Conservative Nihilism

Is it just me, or is the obsession that many conservatives have with taking down the Obama administration reaching unseemly and gross proportions?  Are they really to the point where the talk of impeachment is being considered with any measure of seriousness?  Really?!?  And this coming after a Republican administration that actually committed war crimes and engaged in unapologetic torture?

Well, let the prosecution games begin!

While Congressional Republicans start their impeachment games over bureaucratic inter-agency mumbo-jumbo infighting in emails about the Benghazi tragedy, perhaps the Obama administration can start war crimes investigations against the entire Bush/Cheney apparatus.

As to the whole IRS targeting Tea Party groups, well there is a problem at one level in the sense that the IRS needs to be an equal opportunity watchdog against violations of the law.  But all this means in my eyes is that the IRS's mistake is not in questioning the tax-exemption legitimacy of the OBVIOUSLY PARTISAN AND POLITICAL conservative Tea Party groups, but rather not also doing the same to the OBVIOUSLY PARTISAN AND POLITICAL Liberal groups.

And let's not be so dense, people.  We absolutely know that Karl Rove's Super-PAC is, without a doubt, blatantly partisan and political in just about 100% of its activities.  It's laughable to think that Karl Rove's Super-PAC is a "social welfare" organization that would make it a tax-exempt organization.  And EVERYONE knows this.

If conservatives want to cry foul and say that the mean old IRS is only concerned with the illegality of conservative groups, and not also with the illegality of similar liberal groups, they can go ahead and cry foul till they are blue in the face.  But, that STILL doesn't change the FACT of the illegality of these conservative groups when they fraudulently claim tax-exempt status.  The IRS SHOULD be investigating these groups.  And the IRS should also be targeting and harassing liberal groups who play fast and loose with this tax-exempt boondoggle.

You know, the delusional blindness that caused conservatives to make complete asses of themselves during the last Presidential election (remember Karl Rove's embarrassing meltdown on FoxNews?) seems to still be at work here as well.  The average, sane person who looks at what's going on today with the GOP obsession with Benghazi and with the manufactured outrage at the IRS, can clearly discern what's going on and will certainly arrive at the conclusion that the GOP has lost its friggin' mind.

I have never seen such nihilism have such a profound grip on a huge part of a political movement in my entire life.  It's just pure ugly to watch.

Texas Secession

Just a quick thought: Although I think it's pure foolishness and childish sour-grapes whining, there is a movement among some conservatives disgruntled by Obama's re-election to call for states to secede from the Union.  I'd even say that this idea is being treated as a semi-serious thing, at least in terms of its symbolic significance, in some fairly mainstream corners.  In no state has this secession craziness received the biggest reception than in Texas.  Here's my zany contribution to the secession silliness:  Let Texas secede.  This would remove Texas's reliably "red" electoral college votes from the national presidential race and give Democrats an almost insurmountable ability to control the White House.  It will also even the score a bit more in the US House.  Then, when the state's demographic character changes such that a new Democratic and Hispanic majority emerges along with a reliably Democratic electoral college advantage in the state, a "blue" Texas can be welcomed back into the Union, cementing the Democratic party's lock on the Electoral College (and thus the Presidency) long into the future.

Mitt Romney's VP Options

They are plentiful and varied.  If Romney's smart, he'll do two things: (1) he'll avoid like the plague the social cons and populist demagogues like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, etc.. (2) He'll pick someone like Marco Rubio who can make a dent in the Latino community's overwhelming support for Obama.

If he's smart, he'll avoid picking a Romney-esque clone -- what the GOP base would call a RINO -- like McCain or Snowe or Collins, etc.

But if the potential GOP VP candidates are smart, they'll avoid hitching themselves to the Romney wagon, because there's no way Romney's negatives won't rub off on them and taint them -- and Romney's negatives are substantial.

In short, its a lose-lose scenario all the way around.

Frankly, I just can't see how the GOP wins this thing come November.

Bill Maher on President Obama, Saul Alinsky, and the Unhinged GOP

Bill Maher really exposes what I think is one of the biggest problems with the GOP, and which is reflected in the current GOP primary candidates' rhetoric: they have crafted an image of Obama that is so far removed from reality and so way out in stratosphere that to even perpetuate it indicates a kind of mental delusion.  Here's Maher exposing this as it relates to the linking of Obama with Saul Alinsky (a person, by the way, whom no one really seems to know, but whose name sounds enough like Stalin and Lenin and Russian Communists in general to whip up an unthinking, but delusionally "patriotic" Obama-hating mob:



The real irony here, for those who really are in the know, is that Saul Alinsky and his "Rules for Radicals" is quite influential in the grass roots activism of the Tea Party movement.   The "rules" that Alinsky teaches actually have been deployed quite effectively (and sometimes quite intentionally) by grass -roots conservative activists.  What conservatives tend to object to is not the fundamental recipe Alinsky developed for effecting social change, but that he taught them to poor people, racial minorities, and other marginalized groups cut out of power and on the edges of effective participation in our political system.  In a political system that claims to be of the people, by the people, and for the people irrespective of social class, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religious conviction, or racial/ethnic identity, one would think that any freedom-loving, grass roots advocacy conservative would celebrate anything that mobilizes Americans to find their voice, to speak up, and to challenge authority when it contravenes what they believe is in their best interests, as something essential to, worthy of, and, yes, exceptional in the American idea of democracy and individual sovereignty.

What I find to be revealing about the attempts to link Obama hatred with Alinsky is that what conservatives seem to project is a very elitist and exclusive understanding of American civic life in which only the "right" people should be organizing and participating in grass roots activism.  And if it's not the "right" people, by whom they mean "real" Americans such as Tea Partiers, wealthy businesses, and the like, exercising their voice and collective power through organizing, then it's both un-democratic and un-American.

Shame on conservatives who play this game and attempt to create such a narrative about Obama as if it were a bad thing when that is precisely the game that the current conservative anti-Establishment insurgency is engaged in itself.

Obama's Idea of American Unity and the Bin Laden Mission Analogy

Some conservatives are critical of Obama's analogizing the Bin Laden raid and military cohesiveness and unity in the execution of it as almost approaching a dangerous "fascist" or "technocratic statist" idea of America. (See Conor Friedersdorf, Prof. Mondo, and even my esteemed Andrew Sullivan [see Sullivan's 10:17 pm comment]).

First off, I find this richly ironic as conservatives are the first to criticize President Obama for being anti-everything patriotic in the military, a "divider" and not a uniter. They are also the first to complain bitterly about those of us who disagree with them as not part of "real" America. Yeah, yeah ... try to wish this away, but the fact is that America's ideological division and messiness is never celebrated by conservatives as a fundamental part of who we are, but is rather alien and foreign to America -- it is the other "faux" America and is not really who or what we are. And any claims to a feeling of an American-ness that we share in opposition to forces arrayed against the project that is America, in all of its messiness and division, are always questionable when a liberal Democrat makes such claims.

I wrote the following in a comment at Prof. Mondo's blog that captures my problem with this line of critiquing this part of Obama's speech:

I think Obama understands America and Americans pretty darn well if you want to refer to the average person. You (and Friedersdorf) can read a (nearly) fascist meaning into what Obama was saying, but I think folks who don’t hold Ph.D.s or who haven’t studied closely the fine variations of governing ideologies such as totalitarianism, fascism, democracy, republicanism, corporatism, etc., will know exactly what Obama meant. He was saying (as he hinted at when he directly prefaced this part of his SOTU address when he noted that the soldiers on the Osama bin Laden mission were probably both Democrats and Republicans) that in spite of our differences, we all share what it means to be an American and that this matters (or should matter) when push comes to shove and the very idea of America is in question. In fact, I’ve even heard some conservatives make the point that when a foreigner seeks to demean our country’s President it doesn’t matter that we do it ourselves. We get to do it because we’re Americans, and it’s our birthright; but if some foreigner wants to do it, well then we’re going to stand with our President and defend what he represents as an American because it’s also a slight on us if we don’t. For instance, I may not have liked George Bush, and I may rail on him all the time, but I’ll be damned if I won’t come to Bush’s defense as an American when some foreign yahoo tries to belittle and demean him. That’s what Obama was conveying, and I think most Americans knew exactly that and agree with it. It has to do not with the messiness of difference, but with the commonality of our American identity.

Obama's Bad Milk Joke in the SOTU

Yes, that “spilled milk” joke was pretty atrocious; but there is a difference between Obama’s bad joke and the usual bad jokes told by other candidates.  And it is the fact that Obama knew it was a bad joke and told it anyway.  You could see from his body language and facial expression when he started the joke to when he followed it through to the punch line that he knew the absurdity and corniness of it.  But there’s something appealing and even comforting about a person who is confident enough and self-assured enough to acknowledge in the moment a bit of corniness in an attempt at humor.  That bad joke, in my mind, did not reflect a “tone-deaf” and “out of touch” Obama, but instead had the effect of humanizing him.  It made Obama seem so much like all the rest of us who have either told jokes ourselves that fell flat or who have cringed in hearing a bad joke being told.  Watch that clip of the SOTU again and see if you don’t find yourself laughing along with Obama not at the joke, but at Obama himself for even attempting it knowing it was a clunker.  The GOP narrative of Obama being an arrogant elitist just doesn’t wash when you see moments like this, even for those who disagree with Obama and find his policies problematic.

Newt's An Ass

The man who made Bill Clinton's marital infidelities "exhibit A" in the popular media blows a gasket when the tables are turned on him for exactly the same reason.  And then he has the gall to blame the media for doing to Republican Presidential Candidates what he would have them do to an an actual sitting President!!!  And the most sickening thing is that the South Carolinian Republicans ate it up.  The "family values" conservatives who think we need more "family values" in the public discourse defend and cheer an egregious violator of these values for wanting to keep it hushed and out of the public discourse.  I'm sympathetic to keeping one's private lives and private indiscretions out of the public square; but that's not the world that these conservatives want.  And yet they chafe at this world when it applies to themselves looking in the mirror.  The hypocrisy is rank and disgusting.  And, yes, Newt is an ass, both for how he actually treated his second wife and for his desire to have an "open" marriage, and for his brazen audacity in chastising the media for calling him on it.

Why Romney Can't Win Against Obama

Those who believe ABO (Anyone But Obama) might have second thoughts after seeing this:



Abso-frickin'-lutely devastating.

Even still, I don't think it's going to have any impact in derailing the Romney nomination; and if Romney gets the nod, you watch this video [produced by a Republican(!) SuperPac, no less] go viral during the general election.  Watch Obama pound Romney on this point over and over and over and over until the words Bain and Romney becoming synonymous and prevalent in every household living room.

And then watch horrified and disgusted working class conservatives stay home on election day.

Really, if this video comes to define a Romney general election candidacy, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Obama will win the poorer, working-class South.

And anyone from the current GOP field but Romney will be perceived as much too extreme by the general voting population to also stand a chance against Obama.

Now that this attack has been launched, the GOP is virtually sunk in the upcoming election.

Conservatives, get ready for another four years of Obama.  And be glad for it.

Andrew Sullivan on Ron Paul

Andrew Sullivan rethinks and retracts his endorsement of Ron Paul.  What I love about Sullivan is his tenacity, but also his openness in listening to reason and the arguments of others.  He doesn't admit to being wrong often, and he doesn't like to back down much; but he does it when it's called for and when he is persuaded to do so.  It's what happened with his support of the Iraq War; and now it's happening with his endorsement of Ron Paul.  He still leaves the door open for Paul to make things right in his eyes, but Sullivan requires of Paul a meaningful explanation of the vile and racist newsletters published under his name years ago before reconsidering throwing his support back behind the man.

This is why I admire and appreciate Sullivan.  I think he is one of most honest and real thinkers and pundits of contemporary politics and society out there.

GOP Overreach in Congress

With the recent fiasco in the Congress about extending the Payroll Tax Cut, the American People are finally seeing how absurd the House GOP's behavior is when it comes anything having to do with Obama. When even the GOP threatens a tax hike just to spite the President, it is crystal clear that the GOP is not interested in anything other than destroying Obama, even if it means taking down the middle class with it.

When I hear the House GOP try to spin their opposition to the two month extension of the Payroll Tax Holiday, I am amazed at how lame their reasoning is and I marvel at how tone-deaf they sound.

Let's review the facts:

1. The House GOP said they wanted a year-long extension and that the 2-month extension is unacceptable. Well, from the very get-go, that's exactly what Obama wanted. But Obama couldn't get anyone in the GOP to agree on this extension because of disputes over how to pay for it. The ONLY possible solution was a temporary one that was fashioned by the Senate.

2. Speaking of the Senate's bill, it had clear and strong bi-partisan support, so the House opposition to that bill just made the GOP look out of sync and foolish.

3. The fact that the House GOP then had to devise a strategy to oppose the Senate bill without actually, you know, having the damn balls or convictions to actually vote against the bill, really made the House GOP look like it was sacrificing conviction for political expediency and made their efforts thus reek of political opportunism at the expense of political courage.

4. Then there's the provision in the temporary bill that requires the President to make an election year decision about the Keystone pipeline that could have been a wedge issue for the GOP against the President between two of the President's core constituencies: the Unions and the Environmentalists. The House GOP shenanigans completely undercut whatever advantage the Senate bill gave to the GOP in this regard. Now, even though I believe Obama is committed to making an early decision regarding Keystone, the headlines regarding passage of the Senate bill are not about this "victory" for the GOP, but about the caving of the House GOP and the triumph of Obama over them. The House GOP snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, all because of a petulant and visceral hatred of Obama.

5. And no matter what happens, every single Democrat can now add to their campaign arsenal an attack on the GOP as middle class tax advocates. As even Charles Krauthammer has noted:

The GOP’s performance nicely reprises that scene in “Animal House” where the marching band turns into a blind alley and row after row of plumed morons plows into a brick wall, crumbling to the ground in an unceremonious heap. 

With one difference: House Republicans are unplumed.

6. Folks on the left and the right often talk about "Derangement Syndrome" when it comes to opposing a political rival irrationally. Often times, this is nothimg more than a bit of hyperbole to make the other side look bad; but, in this instance, the House GOP really did look deranged in their opposition to this bill and really do looks as if their agenda is driven purely by hatred for Obama, even at the expense of their supposed antipathy to raising taxes under any circumstances.

And the rich irony of all this is that the Payroll Tax really does hit the working class harder that it does the wealthy because of the ceiling that is placed on income subject to the tax. Middle-class families would have their full income subject to this tax, whereas the wealthy would have only a portion of their full income subject to this tax. Taking a pound of flesh from someone weighing in at 120 lbs is going to be a much more damaging and serious excision than taking a pound of flesh from someone weighing in at a "healthy" 450 lbs, who won't even notice the loss much less suffer from it.

Gingrich Incompetence

How can anyone take Newt Gingrich (or Rick Perry, for that matter) seriously when both are so inept that they fail to qualify for the Virginia GOP primary? That's pretty darn huge. It means that even if Gingrich or Perry does well in the early primary states, the knowledge that they cannot add Virginia's delegates to their totals would be enough to keep any serious contender in the race. But above and beyond that, if Gingrich makes such a strategic blunder in the primary, what confidence does that inspire about his ability to manage a campaign in the general election or even to exercise competent leadership as the executive?

Andrew Sullivan, Ron Paul, and the Future of the GOP

Andrew Sullivan thinks that Ron Paul offers the GOP the only shot at relevance for future generations. Sullivan has endorsed Ron Paul as his pick for the GOP nomination.

Though Andrew Sullivan can be very persuasive, I think he's backing a losing cause.  At root, I think Sullivan knows this; but I think he relishes a Paul/Obama encounter about the future of America in the campaigning for the 2012 Presidential Election.

It would be an interesting spectacle; but Obama will bury Paul.

Deliciousness of Irony: O'Donnell's Endorsement of Romney

This quote is just classic and oh-so-typical of Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell:

“That’s one of the things that I like about him [Romney]— because he’s been consistent since he changed his mind,” O’Donnell said.

Consistent since he changed his mind! And when he changes his mind tomorrow, he'll again be consistent until he changes it next week. Now, fairness leads me to say that I know what O'Donnell is trying to say. She's trying to get across the idea that people can change their opinions about issues and then demonstrate some conviction even about this changed opinion. But the way O'Donnell expresses this, the way she phrases it, makes her sound foolish. It's almost like she is incapable of even seeing the irony of such a statement before she makes it. And when you add this statement to the many other dimbulb, tone-deaf statements she's made, it only reaffirms her image of being a bit of a dunce. And I doubt that's what Romney wants to be associated with.

Final GOP Debate Reaction

I admit to watching the debate. Entertaining at points and mostly vacuous, I thought.

I have a few quick thoughts right now:

1. Diane Sawyer was insufferable as a debate moderator. She droned on and on at times as if she were the expert professor letting her minion students have a shot at demonstrating their nascent, but still developing knowledge.

2. The comments about Israel by some of the candidates I found to be both surprising and unsettling. To me, the thrust of these comments was to give Israel and Netanyahu a kind of patriotic loyalty that sometimes seemed to be more passionately expressed and held than even their patriotic loyalty to the United States. It is clear that these candidates have more loyalty to Netanyahu than to even their own President. And, frankly, there's nothing Obama has done to warrant such derisiveness. Obama has often and unambiguously expressed his unwavering commitment to and support for Israel and Israeli democracy. And contextualizing this support in a broader and more pragmatic Middle East policy is not selling out Israel at all. It's articulating a foreign policy aligned with broader U.S. interests that are distinct from more narrow Israeli national interests.

3. Newt Gingrich is petulant, pompous, and mean. Maybe some on the conservative right wing will love him for it; but I predict, should he be the GOP nominee, that it will turn a lot of independents off in the general election campaign. It will also mobilize Democratic turnout much more than a Romney candidacy would. I think he is just unelectable.

4. The only person who can measure up to Obama is Romney in terms of electability. And I'm pretty convinced that Romney won't get the nomination. Conservatives just don't like him. And his jaw-dropping $10,000 bet offer with Perry was not only tone deaf to the economic hardships of these times, but also generally unseemly. Heck, even Perry was a bit dumbstruck at this moment.

5. Michele Bachmann was so desperate to stay in the hunt that her earnestness just came across as too much of desperation.

6. And watch out for Ron Paul! He could be an underdog upset winner in Iowa.

Mitt Romney's Deceptive Campaigning

There is a difference between hard-scrabble campaigning and outright misrepresentation and lying.  Mitt Romney has run his first campaign ad specifically attacking President Obama, and in that ad he outright lies about Obama's positions.  To give you a sense of Romney's tactic, the following clip is an example of what Romney would have to consider to be a fair and accurate representation of his own positions:



Yep, Romney actually said every single one of these things.  But it is offensive to pass off these things out of context to give the impression that this is what Romney actually believes.  Yet, that's exactly the kind of treatment of Obama that is included in Romney's ad.  He should be ashamed of himself.

Super Committee Failure: Win for Obama?

I think so.  Obama can (and is) distancing himself from an unpopular Congress all the while painting the Republicans as intransigent on the revenue side of the "compromise" negotiations.  That can only be good for Obama.  Besides which, his very clear intent to exercise a veto if the Congress tries to weasel its way out of its own impotence by "renegotiating" the trigger is a little bit of brilliance, if you ask me.

Whatever I might think about which side is responsible for the Super Committee's failure, I certainly don't think Congress has the capacity to come up with a compromise.  And now they've boxed themselves into a corner with the default trigger likely to kick in.

Although this means heavy cuts to entitlement programs and the defense budget, we should also not forget that it also means the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

And this is where I think it gets really good for Obama.  I think Obama will campaign as if the Bush tax cuts will certainly expire, and that he will respond to the expiration of the tax cuts by putting forward his own plan that will maintain these cuts for any individual making $200,000 or less (or any family making $250,000) and letting the cuts expire for those earning more than this.  He will also note how far this will go towards reducing the deficit.

In short, the failure of the Super Committee gives Obama plausible cover for steep cuts to entitlement programs in his veto of any legislation seeking to weasel out of the trigger; and that cover gives him leverage to campaign on his willingness to make deep cuts towards controlling the deficit.  Furthermore, by holding the Congress to the trigger, Obama gets to highlight his alternative plan to further reduce the deficit by having the Bush tax cuts expire and championing a stand alone middle class tax cut in its place that will be hard for Congressional Republicans, and the Republican nominee for President, to oppose.

As Andrew Sullivan would say: "Meep, meep!"

Jon Stewart Eviscerates Rick Perry

This was friggin' hilarious:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Electoral College Injustice

This is a great tutorial on how the Electoral College just makes absolutely no sense in a democracy that values fairness . Remember that when the founding fathers of the United States wrote the electoral college into the Constitution, they did so from an unabashedly elitist perspective. That perspective is anachronistic.



The electoral college needs to go.

Charla with Cedric Richmond

Yesterday, I and a group of special Tulane students -- Posse Scholars -- had a casual lunch with U.S. Congressional Representative, Cedric Richmond, at the home of Tulane University President Scott Cowen. Cowen was not in attendance; but I want to thank him for his generosity in making his home available to host this luncheon. As for the lunch itself, Cedric was wonderful. He was an engaging and personable guest who showed interest in the Posse scholars and who answered every question they asked with honesty and without qualification -- questions ranging from the music of Lil Wayne to marriage equality to internship possibilities to little league sports. He was charming, and the two staff members he brought with him were also really friendly and attentive. I won't say that there was any deep policy discussion, and I wouldn't go so far as to say we had any impact at all on his policy positions; but that's not what this meeting was about. It was simply a social event in which our elected Congressman made himself available to a group of students for whom meeting him was a special moment. I know this is what politicians do; but Richmond is good at it and really comes across as authentic and down-to-earth. I really like the man and am pleased that he is my Congressional Representative. Thanks, Rep. Richmond, for this gesture. It really meant a lot to our Posse Scholars, and I thought it was a classy thing to do in general.

Current Crop of GOP Presidential Contenders

I remain astounded at the real vacuousness of the current crop of hopefuls vying for the GOP nomination to challenge Obama in the upcoming Presidential election. In what should be a Republican cakewalk, all we see are clowns at the podium. Really, this Presidential elections are the GOP's to lose, and they are doing spectacularly well at achieving this outcome. Seriously, even if you think Obama is a horrible President, I can't for the life of me see how any one of the current GOP contenders -- with the possible exception of Huntsman (and maybe Romney) -- even have a prayer against Obama. Forget about policy positions, all Obama has to do is to behave stoically and presidentially and he wins the election. I have to say that it is quite sad what has become of the GOP. It's like watching a bad and surreal circus act.