Huckabee politicizes Kennedy

Now, this is just sick.

"Hi, Kettle, have we met?"

The West Wing, leadership, and how easy it is to offend the Right

I've been watching The West Wing again.  We got rid of cable, so my wife and I now spend that time watching TV on DVD.  It actually seems pretty silly.

Perhaps the most amazing thing to me about the show is that it seems to be a show about leadership.  We get to see how people act when times are good and bad.  We get to learn about repercussions and expectations.  And more to the point, the show was perpetually timely.  Watching the first season, you just know that it is 1999-2000.  You can feel it in your bones.  The issues they are discussing, the popular wisdoms, and even the way the parties respond represents that time period.  It is a wonderful time capsule.

As I watch through the seasons, I also watch/listen to the commentaries.  I like to know what goes into the making of the show, where the writer and director are coming from, and getting to know some of the actors' personalities when they aren't in character.  One thing that keeps popping up from Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme is that they received heavy criticism about the show's "politics".  They discuss it a bit, but cast it off.  I, however, want to challenge this--even if it is a few years past.

I just watched the episode "The Two Bartlets" from the third season.  The two primary issues in the episode are about friendship and affirmative action.  In fact, the only thing that was of particular interest in terms of "issue politics" was the debate over affirmative action that was had between C.J. and Toby (two democrats) who take very different positions.  In fact, Toby refrains from tearing down C.J.'s arguments (con), even though I, a viewer, could.  The show, in fact, proclaims two positions and refrains from saying either one is better.  I can't see what the problem is here.

They also have a secondary issue in which Josh is asked to take advantage of a friendship he has with someone to solve a national defense issue (long story).  Josh does make an impassioned plea on the part of his friend, the demonstrator, and bringing up his stance (which seemed pretty solid from where I sit).  Again, what is not at stake was a clear policy position taken by the people running the show, because Josh is still being forced to convince his friend to stop protesting.  This not only avoids a rendering on the issue, but says something instead about the workings and priorities of governments, which is often in action, not argument.

But the crux of the episode is not the issues in and of themselves, but a discussion about the people that are given the authority to deal with them.  In the case of the show, that is the White House staff and the elected officials that lead them.  In the climax of the episode, Toby takes his concern for the president not taking a stand on the affirmative action debate into the Oval Office.  He wants the president to take a stand.  He also raises the question of why he didn't take a stand: Pres. Bartlet doesn't want to be smart.

Viewers of The West Wing know that Pres. Bartlet is brilliant.  He has a PhD in Economics and is a broadly-read and classically-trained scholar.  He is smart.  Toby suggests that there are two Bartlets: the nutty and jovial professor and the impassioned and determined reformer.  What Toby is getting at is that the President tries to be the nutty professor because, of all things, he was smarter than his father, and it cost him love.  The implications of this are that he only expects to get love when he avoids looking smart.

What is both timely (2002) and timeless about this episode was that we were in the midst of 'frat-boy' politics.  We had a president in real life that many would have preferred to have a beer with than the other guy.  We didn't like people looking smart.  Just like my best friend in grade school that hid his report card because he didn't want people to know he got all A's.  Just like I am told that I occasionally preach over the heads of people.  I won't call it an anti-intellectual agenda, but something worse.  This is the politics.

In the show, the "plain-spoken" everyman Republican candidate wins the Iowa primary, setting him up to be the one true challenger to the president in season 4's election.  What this represented was Karl Rove (as a disciple of the Barry Goldwater school of politics) and his strategy to challenge an opponent's greatest strength, thereby weakening the whole candidate.  In this case (like what happened in 2000 and would get replayed in 2004), the candidate not only runs a campaign that suggests that an 'average joe' has worthy skills, but that it is preferable to intelligence.

This strategy only works if the intelligent one is reluctant to show his intelligence.  I'll overlook the fact that many Americans prefer smart people in the White House, to take this argument: what is Pres. Bartlet if you take intelligence out of the equation?  What happens to his identity?  What is even left?  The very notion that this president would shy away from an intellectual challenge demonstrates truly poor leadership on his part.

The reality of the show in general was that the politics were very fair, even when they didn't need to be.  The president himself demonstrated a hawkish foreign policy and a neo-liberal economic policy, both of which should clearly appeal to conservative and pro-corporate sympathies.  And the one area that he was most liberal were on social issues, which always took a back seat when the times got tough.  In fact, the Left-Wing was thoroughly abused in much of the show's run.  While fairly representing the Democratic Party of the 1990s and 2000s, it also seems to be a less problematic position for conservatives, I would assume, as it matches or complements their positions on issues than a platform more Rooseveltian or Johnsonian.  Instead, the real problem many conservatives had with the show was simply that it was told from a Democratic administration's perspective and the viewer was asked to root for Democrats.  The horror.

For me, I still look at the examples of leadership.  You stand up and shout whenever the President or staff take a stand.  The times you feel good about them are when they say what they believe.  There is a reason the first season's "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet" is one of the show's best episodes: it's about taking a stand.

Why I don't care about the Insurance Lobby

Here's just a quick thought.

Over the last decade we have seen a mass exodus of American manufacturing overseas. As of 2007, New Balance, the last holdout of a company producing shoes in the U.S., was manufacturing in China. They have since re-established some of their manufacturing in the U.S. But that is only one shoe company.

Also, check the labels on your shirts, pens, coffee mugs, and anything else you touch on a daily basis. Not much "made in the USA".

We allowed the manufacturing sector to shed tens of millions of jobs and General Motors and Chrysler to file for bankruptcy (after shedding tens of millions of jobs since the 1960s themselves). We watch our IT and customer service work shipped to India. In fact, as we learned last fall, we placed the entire health of our economy on those beacons of altruistic thinking: Wall Street, Bankers, and Real Estate.

Like the decision of the Big Three to focus on high-margin luxury SUVs while abandoning the small car and alternative-energy industries, our entire economy has been turned away from providing for the small needs of the many and toward the big wants of the few. If you don't believe me, call a lobbyist.

So here's my quick thought: why do we care what health insurance companies have to say? They don't provide the care or seek it. They don't provide the new technologies that provide better access to life-saving methods. They aren't working on new drugs that are revolutionizing patient care. They take money from people in hopes that they never have to spend it. Is this an industry that is essential to the livelihood of this nation? Why should we preserve their existence? Why should we ignore the displacement of millions of Americans from their stable jobs, but suddenly care about the insurance industry? Why should we place the future of the medicine on the bottom-line of Blue Cross and Met Life?

Isn't there a place for my right to quality care? Shouldn't we have a medical system that actually puts saving lives before saving the jobs of the insurance lobby? Shouldn't people be encouraged to go to the doctor and not worry about whether or not their crappy insurance will cover the visit, or worse, what is found when they get there? How many have walked into a doctor's office and prayed that nothing is wrong, not because they want to stay healthy, but because they can't afford for something to be wrong? I for one have. Isn't that more important than the insurance industry?

You can scream and rant about free markets till the cows come home but the statistics are staggeringly against the status quo on this one. If we actually crafted a HEALTH-care system, none of us would need to worry about finding new jobs for all of those insurance agents--they could get jobs helping facilitate care.

Defense briefings manipulated Pres. Bush

Leading off last night's Countdown, Keith Olbermann reveals that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made cover pages for his presidential briefings that combined scripture with pictures of military personnel in Iraq. The full story can be viewed here:

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The pages revealed such pairings as:

"Whom shall I send, and who will go for us."
A picture of soldiers praying--the day before the invasion.

"It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men." -1 Peter 2:13
A picture of Saddam Hussein.

"Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, The nation that keeps faith." --Isaiah 26:2
A picture of the crossed swords, the entrance to the ceremonial parade route.

These cover pages are pretty sick.

Olbermann's discussion and conversation with Richard Wolffe were quite good and covered the purpose and repercussions of their use. But there is one thing that they failed to mention. In their attempt to describe how brazen and manipulative this was on the part of Rumsfeld, they missed one specific opportunity: Bush is famous for not reading what's handed to him.

Rumsfeld isn't simply using Biblical quotes to manipulate a devoutely religious president, but giving a visual "summary" for a leader that wouldn't read the interior pages.

The pages themselves are constructed in a highly visual manner. They contain a photograph taken on the previous day, and a quote from the Bible that is made relavent to the photograph to tell a story of righteousness on the part of the United States. This is, in itself, a disturbing thing. But paired with Bush's tendency to rely on the good intentions of his subbordinates, reveals an incredibly dangerous opportunity for manipulation and deceit.

As governor, Bush famously suggested that he could decide death penalty cases in 15 minutes (despite dozens of pages of documents per case), and then part-way through the term, he reduced the time to 10 minutes. When setting foot in the Oval Office, Bush changed the protocol to include single-page summaries so that he would not be responsible for reading the entire document. Conscious of this tendency on the part of the then-president, Rumsfeld was able to color the summary he was giving the president to fit the schema that they had developed: The United States is acting righteously, boldly, and with God's support in its attempt to bring down the forces of evil.

What we do with this evidence, I don't really know. It does continue to reinforce our fears that their was a shadow-government in the White House, run by the Vice President and assisted by the Secretary of Defense to convince the president to start a phony war. Or it could be a disturbingly crass misuse of Scripture. But does it really matter? The damage is still done.

More on the fallacy of "the moderate"

In the U.S., we have an infantile view of political ideology. Perhaps it is born out of a two-party system (more vibrant democracies have more than two parties--we're actually the only highly industrialized nation that has only two parties of consequence) and its inherent bifurcating of issues into yes/no or good/bad or mine/yours. It is a truly immature form of governing.

Note: I say immature, which is ironic, since young voters are most likely to vote for third party candidates, thereby exercising their belief in a more vibrant democracy. Our older (and ostensibly more mature) voters become increasingly less likely to do so. Perhaps this should help us reorient our understanding of maturity?

At the same time, instead of operating in a non-dualistic system, we create a false paradigm of linear relationship. Such as can be seen in this diagram:

At the one end is liberalism and at the other is conservatism--as if there is no way in which they can have matching ideologies--implying that they are, indeed, polar opposites--and in the place of unity must certainly be in the mythical midpoint: moderatism.

I bring this up because of the new 'working group' forming in the Democratic Party, led by Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. A long-time Clinton associate and supporter of Sen. Clinton's campaign until he switched to then Sen. Obama. Bayh, given speaking time at the Democratic Convention, given access to the president, has now decided to make himself a kingmaker.

Bayh's op-ed in the Washington Post argues against this, while actually demonstrating that he is intending to do just that. His prime argument is this:

The stakes are too high for Democrats to fear a policy debate. Such debates produce better legislation. On nearly all important votes, a supermajority of 60 senators will be needed to pass legislation. Without Democratic moderates working to find common ground with reasonable Republicans, the president's agenda could well be filibustered into oblivion.

What is interesting is that he didn't suggest such a thing under the previous president, a time in which (arguably), his ideology was most needed and concensus building were most important. Instead, he stood on the sidelines. At the same time, he is making a bold, and fundamentally flawed (in the Shakespearean sense) argument if he actually believes that "moderates working to find common ground with reasonable Republicans" is an appropriate task for him and his group, "praised" by the White House and Senate Leadership. Friedmann would remind us to stay away from triangulation and attempts to intercede on behalf of someone else. I would say, Who gives you the right to decide policy for the entire Democratic Party? How can this be seen as anything but a power play? If he were truly post-partisan, he would be using many more carrots than sticks in this conversation.

He then makes the foolish argument that the country is "moderate". And conservative. Just not liberal. Moderate with more conservativism than liberalism. Or something.

What Bayh seems to be doing is to actually create a new party within the Democratic Party. Perhaps we should look at a different graph:
In this graph, you can see that the horizontal access demonstrates the spectrum of liberalism to conservatism. The vertical access shows the differing parties.

Bayh's idea is that Democrats have to allign themselves appropriately with the ideologically similar groups: liberal Democrats with conservative Democrats and that conservative Democrats are most like liberal (or his word: reasonable) Republicans, so they should hash out some compromises on the part of the party.

But look at the graph as I've composed it. Since we have already thrown out the previous understanding, Bayh's rationale doesn't seem to make sense. If you are a "left-leaning" Republican, why should we assume that the point of contact is with a "right-leaning" Democrat? What makes us so sure that they have more in common than the liberal Democrats? Isn't it possible that the so-called moderates (or liberal Republicans) are socially liberal and fiscally conservative and that conservative Democrats might be socially conservative and fiscally liberal?

Ah! But there's Bayh's argument! We're fiscally conservative like they are! Remind me again why we should have you speaking for the entire party?

We plan to be a positive force in our caucus, exemplified by the constructive role a number of us played in making reasonable adjustments to garner the GOP votes needed to pass the president's economic recovery package.

A package that ended with less money than both sides started with ($900 billion vs. $820 billion finished at $780 billion).

In 1993, the three of us, as much younger politicians, stood with great expectations as the last Democratic president was sworn in with big plans, a head of steam and a Democratic Congress ready to begin a new progressive era. In less than two years, it all came crashing down, with disillusioned moderate voters handing the GOP broad congressional victories in 1994.

Yes, but again, was it a lack of moderates in the Democratic Party and in the senate, running their own operation, and cutting their own deals? Shouldn't we suggest that Bill Clinton, a southern Democrat and neoliberal, is much different than Barack Obama, a midwestern Democrat and traditional liberal? Doesn't the Clinton agenda have more to say in its own failure (and impact on the Senate) than the Senate had in impacting the Clinton years? And don't we have something to learn from a 1976 election in which a conservative president (Carter) was compromised in the Senate by a liberal Democratic leader (Ted Kennedy)?

And if our problem is the confrontational mode of liberal/conservative (and the ensuing need to be moderate), how is the creation of a shadow, deal-making group of Senators going to bring about a different paradigm? Back in 2007, I made this post about the fallacy of "the moderate". What it means for us is that the operating principle of the moderate is to radically eliminate conflict, working at odds with some competing agendas while reinforcing other ones. In the other post, I use the example of Supreme Court confirmations and the filibuster rule. The moderates give away the confirmations to preserve the filibuster. In this way, the fundamental argument (confirmations) is given a lower priority than the side argument (filibuster rule). Compromise between moderates then cannot be seen as a reliable means of doing business, as the primary function of the compromise was to deal directly with the confirmations--not the filibuster. Secondly, its interest in preserving the law and minimizing perceptual damage is actually the classic definition of conservatism. Conservatives make bad compromisers since they are ideologically opposed to disrupting the status quo.

Now look again at the second graph. Why would we want conservative Democrats to speak for the President of the United States?

Also, look at Rachel Maddow's take. It is perfect.

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"They're both doing it"

Let me start by saying this: I hate this statement. It is a pernicious and deceptive non-argument that operates with something I might call "fudged facts".

Fudged Fact - to misrepresent an otherwise accurate assessment by messing with its context.

Let me describe the issue and its problems.

You have no doubt been in the middle of a conversation/debate with someone when the other person suddenly makes the claim that "they're both doing it." The phrase, at its base, is used to suggest that two opposing parties are both guilty of the same problem. It is also most commonly used to refer to politicians in the Republican and Democratic Parties specifically.

The phrase is also commonly uttered on TV yakfests, such as The View or cable news shows. Some talking heads (pundits) employ it during real news broadcasts, and even some self-described Moderate politicians will use it to condemn both parties. I have complete faith that you've heard the phrase at some point--if not ad nauseam.

But here is why I consider it pernicious:

1. It implies equality. The suggestion of the phrase is that since two opposing parties are doing something, then they are of equal guilt. This does not take into account the possibility that one may be far more likely to do it or has already participated in it to a far greater extent.
2. It is an act of misdirection. It redirects the conversation away from what is currently being discussed. It is often the associations or experiences that are the center of the problem, but in misdirecting our focus, our attention is turned toward this presumed equality.
3. It actually cuts off debate. It eliminates the very center of the argument and pulls us to the lowest common denominator. If two parties receive money from an energy company, but only one seems to re-write regulation to curry favor with the company, the act of bringing up the perceived equality in receiving funds keeps us from debating the actual problem, which is the legislation that produces the favor.
4. It is an act of derision. It makes the claim that because persons A and B have this same association, they are both bad. This (again) brings up the lowest common denominator: A is actually perceived as less of a pariah if A and B are both pariahs!

The last implication brings up the prospect of 'taint'. This is a variation of poisoning the well. It brings equality among the unequal. Like the old stereotype that "one drop" of African American blood makes you African American (and therefore not white), the suggestion is that it doesn't matter how bad you are; if you have done something bad, then you are bad. Bernie Maddoff is equal to a shoplifter.

This may also imply that all crimes are equally bad--which could be the real reason why we can't seem to punish the Bush White House or Wall Street--we know better. We know that these crimes aren't equal.

When we paint with the same broad brush, we miss the actual differences--just as when we focus on the differences, we actually ignore the similarities. But in the case of the non-argument "They're both doing it," we are laying equal guilt and directing the conversation elsewhere, when the central concern must be what the one is doing. Let's use the above example:
Throughout the 1990s, one energy company (Enron) gave millions in campaign contributions to Republicans and Democrats. The ratio was something like 5-to-1 or 10-to-1 (favoring Republicans). They helped rewrite legislation in Texas under a Republican governor (who himself received many millions in contributions), reciprocating deals for the company, and even getting them exclusive access when he became President of the United States. The same company used the energy crisis in California to force its governor (a Democrat) to sign a reprehensible contract to save his state. Enron held millions of people hostage through a shady, quasi-legal contract. Further, under the Texan, the Enron contract was upheld and not investigated, even though there was clear evidence of extortion. In the late 1990s, legislation was passed by a Republican-controlled congress (and they overrode Clinton's veto) that allowed a company like Arthur Anderson to both audit and advise a company like Enron. These rules allowed Enron to exploit the consumers, make a killing on Wall Street, and make a fortune off of the backs of people that would later to the brunt of the abuse when Enron collapsed. So here's the checklist:

• Enron greatly favors Republican candidates
• Republicans grant access to Enron
• Republicans re-write laws allowing Enron (and Arthur Anderson) to cheat
• A Democrat is extorted and a state is held hostage
• Enron's collapse generates millions for the board and CEOs
• Investors lose everything.

The result: anytime this was brought up in the 2000, '02, and '04 elections, it was received with that great misdirection: but you just pointed out that "they're both doing it"! Yeah. Sure.

Don't frighten the economy!

If we are to believe the current knocks on Pres. Obama, it is that he dares to talk responsibly about the economy.  Rachel Maddow called it "talking like a grownup."  If he keeps talking about the current mess with such (gasp!) honesty, then he might frighten it into a recession.  So we should he needs to sweet talk it.  He should have sent flowers and chocolates to it for Valentine's Day.  Maybe take it out for a dinner and a movie once in a while.  Poor neglected economy!

Even former Pres. Clinton got in the act.  Stupid Bill.  Don't you know that you're not supposed to be talking right now?

Not only is this line of reason pretty laughable, the truth of what they are saying seems to be lost on them.  The fact that Wall Street (you know--legalized corporate gambling) runs on fear--that it rises and falls based on people's irrational responses to good and bad news--has been a recurring theme since the first stock market dip in 2001 and 2002.  That fear-based selling and pack mentalities tend to cripple our economy when more stable-minded investing encourages long-term growth is well known, but seemingly unpracticed on Wall Street.  Extending this idea to broader economic conditions seems logical.

Except for one thing: the president isn't the one doing the selling.  He isn't even the one feeding information to stock-holders or CEOs.  They are the ones acting immaturely and without regard to our economic future.  You don't blame the victim of a crime for the perpetration of the crime any more than you blame the official that points out that a crime has taken place!

This is the "more of the same" has to change.  This is the behavior that needs an overhaul.

The public (unsolicited and inappropriately open) "suggestion" that Clinton gave Obama was to express more confidence.  A commentator compared this with FDR's "nothing to fear but fear itself", but they are missing the forest for the trees.  The nature of addressing fear is not calling the president a cheerleader-in-chief, but the actual standing up to the fear.  Confidence is great, but if it isn't used to stand up against the fear, it is misused.

I can't help but think of all of the abuse perpetrated on others because we don't want to rock the boat or make hay over things.  Allowing criminals to go unpunished and victims to go without justice.  It sanctions violence: physical, political, economic, psychological, and karmic.  The only sollution to this kind of violence is to clear the air.  This requires honesty and openness.

Perhaps its time the people entrusted with our economy, who demand an unregulated market, actually acted as if they could be trusted to spend five dollars on anything but candy.