kissinger is able to travel now.
That might be a long time for George Bush. Given that he'll only be 62 when he leaves office, Bush will be looking at 29 years of criminal liability if he lives as long as Pinochet. Bush and his people better hope that the Europeans never get any leverage over an American government. As discredited as the Bush administration is going to be, handing Bush and his advisers over to international courts might not prove to be that hard in the future.
Syria and Iran. One of the well-known recommendations of the Iraq Study Group was the re-establishment of direct communications with Iraq and Syria. Less well known is the fact that the Iraq Study Group concluded that Iran wasn't much of a threat to the U. S. and that Syria was even less of a threat. As the Iraq mission failed, the Bush administration and their neo-con allies have built up an image of Iran as a Shiite version of Saddam Hussein, armed to the teeth, relentlessly expansionist, and working without scruple to overthrow U. S. interests in the Middle East.
It's all nonsense. The Iranians have a run-down military, they're only able to give chump change of a couple hundred mill to their Hezbollah allies, and they're responding to their Shiite allies in Iraq rather than the other way around. Of course, the Bush administration will continue to pump the "Iranian threat" fantasy over the next couple of years. However, one of the shadows hanging over Bushland is the likelihood that a more credible administration will conclude that Iran doesn't even rate as a paper tiger.
That might be a long time for George Bush. Given that he'll only be 62 when he leaves office, Bush will be looking at 29 years of criminal liability if he lives as long as Pinochet. Bush and his people better hope that the Europeans never get any leverage over an American government. As discredited as the Bush administration is going to be, handing Bush and his advisers over to international courts might not prove to be that hard in the future.
Syria and Iran. One of the well-known recommendations of the Iraq Study Group was the re-establishment of direct communications with Iraq and Syria. Less well known is the fact that the Iraq Study Group concluded that Iran wasn't much of a threat to the U. S. and that Syria was even less of a threat. As the Iraq mission failed, the Bush administration and their neo-con allies have built up an image of Iran as a Shiite version of Saddam Hussein, armed to the teeth, relentlessly expansionist, and working without scruple to overthrow U. S. interests in the Middle East.
It's all nonsense. The Iranians have a run-down military, they're only able to give chump change of a couple hundred mill to their Hezbollah allies, and they're responding to their Shiite allies in Iraq rather than the other way around. Of course, the Bush administration will continue to pump the "Iranian threat" fantasy over the next couple of years. However, one of the shadows hanging over Bushland is the likelihood that a more credible administration will conclude that Iran doesn't even rate as a paper tiger.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Election 2008--Race Baiting Starts Early on the Right
The significance of race-baiting for the right. You have to give our friends on the right-wing credit. They waited a whole month after Barack Obama first expressed interest in the presidency to start race-baiting him. Because political racism is viewed as morally repugnant, there is very little comment on the the significance of racism in American politics. For the activist right, however, race-baiting is an important part of their rhetorical arsenal. Of course, race-baiting allows right-wingers to express their own racism and this is far from insignificant. It also serves the political purpose of connecting them with others who resist the "politically correct" orthodoxies concerning the worth of blacks, women, gays, immigrants, and disabled people.
Even more important for right-wingers is the way that baiting blacks, Muslims, and hispanics allows right-wingers to demonstrate what they see as their moral superiority over white liberals. Right-wingers see themselves as smarter, tougher, more determined, more willing to defy social convention, and more authentic than white liberals and race-baiting is one of the pre-eminent ways that the right demonstrates these qualities. The right especially relishes shoving their race-baiting down the "whiny little throats" of liberals while taking any outrage on the part of the left as a sign that they've won. In this sense, race-baiting is an integral part of the right-wing's "war against liberalism."
The Technique for Obama. The trick to public race-baiting is to express racial loathing without directly attacking blacks in the manner of Michael Richards. So, people on the right are constantly looking for clever new ways to employ symbols of racial hostility, remind minorities of racial stereotypes, attack minority public figures, or defend race-baiting as non-racist. When George Allen called the Indian-American guy a "macaca," he thought he was using a clever and defensible way to call a black person a racial epithet. Of course, that one blew up in his face.
With Barack Obama, what people on the right are doing is playing with his name. Ele_, a poster on Slate's Fray, notes that you get "Osama" when you substitute an "s" for the "b" in Obama's name. The race-baiting trick here is to associate Obama's African-sounding name with terrorism so that "Obama" can become a synonym for terrorism. What's clever here is that the rhetorical manuever is defensible as "word-play" used to score a point against Obama even though the effect of the word-play is generated through attaching Obama's name to a stereotype--i. e., race-baiting.
In the same thread, "JackDallas" sticks in the knife a little further by associating the Osama connection and Obama's middle-name of "Hussein" with a traditional symbol of racial animosity. "[Y]eah that's it," says "Dallas," "Just what this country needs, an arabic lawn jockey for president." Here, "Jack Dallas" fuses the Arab associations of Obama's name with a traditional American racial image. Once again, this is defensible approach to race-baiting. Even though lawn jockeys are well known as demeaning images of racial servitude, they don't have the same force as the n-word or cotton images. Consequently, if Obama himself or any white liberal were offended, they could readily be seen as "over-reacting," "emotional," or "weak" because they were upset over such a minor bit of racism. For a right-winger like Dallas, the lawn jockey image would be a two-fer. He gets to engage in some race-baiting at the same time that he has an opportunity to make liberals look bad.
The Prognosis. Assuming that Obama is going to run and that he's competitive, we're in for at least a long 18 months of race-baiting. And the race-baiting will hurt his candidacy because it will tend to transform Obama from a symbol of hope into yet another black symbol of "racial controversy." In my opinion, the best way to counter race-baiting in the context of Obama's campaign is to respond quickly and go beyond the accusation of racism to emphasize what the right-wing is trying to accomplish with their racism.
Even more important for right-wingers is the way that baiting blacks, Muslims, and hispanics allows right-wingers to demonstrate what they see as their moral superiority over white liberals. Right-wingers see themselves as smarter, tougher, more determined, more willing to defy social convention, and more authentic than white liberals and race-baiting is one of the pre-eminent ways that the right demonstrates these qualities. The right especially relishes shoving their race-baiting down the "whiny little throats" of liberals while taking any outrage on the part of the left as a sign that they've won. In this sense, race-baiting is an integral part of the right-wing's "war against liberalism."
The Technique for Obama. The trick to public race-baiting is to express racial loathing without directly attacking blacks in the manner of Michael Richards. So, people on the right are constantly looking for clever new ways to employ symbols of racial hostility, remind minorities of racial stereotypes, attack minority public figures, or defend race-baiting as non-racist. When George Allen called the Indian-American guy a "macaca," he thought he was using a clever and defensible way to call a black person a racial epithet. Of course, that one blew up in his face.
With Barack Obama, what people on the right are doing is playing with his name. Ele_, a poster on Slate's Fray, notes that you get "Osama" when you substitute an "s" for the "b" in Obama's name. The race-baiting trick here is to associate Obama's African-sounding name with terrorism so that "Obama" can become a synonym for terrorism. What's clever here is that the rhetorical manuever is defensible as "word-play" used to score a point against Obama even though the effect of the word-play is generated through attaching Obama's name to a stereotype--i. e., race-baiting.
In the same thread, "JackDallas" sticks in the knife a little further by associating the Osama connection and Obama's middle-name of "Hussein" with a traditional symbol of racial animosity. "[Y]eah that's it," says "Dallas," "Just what this country needs, an arabic lawn jockey for president." Here, "Jack Dallas" fuses the Arab associations of Obama's name with a traditional American racial image. Once again, this is defensible approach to race-baiting. Even though lawn jockeys are well known as demeaning images of racial servitude, they don't have the same force as the n-word or cotton images. Consequently, if Obama himself or any white liberal were offended, they could readily be seen as "over-reacting," "emotional," or "weak" because they were upset over such a minor bit of racism. For a right-winger like Dallas, the lawn jockey image would be a two-fer. He gets to engage in some race-baiting at the same time that he has an opportunity to make liberals look bad.
The Prognosis. Assuming that Obama is going to run and that he's competitive, we're in for at least a long 18 months of race-baiting. And the race-baiting will hurt his candidacy because it will tend to transform Obama from a symbol of hope into yet another black symbol of "racial controversy." In my opinion, the best way to counter race-baiting in the context of Obama's campaign is to respond quickly and go beyond the accusation of racism to emphasize what the right-wing is trying to accomplish with their racism.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Obama: Clearing Out the Second Tier
Maybe I'd be more excited about Barack Obama if I had read The Audacity of Hope, owned a television, or hadn't been excited about Howard Dean in 2004.
But I'm not.
One thing that Obama is doing, however, is killing the long-shot candidacy of John Kerry. He's also making an Al Gore bid a little less likely than it already is.
In the most recent Fox polling, Obama polls at 12% among Democrats, enough to put him alone in the second tier of interested Democratic candidates but not enough to bother Hillary too much. Given that Kerry sinks from 13% to 6% and Gore dives from 15% to 11%, almost of Obama's support is coming from people who still support former candidates.
Not exactly a hip crowd.
And Obama hasn't taken anything from Hillary. Her support increased slightly from 32-33%
Assuming that Gore is not going to run, that means that Obama is the only Democrat other than Hillary with more than 10% support. Eventually, this will make Obama the anti-Hillary in a precedent-setting and high-quality Democratic primary campaign.
The third tier is made up of John Edwards and John Kerry drifting below the Lieberman futility line of 9% while Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Tom Vilsack, Wesley Clark, and Bill Richardson all barely register.
What often happens is that third tier candidates drift along hoping to become the leading alternative to the favorite and then catch some kind of lightning to the top. For all the guys in the Democratic third tier, this means that they would be hoping to seize any opportunity afforded if Obama either faltered or decided not to run.
You have to wonder why they bother.
Right now, Barack Obama's main contribution to the Democratic presidential nomination process is to make it necessary for the third-tier riff raff to have a lot more audacity if they want to keep hope alive (to borrow a Jesse Jackson line).
I'm all for that.
But I'm not.
One thing that Obama is doing, however, is killing the long-shot candidacy of John Kerry. He's also making an Al Gore bid a little less likely than it already is.
In the most recent Fox polling, Obama polls at 12% among Democrats, enough to put him alone in the second tier of interested Democratic candidates but not enough to bother Hillary too much. Given that Kerry sinks from 13% to 6% and Gore dives from 15% to 11%, almost of Obama's support is coming from people who still support former candidates.
Not exactly a hip crowd.
And Obama hasn't taken anything from Hillary. Her support increased slightly from 32-33%
Assuming that Gore is not going to run, that means that Obama is the only Democrat other than Hillary with more than 10% support. Eventually, this will make Obama the anti-Hillary in a precedent-setting and high-quality Democratic primary campaign.
The third tier is made up of John Edwards and John Kerry drifting below the Lieberman futility line of 9% while Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Tom Vilsack, Wesley Clark, and Bill Richardson all barely register.
What often happens is that third tier candidates drift along hoping to become the leading alternative to the favorite and then catch some kind of lightning to the top. For all the guys in the Democratic third tier, this means that they would be hoping to seize any opportunity afforded if Obama either faltered or decided not to run.
You have to wonder why they bother.
Right now, Barack Obama's main contribution to the Democratic presidential nomination process is to make it necessary for the third-tier riff raff to have a lot more audacity if they want to keep hope alive (to borrow a Jesse Jackson line).
I'm all for that.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
The Iraq Study Group and Credible Government
The odd imperative of bi-partisanship. As Matthew Yglesias has emphasized, the Iraq Study is an effort by Washington Wise Men to re-establish some sort of bi-partisan elite reconciliation in the United States. It's an important point. In fact, the Iraq Study Group is about the United States as much at least as much as it is about Iraq and the leaders of the Iraq Study Group are putting a strong emphasis on bi-partisanship. However, Yglesias is mistaken in thinking that the Iraq Study Group is simply trying to exclude the left (although they did that). He is also mistaken to think that James Baker, Lee Hamilton, and David Broder are trying to create bipartisan harmony for it's own sake. American government is confronting a real, difficult, and under-appreciated problem right now.
The Perils of Presidential Government. In fact, the U. S. is undergoing the most serious crisis of presidential government since Watergate. The Bush administration has been almost as universally repudiated in the United States as it is in world opinion. Bush policy in Iraq has been repudiated in the polls for months, a repudiation that was reinforced by the heavy losses of the Republicans in the Congressional elections. On top of that President Bush's conduct of the war has lost the support of the neo-conservative policy elite after first losing the loyalty of the CIA, State Department, and military bureaucracies. If Bush were a prime minister in a parliamentary system, his own party would have forced him to resign and make way for a different leader. Because the U. S. has a presidential system where even the worst leaders serve their full terms, we are stuck with an administration that has been repudiated by the public, the government apparatus, and opinion elites of all ideological persuasions. Having a government that has been almost universally rejected is a dangerous thing in a time of war because it prevents the various elements of our enormous society from coalescing around one or two approaches to conducting the war. That's what's happening in the U. S. in relation to Iraq right now. There is a broad sense that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating, but not the least bit of consensus about how to understand that deterioration or what to do about it.
A Substitute for Credible Government. Given that the Bush administration is no longer credible on Iraq and that the Democratic opposition has not found its voice, the Iraq Study Group is serving as an elite substitute for credible government. The fact that such a fragile mechanism is necessary constitutes one more embarrassing measure of the foreign policy and defense failures of the Bush administration. Nevertheless, the Iraq Study Group succeeded in a very basic sense. They re-asserted a sober sense of the reality on the ground in Iraq as the basis for mapping out future policy, a sense of reality initially developed on the left. For years, anti-war commenters have emphasized the failure to get Iraq's economy functioning at more than pre-war levels, Iraq's explosive sectarianism, and the general ineffectiveness of the Iraqi government, army, and police. All of these conclusions and more were adapted by the Iraq Study Group and now have the character of a bi-partisan, elite conclusion. With the work of the Iraq study group, we can have a national consensus about how bad the situation is in Iraq and how ineffective the Bush administration has been in addressing that situation.
Forward Movement. The Iraq Study Group has defined the problems in Iraq in termsthat Disaffected Republicans, the Democrats, and anti-war people can mostly agree on. The only question is whether the Bush administration and the right-wing will continue in their hyper-aggressive denial of reality. I suspect that the answer to that question will be "yes" and that the Bush administration will find themselves increasingly marginal to public debate.
What to do? The weak point of the Iraq Study Group was their suggestions for addressing the many dimensions of the problem in Iraq. Launching a new international initiative, challenging the Maliki government to engage in a broad national reconciliation, and concentrating more on embedding American advisers into Iraqi units are all worthwhile recommendations. However, these ideas don't provide the ballast needed for a comprehensive solution to Iraq's problems. The Iraq Study group wants to reach out to Syria and Iran but provides little reason for Syria and Iran to respond. Likewise, they demand that Maliki embark on broad national reconciliation but provide no idea on how that could happen. Here, the Iraq Study Group has not being able to prioritize Iraq in relation to other American priorities on Iran, Syria, and Israel. If the U. S. is going to seek to integrate Iran and Syria into efforts to stabilize Iraq, it might have to accommodate Iran on nuclear weapons and accomodate Syria on Lebanon. If the Iraq Study Group wants the Maliki administration to become a more forceful presence, it will have to allow Maliki to build on his strongest assets, the Shiite militias.
The Iraq Study Group could not come up with a magic bullet for making the Iraq situation better. However, the members of that group deserve a great deal of credit for agreeing on the nature of the target in Iraq. At a time when the U. S. desperately needed a substitute for credible government, the Iraq Study Group provided one.
The Perils of Presidential Government. In fact, the U. S. is undergoing the most serious crisis of presidential government since Watergate. The Bush administration has been almost as universally repudiated in the United States as it is in world opinion. Bush policy in Iraq has been repudiated in the polls for months, a repudiation that was reinforced by the heavy losses of the Republicans in the Congressional elections. On top of that President Bush's conduct of the war has lost the support of the neo-conservative policy elite after first losing the loyalty of the CIA, State Department, and military bureaucracies. If Bush were a prime minister in a parliamentary system, his own party would have forced him to resign and make way for a different leader. Because the U. S. has a presidential system where even the worst leaders serve their full terms, we are stuck with an administration that has been repudiated by the public, the government apparatus, and opinion elites of all ideological persuasions. Having a government that has been almost universally rejected is a dangerous thing in a time of war because it prevents the various elements of our enormous society from coalescing around one or two approaches to conducting the war. That's what's happening in the U. S. in relation to Iraq right now. There is a broad sense that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating, but not the least bit of consensus about how to understand that deterioration or what to do about it.
A Substitute for Credible Government. Given that the Bush administration is no longer credible on Iraq and that the Democratic opposition has not found its voice, the Iraq Study Group is serving as an elite substitute for credible government. The fact that such a fragile mechanism is necessary constitutes one more embarrassing measure of the foreign policy and defense failures of the Bush administration. Nevertheless, the Iraq Study Group succeeded in a very basic sense. They re-asserted a sober sense of the reality on the ground in Iraq as the basis for mapping out future policy, a sense of reality initially developed on the left. For years, anti-war commenters have emphasized the failure to get Iraq's economy functioning at more than pre-war levels, Iraq's explosive sectarianism, and the general ineffectiveness of the Iraqi government, army, and police. All of these conclusions and more were adapted by the Iraq Study Group and now have the character of a bi-partisan, elite conclusion. With the work of the Iraq study group, we can have a national consensus about how bad the situation is in Iraq and how ineffective the Bush administration has been in addressing that situation.
Forward Movement. The Iraq Study Group has defined the problems in Iraq in termsthat Disaffected Republicans, the Democrats, and anti-war people can mostly agree on. The only question is whether the Bush administration and the right-wing will continue in their hyper-aggressive denial of reality. I suspect that the answer to that question will be "yes" and that the Bush administration will find themselves increasingly marginal to public debate.
What to do? The weak point of the Iraq Study Group was their suggestions for addressing the many dimensions of the problem in Iraq. Launching a new international initiative, challenging the Maliki government to engage in a broad national reconciliation, and concentrating more on embedding American advisers into Iraqi units are all worthwhile recommendations. However, these ideas don't provide the ballast needed for a comprehensive solution to Iraq's problems. The Iraq Study group wants to reach out to Syria and Iran but provides little reason for Syria and Iran to respond. Likewise, they demand that Maliki embark on broad national reconciliation but provide no idea on how that could happen. Here, the Iraq Study Group has not being able to prioritize Iraq in relation to other American priorities on Iran, Syria, and Israel. If the U. S. is going to seek to integrate Iran and Syria into efforts to stabilize Iraq, it might have to accommodate Iran on nuclear weapons and accomodate Syria on Lebanon. If the Iraq Study Group wants the Maliki administration to become a more forceful presence, it will have to allow Maliki to build on his strongest assets, the Shiite militias.
The Iraq Study Group could not come up with a magic bullet for making the Iraq situation better. However, the members of that group deserve a great deal of credit for agreeing on the nature of the target in Iraq. At a time when the U. S. desperately needed a substitute for credible government, the Iraq Study Group provided one.
Dick Cheney: Another Grandchild for Worst VP in 200 years
Early reports this morning are that Mary Cheney, the daughter of VP Dick Cheney is pregnant and expecting a baby with her lesbian partner Heather Poe. I'll forbear any cheap shots about the hypocrisy of Mary Cheney spearheading her father's 2004 campaign while the Republicans made attacks on gay rights their primary theme. It's not like Mary Cheney was the only gay Republican implicated in the ugly homophobia of the Republican campaign in 2004. There was Rep. Mark Foley, Kirk Fordham (former chief of staff to Rep. Tom Reynolds), Robert Traynham (communications director to Rick Santorum), and an apparently extensive network of gay staffers on Capitol Hill. According to David Corn, Sen. Mitch McConnell is supposed to have a gay staffer. Actually, the rumor in Kentucky is that McConnell himself is gay and that his marriage to Elaine Chao is a sham. Because there are so many influential gay Republicans, there is not much use in slamming Mary Cheney or Dick Cheney in particular.
Besides, Alan Keyes, Donald Widmon, James Dobson, and the rest of the homophobic bigots on the religious right are going to spend most of the day upbraiding Mary Cheney and her father anyway.
The only point I want to make is that his daughter's pregnancy is by far the best thing that Dick Cheney's been involved with since he became vice-president. Dick Cheney was supposed to be an adult mentor for the woefully ignorant president Bush when he took office. Instead, Cheney the adult turned out to be more of a weird little boy than the President. Cheney has used his position as the most powerful vice-president in American history to pursue the crazed project of trying to vindicate most of the worst qualities of the Nixon presidency. I'm not talking about cutting taxes for the wealthy or handing the Alaska National Wilderness Reserve over to the oil companies. Making life even easier for the "haves" is the ambition of any Republican, straight or gay. Rather, Cheney has been the worst vice-president since Aaron Burr because of his involvement with the Bush administration secrecy campaigns, torturing suspected terrorists, sending suspects off to other countries to be tortured, cooking the intelligence that led to the Iraq invasion, and dishonestly posing one "rosy scenario" after another to justify the whole misbegotten occupation. Cheney has been at the center of almost every Bush administration move to screw up the Iraq invasion, waste American resources, and lower American credibility in the world over the last six years and it literally will take decades for the U. S. to recover from Dick Cheney's vice-presidency.
So, congratulations to Dick Cheney for the upcoming birth of another grandchild. It's the only honorable thing he's been involved with for a long time.
Besides, Alan Keyes, Donald Widmon, James Dobson, and the rest of the homophobic bigots on the religious right are going to spend most of the day upbraiding Mary Cheney and her father anyway.
The only point I want to make is that his daughter's pregnancy is by far the best thing that Dick Cheney's been involved with since he became vice-president. Dick Cheney was supposed to be an adult mentor for the woefully ignorant president Bush when he took office. Instead, Cheney the adult turned out to be more of a weird little boy than the President. Cheney has used his position as the most powerful vice-president in American history to pursue the crazed project of trying to vindicate most of the worst qualities of the Nixon presidency. I'm not talking about cutting taxes for the wealthy or handing the Alaska National Wilderness Reserve over to the oil companies. Making life even easier for the "haves" is the ambition of any Republican, straight or gay. Rather, Cheney has been the worst vice-president since Aaron Burr because of his involvement with the Bush administration secrecy campaigns, torturing suspected terrorists, sending suspects off to other countries to be tortured, cooking the intelligence that led to the Iraq invasion, and dishonestly posing one "rosy scenario" after another to justify the whole misbegotten occupation. Cheney has been at the center of almost every Bush administration move to screw up the Iraq invasion, waste American resources, and lower American credibility in the world over the last six years and it literally will take decades for the U. S. to recover from Dick Cheney's vice-presidency.
So, congratulations to Dick Cheney for the upcoming birth of another grandchild. It's the only honorable thing he's been involved with for a long time.
Monday, December 04, 2006
George Bush and the "T" Word
Lately, there's been some comment on the left about whether George Bush is the worst president in the history of the United States. The bright yellow "W-Worst Ever" bumper sticker on my car says that I agree with Eric Foner and Douglas Brinkley in rating Bush the worst. However, it really is too early to tell.
It does seem likely that Bush will be listed either with the disastrous Presidents like James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover, and Richard Nixon or the weak but not quite disastrous presidents like Franklin Pierce. Whether Bush is dead last will depend on the priorities of the historians doing the rating. Reagan biographer Lou Cannon points out that future historians might lift Bush's ratings because of the success of No Child Left Behind or the Prescription Drug Benefit. But it's just as likely that that the future will make things worse for George W. For example, information may turn up that will lead either American or international courts to indict President Bush and members of his administration for crimes against humanity.
There's also the possibility that a shadow of treason will develop over the Bush administration. There was a time in late 2003 and early 2004 when the insurgency had taken root but was not as entrenched as it would be that the Bush administration could have dramatically increased the American military presence in Iraq in the attempt to defeat the insurgency before it got a lot worse. Certainly, John McCain and John Kerry were advocating significant increases in the number of troops on the ground in Iraq.
Of course, there might be several reasons why the Bush administration decided to stay the course with 137,000 troops. Given that Wolfowitz, Feith, and Rumsfeld were all still on board, the Bush administration might have sincerely believed that the troop deployment was adequate. Perhaps Bush's people thought that increasing the number of troops would be admitting that their initial deployments were a mistake and thus would be disadvantageous politically.
However, I have always had the sneaking suspicion that the Bush administration saw political advantage in the initial growth of the insurgency. Sure, they would rather that the insurgency not have come into existence at all, but some of the "unintended consequences" of the insurgency were good for the Bush administration. First, the insurgency could be used as a club to beat the Democrats in the 2004 election and beyond. Second, the existence and growth of the insurgency could remind the Shiites in control of the Iraq government that they still very much needed the American military and would do so for the forseeable future.
To the extent that the Bush administration decided that the growth of the insurgency was a good thing in some ways, they were coming close to committing treason according to the Constitutional definition of treason as providing "aid and comfort to the enemy." If the administration adapted a policy that knowingly allowed the insurgency to grow, that's as close as any government has come to aiding and abetting an enemy.
It will be interesting to see what emerges concerning the Bush administration's policy-making concerning the Iraq War. The thing that Bush's people have to fear most are war crimes accusations. However, it's conceivable that information could emerge that will make people start talking about the "t-word" in relation to the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War.
It does seem likely that Bush will be listed either with the disastrous Presidents like James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover, and Richard Nixon or the weak but not quite disastrous presidents like Franklin Pierce. Whether Bush is dead last will depend on the priorities of the historians doing the rating. Reagan biographer Lou Cannon points out that future historians might lift Bush's ratings because of the success of No Child Left Behind or the Prescription Drug Benefit. But it's just as likely that that the future will make things worse for George W. For example, information may turn up that will lead either American or international courts to indict President Bush and members of his administration for crimes against humanity.
There's also the possibility that a shadow of treason will develop over the Bush administration. There was a time in late 2003 and early 2004 when the insurgency had taken root but was not as entrenched as it would be that the Bush administration could have dramatically increased the American military presence in Iraq in the attempt to defeat the insurgency before it got a lot worse. Certainly, John McCain and John Kerry were advocating significant increases in the number of troops on the ground in Iraq.
Of course, there might be several reasons why the Bush administration decided to stay the course with 137,000 troops. Given that Wolfowitz, Feith, and Rumsfeld were all still on board, the Bush administration might have sincerely believed that the troop deployment was adequate. Perhaps Bush's people thought that increasing the number of troops would be admitting that their initial deployments were a mistake and thus would be disadvantageous politically.
However, I have always had the sneaking suspicion that the Bush administration saw political advantage in the initial growth of the insurgency. Sure, they would rather that the insurgency not have come into existence at all, but some of the "unintended consequences" of the insurgency were good for the Bush administration. First, the insurgency could be used as a club to beat the Democrats in the 2004 election and beyond. Second, the existence and growth of the insurgency could remind the Shiites in control of the Iraq government that they still very much needed the American military and would do so for the forseeable future.
To the extent that the Bush administration decided that the growth of the insurgency was a good thing in some ways, they were coming close to committing treason according to the Constitutional definition of treason as providing "aid and comfort to the enemy." If the administration adapted a policy that knowingly allowed the insurgency to grow, that's as close as any government has come to aiding and abetting an enemy.
It will be interesting to see what emerges concerning the Bush administration's policy-making concerning the Iraq War. The thing that Bush's people have to fear most are war crimes accusations. However, it's conceivable that information could emerge that will make people start talking about the "t-word" in relation to the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War.
Doubts About Obama
A couple of days ago, a student in one of my classes listed three "good" people--Mother Theresa, John Paul II, and Barack Obama. I'm not as enthused about Sen. Obama. Barack Obama may be a good man. He may be a great man. So far, however, Obama has shown no evidence of one of the absolutely necessary qualifications for any Democratic presidential candidate or any Democratic President:
the toughness needed to grind out the daily political warfare against the right-wing.
So far, Obama has been about hope and vision and that is something that Americans yearn for after 3 1/2 years of occupying Iraq, 6 years of George Bush and 14 years of non-stop trench warfare of American politics since Bill Clinton's election in 1992. But the trench warfare is not going to stop as long as Rush, Sean, and Bill O'Reilly are on the air, the political right dominates Republican politics, and the most extreme conservatives are rolling in money. To be a successful president, Barack Obama would have to show that he can effectively convey hope and vision after the right-wing turns on the inevitable "war on Obama."
Right now, I don't see Obama as being that tough. That's why I'm supporting Hillary at this point. If Obama does run, it will be a good thing. Obama's candidacy will suck the air out the Democratic primaries for all the second and third tier candidates and get the race quickly down to Hillary vs Obama. It will also give the winning Democratic candidate a tough tough test before they come up against the still-formidable Republican attack machine. I think Hillary will prove to be stronger when the heat gets white hot, but Obama certainly deserves a chance to start proving himself.
the toughness needed to grind out the daily political warfare against the right-wing.
So far, Obama has been about hope and vision and that is something that Americans yearn for after 3 1/2 years of occupying Iraq, 6 years of George Bush and 14 years of non-stop trench warfare of American politics since Bill Clinton's election in 1992. But the trench warfare is not going to stop as long as Rush, Sean, and Bill O'Reilly are on the air, the political right dominates Republican politics, and the most extreme conservatives are rolling in money. To be a successful president, Barack Obama would have to show that he can effectively convey hope and vision after the right-wing turns on the inevitable "war on Obama."
Right now, I don't see Obama as being that tough. That's why I'm supporting Hillary at this point. If Obama does run, it will be a good thing. Obama's candidacy will suck the air out the Democratic primaries for all the second and third tier candidates and get the race quickly down to Hillary vs Obama. It will also give the winning Democratic candidate a tough tough test before they come up against the still-formidable Republican attack machine. I think Hillary will prove to be stronger when the heat gets white hot, but Obama certainly deserves a chance to start proving himself.
John Bolton: A Conservative Martyr at Long Last
John Bolton has to be one of the happiest guys in New York this week. Having submitted his "take this job and shove it" letter to President Bush, Bolton now has only two more weeks of "building coalitions against Iran and North Korea," "promoting reform," having tea with Kofi Annan and consulting with the French, Angolans, Madagascans and other inconsequential parties.
Then, Bolton is free to begin his career as a conservative martyr.
The whole secret to the John Bolton controversy is that Bolton did not want to be UN Ambassador in the first place. When Condoleeza Rice became Secretary of State, Bolton lost out on a power struggle to become Rice's Under-Secretary of State and function as a "minder" making sure that Rice stuck to the neo-conservative party line. The UN job was a completely unwelcome consolation prize that ensured both that Bolton would not be in the decision-making loop and that he would be spending all his time on completely disagreeable tasks.
Work at the UN?--Bolton believed that the UN should be blown up and international law eliminated.
Organize coalitions against North Korea and Iran?--Bolton wanted to overthrow both governments. Syria as well.
Negotiate with other members of the Security Council?--Bolton believed that the U. S. should be the only permanent member of the Security Council.
The only redeeming feature of Bolton's nomination to be UN Ambassador was the possibility that the nomination would be rejected by the Senate. This way, Bolton could spend the rest of his life as a conservative martyr. Bolton would get a promotion at the American Enterprise Institute, his speeches would be much anticipated at the Hoover Institute on the West Coast, and his books on how "liberals opposed him because he stood up for America" would fly off the shelves of right-wing publishers.
As UN Ambassador, Bolton would be living his own private version of hell. As a conservative martyr, Bolton would be rich, famous, respected, and beloved. He could throw out his rhetorical bombs anytime he wanted. He could have fun.
Bolton must have been secretly disappointed when President Bush gave him a recess appointment. When the Senate refused to nominate Bolton again, he moved quickly to pre-empt any attempt by the President to shoehorn him into the hated UN job again.
Free at Last! Free at Last! John Bolton is free from the UN at last.
Then, Bolton is free to begin his career as a conservative martyr.
The whole secret to the John Bolton controversy is that Bolton did not want to be UN Ambassador in the first place. When Condoleeza Rice became Secretary of State, Bolton lost out on a power struggle to become Rice's Under-Secretary of State and function as a "minder" making sure that Rice stuck to the neo-conservative party line. The UN job was a completely unwelcome consolation prize that ensured both that Bolton would not be in the decision-making loop and that he would be spending all his time on completely disagreeable tasks.
Work at the UN?--Bolton believed that the UN should be blown up and international law eliminated.
Organize coalitions against North Korea and Iran?--Bolton wanted to overthrow both governments. Syria as well.
Negotiate with other members of the Security Council?--Bolton believed that the U. S. should be the only permanent member of the Security Council.
The only redeeming feature of Bolton's nomination to be UN Ambassador was the possibility that the nomination would be rejected by the Senate. This way, Bolton could spend the rest of his life as a conservative martyr. Bolton would get a promotion at the American Enterprise Institute, his speeches would be much anticipated at the Hoover Institute on the West Coast, and his books on how "liberals opposed him because he stood up for America" would fly off the shelves of right-wing publishers.
As UN Ambassador, Bolton would be living his own private version of hell. As a conservative martyr, Bolton would be rich, famous, respected, and beloved. He could throw out his rhetorical bombs anytime he wanted. He could have fun.
Bolton must have been secretly disappointed when President Bush gave him a recess appointment. When the Senate refused to nominate Bolton again, he moved quickly to pre-empt any attempt by the President to shoehorn him into the hated UN job again.
Free at Last! Free at Last! John Bolton is free from the UN at last.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Conservatives Yearning for Another Country
Last night, the RSI family had a Superman Returns festival. Watching the most current version of the Superman story almost three times, we decided that it wasn't a bad movie at all. Brandon Routh also was a pretty good Superman for our Rwanda/Darfur/Katrina times. When Routh was standing above the world listening to the cries of millions of people as he was deciding who to help, he was representing the best of the American Way.
At the same time, watching Superman made me wonder about the extent to which our conservative friends still believe in the American Way.
Exampls of conservative disaffection with the United States are readily at hand. Yesterday, it was reported that the conservative San Joaquin diocese is fed up with American Episcopals consecrating female priests, appointing gay bishops, and making women into national leaders. Indeed, San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield has accused national Episcopal leaders of heresy and the Fresno-based diocese has endoresed a direct affiliation with the worldwide Anglican community rather than the U. S. Episcopals. Bishop Schofield has also explored the possibility of affiliating his diocese with the Argentinian Anglican Church.
That's right, Argentina.
It is important to understand the significance of the disaffection of Bishop Schofield and much of his diocese. Their objection to Episcopal policy is that the national church has made women and gays into full participants in the Anglican communion, with the assumption that women and gays have the ability to lead and religious integrity as heterosexual men. Given the traditional exclusion of women from priestly functions and higher administration within all Christian denominations, American episcopals were taking a tremendous step. The same was the case with their election of a gay man as a bishop.
In manuevering its way toward disaffiliation, much of the San Joaquin diocese is expressing its wish to disaffiliate from female priests and gay bishops. At the same time, conservatives want to end their religious association with those who would make women and gays full religious citizens. They want to disaffiliate so much with religious liberals that they're willing to look a continent away for like-minded conservatives.
The idea of equal rights for women is now intellectually dominant in American society even if male supremacy still has an enormous impact. Likewise, the idea that gays and lesbians should be able to live as full citizens is gaining enough ground that homophobes feel that the only way to preserve exclusions is to write them into constitutions.
To the extent that full citizenship for women and gays has become the American Way (for Anglicans), the conservatives in the San Joaquin diocese are looking to disaffiliate from the United States.
This yearning for other countries characterizes many other conservatives as well. Anybody familiar with the Confederate flag phenomenon--and Confederate flags, bumper stickers, shirts, and scarves are very popular in this part of Kentucky--knows that a lot of racists would rather live in the Confederacy. To give an example from public life, Republican Senate whip Trent Lott of Mississippi is on record as saying that “Sometimes I feel closer to Jefferson Davis [leader of the Confederacy] than any other man in America.”
Likewise, many neo-conservatives and other conservatives yearn to live in a country that's more like Israel than the United States. Admiring Israeli aggressiveness against the Arabs and the long Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, American conservatives view the Israelis as an "ideal imperialist"and are fervent in their desire that U. S. foreign policy become more like Israel's. Defense Department conservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith were so strongly identified with Israel that some of their critics began to wonder about their loyalties to the U. S. For ardent neo-cons, however, there is no problem because they hope to see a successful Israeli state serving as a role model or father figure to the more aggressive, more dominant U. S. they wish for.
One of the odd things about conservatives is that they see themselves as the "real Americans," but often have very tenuous cultural and ideological attachments to American society. Knowing that they are at best underdogs in the cultural warfare in American society, conservatives are beginning to cast about for places and times that their right-wing hearts can call home.
At the same time, watching Superman made me wonder about the extent to which our conservative friends still believe in the American Way.
Exampls of conservative disaffection with the United States are readily at hand. Yesterday, it was reported that the conservative San Joaquin diocese is fed up with American Episcopals consecrating female priests, appointing gay bishops, and making women into national leaders. Indeed, San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield has accused national Episcopal leaders of heresy and the Fresno-based diocese has endoresed a direct affiliation with the worldwide Anglican community rather than the U. S. Episcopals. Bishop Schofield has also explored the possibility of affiliating his diocese with the Argentinian Anglican Church.
That's right, Argentina.
It is important to understand the significance of the disaffection of Bishop Schofield and much of his diocese. Their objection to Episcopal policy is that the national church has made women and gays into full participants in the Anglican communion, with the assumption that women and gays have the ability to lead and religious integrity as heterosexual men. Given the traditional exclusion of women from priestly functions and higher administration within all Christian denominations, American episcopals were taking a tremendous step. The same was the case with their election of a gay man as a bishop.
In manuevering its way toward disaffiliation, much of the San Joaquin diocese is expressing its wish to disaffiliate from female priests and gay bishops. At the same time, conservatives want to end their religious association with those who would make women and gays full religious citizens. They want to disaffiliate so much with religious liberals that they're willing to look a continent away for like-minded conservatives.
The idea of equal rights for women is now intellectually dominant in American society even if male supremacy still has an enormous impact. Likewise, the idea that gays and lesbians should be able to live as full citizens is gaining enough ground that homophobes feel that the only way to preserve exclusions is to write them into constitutions.
To the extent that full citizenship for women and gays has become the American Way (for Anglicans), the conservatives in the San Joaquin diocese are looking to disaffiliate from the United States.
This yearning for other countries characterizes many other conservatives as well. Anybody familiar with the Confederate flag phenomenon--and Confederate flags, bumper stickers, shirts, and scarves are very popular in this part of Kentucky--knows that a lot of racists would rather live in the Confederacy. To give an example from public life, Republican Senate whip Trent Lott of Mississippi is on record as saying that “Sometimes I feel closer to Jefferson Davis [leader of the Confederacy] than any other man in America.”
Likewise, many neo-conservatives and other conservatives yearn to live in a country that's more like Israel than the United States. Admiring Israeli aggressiveness against the Arabs and the long Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, American conservatives view the Israelis as an "ideal imperialist"and are fervent in their desire that U. S. foreign policy become more like Israel's. Defense Department conservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith were so strongly identified with Israel that some of their critics began to wonder about their loyalties to the U. S. For ardent neo-cons, however, there is no problem because they hope to see a successful Israeli state serving as a role model or father figure to the more aggressive, more dominant U. S. they wish for.
One of the odd things about conservatives is that they see themselves as the "real Americans," but often have very tenuous cultural and ideological attachments to American society. Knowing that they are at best underdogs in the cultural warfare in American society, conservatives are beginning to cast about for places and times that their right-wing hearts can call home.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Failure in Iraq: I Blame It on Britney
Conservative attempts to blame the American people for the failure of the mission in Iraq are making Talking Points Memo sick.
Take it easy, Josh Marshall. It's not like the right-wing isn't nauseating about most issues. Have you ever checked out David Brooks' justification of CEO pay?
Personally, I blame the failure of the war on Britney Spears. The core of Bush's strategy on the home front was to keep the American people from paying attention. That's why the Bush administration put so much emphasis on shoring up consumer culture, cutting taxes, not instituting a draft, and not talking about "shared sacrifice." Why would people pay attention if they had no connection to the war?
Britney Spears, the uber-face of 21st century America, was the key to the success of this strategy. Personally appearing on every tv show, posing for every page of every magazine, and singing in every gin joint from the Florida Keys to Walla Walla, Spears was completely devoted to keeping the eyes of the American people on her, not on the war.
But then, Britney seemed to lose focus. She started seeing Kevin Federline, got married, became pregnant twice, and start having babies. Millions of people still adored Britney, but it wasn't the hundreds of millions needed to distract the American public from the war.
That's when the Bush administration got in trouble. Without Britney at top form, the public began to look at the Bush administration and the Republican Congress. In fact, you can trace the big decline in Bush's approval ratings to the beginning of the relationship between Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.
Of course, Britney did not become a complete traitor. She separated from Kevin at the personal request of the President. However, it was too late to save the Republicans in the mid-term elections and perhaps too late to save the war as a whole. Now that she's dumped Federline, Britney's trying to get the old mojo back. She's teamed with the powerhouse duo of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to ensure that's she is visible every day and recent reports have all three allowing the paparazzi to get crotch shots of her without underwear. (What sacrifices these women make for the good of the country!) But nobody seems interested anymore.
If you want to know why the war has failed, the answer is simple. Blame Britney.
Take it easy, Josh Marshall. It's not like the right-wing isn't nauseating about most issues. Have you ever checked out David Brooks' justification of CEO pay?
Personally, I blame the failure of the war on Britney Spears. The core of Bush's strategy on the home front was to keep the American people from paying attention. That's why the Bush administration put so much emphasis on shoring up consumer culture, cutting taxes, not instituting a draft, and not talking about "shared sacrifice." Why would people pay attention if they had no connection to the war?
Britney Spears, the uber-face of 21st century America, was the key to the success of this strategy. Personally appearing on every tv show, posing for every page of every magazine, and singing in every gin joint from the Florida Keys to Walla Walla, Spears was completely devoted to keeping the eyes of the American people on her, not on the war.
But then, Britney seemed to lose focus. She started seeing Kevin Federline, got married, became pregnant twice, and start having babies. Millions of people still adored Britney, but it wasn't the hundreds of millions needed to distract the American public from the war.
That's when the Bush administration got in trouble. Without Britney at top form, the public began to look at the Bush administration and the Republican Congress. In fact, you can trace the big decline in Bush's approval ratings to the beginning of the relationship between Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.
Of course, Britney did not become a complete traitor. She separated from Kevin at the personal request of the President. However, it was too late to save the Republicans in the mid-term elections and perhaps too late to save the war as a whole. Now that she's dumped Federline, Britney's trying to get the old mojo back. She's teamed with the powerhouse duo of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to ensure that's she is visible every day and recent reports have all three allowing the paparazzi to get crotch shots of her without underwear. (What sacrifices these women make for the good of the country!) But nobody seems interested anymore.
If you want to know why the war has failed, the answer is simple. Blame Britney.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Notes on the Bush-Maliki Summit
What President Bush has to say is not very interesting because he cares so little about the real world. The same is the case with Bush's current summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Jordan. Bush talks about "finishing the mission" and victory. The whole world knows that a U. S. victory in Iraq is no more likely than the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series or Vanderbilt University winning the Super Bowl. So nobody particularly listens.
Maliki is a different story though. Today it emerged that he told Condi Rice that al-Sadr and the Mahdi army militia were "not a big problem." Now there's a formulation that's ripe for multiple interpretations. Perhaps al-Maliki meant that al-Sadr and his forces were not a very formidable force and that he could deal with them before his morning prayers if he really wanted. Al-Maliki--too tough to care.
Or perhaps Sadr is "not a big problem" because Maliki sees the Shiite militias as an important element in the power of the Iraqi government. That's a possibility because the ferocity of the Shiite militias has demonstrated indeed that Shiites are willing and able to defend themselves. With the Shiite militias integrated throughout the government, there can be little doubt that the elected Shiite government can defend itself against Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda.
Or perhaps, al-Maliki thinks that Sadr is "not a big problem" because he knows that an American attack on Sadr and the Sadr City slum of Baghdad would create a much bigger problem.
Maybe Maliki was saying that Sadr is "not a big problem" compared to Rice and the rest of the blundering Bush administration.
Maliki is a different story though. Today it emerged that he told Condi Rice that al-Sadr and the Mahdi army militia were "not a big problem." Now there's a formulation that's ripe for multiple interpretations. Perhaps al-Maliki meant that al-Sadr and his forces were not a very formidable force and that he could deal with them before his morning prayers if he really wanted. Al-Maliki--too tough to care.
Or perhaps Sadr is "not a big problem" because Maliki sees the Shiite militias as an important element in the power of the Iraqi government. That's a possibility because the ferocity of the Shiite militias has demonstrated indeed that Shiites are willing and able to defend themselves. With the Shiite militias integrated throughout the government, there can be little doubt that the elected Shiite government can defend itself against Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda.
Or perhaps, al-Maliki thinks that Sadr is "not a big problem" because he knows that an American attack on Sadr and the Sadr City slum of Baghdad would create a much bigger problem.
Maybe Maliki was saying that Sadr is "not a big problem" compared to Rice and the rest of the blundering Bush administration.
Bad News for a Noble Enterprise
Today's a bad day for my field. Political philosophy, the effort to think about political matters in moral terms, is among the more ambitious of intellectual enterprises. Many of the great figures of human thought have worked in political philosophy as a genre, including Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, and Locke.
But political philosophy has its share of slimeballs as well. The German political thinker Carl Schmitt caddied for the Nazis. Likewise, Mihailo Markovic served the cause of Serbian nationalism under his brother-in-law Slobodan Milosevic. Now it turns out that Luis Echeverria, the former Mexican president was also a political philosopher. That would not be so bad except that Echeverria was responsible for massacres of Mexican students during the sixties. Today, the charges against him were reinstated.
The Shame!
Actually, it's worse. The Bush administration and their fellow travelers in the media have been loaded with people (actually men) with academic training in the right-wing views of Leo Strauss, a leading political philosopher at the University of Chicago after WWII. Key architects of Iraq invasion like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith were trained in Straussianism--the same with William Kristol.
My only consolation is that Bush administration Straussians might end up like Echeverria-- under arrest for their crimes against humanity.
But political philosophy has its share of slimeballs as well. The German political thinker Carl Schmitt caddied for the Nazis. Likewise, Mihailo Markovic served the cause of Serbian nationalism under his brother-in-law Slobodan Milosevic. Now it turns out that Luis Echeverria, the former Mexican president was also a political philosopher. That would not be so bad except that Echeverria was responsible for massacres of Mexican students during the sixties. Today, the charges against him were reinstated.
The Shame!
Actually, it's worse. The Bush administration and their fellow travelers in the media have been loaded with people (actually men) with academic training in the right-wing views of Leo Strauss, a leading political philosopher at the University of Chicago after WWII. Key architects of Iraq invasion like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith were trained in Straussianism--the same with William Kristol.
My only consolation is that Bush administration Straussians might end up like Echeverria-- under arrest for their crimes against humanity.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Newt Plays the Outrage Card
Newt in New Hampshire. Last night in Manchester, New Hampshire, Newt Gingrich proclaimed that the U. S. "will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism." Newt's immediate reference was to changing "the rules" so that terrorist groups couldn't get their message out through the internet. But Gingrich is a complex guy and he was talking on many levels. As a result, we need to exercise care in parsing out what Newt meant.
Playing the Outrage Card. Frankly, I think Newt challenged the freedom of speech to incite liberal "outrage" as a way to keep his name in the media. In other words, he was playing people on the left for suckers as a way to promote his long-shot presidential candidacy. On right-wing radio, figures like Rush Limbaugh and their callers get special pleasure out of outraging liberals. It's a form of psychological power that they see themselves as having over the left. One liberal who's already taken the bait is Bob Cesca who couldn't resist the temptation to proclaim that he would be willing to die (and by implication, see whole cities go under) in defense of free speech.
So, let's resist the urge to be outraged.
Nibbling around the issue. Instead, what Gingrich said should be examined in the context of right-wing political discourse. People on the right have been talking about the constitution not being a suicide pact and you can't have civil liberties if you're dead for some time now. Conservative figures ranging from Bill O'Reilly to President Bush have been trying to establish a distinction between "responsible" dissent and "irresponsible" accusations that the administration engaged in systematic lying in order to promote the Iraq invasion (which they of course did). There's the everyday treason accusations made by Ann Coulter and all her bombthrowing imitators. Although the right has yet to launch a full assault on freedom of speech, they've certainly done a lot of nibbling around the issue, looking for a pretext to promote their own schemes for limiting free speech while complaining about the limits that McCain-Feingold puts on their ability to extort money from corporations.
Who's the target? Gingrich talked about curtailing the ability of terrorists to use the internet as if we already did not have laws against criminal conspiracy and recruiting for terrorism that apply to the internet. But, of course, the target is the left. What worries Newt much more than terrorism is the rise of a left-wing blogosphere that has been much more determined and effective than the Democratic leadership and the mainstream media in opposing the Iraq war, the Bush administration, and the right-wing in general. By the eve of the invasion in April 2003, the Bush administration had thoroughly cowed the Democrats and the mainstream media, but the internet turned out to be a powerful mechanism both for rallying anti-war sentiment and challenging the Democrats and the regular media to be more critical. Conservatives have always viewed the development of an anti-war politics as a treasonable exercise in giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. With Republican defeats in the 2006 election, it looks like the current anti-war movement is an intolerable threat to the war effort. As a result, Newt is taking his probe of free speech up another notch. If the Republicans lose another election in 2008, Newt will probably wonder if elections are really that necessary.
The Benefits of Free Speech. In the case of the Iraq War, the exercise of free speech rights has not only been a manifestation of the natural freedom at the core of human existence, it has also been extremely good for the nation. Outside the initial invasion, the Bush administration has bungled the war in Iraq so badly that Baghdad and other cities have become hells on earth. Because the liberal blogosphere and a few Republicans like John McCain and Chuck Hagel had the free speech rights to pount away at the Bush administrations failures from an early point in the occupation, the whole country has a context for understanding the current disaster and an intellectual basis for debating future policy. If dissenters had not had free speech rights, the Republicans would have occupied Iraq for ten or twenty years, wasting lives, money, and military assets, and getting nowhere.
Conclusion. I'm far from being outraged by the right-wing's little campaign against free speech. However, the right is just as wrong about free speech as it was wrong on Iraq, the Civil Rights Movement, women's rights, gay marriage, social security, McCarthyism, the New Deal, government regulation of business, and abolitionism. There are few things more reliable than the wrong-headedness of the right.
Playing the Outrage Card. Frankly, I think Newt challenged the freedom of speech to incite liberal "outrage" as a way to keep his name in the media. In other words, he was playing people on the left for suckers as a way to promote his long-shot presidential candidacy. On right-wing radio, figures like Rush Limbaugh and their callers get special pleasure out of outraging liberals. It's a form of psychological power that they see themselves as having over the left. One liberal who's already taken the bait is Bob Cesca who couldn't resist the temptation to proclaim that he would be willing to die (and by implication, see whole cities go under) in defense of free speech.
So, let's resist the urge to be outraged.
Nibbling around the issue. Instead, what Gingrich said should be examined in the context of right-wing political discourse. People on the right have been talking about the constitution not being a suicide pact and you can't have civil liberties if you're dead for some time now. Conservative figures ranging from Bill O'Reilly to President Bush have been trying to establish a distinction between "responsible" dissent and "irresponsible" accusations that the administration engaged in systematic lying in order to promote the Iraq invasion (which they of course did). There's the everyday treason accusations made by Ann Coulter and all her bombthrowing imitators. Although the right has yet to launch a full assault on freedom of speech, they've certainly done a lot of nibbling around the issue, looking for a pretext to promote their own schemes for limiting free speech while complaining about the limits that McCain-Feingold puts on their ability to extort money from corporations.
Who's the target? Gingrich talked about curtailing the ability of terrorists to use the internet as if we already did not have laws against criminal conspiracy and recruiting for terrorism that apply to the internet. But, of course, the target is the left. What worries Newt much more than terrorism is the rise of a left-wing blogosphere that has been much more determined and effective than the Democratic leadership and the mainstream media in opposing the Iraq war, the Bush administration, and the right-wing in general. By the eve of the invasion in April 2003, the Bush administration had thoroughly cowed the Democrats and the mainstream media, but the internet turned out to be a powerful mechanism both for rallying anti-war sentiment and challenging the Democrats and the regular media to be more critical. Conservatives have always viewed the development of an anti-war politics as a treasonable exercise in giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. With Republican defeats in the 2006 election, it looks like the current anti-war movement is an intolerable threat to the war effort. As a result, Newt is taking his probe of free speech up another notch. If the Republicans lose another election in 2008, Newt will probably wonder if elections are really that necessary.
The Benefits of Free Speech. In the case of the Iraq War, the exercise of free speech rights has not only been a manifestation of the natural freedom at the core of human existence, it has also been extremely good for the nation. Outside the initial invasion, the Bush administration has bungled the war in Iraq so badly that Baghdad and other cities have become hells on earth. Because the liberal blogosphere and a few Republicans like John McCain and Chuck Hagel had the free speech rights to pount away at the Bush administrations failures from an early point in the occupation, the whole country has a context for understanding the current disaster and an intellectual basis for debating future policy. If dissenters had not had free speech rights, the Republicans would have occupied Iraq for ten or twenty years, wasting lives, money, and military assets, and getting nowhere.
Conclusion. I'm far from being outraged by the right-wing's little campaign against free speech. However, the right is just as wrong about free speech as it was wrong on Iraq, the Civil Rights Movement, women's rights, gay marriage, social security, McCarthyism, the New Deal, government regulation of business, and abolitionism. There are few things more reliable than the wrong-headedness of the right.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Right Where They Want to Be
With Bush being presidential in Latvia, Michael Richards on the apology circuit, and a Republican mayor of New York wondering why his cops are acting like they're in Baghdad, the Democrats are off the front page.
And off the front page is where the Democrats need to be until they're actually ready to do something.
And off the front page is where the Democrats need to be until they're actually ready to do something.
A Note on Mormon Discrimination
To the extent that Mormons are identified with the right-wing and social conservatism, I think their impact on American society is negative in much the same way that the conservatism of the white South and Plains States is a negative.
That is far from excusing Andrew Sullivan's display of "Mormon sacred underwear" on his blog last Friday. What he was trying to do was incite bigotry against Mormons in the same way that right-wingers try to incite bigotry against gays by promoting lurid images of gay sex. Sullivan is gay and is very sensitive about discrimination against gays. He should have known better.
Sullivan was wrong and his actions are harmful to Mormons all over the U. S. My department at my university in Kentucky hired a Mormon government professor and it was a little over a year before some jerk started baiting her about Mormons wearing "leather underwear." We took it as an incident of religious discrimination and complained to our chair. I don't know what the ultimate disposition of the case was, but I was extremely saddened when the professor told me that she had been dealing with these kinds of comments "all her life."
People shouldn't have to deal with that garbage. I know that Mitt Romney is gearing up for a presidential run as a social conservative and I'll certainly oppose Romney as much as I can. But that's no more excuse for promoting bigotry against Mormons than Barack Obama's presidential aspirations are an excuse for white racism or Hillary Clinton's efforts are an excuse for sexism.
That is far from excusing Andrew Sullivan's display of "Mormon sacred underwear" on his blog last Friday. What he was trying to do was incite bigotry against Mormons in the same way that right-wingers try to incite bigotry against gays by promoting lurid images of gay sex. Sullivan is gay and is very sensitive about discrimination against gays. He should have known better.
Sullivan was wrong and his actions are harmful to Mormons all over the U. S. My department at my university in Kentucky hired a Mormon government professor and it was a little over a year before some jerk started baiting her about Mormons wearing "leather underwear." We took it as an incident of religious discrimination and complained to our chair. I don't know what the ultimate disposition of the case was, but I was extremely saddened when the professor told me that she had been dealing with these kinds of comments "all her life."
People shouldn't have to deal with that garbage. I know that Mitt Romney is gearing up for a presidential run as a social conservative and I'll certainly oppose Romney as much as I can. But that's no more excuse for promoting bigotry against Mormons than Barack Obama's presidential aspirations are an excuse for white racism or Hillary Clinton's efforts are an excuse for sexism.
The Power of Words
George Bush: Today, President Bush stated emphatically that American troops would not withdraw from Iraq "before the mission is complete." But, the ideal of completing the mission grows more disconnected every day with the reality in Iraq. In fact, Bush's jargon is now so disconnected from the real world that one has to wonder if he actually is thinking the opposite. That was the case with firing Donald Rumsfeld. In October, Bush was already searching for Rumsfeld's replacement when he was offering assurances that the former Defense Secretary would be retained until the end of his term.
A Civil War Too Late: Like President Bush's insistent on finishing the mission, NBC's announcement that the Iraq conflict is a civil war indicates a disconnect. Iraq has been in a state of civil war since Saddam leftovers and Sunni insurgents began assassinating secular figures in 2003. Indeed, civil war may be an overly mild term for the situation that's developed in Baghdad since the March bombingof the Shiite shrine in Samarra. Given the four or five corner conflict between U. S. troops, the Iraqi military and police, the various Shiite militias, the many Sunni insurgent groups, and criminal gangs, it might be better to characterize Baghdad as a Hobbesian war of all against all.
Michael Richards: It's been almost a week but I'm still stunned by the Michael Richards racial tirade. The more I heard the tape and looked at the transcript last night (while blogging), the more upset I got. It's still bothering me tonight. Richards was not just being a racist. He wasn't just using the n-word. He gave a stunning evocation of lynching as a preferred model for race relations. I wonder if that's what all the discrimination against blacks, all the racist stereotypes, all the racial profiling, and all the sneers about affirmative action and "political correctness" ultimately point back to--the lynching regime that served as the violent backbone of racial segregation in the South. Perhaps, all the racial "progress" of the last forty years is a very thin layer of humanity over a bedrock of segregation and lynching.
A Civil War Too Late: Like President Bush's insistent on finishing the mission, NBC's announcement that the Iraq conflict is a civil war indicates a disconnect. Iraq has been in a state of civil war since Saddam leftovers and Sunni insurgents began assassinating secular figures in 2003. Indeed, civil war may be an overly mild term for the situation that's developed in Baghdad since the March bombingof the Shiite shrine in Samarra. Given the four or five corner conflict between U. S. troops, the Iraqi military and police, the various Shiite militias, the many Sunni insurgent groups, and criminal gangs, it might be better to characterize Baghdad as a Hobbesian war of all against all.
Michael Richards: It's been almost a week but I'm still stunned by the Michael Richards racial tirade. The more I heard the tape and looked at the transcript last night (while blogging), the more upset I got. It's still bothering me tonight. Richards was not just being a racist. He wasn't just using the n-word. He gave a stunning evocation of lynching as a preferred model for race relations. I wonder if that's what all the discrimination against blacks, all the racist stereotypes, all the racial profiling, and all the sneers about affirmative action and "political correctness" ultimately point back to--the lynching regime that served as the violent backbone of racial segregation in the South. Perhaps, all the racial "progress" of the last forty years is a very thin layer of humanity over a bedrock of segregation and lynching.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Michael Richards and the Power of Segregation in the White Mind
By this time, everybody knows about Michael Richard's racist rant at the LA Comedy Club last week. Personally, I'm not particularly interested in whether Richards apologized (he did) or whether Richards a racist (how could he say he isn't?). The tabloid question of whether Michael Richards is going to be condemned, saved, or rehabilitated doesn't grab me either. I never liked Seinfeld all that much. As a result, Richards never really mattered to me as a cultural icon. Perhaps some good will come out of the efforts of Jesse Jackson to use the incident to question the use of the n-word in popular culture.
However, what really interests me is what we can learn about American society more generally from Richard's outburst. I think there's a lot to learn about the enduring symbolic importance of segregation here.
What set Richards off was heckling by either Frank McBride or Kyle Doss that Richards was not funny. The issue here was a black person was passing judgement on him as a white man. From Richards' point of view, McBride or Doss were mistaken in presuming to have the right to evaluate Richards' work as a comedian and he quickly moved to correct them. For Richards, desegregation was an act of noblesse oblige on the part of whites rather than a recognition of racial equality. Believing that McBride and Doss should have been grateful to be allowed in the club at all, Richards was offended that they would presume to judge a famous white man.
This is why Richards reminded the men that "fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a f***ing fork up your ass." Of course, the "we" here is the white race and Richards is reminding McBride, Doss, and their party of the power he views whites as exercising over blacks in American society. For Richards, segregation and lynching are still archetypical expressions of the fullness of white dominance. When Richards raises the specter of lynching, he is reminding blacks of his view that segregation is still current and fundamental even if it is not often spoken. Racial power relations have remained the same even if few blacks get lynched and Richards doesn't see these particular blacks guys as having any more right to judge him than Emmet Till had to whistle at a white woman during the fifties.
Michael Richards reminds us of the extent to which segregation is fundamental to American culture. With the on-going dominance of stereotypical portrayals of black women and men in popular culture, popular culture inculcates the idea that the racial stereotypes of the segregation period are still "true" and that anyone who rejects those stereotypes is morally questionable as a snob, (most likely a) hypocrite, and a "politically correct" kind of person. The spirit of segregation may have died in American law, but it dominates American popular culture. Of course, Michael Richards is going to be exiled culturally because he crudely spoke what a great many white people think in vague and unselfconscious ways. But his racist tirade spoke something that was very true of white thinking.
However, what really interests me is what we can learn about American society more generally from Richard's outburst. I think there's a lot to learn about the enduring symbolic importance of segregation here.
What set Richards off was heckling by either Frank McBride or Kyle Doss that Richards was not funny. The issue here was a black person was passing judgement on him as a white man. From Richards' point of view, McBride or Doss were mistaken in presuming to have the right to evaluate Richards' work as a comedian and he quickly moved to correct them. For Richards, desegregation was an act of noblesse oblige on the part of whites rather than a recognition of racial equality. Believing that McBride and Doss should have been grateful to be allowed in the club at all, Richards was offended that they would presume to judge a famous white man.
This is why Richards reminded the men that "fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a f***ing fork up your ass." Of course, the "we" here is the white race and Richards is reminding McBride, Doss, and their party of the power he views whites as exercising over blacks in American society. For Richards, segregation and lynching are still archetypical expressions of the fullness of white dominance. When Richards raises the specter of lynching, he is reminding blacks of his view that segregation is still current and fundamental even if it is not often spoken. Racial power relations have remained the same even if few blacks get lynched and Richards doesn't see these particular blacks guys as having any more right to judge him than Emmet Till had to whistle at a white woman during the fifties.
Michael Richards reminds us of the extent to which segregation is fundamental to American culture. With the on-going dominance of stereotypical portrayals of black women and men in popular culture, popular culture inculcates the idea that the racial stereotypes of the segregation period are still "true" and that anyone who rejects those stereotypes is morally questionable as a snob, (most likely a) hypocrite, and a "politically correct" kind of person. The spirit of segregation may have died in American law, but it dominates American popular culture. Of course, Michael Richards is going to be exiled culturally because he crudely spoke what a great many white people think in vague and unselfconscious ways. But his racist tirade spoke something that was very true of white thinking.
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