The Blindspot

This piece by  Freddie deBoer on the milquetoast, capitulation-happy people who dominate the "left" in blogging today, and how its membership excludes opinions that are actually leftist, isn't just good. It isn't just great. It's ASTONISHING. Even if you disagree with it, it's one of the best pieces of long-form personal essay-writing I've read this year.  It's a rich, meaty smack in the face to those who argue that "blogging is dead" by reminding people what the hell it was always about.

I may have more to say later. But I'll tell you two things: Freddie is going on the blogroll RIGHT NOW,  and I don't have the faintest clue what the hell happened to Matthew Yglesias, either.

Yglesias Makes a Good Point on "Overreach"

I liked this bit quite a bit.

It’s inevitable that “liberal overreach” will be blamed for Democratic losses if they’re large tonight and also blamed if they’re small. But what I think overreach analysis always requires is more of a marginal approach.

For example, granting ad arguendum that the 111th Congress engaged in liberal overreach, which Senators who win today would have lost had the Affordable Care Act included a public option linked to Medicare? The answer seems to me to be nobody. Which Senators who win today would have lost had the 111th Congress passed a cap-and-trade plan through reconciliation? Here, it looks like Patty Murray. Would a “scaled back” health care plan have saved Blance Lincoln? Clearly not.

The ConservaDems extracted concession after concession from the President, leadership and caucus and still got their asses kicked. The party would have honestly been better off had it swung for the rafters; it would still have lost independents, but at least the enthusiasm gap wouldn't have been so crippling.

Edit: It also comes back to that disengagement problem. One of Yglesias' commentators said that "people might think that Obama, Reid and Pelosi went too far with that 'socialized medicine'". And, yes, they might. But there was absolutely nothing that the Dems could have done about that. It was the most corporate-friendly, conservative-friendly health care reform bill you could ask for. The only reason it's called "socialist" is because it was labelled as such by the Republicans, BUT THEY WOULD HAVE CALLED IT THAT NO MATTER WHAT.

There was no point to reaching out to the conservatives and blue dogs. It didn't help, and was never going to help. Maybe good legislation would have. But I suppose we'll never know.

Re-Edit: And once again, the public doesn't give a damn about right v. left "linear" politics. They don't punish "moving to the left" any more than they punish "moving to the right". They vote based on their lives, beliefs and identity. So the attempt to "move the bill to the right" would never have moved them.

Digby on Walking Away

Take a look:

Contemplating Chris Bowers' interesting discussion of the progressive bloc(k) strategy, Matt Yglesias points out what should be evident to anyone who's ever done a negotiation: whoever can walk away always has more power. It's just the way things work. That doesn't mean that you can't win if you want something more than the person with whom you're negotiating. There are lots of strategies. You can ask for far more than you're willing to settle for, you can play others against each other, you can try for a "win-win." But in the final analysis, it's always going to be much tougher to walk away from something everyone knows you really want and much easier if it doesn't matter much to you. That's life.

True. But it's not that simple.

Everybody wants a lot of things. In fact, they want so much that they're often contradictory. You want lots of services and low taxes. You want to eat your cake and have it too. You want to save your money but buy nice things. That's life, too.

The real question is "what do you want more?" Do you want health care expansion, or do you want a good health care expansion? Do you want broader coverage, or do you want to reduce the power of insurance companies? Sure, you want to "raise the poor", as digby says later, but how do you want to do that, exactly?

You also have to compare personal vs. public or political goals. Do you want personal access and wealth? Do you want to be "at the table" as a reliable supporter, or do you want to be influential but, perhaps, somewhat untrusted? Are you willing to sacrifice your personal career goals for something you truly believe in, or are your beliefs flexible?

It's that latter problem that has motivated my opinions on this fight. Chris Bowers and Matthew Yglesias can write all they wish about how the "progressive bloc has been ineffective" because progressives aren't as willing to walk away as Conservatives are. But let's be honest: they've been part of the problem. They have access. They have notoriety. They have identities in the notorious "Village", and careers that depends on such things.

They also know that if they don't play ball with the White House, all that could go away. That suffuses every word of their arguments; particularly Yglesias. It's one of the main reasons I've been so disappointed with them of late. It's why I asked the question that, unanswered, still guides my beliefs to this day: Is there a Democratic bill that they wouldn't support, as long is it was labelled "Health Care Reform"?

That's what it comes down to, really. Are they willing to walk away? Not "the progressive movement". Obviously some progressives are, or Jane Hamsher and the rest of the anti-HCR progressive group wouldn't exist. I mean you personally. Are you willing to give up influence, notoriety and access in favor of something greater? Digby's right. That's where power comes from. It comes from the ability to walk away.

They didn't, though. Yglesias, Bowers, Moulitsas, Klein et al—they haven't provided a single reason to ever believe that they would walk away. Not one. They are as reliable as the sunrise and therefore completely ineffectual. Worse still, when people did make that decision, Yglesias et al carved them up: over, and over, and over again ad nauseum. They didn't just go along with the White House's agenda, they enforced it. They deny their own agency, but one of the major reasons why progressives didn't walk away was because they would endure withering attacks if they did. I mean, for the love of all that's holy, we had Kos saying he was going to try to primary Dennis Kucinich! This over a bill that Kos himself said was unsupportable, back before he stood the risk of actually taking some serious heat over it!

(And I'm not even going to get into Nate Silver's issues.)

Conservatives understand that the power of their movement comes from being able to walk away from the Republicans. They did it to George H. W. Bush, and they've certainly done it at lower levels. They don't attack those who disagree from the right: those people actually get catered to! They don't employ the opposition's framing during the debate, as the Dems' lackeys so often do, and they recognize those lines that they are not willing to cross.

Digby says that maybe they should take a stand on a different issue:

But as Yglesias says, there are plenty of issues where it can work. In fact we saw it with Grayson's audit the fed initiative and earlier in the year they gave Pelosi and Emmanuel big, big headaches over the first war supplemental. There's power in legislators working together across party lines and being willing to play hardball.

I don't believe there is actually precious little power in "working together across party lines" in this case. (One of the things I disagree quite severely with Hamsher about, by the way.) You will just end up supporting their arguments, and they'll judo-flip you to force legislators to move in their direction. I do agree that there is enormous power in being willing to play hardball, but that must come making it absolutely clear that you aren't going to pull a 180 and support the bill when the White House tells you to. You not only must accept that they might get egg on their faces; you have to be willing to hurl the thing yourself, or be willing to stand by those that would.

So far, they have not demonstrated that they are. I hope things change. I hate having this incredible disappointment and discouragement about people that I once respected so highly. I do hope that, when the next time rolls around, Yglesias, Kos et all are willing to say "no, Mr. Obama, this is too important and we will not compromise on it."

But, then again, I hoped that in 2003, too.

Edit: Here's Hamsher's position on it:

[I]t’s also worthy of note that it’s hard for them to withstand the assault of liberal “pundits” who sneeringly derided their efforts as naive, futile and “purist.” These thoughtful folks should be proudly taking credit for their role in delegitimizing progressive opposition to the bill in liberal intellectual circles, much the same role that the same people played during the Iraq war. After all, it’s TNR’s stock in trade.

I’ll leave it to others to analyze how corporate cash was laundered through foundations to underwrite the efforts of various “opinion leaders” in the health care debate, but it definitely deserves more scrutiny.

I had been wondering why Yglesias had been so obnoxious in this post, saying "they say they agree with me now so that proves I'm right! Hah!" Now it makes sense, though, since he really hates the Iraq analogy. Probably because it sort of hits home—a lot of the people who supported that war did it for the same political ends that causes them to support LieberCare now.

Re-Edit: Look at Kucinich here. This is not a man who enthusiastically agrees with Yglesias and the defenders. This is not a man who thinks that this is even a good bill. This is a man who has, for whatever reason, been given no other choice but to knuckle under.

To claim him as anything else is just perverse.

(Edited slightly for clarity)

"Monsters" and "Political Reality"

I should point out that, despite my last post, I have a lot of respect for people like Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and (of course) Paul Krugman. I do believe they have a point, and they're dead-on on a lot of issues.

The problem isn't their perspective. The problem is the extent to which they've gone to defend it. Like practically everybody who finds themselves on the side of the Village—or finds themselves a part of it—they are jettisoning far too much in the name of "political realities". They are not stopping to think about how real those "realities" are, and the extent to which their cases are built on a rickety foundation of assumptions, suppositions, and projection.

They always forget that the rest of America does not think as Washington does. Republicans are forced to remember that because they live in fear of their base. If they forget, they could end up on the business end of a nasty primary challenge. GOP candidates can even lose a general if the SoCons stay home. Dems don't have to worry about either of these possibilities from their always-supportive base, so they end up imprisoned Washington's "political realities".

That is the true basis for that Republican "you study reality, we create it" comment that Dems mocked a while back. The Republican in question was not talking about physical reality. He was talking about those political realities, the ones that people like Matt are always referring to. The Republican use their knowledge of both the Dems and Washington to create the conventional wisdom, and the Democratic lawmakers and hangers-on end up trying to operate within those ever-shifting Republican-built boundaries.

And when they fail, as they so often do, they always blame everybody but themselves. They blame the Republicans, sure, but they mostly blame those who stand outside the "political reality" and try to tell them what's really going on. They don't want to hear it, since they have invested time, energy, and their personal reputation in these "political realities". They build a common defense against the cognitive dissonance between "political reality" and the actual stuff. It happened with Iraq, and it's happening here.

Even this whole "pass the Senate bill" thing has a sense of unreality to it. It boils down to the Dems exploiting the fact that the Senate passed the bill before the new guy could chance to vote against it, and before the public made it clear that the Senate bill was not enough. Both of those, together, make "pass the Senate bill" sleazy at best.

The public will hate it. The Republicans will run against it. The base will walk away. Seats will be lost. So why support it? "Political reality".

The good news is that the Brown victory seems to have helped these guys realize what's truly real. Bernanke's reappointment was "political reality", but it's troubled. Knuckling under to the banks' agenda was "political reality", but Obama looks to be giving Volcker and Warren their heads on that one. Pretending that the Republicans were partners, instead of opponents, was "political reality", but the Dems seem to finally realize what they're up against. Chasing the independent vote while ignoring the core supporters was "political reality", but the Dems are now confronted with proof that young, committed supporters can and will stay home.

So now we have to find new "political realities". With any luck, the Dems will start creating them, instead of just following them. The only way that will happen, though, is if people like Yglesias, Klein and Silver start defending what's right, instead of whatever "reality" they're invested in.

Now They Just Sound Pathetic.

"Republicans", you might ask? No, the Senate bill's bloggy defenders, who are now reduced to calling House Progressives "monsters".

No, I'm not making this up. Yglesias actually said that. House progressives are not particularly receptive to the whole "pass the Senate bill or health care dies forever" argument, and aren't willing to roll over for the Senate, so apparently that makes them "monsters". Not Lieberman. Not the Republicans. Not the voters who—largely because they think the Democrat Senate is a hill of crap—rejected the Dem's chosen candidate in Mass. and will probably react very poorly to an attempt to ram this thing through. It's the progressives, somehow, that are the "monsters". Because, unlike Yglesias et al, there's a line they won't cross.

HCR's defenders get really oversensitive to the comparison, but this is exactly what happened with Iraq. Liberal "hawks" and neoconservatives spent enormous time and energy defending the idea of the war and its necessity. When it went bottoms-up, they responded to the (entirely justified) criticism of their enormous mistake by absolutely losing their minds. They called the war's progressive critics traitors, communists, hippies—and, yes, "monsters". And now that the Senate's perverse legislation is likely doomed, what happens? They're losing their minds, again, and the namecalling begins anew.

Yes, it's pathetic. It was pathetic with Iraq, and it's pathetic now. Not even so much because it's wrong, but because they just don't want to admit they lost. Yes, they're losers, as firmly rejected by the electorate as the Bush agenda was in 2006. Somewhere deep down, they probably know that they deserved to lose. They can't stand that. So they lash out, and stink of fear and desperation in doing so.

And in that fear and desperation, they have also finally answered that question I posed to the defenders months ago. You may remember it:

Is there a line? If there were a bill called "health care reform" that consisted solely of "everybody tithes 10% of their money to Rupert Murdoch", would they still support it? If THAT were all that Joe Lieberman, Nelson et al were willing to vote for, would Rahm head on down to Reid's office and harass them to pass the Health Care/Buying Rupert Murdoch Big Yachts Act of 2009?

Yglesias just showed that the answer is "no". There's no line. There never was. The Buying Big Yachts Act of 2009 would be perfectly acceptable. Anything with the name "health care" on it would be acceptable. Anything that makes Matt Yglesias and the rest feel like winners, instead of losers, is acceptable.

And if you don't support it?

You're a MONSTER.

Edit: Some of Matt's commentators are defending his post for being "sarcastic". Bull. He's dressing up a serious point in quasi-sarcasm. It's "Ha Ha Only Serious".

Still Disappointed in Ezra (Edit: Reps on the Line)

...who seems not to understand what a merger is. Or collusion, for that matter.

Yes, Ezra, competition would reduce the extent to which insurance companies gouge their customers under a system of mandated insurance. But mandated insurance would provide enormous incentives for collusion and monopolization, so much so that it would almost be required to merge under simple fiduciary responsibility. And remember, they aren't going to be subject to anti-trust laws. That got taken out.

He also points out the "cadillac tax" and exchange regulators as agents who could keep prices down:

But the exchanges actually have a fail-safe solution, too. Rewind the tape to BCBS's decision to jack up premiums. Imagine that BCBS insures 420,000 people in California's exchange. As directed by law, they duly submit a notice to the Exchange Board saying they're increasing premiums. The exchange sends a letter back noting that underlying health-care trends don't justify that increase, which they're allowed to do under the law. BCBS says it doesn't care. The exchange, which doesn't much feel like being bullied, says fine, you're decertified. BCBS loses more than 400,000 customers, and has to reapply the next year.

And then, of course, there's the excise tax. Jack up your prices enough and suddenly you're paying a 40 percent surtax on the plan you're offering. Now you're way more expensive than the competition, and you're hemorrhaging customers.
Health-care reform isn't creating a monopoly market. There are other industries where people need to patronize some for-profit company. Food, for instance. But if there are a variety of companies competing for customers, monopoly problems don't emerge.

Two problems with that. First, there is no definition here on what is or isn't "justified". I suppose the exchanges will have to determine that for themselves. If the exchanges are staffed by anybody but the most dedicated public servants the Union has to offer, some of them are going to flub that decision; Especially when faced with a regional monopolist with deep mandate-fattened pockets. armies of lobbyists and pet politicians.

Second, do you honestly think that regulation and punitive taxation is going to deal with this problem? Your Democratic friends have already had their clock cleaned by the Republicans, America is already in this mess because Democrats can't pass legislation that isn't terrible. What the hell makes you think that the regulations and "cadillac taxes" won't get gutted by the Republicans, or even the ConservaDems, between now and 2013?

Especially when the most powerful lobby on the Hill—and it will be after this—is doing everything it can to water down the regulations, which has already been watered down to begin with? There WAS anti-trust reform in the bill. That got taken out, and language allowing these mandated insurers to get out of providing care was inserted in.

There is no reason to think that this process won't continue. There's no reason to believe that the regulations will stand. There is no reason to trust these exchanges to be immune to lobbying. There is no reason to expect the "cadillacs" to stay as they are. There is no reason to believe the lobbyists won't run rampant. There is no reason to believe that the Republicans and ConservaDems will ever improve this exercise in naked corporatism.

It will just get worse.

I'm still waiting for an answer to my question. Is there a bill these people wouldn't support? Is there a line they wouldn't cross? When women's health and safety are sacrificed to get Ben Nelson's vote, is that still not going to convince them that some things are indefensible?

Obviously the Dems are never, ever going to have a line that they won't cross, because they're terrified of the possible consequences. But that's why they supported the Iraq debacle, too, in all its destructive horror. The LieberCare hawks are primarily the "Liberal hawks" of 2002-2003. Have they learned anything? Have they changed at all?

IS there a line?

Edit: I'm wondering whether or not this has less to do with policy and more to do with pride. There are no small number of LieberHawks who have poured a ton of time and effort, now, into defending this crap. Convincing progressives that the bill is actually defensible is one thing: ultimately progressives want to be convinced, because they don't want to believe that they now have to take up rhetorical and political arms against the people that they had worked so hard to elect only last year.

Convincing the "wonks", however, is going to be much harder. (I scarequoted "wonks" because it is insulting to argue that the critics don't understand the legislation, but that's what its supporters insist.) If people like Ezra and Yglesias and Drum turn on the legislation, they're in deep, deep trouble. The Dems will shun them, because the Dems believe that their electoral fortunes will be better if they pass it than if they don't. (They're wrong, but it's a question of belief.) The Washington Establishment will probably shun them, too, because they'll have associated themselves with all those nasty dirty hippies, and irritating pseuds like me and digby and atrios. And progressives probably won't be terribly supportive, either, since this is twice now that they've been yelling at us for speaking Truth to Dems.

It's a hard place to be in. But, remember, we didn't put you in that place. They did.

Well Isn't This Interesting...

I hadn't thought about this, but Jake McIntyre makes an excellent point:

Has anyone else noticed that the split in the progressive blogosphere between those who are saying "it's a good bill in spite of everything" (Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Josh Marshall, to name a few) and those who just can't bring themselves to support Liebercare (Markos and Digby come to mind, among bloggers who have been at it since 2003*) is eerily similar to the split between those who grudgingly backed the invasion of Iraq and those who fought against the war seven years ago?

To a large degree, it's the same cast of characters, with the same tone to the arguments. It's the policy wonks versus the activists. On the wonky side, there is (and was, in 2003) a resigned sense that this isn't an ideal action, but that we don't live in an ideal world, and that consequently we should suck it up and support an imperfect initative. On the other, there is (and was, in 2003) a resistance born of an awareness that Congressional Democrats will more often then not -- and often unintentionally -- screw themselves and the country, out of a misguided belief that powerful forces with agendas very different from that of the Democratic Party can be managed and trusted.

It's been long enough since the invasion of Iraq that the two camps - the credulous wonks and dirty fucking hippies - have reconciled (and even interbred), but the dynamic that separated us in 2003 is the same. The fundamental difference in approach is still there. When all is said and done, the wonks trust Democratic politicians to protect our interests. The activists don't. That doesn't mean that we don't like certain Democratic politicians, or that we don't cherish our wonky brethren. It just means that we're not willing to get fooled again.
______________________

*I imagine that Jane Hamsher and most of the other bloggers calling for opposition to Liebercare also opposed the Iraq invasion, but Jane et al weren't blogging way back then, at least as far as I know.

I've been around since 2002, Jake. I remember. I'll never forget. I remember, for example, that the "policy wonks" were not basing their arguments on policy per se. They were basing it on a particularly innocent and none-too-successful kind of politics: the kind that says that you can always take progressives for granted, and should therefore do whatever you can to ingratiate yourself to conservatives. That isn't precisely what's going on here, but what is going on here is motivated by much the same thing: adherence to the groupthink of "experts" and "leaders" and "wisemen" whole bunches of other fatuous gasbags who richly deserve scare quotes.

What they didn't get then, and don't get now, is that while the perfect may be the enemy of the good, the terrible is the enemy of both. That a policy isn't perfect doesn't make it good. It may include so many horrible things that they wipe out any and all good that might have been done. It may also leave doors open for terrible things to be done in the future that do much the same thing.

That was the case with Iraq. Getting rid of Saddam was a moral argument, since Saddam was a terrible man. But the people responsible were terrible enough, the plan was vacuous enough, and the consequences terrible enough that it was transparently going to do more harm than good. That is exactly what happened: the side effects were horrible, and the execution worse.

That is also the case with the Senate HCR proposal. Expanding Medicaid, regulating insurers, and getting everybody health care are laudable goals. But it is transparently obvious that these things will come at the cost of forcing people to buy terrible insurance, and taxing away even the possibility of decent insurance. Anything even remotely moral, like the subsidies for the impoverished, will almost certainly be removed by a future Republican administration, leaving nothing but the terrible parts behind.

The only difference is that both parties got to wear the Iraq debacle. The Dems, however, will be forced to stand alone on HCR. That's why Ezra et al are dangerously wrongheaded. They think that passing this bill will help the Dems next year and in 2012. But the polls are very, very clear. It won't. They may have traded foreign policy groupthink for more general Washington groupthink, but that groupthink is wrong.

(I will refrain from discussing how being wrong on Iraq was a smart career move, and question what sort of career moves are involved in being wrong on this one. After all, I still feel somewhat responsible for Ezra. That's probably why I'm not even angry at him. Just somewhat disappointed.)

Bernanke "Person of the Year" (And More Broken "Democrats")

This is farce. There's nothing more to say about it. Except, perhaps, to link to Taibbi again.

And I'd praise Matthew Yglesias for his justifiably skeptical response, except that what he wrote about upcoming elections is farce, too, arguing that "if you give up on the Dems, wouldn't that mean more Republicans? Wouldn't that be worse"?

Matt, you don't get it. All politicians cave. All politicians fear for their jobs. And all politicians will walk all over the people that they take for granted. If people walk away from the Dems in 2010 or 2012, that may mean more Republicans in Congress. But as we've seen, it doesn't make a difference to progressives' goals. At least terrible Republican policy help discredit conservatism. Terrible Democratic policy does nothing good at all.

If they need to lose, if they need to realize that primaries aren't a formality but something to be sweated over as well, if they need to realize that they have to temper their race into the arms of conservative voters with the knowledge that they must retain progressive/liberal ones, then the solution is clear: primary them and, if necessary, give your general-election vote to a third party.

I know "Democratic" Villagers like you, Matt, won't like that. You have friends you see every day in the party. You know people who will lose their jobs. And, to be brutally honest, YOUR power as a progressive commentator and writer will be severely diminished if the Dems take a serious hit.

But, and I'm sorry for saying this, progressives and liberals have no real option left. They can no longer be mocked, denigrated and then ignored by your Washington coworkers and colleagues. They can no longer endure the Republicans and conservatives getting a place of prominence at the President and Congress' table, while they look in from the cold. They sure as hell won't put up with idiot sheep bleating about how the Democrats need 60 votes for a bill, where the Republicans only needed 50, because people like Lieberman were propped up by Washington on the sole grounds that they're part of the Village "family".

You may be getting comfortable as a new member of that family. Good for you. But that doesn't mean progressives will keep propping it up.

Edit: Hey, Matt. Look. This absolute nonsense? This is what I'm talking about.

If this bill passes, it will not be because Lieberman was pacified. It will be because senators such as Rockefeller, Wyden, Schumer, Harkin, Brown and Dodd swallowed their pride and their passion and allowed him to be pacified. They are the heroes here, and beneath it all, their quiet determination made them the key players.

Let me make it perfect clear for Matt, Ezra et al: ENABLING MASSIVE WEALTH TRANSFERS TO HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES IS NOT HEROISM. The only reason their determination is "quiet" is because they all know this bill is absolute crap. They campaigned against it, their constituents hate it, and it will backfire in truly amazing ways.

They're being quiet because they're hoping they won't get blamed when it goes south. And they aren't being credited because, yes, they are being taken for granted.

(At least try to keep up.)

Oh, and if you're wondering what Democrats enabling Republicans and an insider mentality has to do with Ben Bernanke, then you probably need a nap or something. You ain't thinking straight.

Re-Edit: Then again, one of the most disappointing things about, say, Ezra Klein or Kevin Drum on this is the sheer volume of strawmen involved. They don't engage the actual arguments against the bill or the reasons why, thanks to the mandates, it might well end up being worse than the status quo.

That's why I'm starting to think that people like Matt, Ezra and Kevin don't think any better of this nonsense than Dean or the obviously disgusted Brown et al. They can't respond to the specific criticism. So they don't.

A Simple Question for The Defenders

Matt et al, I have one single, simple question:

Is there a Democratic bill that you wouldn't support, as long is it was labelled "Health Care Reform"?

I ask because the "grow the fuck up" contingent seem to honestly believe that the content of the bill doesn't matter, not anymore. It stinks, absolutely STINKS of the sort of desperation that Rahm brought to Reid's office when he told Harry to do whatever Lieberman wanted. The bill before the Senate is almost maximally terrible, a gigantic transfer of wealth from the taxpayers to insurance companies, one that will almost certainly lead to consolidation, regional monopolies, and premiums that make the current extortionate ones seem almost reasonable. It doesn't even really protect against Rescission, since they'll just hide behind the "fraud" excuse.

Still, even if it isn't maximally terrible, that isn't the thrust of the argument. They aren't arguing in favor of this bill, they're arguing in favor of any bill. Which raises the aforementioned question.

Is there a line? If there were a bill called "health care reform" that consisted solely of "everybody tithes 10% of their money to Rupert Murdoch", would they still support it? If THAT were all that Joe Lieberman, Nelson et al were willing to vote for, would Rahm head on down to Reid's office and harass them to pass the Health Care/Buying Rupert Murdoch Big Yachts Act of 2009?

And if they wouldn't support that, if that's a line they wouldn't cross, THEN WHY THE HELL SHOULD THEY BE SURPRISED THAT THERE'S A LINE EVERYBODY ELSE WOULDN'T CROSS EITHER?

So Sir Charles can take his "grow the hell up" and blow it out his ass: him and everybody else singing from that ridiculous hymnbook. The Senate bill is a terrible bill, they all knew it was a terrible bill when it was the Finance bill, and the only reason anybody is supporting it is because they're transparently trying to stave off next year's electoral bloodbath.

Well, sometimes you deserve to lose an election. Sometimes you, and your apologists, need to be taught that you can't take the "supporters" for granted.

"Jane Galt" Truly Revealed!

HAH! Oh boy is this too good.

Mark Ames just penned an expose on Megan McArdle, my old "friend" "Jane Galt". Far from the Libertarian hero she's portrayed herself as, it turns out that Ames has revealed a person who has benefited, from beginning to end, from public largess. Why? Well, meet her dad:

Megan McArdle is the daughter of one Francis X. McArdle, who built his career as a public servant in the New York City administration, then moved over to the private side, where he could leverage his contacts with the government -- and finally moved back onto the public payroll in 2006, when Mr. McArdle was appointed by then-Sen. Hillary Clinton to advise the federal government how public funds should be spent, and on whom. Earlier this year, Mr. McArdle was reportedly in Albany lobbying the New York state government for a job as the "stimulus czar," appropriating President Obama's federal spending money.

Megan was born in 1973, a few years after Francis got his big fat job on the public payroll in the New York City administration, where he stayed for 11 years. Among the first big jobs Megan's daddy took while climbing up the public payroll career ladder were jobs as Inspector General for the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, and Director of Program Budget for the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.

So Megan McArdle's entry into this world was literally greased by taxpayer funds. But of course, it wouldn't stop there.

Francis McArdle, rose up the Big Government ranks in the New York city. His public-funded career reached its peak in 1978 when then-Mayor Ed Koch named him as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, where he served until 1981. That job put McArdle in control of all sorts of public works: water supply, waste water, sewage infrastructure. It's kind of fitting that McArdle's privileged childhood was funded by taxpayer's shit and urine -- a Freudian might say that this is the source of her inexplicable hatred of the same Big Government that pissed dollars and shat gold on the McArdle household.

Megan's dad moved from the public sector overseeing public works to a job with real estate developer Olympia & York -- just in time to take advantage of the huge Battery Park City project that Olympia & York was developing under contract. The success of the project relied on huge taxpayer subsidies -- at least $65 million in 1981 dollars -- as well as major public works projects to make the development attractive, including the disastrous Westway road project, which drained at least $85 million of federal subsidies until it was finally mothballed in the mid-80s, due to environmental concerns and public protests -- the kinds of protesters whom grown-up Megan McArdle would later attack. No matter, though, because by the time the Westway was canceled and all that public money was wasted, Olympia & York, Megan's daddy's company, had catapulted into one of the top real estate moguls in the world, and Megan's daddy was ready to move on to even bigger things.

In 1985, F. X. McArdle had moved from the private sector to a position that Megan understands better than any other: a lobbyist who manipulates Big Government on behalf of private companies. Francis X. McArdle was named to head the General Contractor's Association of New York. He stayed in that lucrative position for the next 20 years.

So. Her dad was a public servant who cashed in on the private side, and then made even bigger bucks as a lobbyist. Our heroic libertarian individualist is the daughter of a wealthy lobbyist.

It doesn't stop there, though:

Megan showed how much she owes to her dad's way of doing business when she admitted in a blog post that she owes her success to personal contacts "I sent out about 1400 resumes blind after my firm failed. I got not one response. All the jobs I interviewed for came from personal contacts."

We learn just how useful these personal contacts are for Megan McArdle thanks to a gushing profile on her published in early 2007 in a rightwing magazine called "Doublethink" -- put out by a corporate-funded advocacy group with ties to Tom Delay and Cato, whose mission is to "identify and develop future conservative and libertarian leaders." In the profile, we learn that Megan's first job in 2001, after graduating from the University of Chicago's graduate business program as a committed Ayn Rand libertarian, was canceled due to the market drop in 2001. So instead of flipping burgers to make ends meet, the libertarian moved back home into her parents' Upper West Side digs -- a home that taxpayer money helped to fund. There, in the hard knocks of the Upper West Side, the 28-year-old MBA seethed in libertarian anger at all the welfare queens and wasteful government spending programs she saw all around her. But it wasn't until bin Laden created an opportunity that Megan finally got a job -- as an "executive copy girl" for a post-9/11 cleanup crew near the site of the WTC. It was exactly the sort of job that those "personal contacts" can help you get in the "byzantine" world of construction in NYC.

It was at this time, living in her parent's swank Manhattan pad and working a job in her daddy's line of business, that Megan McArdle's blogging career as a right-wing libertarian crusader was born.

Instead of admitting that she got her first job thanks to daddy's shady connections with the corrupt construction trades, Megan pretended that she took the WTC-cleanup job as a sort of personal penance, a gift to the people of her stricken city: "[I}t was easier to bear it all than it would be working somewhere else, and worrying, and unable to do anything about it." Really Megan, you shouldn't have born that cross for us.

There's a lot more there about the Atlantic Monthly, which I'll leave aside, since it is the former employer of Matthew Yglesias, a blogger I still respect.

And, honestly, the quality of an argument is not dependent on the identity and nature of the author. This whole enterprise of mine here would be somewhat silly if I didn't believe that. I could have just gone eponymous like the aforementioned Yglesias. I didn't, and that was for a reason.

So, instead, I'll say that this is more instructive than anything else. it's about a key problem with modern opinion journalism, which is that far, far too many people in that business are in it because of being born to the right people and belonging to the right class, instead of due to skill, talent, and insight. They are wealthy and secure enough that they don't have to worry about the economic repercussions of what they have to say; yet somehow almost inevitably spout conclusions that support the wealthy and powerful, because that's who they identify with.

And, yes, the "libertarians" tend to be the worst, because they don't understand and don't recognize the structures that placed them where they are. They want to think the best of themselves, they want to think that they're responsible for their success, so they adopt an ideology that lets them do that. It's understandable, sure, but that doesn't mean the rest of us should fall sway to that same ideology. Yet precisely because it's so convenient, they're the ones with the bullhorns, at least on "economic" issues.

I see this in a number of the defences out there, too. John Carney's rant about how "ugly" the Ames piece is ignores the privilege that he enjoyed as the son of a successful antitrust lawyer. (I have little sympathy for it anyway, considering how "ugly" the results of the policies both Carney and McArdle advocate, but regardless.) Ezra Klein posted a more thoughtful response, but again misses the point that it's McArdle's privilege that is the point here, and the incoherence of her ideological advocacy in light of that privilege.

And that's all assuming that she makes utterly impersonal, completely logical and rational arguments. But she doesn't. Her blogs have always been peppered with autobiographical details that are supposed to support her claims, and I remember "Jane Galt" constantly appealing to her authority as some kind of economic expert. She isn't, and has been roundly castigated for that already- but if you want to appeal to your personal authority, you're fair game, because it's your credibility that's at question here.

(That's also not getting into the hypocrisy of the right complaining about personal attacks. Seen her birth certificate lately?)

For all that his column may be uncomfortably personal, Ames has delivered an explosive broadside to McArdle's credibility. And considering how much he's written on privilege in America, it makes a lot of sense. "Ugly" or no.

Here, Here Matt!

Matthew Yglesias mounts a stirring defense of Harry Potter in the face of aimless meandering bleatings by people like Ron Charles about "the death of reading".

I for one agree with him. The critics, I think, keep on missing one thing: that Potter has absolutely nothing to do with the decline in reading. Heck, in terms of reading straight fiction, it's not about "declines" at all; straight fiction has never been as popular with kids, and even adult males, as genre fiction. Harry Potter only reconfirms that, since Harry Potter is (horrors!) genre fiction, a combination of urban fantasy and the classic boys-away-at-school stories that people have been reading since before television was even an option.

(That doesn't mean they aren't reading, it means they aren't reading what you think they should be reading.)

Charles moaned that children expect toys and movies and all manner of hype to go along with their books, thanks to the Potter thing. One problem: that really didn't appear until the Goblet of Fire hype. Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets sold well because they were, well, really good children's books; the latter books (which are moving away from being children's books and becoming more straight up fantasy) are selling well partially because of the hype, yes, but also because they happen to be pretty slick fantasy, up there with (to name current fantasy series) George R. R. Martin's phenomenally successful "Song of Ice and Fire" series and Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time".

(Actually, Potter is significantly better than WoT, but I digress.)

To the extent that reading has declined, though, it still has nothing to do with Potter. Potter didn't stop kids from reading. Heck, if you think about it, kids read more than ever, thanks to these here Interwebs, and are probably far more comfortable with the actual act of reading text for pleasure than their parents are. No, they aren't reading because nobody else is. Kids imitate adults, especially their parents. If adults aren't reading around them, they're pretty quick to pick up the idea that reading isn't a normal, mature thing to do. If their parents are watching TV, and all their adults peers are watching TV, then they'll probably end up watching TV.

(Except they aren't- they're playing video games and hanging out on the Internet. TV viewership numbers are dreadful. But I digress again.)

If you want kids to read, you can't force them, and you most certainly cannot attack their choices when they do read. If they want to read Potter, or R.L. Stine, or whatever else, they should. If it's bubblegum for the mind, more power to it, because it's that much more likely to make them readers when they mature and want something more. But at the same time, you (yes, you, the person reading this) should be reading too, especially if you have kids. Read to them, read alone, and maybe turn off the TV yourself, because they aren't going to be impressed if you convince them that reading is something you do to your kids, or force your kids to do, but would never do yourself.

They don't want to be kids: they want to be adults. If adults don't read, you can't blame them for picking up on that. And if they read anyway, despite their parents not doing so, because of J. K. Rowling, then a toast to Rowling, because she pulled off what all the well meaning (but utterly nonsensical) attempts to force "great literature" down kids' throats cannot... she made them want to pick the book up in the first place.

Edit: Go read this piece by Michael Berube, about his son Jamie (who has Down's Syndrome; Michael's stories about him have really changed how I thought about Down's, by the by) and his engagement with Potter. It's a PDF, so be warned, but it's still a great, great piece on Potter.

One more edit: There is a special place in Hell for those who spoil the surprises in children's books. You know who you are. KNOCK IT OFF.