Category: The Opinionsphere

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Election 2008 McCain Politics The Opinionsphere

Jindal 2012

Over at TNR’s The Plank, they’ve begun a discussion of 2012 Republican contenders.

Bobby Jindal is one candidate who I think has the chops to truly challenge Obama if he were to run in 2012- as a reform-minded governor who has strong relationships with the conservatives and christianists in the Republican party that does not contradict his independent streak and reform instincts. McCain’s maverick streak often came at the expense of his party and especially the christianist base. But I think that Christopher Orr might be right when he points out that this campaign has hurt Jindal more than any other Republican candidates –

…a large portion of the GOP’s closing argument this cycle has been to stoke white, working class fear and suspicion of the Other. The dark-skinned man with the foreign-sounding name may be a Muslim, or a socialist, or a friend of terrorists, or a racial huckster, or a fake U.S. citizen, or some other vague kind of “radical.” You may never be sure which he is (maybe all of the above), but in your gut you simply don’t “know” him the way you know the other candidates. This is not, to put it mildly, a message likely to benefit Bobby Jindal.

I don’t think this rules Jindal out. Although campaign messages and narratives have a way sinking in for partisans more than actual policy positions (see the Hillary Clinton primary voters), a good candidate, the right circumstances, and the right policy messages can counteract that (see the Hillary Clinton primary voters.)

Daniel Larison (and David Weigel over at Reason seems to agree) thinks that this the fallout from the election of Obama given the campaign McCain has run would have precisely the opposite effect Orr predicts:

…never underestimate the Republican desire to get on the high horse of anti-racism and egalitarianism, to say nothing of the even greater desire to demonstrate that they are in no way racist…

I agree with that as well – but as Larison points out – this especially applies to the “elite Republicans” and less so to the rank-and-file. I think Larison undestimates the poisonous atmosphere that is motivating much of the vicious anti-Obama rhetoric and fear though – an atmosphere that McCain and Palin decided at one point to stoke.

But what I think both miss is that – although if the VP nominee had been Jindal this time around, the Republicans would have rallied to him, because racism is not inherently Republican – by running a campaign that stokes fears of the “foreign,” the Republican party has changed.

If McCain loses – and probably if he wins, but slower – the Republican party is due for a crack-up – as all the various factions fight over what vision they have for America and for their party.

Sarah Palin is clearly a contender – representing the old-style class warfare with a new wink and nice clothes. Most of the neoconservatives will back her, at least to start the 2012 positioning.

Bobby Jindal would be the new fresh face, the reform-minded christianist with an independent streak – the closest to the McCain brand without the baggage of being labeled a traitor by much of the party. He will be the candidate of the Republican elite, the candidate of David Brooks, of Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam. He’ll be the guy whose candidacy will attempt to reform the Republican party with a new policy focus.

Mitt Romney would be the business candidate – and the one with the most chits to cash in. He’ll be the safe choice, the establishment candidate, the next in line.

Mike Huckabee would be the nice guy, the runner-up again. This time around, most prominent evangelicals will back him.

The dark horse, again, will be Newt Gingrich – who this year declined to enter the race after long and public deliberation.

And so, in 2012, the candidates would neatly divide the Republican party into old-style and reform, business and christianist. It’s hard to imagine someone other than Romney taking it with this crowd though. Jindal is the one to watch – the guy who would be able to pull the Republicans out of this most quickly.

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Economics Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics The Opinionsphere

Fuming Over Their Own Confusions

It’s become a minor meme on the right that Obama keeps changing his tax plan – which is their way of suggesting that YOU(!!) could be the next person he taxes.

McCain said on Sunday on Meet the Press that under Obama’s plan those who are exempt keeps changing:

…now it’s $200,000.  I guess last week it was $250,000. It changes with ever – whatever the polling data tells him and his advisers.

And now, over at The Corner, Mark Hemingway steams:

Wait, we’ve been hearing endlessly that Obama will never raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000!

But that Krugman is saying it is for those heads of household with:

an income, after deductions, of $182,400 a year.

Of course, Hemingway’s source on this change in the Obama plan is Paul Krugman – who doesn’t describe it as a change, and who certainly isn’t someone who speaks for Obama’s campaign.

But the easier explanation is that either Hemingway and McCain are confused or they are being deliberately misleading. Obama’s tax plan calls for those individuals making under $200,000 to be exempt, and those married couples making under $250,000 to be exempt. Hence what McCain claims is inconsistency is in fact a consistent plan. As for Hemingway, he’s just a dumbass who read what he wanted into Krugman’s description.

I’m guessing that $182,400 after deductions is about $250,000 or more before deductions – as the difference is about 26% – lower than the average tax rate.

The question becomes – are these people deliberately trying to confuse others – or have they confused themselves by attempting to look for changes without understanding the underlying plan?

Update: Missed Byron York chiming in. He has the same issue – in an ad, Obama claims that he will cut taxes for any family making less than $200,000. York cries foul – he said $250,000 before. But again – the problem is he never looked at the plan which calls for a tax cut for those making below $200,000 with no additional taxes for those making between $200,000 and $250,000. Again – the plan is consistent. The descriptions of different parts of it vary – depending on whether you are saying whose taxes will be raised versus whose taxes will be cut, and other distinctions.

Updated again: Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic points out the same things I have.

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Election 2008 Libertarianism McCain Obama Political Philosophy Politics The Opinionsphere

The Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity

[digg-reddit-me]Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. – or Lew Rockwell – has decided that this election calls for non-participation. “[T]here is no lesser of two evils,” he says. “There is socialism or fascism.” We will – by boycotting the vote – instill fear in our leaders that they are “ruling us without our consent.”

I expect little better from Lew Rockwell, a man who saw fit to promote racism in the service of a libertarian ideology. (I do not blame libertarianism for it’s promoters, but I can fault the individuals who used explicit race-baiting as Rockwell did.) What disturbs me about this opinion piece is in part it’s resonance – as demonstrated by it’s support on reddit. But what bothers me more is that it seems rooted in the same tendency to demonize opponents, the same desire to re-make the world in the service of ideology, the same rejection of pragmatism, the same denigration of “the masses,” as other ideologies from Communism to neoconservatism.

For the sake of clarity, Rockwell, rejects any truths too subtle to fit into a propagandist slogan – and so – Obama becomes a socialist, and McCain a fascist.

There are real problems with voting and our financial system and the centralization of power that Rockwell touches on – and for a libertarian citizen, neither candidate offers a clear libertarian policy vision. Each seems to offer government encroachment in different areas of life. But a libertarian philosophy does not necessarily lead to this theology of dueling evils that Rockwell invokes – in which we presume only our own innocence and purity while we attack anyone with power or who might gain power as inherently corrupt. There is a healthy skepticism needed about power and the powerful – but Rockwell goes beyond this.

He is one of those who is certain, full of passionate intensity. Which is why he can see Obama and McCain as two competing evils – and why he must simplify their pragmatic politics into two ideologies of certainty: fascism and socialism. But his appeal here is insidious – it is not just to those who share his certainties but to the uncertain. He calls on us to reject all alternatives in favor of … nothing – justifying this with the flimsy excuse that by shunning the political process we may have a psychological effect on the politicians.

My duty as a citizen, my duty as a political being, is to inform myself and to vote and then to participate in governance. It is an abdication of this duty to throw up my hands, moved by an old man’s bitterness at repeated defeat and disappointment, and to despair.

To be a grown-up in this world, to be a citizen, means to act even when the alternatives are only dimly understood – for we can only dimly understand our world.

We live in a complex environment where every action has unintended consequences – and the right path is rarely clear. By failing to act, we enable those whose secular or religious theology leads them to certainty to monopolize power and drag us from one extreme to another, as we have often seen in the past thirty years in America.

Which is why I will vote on November 4th.

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Election 2008 Libertarianism McCain Political Philosophy Politics The Opinionsphere

The Collapse of the Republican Consensus

In the event of a Republican bloodbath a week from this coming Tuesday, a battle is clearing brewing between competing visions of the Republican party – neoconservatives, the National Greatness Conservatives, the libertarians, and the christianists.

It should be interesting to watch – and I make no claim to specials powers of vaticination.

David Brooks’s last column was especially poignant – as he points out that the Republicans in this election have ceded the center and abandoned the legacy of Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. He has been speaking for some time of the need for a pro-government conservative movement – which he calls National Greatness Conservatism.

Meanwhile, Radley Balko, editor of Reason, editorializes that the Republicans must lose so that in their time in the wilderness they can become, once again, the party of limited government.

I don’t think both of these visions can work together very well – as Bush’s neoconservative/christianist presidency demonstrated.

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Election 2008 Obama Politics The Opinionsphere

The Art of Character Sketches

Joe Klein begins his piece about “Why Barack Obama is Winning” with this anecdote:

General David Petraeus deployed overwhelming force when he briefed Barack Obama and two other Senators in Baghdad last July. He knew Obama favored a 16-month timetable for the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq, and he wanted to make the strongest possible case against it. And so, after he had presented an array of maps and charts and PowerPoint slides describing the current situation on the ground in great detail, Petraeus closed with a vigorous plea for “maximum flexibility” going forward.

Obama had a choice at that moment. He could thank Petraeus for the briefing and promise to take his views “under advisement.” Or he could tell Petraeus what he really thought, a potentially contentious course of action — especially with a general not used to being confronted. Obama chose to speak his mind….

You should read the rest of the piece – it’s fascinating take on Obama and his decision-making process.

Matt Yglesias wrote a few days ago about David Brooks and how:

a lot of this genre of punditry seems based on the idea that journalists can discern when politicians are and aren’t misleading with their presentation of self. But I have no reason to believe I’m especially good at this, and plenty of reason to believe that big-time politicians are unusually good at misleading about this sort of thing..

I know exactly what he means about how this can be frustrating. David Brooks seems to have had wildly diverging opions about Obama – which would tend to make one somewhat skeptical of his deep insight into Obama’s character.

Matt suggests ignoring character and focusing instead on policy positions – where you can more easily figure out if a politician is lying. He doesn’t seem quite comfortable with that – and leaves himself an out – despite the fact that his piece builds to this point, he concludes only by saying that “There’s something to be said for” looking only at policies.

But I think there is something valuable in what David Brooks, Joe Klein, Maureen Dowd, Peggy Noonan, Frank Rich, George Will, and many of these other columnists do as they attempt to determine a candidate’s character. They’re often wrong. And they are rarely consistent. But I believe a person’s essential character is important – and is generally revealed when a person holds power – and it affects what politics and policies actually happen.

What we need to realize when reading these columnists is that their trade is an art – not a science. It’s not necessary that these men or women be better at seeing through to the essential character of a politician – but that their job is to try to figure it out.

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Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics The Opinionsphere

John McCain’s America

[digg-reddit-me]I’m not sure I agree with Scott Horton’s claim that Powell’s endorsement as brilliant as he thinks it was. But I certainly agree that it’s resonance and it’s place in history comes from this:

Powell made clear that he was opposing a friend of 25 years at some personal cost but for principled reasons. He believed that McCain would make a fine President but he was concerned by McCain’s uneven response to crisis, by his selection of Sarah Palin, and by the tone and tenor of his campaign–framed on an appeal to the baser instincts of the population. Indeed, if one passage of the Powell endorsement is preserved by posterity, it will be the remarkable image he presented of the young mother of a Muslim soldier killed in service to country…

As a college student in a Muslim nation allied with ours told Horton:

Okay, perhaps McCain is not an anti-Muslim bigot, but he seems to think that the best way to be elected president is to whip his fellow citizens into an anti-Muslim frenzy. Our nation is America’s ally, but I can’t avoid thinking, watching the McCain campaign—is this man going to make war on us too?

This is why Osama Bin Laden has a clear preference in this election. It’s not that McCain is a racist or a bad man – it’s that he represents – both in America and in the rest of the world – because of his campaign and who he is facing in his campaign – an intolerant America, an insular America, an America that hates Muslims and foreigners – instead of the America that fights for freedom, that is new and young and refreshing and tolerant – the America Barack Obama represents.

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Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics The Opinionsphere

Hitler took on the special interests too

I refer you to Matt Yglesias’s rebuke of Bill Kristol.

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Election 2008 McCain Politics The Opinionsphere

A Megaphone to a Demagogue

Christopher Hitchens is a writer – nay, a provocateur who happens to write. Thus he has viciously attacked Catholics from John Paul II to Mother Theresa to John Kerry. He pushed for the ill-fated war with Iraq – and is today entirely unrepentant. He mocks those he disagrees with. He is mean-spirited. He is the David Addington of debates – always ready to “go for the kill” and despite his intellectual dexterity, somehow uncouth. Yet, he is, in his way, honest.

Lately, he has been on a tear:

At numerous rallies where the atmosphere has been, shall we say, a little uncivil, Gov. Palin has accused Sen. Obama of accusing our forces in Afghanistan of simply bombing villages. Only a moment’s work is required to discover that the words complained of were never uttered in that form and that they occurred in a speech that stressed the need for more ground troops as opposed to more airstrikes (a recommendation, by the way, that begins to look more sapient each week, at least in respect of the airstrikes). Again, I have a question: Did Palin know that she was telling a lie? Or did her handlers simply assume that she would read anything that was put in front of her, however mendacious? And which would be worse? And when will she issue the needful retraction? There seems no way of putting her in a forum where these points could be raised. So, continued media coverage of her appearances is no better than lending a megaphone to a demagogue, the better to amplify her propaganda.

Andrew Sullivan has been tireless (and I mean really really really really really really really tireless) in pointing out that Sarah Palin has yet to give a single press conference – a first for a vice presidential candidate in the modern era, and perhaps ever.

Yet the liberal media continues to “lend a megaphone” to this demagogue, playing on class resentments, using the language of class warfare, attacking a majority of America, ignoring the shouts of “Kill him!”  at rallies, and lying shamelessly about her life and her record as well as Barack Obama and his.

And, to keep anyone from making her accountable, she demonizes the press for good measure – to give her an excuse to avoid having to answer any questions.

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Domestic issues Politics The Opinionsphere

Pro-Marriages Forces Against Gay Marriage

Maggie Gallagher at NRO’s The Corner pulls off this Orwellianism this morning:

Can the pro-marriage forces raise enough money to keep message parity with the ACLU/HRC/Labor unions/Hollywood crowd?

Because of course, the “pro-marriage forces” are the ones against gay marriage “crowd.”

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Election 2008 McCain Politics The Opinionsphere

Mourning McCain

[digg-reddit-me]If you want to know why I – like so many others – held John McCain in such high regard for so long, it had a lot to do with David Ifshin. And if you want to know why my opinion of him has plummeted, it has something to do with William Ayers.

Joe Klein mourns the McCain he used to know.

Of course, this is the same McCain who refused to take on the issue of the Confederate flag flying over the state capitol during the 2000 South Carolina primary – until after the primary was over. This is the same McCain who condemned torture – until he finally was in a position to actually affect policy. This is the same McCain who promised to run a clean campaign – only to base his campaign around slander, hiring the very people who he had so vigorously condemned for playing dirty during the 2000 campaign. This is the same McCain who – after being embroiled in the Keating Five scandal – vowed to become a reformer – and did so, but meanwhile maintained cosy relationships with lobbyists and did many favors for donors. And on and on.

Some might even call him a “make-believe maverick.”