I found Robert Stacy McCain’s piece on the Brown-Coakley Senate race to be a fun and interesting read that also has the benefit of being Real, Actual Journalism.

It is impossible to understand politics in the United States over the last 12 months without some in-depth discussion of the impact of the Tea Party movement.  Over the course of the last several days, I had the good fortune to engage in a dialogue with Stephen Gordon about a wide range of Tea Party-related topics, including what the Tea Party movements are about, where they’re going, what their influence has been and will be, and whether there is the possibility of a right-left alliance under the Tea Party umbrella.  There are, frankly, few people as qualified as Gordon to discuss these topics, as he’s been partying with tea since long before it was cool, having helped organize a successful state-level Tea Party in Alabama as early as 2003.  Gordon has also been heavily involved in libertarian politics for a number of years, including acting as Communications Director for Michael Badnarik’s 2004 campaign, and e-Campaign manager for Bob Barr’s 2008 campaign.  Recently, he’s appeared several times on the Rachel Maddow Show, and contributes to several well-regarded blogs, including the Liberty Papers, the Next Right, and Examiner.com.  He is now the Director of Media Relations for the political consulting firm Forward Focus Media.

MT: It’s quite clear that the Tea Party movement is primarily a grassroots-based movement without any clear leaders.  Moreover, although the Tea Party movement seems to be primarily focused on government spending, there have been numerous documented Tea Party-affiliated protests focusing on anything from the Democratic health care reform bills to illegal immigration.  Is there any kind of coordination of message that takes place within the movement, and if not, what would you say is the common theme that runs through all of the Tea Party organizations?

SG: This is a point I tried to make the other night on Rachel Maddow’s show.  If there had been enough time to elaborate, I would have stated because these are grassroots operations led in many places by people with no political experience, they are ripe for takeovers by established political organizations.  Obviously, organizations taking over elements of the movement have their own agendas. What I see most often is an attempt to guide the Tea Party movement to do what they initially opposed: re-electing politics-as-normal big-government Republicans.

 To me, healthcare is a very relevant topic for Tea Parties.  Immigration, abortion, foreign policy or even reform of marijuana laws, not so much.  I’ve been vocal about this in the past.  

Because of the nature of the movement, top-down coordination of the message can’t be planned by Karl Rove.  This also means that each Tea Party event or organization will have a slightly different flavor.  If I was in charge of the movement, my message would be one of fiscal responsibility. This encompasses deficit spending, corporate bailouts, stimulus packages, the current health care legislation, etc.  To a great degree, this is also the message of my Tea Party groups I’ve encountered. This, in my opinion, is a good thing.

MT: How do the Tea Parties overcome this problem of co-option, which seems to infect grassroots movements of all political stripes?  Is some sort of organized – and independent – top-down leadership eventually going to be necessary, or can the Tea Parties maintain their momentum without maintaining a narrow focus on fiscal issues?

SG: I’d offer any Tea Party organization the same general advice. First of all, stick to a single or narrow range of issues.  Every time a new, and especially an unrelated, issue is introduced the movement will lose supporters. Second, develop organic lists. Make sure you obtain e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc. at every event and from as many website visits as possible. Third, don’t let them take you over but make them come to you. Alabama Tea Party activists just held a gubernatorial debate and straw poll and their favorite candidate was made apparent. Had that particular movement been co-opted, I’m sure the result would have been different. 

While the laws  vary by location, if any local movement becomes large or influential enough, state and federal laws are eventually going to force some legal organizational entity to be formed. This will require a bit more top-down approach in some regard, but hopefully the Tea Party groups will be very mindful of the grassroots activists who made their organizations possible in the first place.

MT:Changing gears slightly, many commentators certainly have questioned where the Tea Partiers’ anger was during the Bush Administration’s spending orgies, not to mention the bank bailouts.  This isn’t to say that all of the Tea Partiers can be accused of suddenly discovering their passions when the Democrats took over in Washington – obviously, libertarians like you and your old boss Bob Barr, not to mention Ron Paul’s legions, have been banging this drum for a long while.  But why has the rise of the Tea Parties seemingly coincided with the Democrats – and President Obama - obtaining overwhelming power in Washington? [Read more →]

Today is the 10th anniversary of the forward lateral that changed history.  The once-great Buffalo Bills, and their still astoundingly loyal and rabid fan base (who were just a few months removed from the infamous “No Goal” incident), have never fully recovered.  Indeed, the Bills ended the next decade as arguably the single-worst franchise in that period – not once making the playoffs - after spending the ’90s as one of the very best franchises of that period.  Of course, the man who made the asinine play call of a pop-fly kickoff which allowed Frank Wychek to throw the Forward Pass of Infamy managed to do just fine, spending the last few years as the head coach of America’s so-called team.   Mr. Phillips, I spit in your general di-rection.

I dare anyone to read today’s David Broder column and tell me that it is in any way, shape, or form less insane than anything that Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich have ever said.  The column starts with this gem: “Was Christmas Day 2009 the same kind of wake-up call for Barack Obama that Sept. 11, 2001, had been for George W. Bush?”  This is closely followed by: “Like Bush, [Obama] vowed to see that the consequences also fell on the foreign country that gave birth to the plot — Afghanistan eight years ago, Yemen today.  For now, we are conducting a proxy war in Yemen, but that may change. Al-Qaeda’s local enablers must learn that there is a price to be paid when Uncle Sam is attacked from their bases.”

As a commenter at Balloon Juice pointed out: “It’s great that at this point “making fun of” Broder literally means nothing more or less than just blockquoting his words.” 

But beyond that, I think it important to note how Broder gets to draw an equivalency between the murder of 3000 and a guy blowing up his junk in order to justify using the latter incident as a basis for war.  This is the position of the  DC establishment that Broder so often seems to represent.  Somehow, this is deemed a “moderate” opinion, while opinions of movement liberals and movement conservatives are dismissed as radical and insane.

H/T: DougJ.

Blue Jersey is live-blogging the state senate debate here in NJ on full marriage equality.  UPDATE/BREAKING: Equality fails, 14-20.

It’s been years since I’ve watched more than a brief clip of a nighttime talking heads show.  I just can’t do it without my eyes rolling to the back of my head.  [Read more →]

Jamelle writes:

“In a lot of cases, the aim of liberals isn’t necessarily to massively expand the reach of government as much as it is to add some intentionality and rationality — as well as make explicit — the ways in which wealready intervene in the economy (health care reform is a perfect example of this, I think).  “

Here’s the thing: Jamelle is claiming that liberals use the “hidden welfare state” as justification for expansion of the “visible” welfare state.  In essence, however, the logic underlying this set of preferences is precisely the same as the libertarian, and often conservative, argument for scaling back the scope of government as a way of improving net social welfare.  The broad Right has as much or more problems with the “hidden welfare state” as  do liberals.  There would be, in fact, a fairly easy coalition to be built in favor of simplifying the tax code, doing away with various subsidies, etc.  If this common logic is correct – ie, that existing social injustice is largely a result of the “hidden” welfare state – then removing the “hidden” welfare state would obviate the need for much of the “visible” welfare state. 

In other words, if this critique is accurate, then social injustice may be cured either by growing the “visible” welfare state or by scaling back on the “hidden” welfare state.  Yet liberals expend virtually no effort, and seemingly take very little interest in, the latter, and seem to entirely emphasize the former.  This despite the fact that choosing the latter route would present a seemingly easier path to achieving allegedly liberal ends because of the simple fact that it is an area upon which the broad movement Left and movement Right would seem to be in virtual lockstep – if, in fact, liberals are serious when they rail against “corporate welfare” and the like. 

I think it’s entirely fair to ask why this is.  Why, if the “hidden welfare state” causes so many problems, is the preferred solution the expansion of the “visible” welfare state rather than the elimination or reduction of the “hidden” welfare state?  I can think of a number of possible reasons, but foremost among them is that the cultural divide between movement liberals and movement conservatives prevents them from being willing to work together on many projects where they have actually quite a bit of ideological compatibility.  This forces both movement liberals and movement conservatives to find groups on their side of the cultural divide - or at least not entirely on the other side of the cultural divide – with whom to ally.  We typically call these other groups “centrists” or “moderates.”  In reality, however, these “centrists” or “moderates” are little different from an independent third party, some of whom have “D’s” next to their names and some of whom have “R’s,” with the exact proportion being the primary thing up for grabs in a given election year. 

But I’m increasingly convinced that the divide is far more cultural than ideological.  You see this most obviously in the appeal of Sarah Palin, who, ideologically is really not much different from any other Republican politician in recent years, yet she is adored by die-hard conservatives because she’s “one of us.”  This “one of us” mentality might get expressed in any number of different ways – she’s “plain-spoken,” or she “speaks honestly,” but ultimately, the justification is primarily a cultural one.  And it’s not just a race thing (though that certainly plays a role) – it’s how she speaks, her background, etc.

But it’s more than just that.  Conservatives have a tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time denouncing the “liberal elite” culture of the coasts.  Meanwhile, I’ve seen too many liberals rave about how they simply cannot take anyone seriously who doesn’t believe in evolution, regardless of what the topic of discussion may be.  In short, both liberals and conservatives have this tendency to use cultural markers as a sort of first line of defense in filtering out who they will and will not work with.  Liberals and conservatives may well each hate the centrists in their midst, but they’re also far more willing to work with those centrists, who at least lack the cultural markers of ignorance or elitism (depending on who you’re talking about) than they are to even consider that they may actually have as much or more common policy ground with their cultural opposites. 

In short, liberals and conservatives refuse to see the areas in which they have common ground because far too often they simply cannot get past the cultural markers that prevent them from even listening to the substance of what their cultural opposites are saying.  So rather than having two or more potential sets of negotiating partners from whom to choose on a given policy issue, they are each permanently left with only those centrists who have the right letters next to their name or who in some other way avoid identifying with the “wrong” cultural markers.

I’ve got a half-finished post on this in the queue that is going to have to wait until 2010 to achieve completion.  Alas, there’s a good chance it’ll never see the light of day, because this interview of Bruce Schneier by Jeffrey Goldberg pretty much expresses a good chunk of what I intended to write.

Jane Hamsher has been taking a lot of flak in recent days for coming out against the Senate health care reform bill as well as for suggesting that “both the [progressive opponents] and the tea party activists are saying almost the exact same thing about the Senate bill” and that the ”painfully obvious left/right transpartisan consensus that is coalescing against DC insiders of both parties appears to be taking everyone by surprise.”  Although not actively opposing the final Senate bill, Glenn Greenwald offered similar sentiments about the common ground between the Tea Partiers and the far left, noting:

Whether you call it “a government takeover of the private sector” or a “private sector takeover of government,” it’s the same thing:  a merger of government power and corporate interests which benefits both of the merged entities (the party in power and the corporations) at everyone else’s expense.  Growing anger over that is rooted far more in an insider/outsider dichotomy over who controls Washington than it is in the standard conservative/liberal ideological splits from the 1990s.  It’s true that the people who are angry enough to attend tea parties are being exploited and misled by GOP operatives and right-wing polemicists, but many of their grievances about how Washington is ignoring their interests are valid, and the Democratic Party has no answers for them because it’s dependent upon and supportive of that corporatist model.  That’s why they turn to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh; what could a Democratic Party dependent upon corporate funding and subservient to its interests possibly have to say to populist anger?

Hamsher then followed through on her assertions by agreeing to take her case to Fox News, for which she was criticized as being “naive.” Finally, today we learn that she has teamed up with none other than Grover Norquist to call for Rahm Emanuel’s resignation due to his actions with respect to Fannie and Freddie.  The criticisms of Hamsher and to a lesser extent Greenwald, have been echoed by several of my fellow Gents here at the League. 

Underlying these criticisms of Hamsher seems to be an assumption that: 1. From a liberal perspective, it is inarguable that the Senate bill at least makes things better; 2.  Hamsher is insane for finding common ground with Tea Partiers in opposition to bailouts that were sold as necessary to prevent a Great Depression; and 3. Hamsher is insane for thinking the Tea Partiers have any actual common ground with her, and that they may actually have similar values to her. 

The first two of these criticisms, however, demonstrate precisely why Hamsher and Greenwald are ultimately correct about the common ground with the Tea Partiers.  Specifically, these criticisms assume that “the experts” are always right, and that the average voter is unqualified to assess the normative merits of a particular government action.  So, the message is sent that progressives like Hamsher should STFU since Paul Krugman thinks that the bill, while imperfect, is at least an improvement from the status quo.  Similarly, on the bailouts, Hamsher (as well as, I assume, all the Dem legislators that voted against them last year) should STFU and support them because the experts say things would have been really, really bad without them [NOTE: I am not offering an opinion here as to my thoughts on TARP].  In each case, Hamsher is expected to weigh the acknowledged normative costs less than the claimed normative costs because, well, she’s neither an expert nor an insider; she’s dismissed as being unrealistic and unserious merely for assigning different moral weight to the acknowledged normative costs from the experts.  Unfortunately, last I checked, being an expert economist or scientist doesn’t give one authority to tell people how to make moral calculations. 

[Read more →]

I’ve argued before, and I will continue to argue, that there is nothing terribly unique about Sarah Palin as a politician other than the way in which her opponents and the media play right into her hands by treating her as if she is somehow uniquely important and/or devious.

Today, Dave Weigel documents another set of examples of this, demonstrating the ways in which the media’s (and, for that matter, Palin’s opponents’) insistence on paying attention to her Facebook and Twitter ramblings, making them into major stories, even if with the intention of disproving those ramblings.   The entire post is worth a read and does an excellent job of showing exactly how the media and some of her more vocal critics are playing right into Palin’s hands.  I especially liked this paragraph:

The problem is that Palin has put the political press in a submissive position, one in which the only information it prints about her comes from prepared statements or from Q&As with friendly interviewers. This isn’t something most politicians get away with, or would be allowed to get away with. But Palin has leveraged her celebrity — her ability to get ratings, the ardor of her fans and the bitterness of her critics — to win a truly unique relationship with the press. She is allowed to shape the public debate without actually engaging in it.

Weigel goes on to present a couple examples of this strategy in action, and concludes that Palin’s actions are “incredibly savvy,” but that the media’s response to those actions “is ridiculous, bordering on pathetic.”  I couldn’t agree more.  Again, please do read the whole thing.

IOZ diagrams how the combined forces of the Protestants and Catholics lost the Battle for Christmas.

Will asked me to comment on this op-ed by Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes pleading with Congress and the President to formulate clear rules regarding detention policy in the War on Terror.

Although I suspect I would strongly disagree with Goldsmith and Wittes about what the proposed rules should look like, I think the substance of this op-ed is probably right on target. The courts ultimately are the arbiters of what is and is not constitutional, and have to remain that way, but they are absolutely not well-suited for affirmatively drafting rules and that sort of thing. Once the Supreme Court started (correctly, IMHO) ruling policies unconstitutional, it was the job of the legislature and, to a lesser extent, the executive, to formulate clear rules to replace the unconstitutional policies rather than leaving an undefined vacuum. Perhaps the replacement rules would have still been unconstitutional and perhaps the Supreme Court would have been forced to intervene again. But at least some of those replacement rules would have been constitutional and would have formed a basis for prosecutors, detainees, and attorneys to rely upon, and Congress could have again gone back to the drawing board to fill the new, smaller vacuum.

Now, however, you’ve got different cases pending before different judges in different courts with little to rely upon other than a handful of SCOTUS decisions that may or may not be relevant in a given case. Whatever results from that process, including whatever rules come out of Judge Hogan’s chambers, are going to be of very limited precedential value. At a minimum, you’re going to wind up with a whole mess of rules that will likely be contradictory, and at the very least uncoordinated, and provide absolutely nothing upon which potential litigants may rely. Until you’ve got something that has the weight of a formally enacted law or, at a minimum, properly enacted administrative regulations, you’re not going to have anything upon which litigants can look to. The conflicting rules will also mean that you will wind up with detainees getting freed while other detainees with essentially identical cases languish in prison, with the only difference being the court or judge before whom they brought their claim for relief. Not good.

It’s not as if Congress isn’t amenable to taking second, third, and fourth bites at the apple when their legislation is found unconstitutional, either. For instance, in the various iterations of the Communications Decency Act, and COPA and CIPA, they made numerous attempts to legislate access to porn on the internet despite findings in each case that the legislation was unconstitutional. Eventually, they got it right so it wasn’t necessary to go back to the drawing board anymore.