Hate to say it, but I think we're remarkably close to getting screwed by Bush and Holy Joe, and we're not even thinking about why. Lieberman found himself ignominiously rejected during the 2004 primaries, basically ignored during the election, branded a traitor during the Gonzales vote, and then viewed as an enemy on Social Security. The sum total of all that has been a marked uptick of interest among Democrats in finding and funding a primary challenge against him. Worse, Joe's got nowhere left to go, it's unlikely that Democrats are going to retake the Senate anytime in the near future (which would give him a committee chairmanship) and it's damn near impossible that he'll be on another presidential ticket or in a hypothetical Democratic cabinet.

With all that in mind, I see no real reason he'd want to languish in the Senate, condemned to a future of intraparty battles and partisan marginalization. Cutting a deal on Social Security might be his way out, because it might bring with it a new position for Joe: Secretary of Defense in the Bush administration. There's little doubt that he's more interested in war and peace than Medicare reform, and by this point his only chance at respect is being the very embodiment of bipartisanship. Taking credit for shattering the partisan impasse blocking Social Security reform and then ascending to a top cabinet position seems like a pretty attractive path for the otherwise marginal fence-straddler...

Update: I should clarify that I find it entirely possible, given Bush's history, that the deal will be stuck, Joe will will vote against SS, and then he'll be left twisting in the wind. My point in the post is not what Bush will or won't do, but what Lieberman thinks he will or won't do.

Brad Plumer, in a post on the nauseating Hilla bombing, notes that a car bomb has to be pretty fucking big to push the death toll over a 100 people, and so there's probably an al-Qaqaa connection here though, he says, there's probably not much point in revisiting the issue.

True enough, but wouldn't it have been nice if, at some point, we had actually visited the issue? I mean, I know we parachuted in and mixed it with the rest of the election's final week feces-throwing, but that seems to have worked to divert attention from it, not interest anyone in a full-fledged investigation. Indeed, we seem to have written it off as part of the 2004 election warfare, and once the polls closed, everyone agreed to leave it in the past. Everyone, I guess, save the insurgents.

Ouch. Deleting 900 words that took you an hour to write is never fun. But when you're approaching a thousand and you're still not sure if anyone will catch what you're talking about, it generally means your point is muddled and it's time to put the kill on it. So I did. Suffice to say that I'm not a big fan of the Goldwater debate swirling around the blogosphere. I like that Brad and Matt have donned their contrarian capes and swooped down to reality-check Barry's legacy, but I think they're taking a very narrow view of what Goldwater meant.

Goldwater emerged at a very strange moment for the Republican party. They had spent the past 30 years ceding domestic issues to the Democrats and running their campaigns on a combination of red-baiting and, well, more red-baiting. They had no real domestic critique, instead, government was almost a joint custody arrangement, with liberals taking the home-front and moderate Republicans setting the terms of the foreign policy debate. But Kennedy and Johnson proved themselves tough on communism, and suddenly Republicans were robbed of their primary critique.

So Goldwater emerged and smashed the consensus. He created an anti-government message that lost at the outset, but ended the Republican's unilateral disarmament on domestic issues. Democrats crushed him (largely on foreign policy), and then nominated McGovern and ceded their newfound national security strength without ever updating their kitchen table arguments beyond "elect us entitled competent technocrats". That's why liberalism, which now means dull empiricism, has been personified by robotic wonks like Gore, Kerry and Dukakis. Our message is stuck in the 50's, but it exists without any of the advantages we had then, and it cohabitates with the shattered and grotesque husk that is our credibility on national security. Thinking that Goldwater's extremism simply screwed the Republican party is exactly our problem -- it did hurt them by some metrics (though Johnson was going to have major coattails no matter who his opponent was), but it also gave them an intellectual energy that, in very real ways, made their party's ideology whole again. Our analysis is all head while Goldwater's effect was all heart. And, in politics, I'm convinced that heart, not head, wins elections.

Mark Schmitt's corrective to the Goldwater revisionism concludes:

What the think tanks and grassroots groups and Karl Rove and Frank Luntz figured out over the 36 years after Goldwater was how to retain the language of ideological conservatism, leave unchallenged the facade of operational liberalism, and use that combination to exercise power long enough and aggressively enough to destroy every future prospect for operational liberalism. I think they have scuttled much of the strength of real conservatism in the process, but I don't think that's anything for liberals to be glad or complacent about.

Entirely true. Goldwater gave them the energy and ideology that served to power their rhetoric, his loss gave them the motivation to build the institutions that could control the debate and hide their intentions, and the combination of head and heart gave them the full toolset needed to gain total dominance over the government. His run changed the Republican party from a bunch of comfortable technocrats who engaged in a genteel struggle for power into a movement. Meanwhile, liberals are still talking about how reality-based and empirically-sound we are, and now we're beginning to turn on the Goldwater moment as a net negative for Republicans. To me, that looks like an acceptance, even a glorification, of our party's march towards oblivion. Goldwater restored the Republican party's gut, that Democrats were finally looking at him and realizing we need to do the same was the most positive development I'd seen. I'd hate to see us turn trigger-shy now.

Update: Also see Ed Kilgore's take on this.

Julie Saltman is wondering how Republicans will oppose the obviously-popular provisions of the Count Every Vote Act. The answer is through the magic of Congress! If every piece of introduced legislation had to face an up-or-down vote at polls, CEVA would pass in a landslide. But not only won't it find itself in front of voters, it's not going to find itself in front of congress critters either. With no Republicans jumping on board and the Democrats firmly in the minority, that bills never going to make it out of committee, and sure as hell won't find itself on the floor. Indeed, the bill is basically dead until its sponsors -- Kerry and Clinton -- run for president in 2008.

Why the bill hasn't attracted any Republican cosponsors is, however, an interesting question. Nothing so self-evidently popular can be ignored by politicians lest they find themselves similarly shunned by voters. So Republicans have created a counter-bill which, under the guise of tamping down on fraud, makes it harder for people to vote. Brilliant. Now the press can satisfy itself by reprinting quotes promoting the legislation of each side and belittling the proposals of the other side, Americans can assume that it's just more partisan food-fighting, and meaningful electoral reform can be totally ignored. So the answer, Julie, is through a manipulation of representative democracy, a mastery of congressional maneuvering, and a compliant press corps. Makes you proud to be an American, no?

Update: Seems Kevin Drum is puzzling over this as well. Guys -- Americans want health care reform way worse than electoral reform, but Republicans haven't had to give them that, either. Bills drafted by the minority and ignored by the majority enter a special hell where, along with lost socks and unwanted puppies, they cower in isolation forever. CEVA will be forgotten in a week or two.

Michelle Malkin thinks emo music exists to promote the "cutting culture". That's awesome. Michelle Malkin has got to be the most unintentionally hilarious pundit in America, and I'm an enormous fan of her continuing efforts to outpace pretenders to the throne. Jonah's dorkiness is too self-aware while David Brooks's pop-sociology too easily parodied -- they don't hold a candle on Michelle "internment was a good thing" Malkin. She's less a boring pundit with a recognizable shtick and more an avante-garde goddess who defies parody, I often believes she's just a particularly daring performance artist obsessed with seeing how far her gig can be pushed. And I, for one, enjoy the act immensely.

Thanks, of course, go out to Shakespeare's Sister for the wonderful job she did this weekend. If you're not already, you should be reading her blog regularly.

Sometimes my initial reaction to condemn conservative idiocy as pernicious and malevolent and dangerous is just overcome by awe at the weird hypocrisy of it all. This is one of those times:

The government has told a federal appeals court that a suit by an F.B.I. translator who was fired after accusing the bureau of ineptitude should not be allowed to proceed because it would cause "significant damage to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

Lawyers for the government said in a brief filed with the court on Thursday that the suit could not continue without disclosing privileged and classified information.

The translator, Sibel Edmonds, was a contract linguist for the bureau for about six months, translating material in Azerbaijani, Farsi and Turkish. Ms. Edmonds was dismissed in 2002 after complaining repeatedly that bureau linguists had produced slipshod and incomplete translations of important terrorism intelligence before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

So here you've got a conservative-run government trying to squelch a case that accuses the government of incompetence. Let me be clearer: Here you've got a government run by folks who believe that government bureaucracies are incompetent and that national security is paramount arguing that a case exposing bureaucratic incompetence that endangers our national security can't go forward. It's like they're denying their very reason for existence!

That, I guess, is the modern Republican party. One big existential crisis made manifest and given the reigns of a superpower. It's their wacky kids movie, I guess, and we're just all living in it.

Via Nathan Newman.

Via Julie Saltman and Seeing the Forest comes this gem:

A review of fines levied by other federal agencies suggests that the government may be taking swear words a bit too seriously. If the bill passes the Senate, Bono saying "fucking brilliant" on the air would carry the exact same penalty as illegally testing pesticides on human subjects. And for the price of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl, you could cause the wrongful death of an elderly patient in a nursing home and still have enough money left to create dangerous mishaps at two nuclear reactors. (Actually, you might be able to afford four "nuke malfunctions": The biggest fine levied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year was only $60,000.)

The other day, I asked Matt Singer to comment on a Montana state senator's bill to tax "big-box retailers" that refuse to pay a living wage. And so he did.

That’s all for me, folks.  I’m buttoning my collar back up and heading back to the comments threads (and my own place).  I’m off to Chicago for a day of Oscar-related shenanigans.  I’m on a 10-year winning spree with my Oscar picks, and I need to defend my title.

Thanks for letting me invade your space for a couple of days, Ezra.  It was good fun.

On a final note, lately there’s been a lot of grumbling about sexism in the blogosphere and about some of the bigger dogs not giving the smaller pooches their due, some of it fair and some of it not.  At the risk of embarrassing my generous host, I want to acknowledge that he has been supremely supportive of me, long before either issue became hot topics again, and despite the fact that we don’t always agree.  Thanks, EK.

-- Shakespeare’s Sister

I like science.

I always liked studying science, for which I had a natural aptitude, and I like reading about it still.  Any kind of science captures my interest—the natural sciences, the social sciences—in no small part because I feel it is an important endeavor to helping us make sense of the world around us, and the things and people in it.  A certain respect for science seems not only admirable, but wise, which is part of the reason the Bush administration’s continuous displays of their contempt for science to further their agenda makes me want to pull my hair out and hit something with a bat.

An editorial in today’s Washington Post reveals another example of their aforementioned disdain for scientific evidence, once again with potentially deadly consequences:

A large body of scientific evidence suggests that the free provision of clean needles curbs the spread of AIDS among drug users without increasing rates of addiction. … The administration claims that the evidence for the effectiveness of needle exchange is shaky.

The editorial refutes the claim in short order, then wraps up with the following:

Respecting science does not appear to be the administration's priority, however. Not only is it refusing to spend federal dollars on needle exchange, but the administration also is waging a campaign to persuade the United Nations to toe its misguided line. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, which is heavily reliant on U.S. funding, has been made to expunge references to needle exchange from its literature, and the administration is expected to continue its pressure on the United Nations at a meeting that starts March 7. The State Department's new leadership needs to end this bullying flat-earthism. It won't help President Bush's current effort to relaunch his image among allies. And it's almost certain to kill people.

I can’t even begin to fathom the impetus behind twisting science so as to derail a program that provides free, clean needles to drug users which has been shown to curb the spread of AIDS.  (Not to mention other communicable illnesses spread in the same way, such as hepatitis.)  Even from a fiscal perspective, the program makes sense; it is surely more cost-effective to provide needles than for our healthcare system to administer costly care to those who fall victim to AIDS through drug use, people who are, to state the obvious, unlikely to be covered by any sort of healthcare plan.

Nothing about this is smart.  One can only surmise that those who seek to deter free needle programs are motivated by a sense that their provision will encourage drug use, but such a position is rooted in the same fantasyland that allows people to convince themselves that making free condoms available encourages sex among teens.  Handing out free needles may very well feel as though it does little to reduce drug abuse, but if it stems the spread of AIDS, value is yet to be found in the endeavor.

Rarely can legislation fundamentally alter human habits; it more frequently simply criminalizes or legalizes an already common practice, without doing much to alter the commission of the underlying deed.  There is a real world out there that must be acknowledged when constructing policies so inextricably linked to human behavior.

A Protestant theologian called Reinhold Niebuhr wrote something called the Serenity Prayer, which has been reproduced on plaques, mugs, collectible plates, laminated prayer cards, posters with kittens, and all other manner of paraphernalia.  “God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.”  Sometimes it is indeed wise to respect the folly of humans, to know that the change you want to make isn’t necessarily the one you can make.  That’s reality, and ignoring it makes for bad policy.

We don’t call ourselves the reality-based community for nuttin’.

-- Shakespeare's Sister

The only thing dumber than the name “Mitt Romney” is the most recent idea being espoused by the asshole who goes by it.  Pam’s House Blend links to an article in the Boston Globe, titled “Romney links gay marriage, US prestige,” which excerpts the Massachusetts governor’s address to Utah Republicans Friday night:

“America cannot continue to lead the family of nations around the world if we suffer the collapse of the family here at home,” Romney said, calling the Supreme Judicial Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts “a blow to the family.”

Considering that the legalization of gay marriage has absolutely no effect whatsoever on straight marriages and the families that result from them, extending the right to marry and start families to lesbians and gays can in no way be described as “collapsing the family.”  Instead, it broadens the definition of what a family is, which would more accurately be described as “extending the family.”  Granting the same rights to the LGBT community so that they may marry and parent makes no difference to the notion of family, other than a semantic one.  Lesbians and gays already have families, and trying to legislate them out of existence is a futile task, motivated by nothing by hatred and fear.

(It’s also notable that Romney’s state is the only one to legalize gay marriage, yet has still managed to maintain the lowest divorce rate in the nation.  I wonder exactly what it will take to undermine the harbingers of doom’s claims that legalized gay marriage will cause all hell to break loose.)

''America's culture is also defined by the fact that we are a religious people," Romney said. ''We recognize our God not only in our Declaration of Independence, but even in our currency. And we are also unique in that we recognize that the family is the fundamental building block of American society."

If the family is the fundamental building block of American society, then why is it that lesbians and gays who pursue equal rights are accused of wanting “special rights”?  You know what another word for fundamental is?  Basic.  So anyone pursuing the chance to participate in one of the basic building blocks of our society surely isn’t asking for special rights, but basic rights.  Of course, disingenuous pricks like Romney know this, which is why we don’t require people to take IQ tests or be employed or be in a long-term relationship or be healthy or meet a prerequisite financial criteria before they have children or get married.  But for a reason that has no standing under a secular rule of law and no basis in logic, if the person with whom you want to express the basic right to a legally recognized family is the same sex you are, this right is denied.

Romney also gave an address to South Carolina Republicans last weekend, during which he said:

''Some [same-sex couples] are actually having children born to them." Complaining about an effort to use gender-neutral language to describe parents on birth certificates, he also said: ''It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and a father."

I love it: they’re actually having children!  Oh, the horror!  Aside from having read various studies which have indicated absolutely no developmental or other difference between children raised by straight parents and children raised by gay parents, I’ve also had a friend for over a decade who was raised by a gay father.  The only difference I see between him and most other straight guys is that he dresses better and is nicer to women.  (That’s a joke…at least the first part.)

As for every child having a right to a mother and a father, there are plenty of children who grow up without a mother or father (including, I might add, the nearly 1,000 children who have lost parents in Iraq).  Yeah, that stinks, but somehow efforts trying to prevent kids from having two loving parents of the same sex seem incredibly misplaced when there are children who are raised in single parent households all the time, with little attempt made to stem the tide of that increasingly frequent scenario.

Ten countries in Europe have legalized gay marriage (including Britain, very recently), some more than a decade ago, and despite alarmed caterwauling to the contrary, it has not undermined heterosexual marriage or families.  I would argue that '”America cannot continue to lead the family of nations around the world” if we continue to deny basic equal rights to all of our citizens.  To spread liberty, it might be suggested, one must actually practice it oneself to begin with.

-- Shakespeare’s Sister

One of the more interesting effects of Gannongate has been reading the various critiques on blogging from the mainstream media.  The first round of commentary was predominantly vitriol designed to undermine the credibility of bloggers as a whole; had it been effective, had the attackers succeeded in their goal of debunking the story not by disproving the facts but by delegitimizing the source of its origins, the entire Gannon story might well have faded away.

Instead, it seems their blanket dismissal of blogging and bloggers may have had the opposite effect, as some new editorials seek to defend the role of the blogoshere, and in doing so, breathe life into the notion that there is a distinct role to be played by bloggers and extend the life of Gannongate.

The St. Petersberg Times opines: 

The proliferation of Internet Web logs - so-called "blogs" - has unsettled mainstream news organizations that have become a prime target for bloggers. On the whole, it's probably a healthy development. The news media have a credibility problem and bloggers, for all their excesses, have shown they have a role to play in holding mainstream journalists accountable. … Mainstream journalists have nothing to fear from bloggers if they remain true to fundamental standards of accuracy and fairness. They must remain cautious before passing along information from blogs or reacting to their charges, while continuing to learn from a form of mass media that is evolving before our eyes. Blogging, if practiced responsibly, could boost old media's credibility by making it more accountable to the public.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune muses that “New Media” isn’t really new at all: 

In the [category of New Media] are the Internet bloggers, cable television news shows and talk radio, all of whom traffic in clear, often loudly expressed opinion that frames everything they report. They're doing "opinion news--news that reflects one's own beliefs and preferences and tends to filter out dissenting views," as a recent report from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press put it. … Is that new? Nah. It's actually as old as the republic, when newspapers from front to back were clearly identified with a political philosophy and a Thomas Paine could rally Americans to embrace independence by distributing "Common Sense" far and wide. … So perhaps we're going back to the future.

While in Russia, the President asserted that it was the responsibility of the press to maintain the proper relationship between themselves and government—a responsibility which they have been lax about performing.  In the resulting void, bloggers have stepped in to demand accountability from the administration.  Old Media shouldn’t be so surprised that we’ve decided to take them to task, too.

As for the GOP shills that sought to eclipse the validity of the blogosphere’s charges about Gannon by attempting to undermine bloggers’ integrity, well…be careful what you wish for.  And you better damn well make sure when you start impugning someone else’s credibility that your own is above reproach.

-- Shakespeare’s Sister

During a recent meeting with a group of activists in San Francisco, new DNC Chair Howard Dean proved once again he is the right man for the job:

Two months earlier, many of the same Democratic stalwarts had dinner with the outgoing DNC chair, Terry McAuliffe. Despite John Kerry’s loss in the presidential race, McAuliffe’s message was remarkably upbeat: For the first time in 30 years, the DNC had raised more money than did the RNC. They had built an impressive Washington headquarters, housing shiny new technology.

McAuliffe’s ebullient demeanor soured during the question and answer session. Many of the activists had worked outside California getting out the vote. They were distressed by what they had encountered: Republican dirty tricks; voting irregularities; dysfunctional systems; antagonism between DNC staff and local Democrats. As one difficult question followed another, McAuliffe seemed to bristle. Finally, he exclaimed, “I didn’t come here to listen to whining!”

There were remnants of this anger in the audience that met with Howard Dean. Unlike McAuliffe, Dean chose to listen to every question, no matter how difficult, and then to propose solutions.

What a concept.

While the main focus of Dean’s remarks, and of the questions from the audience, was on building a better system for the party, he also touched on the core Democratic message. He began by observing that many Americans don’t understand what the Democrats stand for. His solution is not for the party to change its positions, but rather to modify the way that it delivers them.

Just a few days ago, Mr. Shakes and I were talking about this, and he was complaining about the lack of a cohesive message.  My response was that there is a cohesive message: human rights.  We defend Social Security because we believe it is a human right not to suffer through one’s old age, after dedicating one’s life to employment for the country’s benefit, in abject poverty; we seek to protect abortion rights because we believe it a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body; we advocate gay rights because we believe in equal rights for all citizens; we believe in war as a last resort because we value human life and dignity; we condemn torture tactics for the same reasons; we argue for transparent elections to ensure the right to vote and have that vote counted.  Whatever the issue is, Democrats’ advocacy stems from a belief in equality and the advancement of human rights.  Our policies are not forged by social Darwinism, but by empathy and justice.  Those are our moral values, and they’re not that difficult to convey.

-- Shakespeare's Sister

Apropos of my earlier post regarding the necessity of being vigilant about encroachments on women’s rights, we get this story out of Kansas, where the Attorney General, Phill Kline, who happens to be head of the national Republican attorneys general association, is trying to obtain the medical records of women and girls who had late-term abortions.  His rationale is that he needs information in the files to prosecute criminal cases.

Eh? 

Kline asserts that the medical records will help him prosecute statutory rape cases and pursue health professionals who have failed to report cases of suspected child sexual abuse, which they are compelled to do by state law.  "There are two things that child predators want,” he said, “access to children and secrecy. As attorney general, I'm bound and determined not to give them either."

How laudable.  The first problem (and there’s always a problem with the intentions of these folks, isn’t there?) is that invading the privacy of rape victims, statutory or otherwise, is in direct contradiction to the facilitation of an atmosphere where rape victims feel safe to identify their accusers.  Revictimizing them by forcibly revealing intimidate details between themselves and their doctors is both heartless and unproductive.  Additionally, rape victims who know and fear retribution from their attackers are already loathe to report the crime; this idiotic idea will make them loathe to seek medical treatment as well.  The second problem is:

the subpoena cover[s] "the entire, unredacted patient files of nearly 90 women who obtained abortions at two Kansas clinics in 2003" and that it was not limited by age or the absence of abuse reports.

Hmm.  A mass subpoena of women’s medical records, giving Kline access to information well above and beyond what’s relevant for statutory rape cases, including personal details like marital status, race, employment history, emergency contacts, psychological profiles, methods of birth control, prior history of abortions, use of drugs, unrelated health conditions, etc.  To say the least, it seems to raise questions about the contention that his objective is prosecuting child predators.  One might even say that this isn’t really about statutory rape at all:

Kansas law restricts abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy, where the fetus would be viable outside the womb, except when "continuation of the pregnancy will cause a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman."

Despite that law passed in 1998, Kansas has become a national magnet for late-term abortions because of a doctor in Wichita who performs hundreds of them each year. The doctor, George Tiller, funneled at least $150,000 through political action committees to Mr. Kline's opponent in the attorney general's race in 2002, and his clinic, Women's Health Care Services, is one of the two whose records are being subpoenaed.

Call me cynical, but I suspect that if Dr. Tiller had funneled at least $150,000 through political action committees to Mr. Kline, instead of his opponent, his medical practice wouldn’t receive much scrutiny from the attorney general’s office regardless of the number of abortions he performed. Think that’s a bit of outrageous hyperbole?  Well, let’s not forget, shall we, the recently elected Republican Senator from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn, who sterilized a female patient without her written consent and then made a fraudulent claim to Medicaid for reimbursement for the procedure.  The party of moral values welcomed him into the fold with open arms.

Then again, maybe it’s about this:

In a statement on Dr. Tiller's behalf, his lawyer and a spokesman noted that he had complied with a subpoena from Texas authorities this week in relation to a patient who died after an abortion at his clinic…

If error by Dr. Tiller indeed caused the death of that patient, then he should be punished.  (And, if Bush & Co. have their way, her family would receive a whopping $250,000 settlement.)  But the privacy of the rest of Dr. Tiller’s patients should be invaded to see to it that he is.

The issue here is that there is no clear motive for subpoenaing all 90 of these women’s medical records.  It is to prosecute perpetrators of statutory rape?  Is it a witch hunt against a political antagonist?  Is it an attempt to discern possible malpractice?  Any of the above are dubious (to be generous) grounds for said subpoena, anyway.  Kline obviously cares about reducing the number of abortions in his state, which in and of itself is a goal that anyone can support.  But the ends do not justify the means.  They rarely do.

-- Shakespeare's Sister

Namely, the Social Security reform proposed by President Bush, who seems to be taking No Child Left Behind literally. 

The battle over Social Security has been joined by an unusual lobbyist, a 9-year-old from Texas who has agreed to travel supporting President Bush's proposal.

The boy, Noah McCullough, made a splash with his encyclopedic command of presidential history, earning five appearances on the "Tonight" show and some unusual experiences in the presidential campaign last year. He beat Howard Dean in a trivia contest at the Democratic National Convention and wrote for his local newspaper about his trip to see the inauguration.

"He's very patriotic and very Republican," said Noah's mother, Donna McCullough, a former teacher and self-described Democrat. "It's the way he was born."

In a sign of how far groups go to carry their message on Social Security, Progress for America has signed up Noah, a fourth grader, as a volunteer spokesman. He starts on spring break from James Williams Elementary School in Katy, Tex.

[…]

Noah will travel to a handful of states ahead of visits by the president and will go on radio programs, answer trivia questions and say a few words about Social Security. Though he is obviously not an expert (and not really a lobbyist, either), officials say the effort is a lighthearted way to underline Mr. Bush's message.

"What I want to tell people about Social Security is to not be afraid of the new plan," Noah said. "It may be a change, but it's a good change."

[…]

Noah plans to run for the White House in 2032 - and he wants Social Security addressed before then.

"It will be bankrupt when I'm president," he said.

(Hat tip Blogenlust.)

Aren’t there child labor laws to prevent this kind of thing?  Yeesh.

I don’t want to get my hopes up here, but this really, truly seems indicative of a desperation reserved for policy proposals that are ready for the graveyard.  It’s kind of like when sitcoms bring in a cute kid in season 7 to try to liven things up, you know it’s Next Stop: Cancellationville.

-- Shakespeare's Sister

One of the most cunning accomplishments of the Bush administration has been undermining the notion that the GOP, that great bastion of male dominance, has put to bed the last remnants of sexism within its ranks.  I dare you to call us sexists, its very appointment of a female Secretary of State seems to say.  (Or, for that matter, racists.)  Never mind that she is resoundingly incompetent and arguably lacks the requisite qualifications for the job.  Questioning her credentials is off limits; do so at the peril of having your subconscious sexist tendencies exposed for all the world to ridicule.

It is, of course, simply a grand façade, masking an insidious agenda against women’s rights, including the slow but steady erosion of abortion rights, both at home and abroad.

The latest news (hat tip Ms. Julien) comes as governments from around the world prepare to convene in NYC with the purpose of examining progress in women’s rights since the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, which met in Beijing in 1995:

Leaders from human rights and women's development organizations are sounding the alarm about the possible U.S. withdrawal from a historic women's human rights agreement currently under review at the United Nations. … Late yesterday, in quiet negotiations out of the public eye, the Bush administration signaled to other nations that it would not unequivocally reaffirm the commitments made by the United States to the world's women a decade ago.

The question such a signal raises is which commitment(s) are so objectionable that the Bush administration would consider withholding support for this historic agreement.  The platform, including all the associates strategic objectives and actions, is long and very detailed in the issues it addresses, but the objectives themselves are not so specific as to warrant much criticism from anyone genuinely interested in pursuing equality of the sexes.  A typical action item reads thusly:

Protect and promote the equal rights of women and men to engage in political activities and to freedom of association, including membership in political parties and trade unions.

Not exactly controversial stuff.  But each of these small steps add up to form a collective determination to eradicate the victimization of women the world over, some instances of which are so extreme that the pedestrian tenor of the strategies to prevent them belie their tragic nature: women condemned to death by stoning for sexual acts outside of marriage, gang-raped by rebel forces, sold into the sex trades, forcibly married at prepubescent ages, subjected to clitoridectomies and other forms of genital mutilation in an effort to prevent promiscuity, denied access to healthcare, reproductive education, and birth control, subjected to AIDS, denied divorces, killed or abandoned at birth in favor of male children, and a host of other indignities that range from glass ceilings to being sold into slavery.

The prevention of these grievous injustices is what the Bush administration is considering turning its back on.  The mere possibility of such an action is a betrayal of women everywhere, even those who face struggles that pale in comparison to those mentioned above—equal pay for equal work, the right to private medical records, the right to family leave—including the millions who cast their votes for their continued leadership.  It’s tempting to say those women are only getting what they deserve, but the rest of us must suffer the consequence of their decision as well.

-- Shakespeare's Sister

Hello, Ezra Kleinians.  In a spectacular bit of misjudgment, Ezra has decided to let one of the inmates run the asylum, as he earlier noted.  And since all the boys are angling for their Estrogen-Friendly Boy Scout Badge this week, choosing me has put him well ahead of the competition.

I kid, I kid.

Tonight I did one of my favorite things in the world—I saw a great film.  One never knows, of course, whether the evening will turn out as hoped when the lights go down; I’ve wasted more money on films that aspired to be swill than I care to consider.  But I spent this evening engaged by the thoroughly wonderful Million Dollar Baby, which I encourage you to see.  (It’s not such a strange thing to recommend on a political blog, but I won’t tell you why if you don’t already know.  Suffice it to say it will leave you with something to debate, should you be so inclined.)

On the way home, I was considering the strange path that Clint Eastwood’s career in film has taken; once vilified as a purveyor of soulless violence as Dirty Harry Callahan, he has become a favorite of Lefties who find his later work exhibits a particular type of empathy rarely seen in the typical fare churned out on a regular basis.  As it happens, there’s an article on Salon examining this very notion, which conveniently saves me some time.

There are those who suggest that Eastwood’s later films are the work of an apologist who regrets the tenor of his earlier work.  I think his transformation from object of liberal scorn to target of conservative ire just proves that if you’re around long enough, you manage to piss off everybody.

-- Shakespeare's Sister

I'm out for the weekend. Mother's birthday, girlfriend's in town, etc. Your hostess will be the excellent Shakespeare's Sister, so you should be excited.

She'll make sure you don't get bard. Ba-da-ching!

Sorry. I'll leave now.

In my second Newman link of the day, Nathan's got an excellent case study of how union votes are won -- by anti-labor corporations. Go.

By the way, you're probably going to see a lot more labor posts on this site. I recently read Thomas Geoghegan's Which Side Are You On: Trying to be For Labor When It's Flat on its Back (a really phenomenal, visceral tour of the decline of Labor). True to the title, you can't read the book and stay neutral -- which is why everybody should read the book. For my part, I'm determined not to contribute to progressivism's strange indifference towards labor issues. Indeed, I'd like to push us in the opposite direction, so expect the blog to be affected by that. If any of you are well-versed in labor issues and could recommend some books or sites that could help me, I'd be grateful.

Update: On that note, read this Nation article on the future of Labor.

Matt's efforts to reality-check the "Goldwater moment" are really worth reading and you should, uh, read them. But it's worth noting that conservatives don't really view Goldwater as this seminal, epochal moment, but rather as part of a larger history that encompasses Goldwater, Reagan, and Bush. This triumph of the true believers narrative, wherein conservatives clung to their ideals through the loss of Goldwater, were redeemed by Reagan, and proven victorious by Bush 43, allows the right to paint itself as a movement secure and unflinching in their beliefs. It creates a meta-narrative or -- dare I say it? -- a heuristic for Republicans as courageous, tough, committed, reliable, grounded, trustworthy, etc. They had their time in the wilderness and ended it through sheer dedication to conservative principles. It's not just an American story, it's a Christian one.

That's why the work Matt's doing is important, but also why it's unlikely to have an effect. Revising history is a very tough thing to do, particularly when the event in question isn't up for public scrutiny. Indeed, it'd be more useful to analyze the disconnect between Goldwater and the modern Republican party in order to understand how they appropriated their history to fit their future, rather than how their history created their future. Liberals, beyond simply building institutions, need to undergo a similar project. We need to pick a "phoenix moment" that can serve as the public rebirth of liberalism. Whether that's the Dean campaign, the Gore campaign, or a loss yet to come, in order to revive the progressive project, we're going to have to create a resurrection storyline. Republicans did it with Goldwater, but were savvy enough to ditch the portions of "Goldwaterism" that didn't work. We've got to show a similar combination of political pragmatism and marketing acumen if our much-expected resurgence is to come true. That, by the way, should be what we mean when we speak of our "Goldwater moment". Not just strengthening ACT and electing party chairmen, but preparing the public for a return to Democratic ideals.

The Apostropher catches a lie being born...

Via Nathan Newman comes tell of some innovative methods being used or proposed to force Wal-Mart into the realm of the socially conscious. Montana is considering a plan whereby large retailers would face an additional tax on receipts unless they proved their employees made a living wage. George Miller Ken Toole, the Congressman state senator behind the proposal, sensibly argues that since the state has to subsidize what underpaid Wal-Mart employees can't buy (health insurance, etc), Wal-Mart might as well be forced to fund the effort.

I'm a big fan of ideas like this (I hope Monsieur Singer will pop by to tell us about its chances in the Leg), not least because they seem so karmically delicious. Montana, however, is small enough that Wal-Mart could easily absorb the costs of such a proposal without having to change their business practices. California, on the other hand, is not. If we passed a similar bill, it'd have the same effect of our auto standards. When we decreed that cars sold here had to meet a much-higher emissions bar than they did nationwide, the effect was similar to a federal mandate -- automakers can't make one car for our market and one car for all others, we're too large.

In the same vein, Wal-Mart would find that the costs of complying with the law, when added with the costs of their flailing public image, would be pretty high. It might indeed be cheaper to simply let the stores unionize, or at least defuse that pressure by jacking wages up, rather than remaining hostage to hostile legislatures and bad publicity.

Damn. That's exactly what I wanted to say about it.

Mind if I go on a rant for a second? Wel,l it doesn't really matter if you do or don't because anyone answering no can't enter the site. What? Typepad doesn't have a screening system? Well fuck this, I'm not doing the blog then. Why should I? I'm leader of the free world, in case you didn't notice.

Only...I'm not like the leaders you remember. I'm not a great mind like Clinton or Wilson. Not a spectacular speaker like Reagan. Not an old hand like my father. In fact, sometimes I fear I'm just a little man in a big flight suit, and all the padding on the planet can't protect me from an impromptu query. That, for those wondering, is why I'm canceling the centerpiece of my trip in Germany, because they won't allow my staff to screen the questions before I take them. When I billed it as an "American-style" townhall, it seems I didn't really explain what American style is.

American style, in some ways, is a lot like Cuban style. Or North Korean style. It shares some threads with Russian and Iranian style too. And they say I'm not multilateral? Look at all I learn from other cultures! American style, now, is a style of intellectual cowardice, of fear. It's the style of a small man in tall shoes afraid of being knocked down. Let me let you in on a secret -- America, now, is an emperor aware his clothes are invisible. When my team can control the venue, the media, we can work the lighting and stage props to obscure my nudity. But without the magic and mirrors, the gig is up. But it's always been that way, really. People think I started this, but it's not true. Remember Reagan's helicopters keeping their blades rotating so the press couldn't ask him questions? Never hurt him, did it?

Something strange is happening, though. Schoolyard rules, oil field protocols, they're not really working. I mean, they work here, among Americans habituated to them. But overseas, across the world, they're doing me no good. They don't respect me, I can feel it. I figured I could snub the Germans and seem like a jock canceling on a lame party, but the papers are reporting it like a bully scared of a fight. When I took control of this country, I was told we could do anything. The military, the power -- so what the fuck has happened? I barely squeaked through the last election, this despite two dictatorial regimes toppled. We're floundering in Iraq, even my staff -- specifically told to keep the bad news at bay -- has been writing memos on it. I may not have gotten straight A's, but I know people, and I know when they're worried. And they are. What the hell's going on with China? When I came in here they were a threat, now people are saying I've made them more powerful? Japan is so scared they're begging us to flex over Taiwan? Chinese bankers are holding tons of our currency and sending it plummeting by publicly mocking the dollar's stability? It's the fucking dollar -- who cares what China thinks!?

I can't shake this though. My numbers are fine and it's not like I really care what the Europeans think, but, for some reason, they're making me feel weak because -- I can feel it! -- they just don't think we're strong. When I came into this office, I had no doubts about our power, our preeminence. I was helming the most powerful force the world had ever seen. And you know what? They knew it too. America could do no wrong, and, if they thought we did, it didn't matter; we led, they followed, and that was the order of things. It doesn't feel that way anymore. When I tell Rice to pull out of something or show disagreement, it doesn't send shockwaves or ripples. When I snub a townhall because they won't do it my way, they don't scramble to make it right, they laugh and leak to the papers. They're treating me like I was treating them. But I did that because they were weak.

Have I made us weak?

Awesome.

Brad's point that:

The way things are going, in the future people are going to be choosing to spend X percent of their income on health care. X will get larger and larger over time, by choice. So let's say X is 40 percent. From one standpoint, it really doesn't make a difference whether you pay 40 percent of your income for private health care, or 40 percent of your income in taxes that then go to government-administered health care.

That's a very specific standpoint Brad's using. Because paying for government-provided health care leaves you in an enormous pool that guarantees you access to these procedures, no matter their cost and no matter your income. Private insurance, however, is different. If you want comprehensive health care, you have to buy into (or have your employer buy into) pretty expensive plans. For many, that much income simply cannot be spared and, thus, they simply won't have access to many of those treatments. To even try and get close to the top plans, poorer workers won't be paying out the same percentage of their incomes as richer workers, they'll be spending much, much more. The reason single-payer is worthwhile is precisely because everyone pays out roughly the same percentage of their income (with some income brackets a bit more and some a bit less) and receives comprehensive care in return.

Update -- The more I look at this post, the more I think I have Brad's point wrong. He knows health care way better than I do, and wouldn't have overlooked this. So I suggest reading his post in full, as I'm well open to other interpretations of it.

Wow:

One thing is for sure: the discrimination represented in that lunch monitor’s tap on my praying nephew’s shoulder will not stand. Like Rosa Parks, religious conservatives refuse to shuffle to the back of the bus.

The story there, for interested readers, is that the nephew prayed before lunch, a hall monitor told him not to, the kid's dad called to complain, the hall monitor apologized the next day. Yes. Just like Rosa Parks. This country's dominant religion will not submit to continued discrimination from Bull Connor-like hall monitors. He took a whole day to apologize! And nor, we should warn, will the evangelical Christian who is our president, the members of the Supreme Court who are devout Christians, the Senators, or the congresscritters. Freedom now! Freedom forever! We shall overcome! Shit, the hall monitors got a firehose attack dogs detention slips! Shield the children!

Responding to Meyerson's article (which excellently lays down the Democrat's problem with the working class, but hides when solution time comes 'round), Brad Plumer writes:

Personally, I'm against "economic populism" as a political strategy. I prefer something along the lines of Eliot Spitzer's outlook on things: use regulation to correct market failures and get the capitalist system working more efficiently. That's a cumbersome message, but speechwriters can have at it. Also, I'd prefer a set of policies that reduced "economic risk" while promoting more of the sort of risk-taking that makes capitalism so marvelously vibrant. For instance, universal health care would help cushion your family against a job loss, but it would also encourage you to move jobs, relocate, seek a bold new career for which you might be more suited, without being chained down by the fear that comes with switching jobs and possibly losing your coverage. The end result, in theory, is a more dynamic economic world. What's more: It's populist, but it doesn't sound populist.

I agree with Brad entirely on policy here, but couldn't disagree more on the politics. To begin, I'm a huge advocate of using Spitzer's government v. corporations formula in conjunction with a risk reduction philosophy to form the Democrat's economic message. Spitzer has perfected the art of taking on the corporations in a way both economically sound and politically effective. We do need toothy oversight of the multinationals and we do need a government that proves itself willing to stand up for the marketplace. Indeed, right there comes the first break -- Democrats should value the marketplace over its corporate inhabitants. That gives us the edge in the economic values debate, too.

On risk, I've been slapping this donkey for awhile, and have only grown more convinced that it's the right move to make. The role of the government should be to grease the market and reduce risk to the worker. Universal Health Care, Social Security, universal day care -- all this needs to be implemented so workers aren't tied down to a particular job and stuck in a situation that doesn't fully utilize their abilities. Further, if the government takes responsibility for security, Americans have the freedom to be entrepreneurs. Anyone want to argue the good of entrepreneurship? Thought not.

My problem with Brad comes later, when he says "it's populist, but it doesn't sound populist". That's a real problem, if true. Only, I don't think it's true. And it certainly doesn't need to be true. Populism simply means favoring the worker. Fighting corporations with unfair business practices and creating a marketplace where ordinary citizens are free to make occupational choices because they're not tied down to this or that employer is, in a word, populist. Now, it's entirely possible that Democrats will step onto the podium and, through herculean effort, rob these tenets of their populism -- one just needs to read Kerry's speeches to appreciate our capability for snatching incoherence from the jaws of good politics. The sort of public wonkery he died by is bad politics but would've made for good policy. Populism, conversely, is great politics but often makes for bad policy. The challenge here is to merge the good economic principles of risk management and effective regulations with the powerful electoral effects of populism. Having a package that is populist but doesn't sound it is moot -- you still need to get elected. But framed and sold correctly, these packages can be very populist. They can be about protecting the worker from the whims of multinational corporations, both by making the companies play fair and by cutting the chains that leave Americans hostage to their job. And if we can't sell that, it'll only be because we chose populist policies but sold them as if our audience were pro-growth technocrats.

Call me a softie (unless you're Peter Beinart), but I found this post of Berube's weirdly poignant:

First the laptop goes, then the coffeemaker...I wouldn’t bother blogging about such a thing if not for the fact that the coffeemaker in question-- one of those nice steel carafe things that keeps your coffee warm without having it sit and stew on a hot plate-- succumbed, like the laptop, to a Mysterious Malfunction while insisting that it was actually in working order. (The laptop is still in denial about the loss of its USB ports; the coffeemaker continues to tell time and to insist that it will make the next pot of coffee at 6:38 AM even though it no longer heats water and brews coffee.)

Now I might simply be anthropomorphizing (that's an 18-letter word, y'all) some gadgets, but I found that touching. Like an aging, crippled dog that weakly barks at perceived intruders, or an old man who keeps coming into the office despite long ago being relieved of his work. The laptop and the coffeemaker are both making herculean efforts to remain useful, even as their usefulness has been effectively extinguished. I'll bet you that each morning, right at 6:38 AM, the coffeemaker starts trying to brew a cup of coffee, trying to heat the water, only to fail at the task and fall back, exhausted, but desperate to be given another chance the next day...

Update: Fixed the title.