Yes, That About Gets It

Mark Kleiman gets the mike (link):

The current Republican ruling clique is sometimes reactionary, sometimes plutocratic, sometimes theocratic, and sometimes kleptocratic, and always chauvanistic, but never, in any traditional sense of that term, conservative. Too bad.

As my friend Anon likes to say: I am tired of these bums making me feel like a liberal.

President BS

I see by the Wall Street Journal that the President departed from his prepared State of the Union text at least once--to refer to "the Democratic majority" as "the Democrat majority." My God, they just can't help themselves, can they? He's tickling 28 percent, he's got majorities against him on both sides, he's really desperate for anything, anything to add a patina of gravitas to the debacle that is his Presidency--and he indulges himself by throwing it away on a towel-snapping locker room cheap shot.

I don't know--but it would be interesting to know--who came up with the idea that it would be funny ha-ha to take this bit of schoolyard dissery and turn it into a canon of Republican conformity. Best way I remember it was some time around the time of the Gingrich revolution, and I have to concede it was a pretty good idea at the time. It added just a frisson of macho swagger to set the troop's blood running, without risking anything so vulgar or dangerous as actually stuffing castor oil down somebody's throat. And Dems never did figure out how to handle it: they feared that any attempt at response would smack of prissiness or thin skin. But as James Carvell so well understands, not to respond is taken a sign of weakness which just angries up the blood. So you're stuck either way.

But you know what? It's old. Old not in the sense of "venerable," or even "traditional" but old in the sense of "lame." It's become an index of the bankruptcy of the old guard. They're a busted flush at this point, an empty suit, and it shows. They've lost the war--no, they've lost two or three or wars, in the sense that every time they redefine the war, they go ahead and lose that one too. They've been exposed over and over as incoherent frauds on domestic policy, and they've given every evidence that they don't understand the simple arithmetic of budget management at all. They've got nothing left in their hand but a piece of shopworn faux bullying.

Well you know what, kiddies? Despite appearances, politics is not tetherball. It isn't even water polo or soccer. It's a desperately serious business, and our very lives depend on it. You've made a right royal mess of things, and it is time to pay. Which means we need some grownups at the table: some people who have at least a beginning sense of the pickle we are in, together with the sense of responsibility (saying nothing of the energy and, dare one hope for it, the wisdom) to work with other people of good will to try to pull some of these grenade-sized chestnuts out of the fire. Do that--even hint at doing that, I don't ask for much--hint at doing that, and I'll give the President back the last two letters of his name.

TigerHawk Ought to Know Better

I like TigerHawk, honest I do. Granted, he’s a lot more comfortable with violence than I am, and he seems to have more confidence in the power of government (at least in its incendiary capacity) to do good. But he knows a bunch of stuff I don’t know, and he is capable of being independent-minded, at least when he wants to.

I think the trouble is that he spends too much time with people who agree with him—particularly people who aren’t as quick as he is. That’s what permits him to think he can get away with this from last week on public attitudes to the war. It’s called “Hoping to lose,” on the premise that 34 percent of Democrats [and 11 percent of Republicans, and 19 percent of Independents] are “hoping” President Bush’s new Iraq plan (or “plan”) will “lose.”

This is perverse on so many levels. For starters, it isn’t even a correct statement of the question (which he reprints): “Do you personally want [the plan] to succeed?” “I cannot for the life of me,” harrumphs, “I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want it to fail.”

Let me help you, TigerHawk, rephrasing some stuff I dropped in your comments a couple of days ago. You answered about "failure;" the question asked about "success." In order to know whether I want the plan to “succeed,” I would have to know what it means to “succeed.” Do you know what would count as “success” for the President here? Do you think the President knows? Failing that, do you know what you mean by “success” here? Can you explain, or articulate, for him or for yourself?

The term "success" is not self-defining. Consider the possibilities. We can leave behind “finding WMD”—nobody except possibly Dick Cheney is still counting on that. It can’t mean “catching and killing Saddam,” because that’s over and done with. And I am pretty sure that nobody in the White House (possibly excepting the President?) means “securing as stable, democratic, multi-factional Iraq"--a vain lost hope.

Beyond that, there is an almost infinite range of possibilities here. For example: if success means "an alliance with al Sadr to suppress the Sunnis," I might want it to fail. If it means "a lockdown of oil facilities for the petrolios in the Bush funding base,” I might want it to fail. If it means "scorched earth and resettlement by aliens from the Gamma Quadrant," I'd be disinclined do regard it as a good idea.

FWIW, “failure” is not self-defining, either. I suppose—I certainly hope not—that we could be blindsided and routed, without an adequate means of retreat (didn’t I read that that copter shot down over the weekend was taken by a shoulder-held missile launcher?.). I suppose we could simply pack our bags and go home, like the Mongols packed their bags and went home in 1241. No doubt there are voters who favor that view; maybe Dennis Kucinich favors that view. Can you any name anyone else in office who favors that view?

If the Bush plan "fails," I suppose one thing we could do is to the borders of Iraq (or the region) and doing what we can to keep this war from metastasizing any further. This is, as I understand it, essentially what Congressman Murtha wants to do. Do you count this as “success” or “failure?” Certainly it would be a messy, frustrating, even open-ended result. But isn’t that the tragedy of this war—that we’ve got ourselves into a mess that we may be years, perhaps decades, getting out of? Cut and run, Oh I Wish. Hoping that Bush will succeed—well what, exactly, does he, do you, does any of us, have in mind?

My Enemy's Enemy

It's a meme of sorts: the Beast started things with its list of the Fifty Most Loathsome people in America. Carpetbagger invites readers to expand, edit or refine--surprisingly, there don't seem to be a lot of interesting additions, so far except perhaps for comment #18, this guy. I am tempted to add "Julie Andrews," but only for this; over a lifetime, she has earned at made at least partial expiation.

But reading Carpetbagger's account, it did occur to me: they say the enemy of my enemy friend, but a corollary is that my friend is no more than my enemy's enemy. What if some of these slimebags teamed up together? What of Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin staffing adjacent chairs at the Supercuts? Michael Savage and Mark Foley restocking the Safeway? George Allen and--well, anybody--doing--well, anything? The mind boggles.

Actually, I Get Mine From Watching The Sopranos

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.

--George Bush, to Jim Lehrer
(via Carpetbagger)

Martin Luther King, Jr., Centrist

The always-must-read Carpetbagger has a nice post up about Martin Luther King, Jr., and the right’s new-found meme that “he’s really one of us.” The piece speaks for itself, and eloquently, but let me add a thought: actually, they are right, the right—he is “one of us,” albeit perhaps not in quite the way intend, but he is one anyway.

Point is that at the end of the way, King was a centrist, a moderate, a work-within-the-system kind of guy. Doubt it and just look around at the loonies that he shunted off the stage—or, in some cases, who succeeded him. In this respect, he is another Franklin Roosevelt—another whose role was to save the system. About Roosevelt, the right has had, oh, 70-odd years to learn the lesson and they don’t get it yet. No risk that they’ll get it soon about King.

He Listened to Us!

It’s probably too late for more Gerald Ford references, but my copy of Fred I. Greenstein’s The Presidential Difference is still on the bedside table, diverting enough to inspire an afterthought. Here’s Greenstein on Ford’s management style:

His practices in the critical area of economic policy are of particular interest in that they exemplify the much praised but rarely practiced procedure of multiple advocacy in which policy disagreements are rigorously debated in the president’s presence, with all important points of view accorded careful consideration. These exchanges occurred in a body Ford established …: the Economic Policy Board. … Ford met at least once a week with thee EPB, welcoming debate and constructive disagreements. (119)

And here, discussing Ford’s “cognitive style”:

Alan Greenspan, who chaired Ford’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), has provided an insightful account … His first impression, Greenspan remarked, was that Ford lacked the capacity to engage in abstract reasoning. The consistency of Ford’s concrete economic decisions persuaded him otherwise.

It was Greenspan’s further observation that Ford found it enjoyable to discuss economics with him, even when there was no pending decision that made doing so necessary. Similarly, Greenspan’s CEA colleague Burton Malkiel commented that although it took Ford some time to grasp difficult economic concepts, ‘He always ended up with a very firm grasp of the issues and a complete maste4ry of the complexities that might be involved. He loved to hear things argued out in front of him and would often ask the most insightful questions of the participants in the debate.” (124)

--Fred I. Grenstein, The Presidential Difference 119-124

(Second ed. 2004)

There’s an overwhelming impulse to make the invidious current comparisons here, but I want to make a different point, if no less sardonic. That is: excepting possibly the physicist, there is no one more vain about his “brains” than the economist—“brains” here meaning quick response time, a certain kind of analytical power and perhaps (though this is perhaps less important) a capacity for sopping up and retaining information. The best and easiest way to flatter them is to listen and admire.

I think Greenstein probably paints a fair picture here, and that Ford probably deserves the credit that Greenstein seems to give him. But you’d have to say also that he seems to have run a pretty good number on the economists. “He listened to us,” says Greenspan, “and he learned from us,” adds Malkiel. Flattery will get you everywhere. It’s almost poignant.

I'll Put My Money on Self-Pity

I’m late to the party over Bush’s tear after a meeting with the mother of a Marine casualty—Google Blogs records 35 hits for “Bush tears” within the last 12 hours, and the picture seems to be everywhere. But I’m not crazy about the analysis so far.

Seems to me there are three possibilities here:

• Compassion
• Crocodile
• Self-pity

Crocodile sounds like a winner for the cartoonists, but it seems to require a fairly sophisticated capacity for dissimulation—in Touchstone’s analysis, the “lie circumstantial,” rather than the “lie direct.”
Compassion is a hard sell for a guy who presided over 152 executions, finding a few giggles along the way. It is, of course, possible that is reaction was some combination of two, or three.

Still, I’ll put my money on self-pity.

Catch of the Day (Iraq Dept.)

I think the “catch of the day” prize goes to Solomon Moore in the LA Times, via Larry Johnson at TPM Café.

[Lt. Gen. Raymond T.] Odierno said another reason for Iraqis' alienation was the tendency of many leaders to be more interested in sectarian interests than the national good of Iraq. "We thought they'd come together rather easily," he said. "We underestimated that…. We thought they'd think Iraq first, and that didn't occur. I think maybe it will occur over time, but it's not occurring now."

So Odierno, our new “chief operating office” in Iraq. I know, taken out of context and all that. If means anything like what it seems to mean, it means that one of our top generals is as ignorant of the Iraqi political situation as—well, as the new chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Don’t they teach them at general’s school that Iraq—like, that it isn’t really a country at all, and became one Maybe they should give the commanders some of the books that reporters stuff in their backpack.

Second thought: Wait a minute, you criticize one general on the basis of one fragmentary quotation—but you ignore the fact the British, who screwed things up so royally at the end of World War I, included people like Gertrude Bell who actually did know something about Iraq, and still got everything wrong (for a crisp summary, go here). Response: Touché. Knowledge alone does not always trump hubris.

Third thought: Isn’t anybody but me intrigued by the fact that we now have, yoked together in Iraq, the general who had the best rep with the press (Petraeus) with another who had one of the worst (Odierno, supra).

Still another, um, thought: No surprise that the most trenchant analysis of the urge to surge comes from the master of boots-on-the ground military commentary, Fred Kaplan at Slate (link).

Well, That's All Right, Then

Just good country people:

link

Oh, and from the same edition: news that pigs fly.

Cute

From Underbelly's Alabama bureau:

read a piece about the sentencing soon of Bob Ney of Ohio. should the democrats name the lobbying reform package the "Just Say Ney Rules"?

Impeach Who?

Last summer I not-entirely-flippantly suggested that we skip impeaching Bush and instead impeach Cheney (link) (my friend Fensterwald gave me its blessing).

I still think I'm right on not impeaching the President. I don't want impeachment to become a habit. Besides, I think there are a lot of better things for Congress to do with its time.

I'm here now listening to John Dean on Keith Olbermann suggesting that Congress move down the impeachment food chain --impeaching, e.g., cabinet officers. Evidently it is not without precedent: David Cannadine, in his magisterial new biography of Andrew Mellon (link), points out that Mellon resigned as secretary of treasury under the threat of impeachment.

Of course, there isn't the remotest chance of getting a convinction out of the Senate, but it might be a useful way to frame up some of the investigative issues.

Remembering the Ford Administration

They say the job of every (Republican?) president is to make his predecessor look good. The web is awash with commentary this morning on the passing of Gerald Ford; I cheerfully align myself with the “Ford was a decent man” faction—virtually the last American president who could do the job without letting his ego get in the way.

Dissenters from this view cite, as exhibit #1, the fact the Ford White House was the same gang of ruffians who created the current mess—Cheney and Rumsfeld. It’s hard to argue with this but I would like to throw out one idea that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere. This comes from my friend Gladys, an old-time East Coast GOP pro, who remembers a day when she thought you could be both a Republican and a feminist. Gladys recalls:

I think it is the heart surgery. I remember Cheney from the Ford administration. You could deal with him. He was a hard Wyoming conservative, but you could deal with him. He stood for what he stood for, but that was that. These days he is bitter and angry and dark. He’s had the surgery; he never really came back. He’s an old man and he is near the end and it shows.

It’s worth a thought. And no, not really Gladys. Nobody is named Gladys. But since I am quoting without permission (and paraphrasing from memory, at that)…

Postscript: Two other quickies. One, remember it was the Reagan right who undertook to destroy Ford for ideological impurity. And two, recall the 76 election: Ford v. Carter. On the decency scale, things have changed, not so?

Darwin Award Candidate

One of my fave movie scenes is the one in Body Heat where Mickey Rourke tells William Hurt he isn’t smart enough to be a criminal. Now this (link).

Update: Eeuw, a Wiki page, with a link to the complete correspondence. Too bad he isn't important: he could go on Larry King.

Update to update: I just went and actually read the correspondence and man, it is hilarious. Squirrels and pigeons indeed.

The 25 Percent Rule

I assume ten thousand bloggers will weigh in this morning on Joe Moroszcz, president of the College Republicans at Boston University, and his proposal for a scholarship available to students who are "at least one-quarter Caucasian" (link). I assume that a fair chunk of these bloggers will point out that almost any American black could pass that 25 percent test, unless he came here last week from, say, Gabon, and maybe then.

I wonder how many will remember how this "percent" stuff became an issue back in the racial-restrictive covenant cases that preceded Brown v. Board of Education. Recall: Homer buys a home with a deed providing that he shall not sell to members "of the Negro race." Homer sells to Byron and the neighbors challenge the sale as violating the covenant. In defense, Byron denies that he is "of the Negro race," and puts the plaintiff to his proof.

It was cute and calculated, but it was not quite as frivolous or obstructive as it might appear at first blush. Think about it: what a way to provoke a full-scale discussion of what it meant to be a "Negro"--to challenge the whole range of social and cultural assumptions that underlie the assertion. It's clear from the record that the proponents understood the cases not least as part of a process of education about race and society.

Moroszcz this morning must feel like the guy at Knott's Berry Farm with his head sticking through a hole in the wall--while a gleeful multitude pelts him with dead cats and rotten cabbages. I wouldn't worry about him: speaking of "a process of education," one of the functions of `campus politics is to bring home to the kinder that if you stir up a hornet's nest, then sometimes you get stung. A satisfying, if ironic, conclusion, might be to see the episode morph into a brand new public dialogue on an old and persistent issue.

[Fn.: I wonder if the "put to their proof" denial these days would pass the Rule 11 threshold condition of good-faith pleading? We're talking "process of education" here, but is that a legitimate function of a private lawsuit? Aside from the racial restrictive covenant cases, I once knew a guy who used the same tactic in a sex-discrimination case--denied that the plaintiff was a woman and put her to her proof. Same case? Different? Ooh, this is beginning to sound like a law school exam.

Oh, and thanks again, Ivan.]