Tiger Mothers? Not Much Unusual There

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

The New Republican Politics of Inhumanity

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

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

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

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

Egypt: Some Permutations

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

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

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

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

Hope Jay Carney Does Better as Press Secretary

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

Hopefully, Carney will up his game as press secretary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next stop, Michele Bachmann.

Limbaugh More Complex Than I Thought

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Steele Is Not Julius Caesar

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

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

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

Health Care Vote in House Today

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

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

Lieberman Out?

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

King's New Birth of Freedom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They still are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cracking the Disinformation Apparatus

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

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

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

Moreover, support for repealing the legislation has dropped significantly.

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

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

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

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

And it worked.

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

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

And that took the wind out of the conservative apparatus.

Rescuing Sarah Palin

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

Perhaps a good question.

But the answer is a resounding "No."

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

Call it the "Sarah Palin Rehabilitation Project."

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

The Romance of Mass Murder?

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

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

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

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

It seems more likely that it would be the latter.

Attempted Political Assassination in Arizona

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

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

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

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

I'm Thinking About Running for the Republican Nomination

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

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

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

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

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

If Huntsman runs, I run.

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

Pardon Fever Stops with Billy the Kid

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

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

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

Who knows?

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

I've played them for my daughters as well.

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

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

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

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

A Little Less Cautious In My Optimism

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

I'm a little less cautious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe They Should Have Tried This Earlier

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

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

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

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

End the Filibuster Next January!

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

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

I've got a better idea.

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

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

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

And it worked.

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

And it worked.

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

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

That means getting rid of filibusters and holds.

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

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

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

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

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

My reply: let them.

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

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

A Trip Inside the Republican Poll Numbers

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

What they've really needed is some easy scores.

And it looks like they're arriving.

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

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

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

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

But that's not likely to hold up.

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

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

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

Sometimes life just isn't fair.

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

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

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

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

But these numbers aren't immutable.

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

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

The answer has to be yes.

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

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

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

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