FRC Lunancy, Part Two

A few days ago, Andrew Sullivan created The Malkin Award, going to the Polemicist who creates a sentence that is "entirely devised to insult; [is] completely devoid of originality; [has] at least two hoary, dead-as-a-Norwegian-parrot cliches; and assume[s] that readers already agree with the writer. Arbitrary mean-spiritedness wins extra points." Immediately thereafter, Sullivan had to disqualify Ann Coulter because "no one else would stand a chance."

Once prior to this, I have taken notice of an absolutely absurd argument forwarded by the Family Research Council. There have been many, many crazy things said by the FRC in the meantime. However, like Sullivan, I have concluded that to call the FRC out everytime they say something particularly boneheaded would leave me no time to do anything else. But this was too good to resist:

This week's news illustrates a perfect storm of sexual chaos that has descended upon virtually all institutions in American society--including the armed forces. First, a group of former service members sued to overturn the military's ban on homosexual conduct--a cause they believe was aided by an Army court decision overturning the criminal conviction of a soldier who engaged in a heterosexual sex act "in a military barracks." Meanwhile, the judge advocate general of the Air Force may lose his job for "fraternization" with various women, and sexual harassment and assaults are reported to be rampant at the Air Force Academy.

So, the military is embroiled in a sex crazed orgy because of a heterosexual sex act in a barracks and heterosexual harrassment by a senior officer. OK, with you so far. What's the FRC's conclusion?

All these stories suggest that Congress acted wisely when it codified the military ban on homosexual conduct on the grounds that putting people with sexual attractions to one another in conditions of "forced intimacy with little or no privacy" had the potential to undermine "morale, good order and discipline."

Wait...so, because heterosexuals are busy having illicit sex with each other in the military, this suggests that...banning homosexuals in the military was a good idea? I'm honestly at a loss to explain this folks, except to say that it appears that now the FRC would like to blame homosexuals for heterosexual promiscuity even where homosexuals are not involved and are barred from even being actively present in the institution. An impressive feat of tortured logic and ideological incoherence, even from the FRC.

Radical Center

Count me as part of this group:

"[DLC Policy Chief Ed] Kilgore is part of a remarkable phenomenon: the radicalizing of the center left. He's part of a crowd that includes people like Paul Krugman, Al Franken, Howard Dean, Atrios, and [Kevin Drum]: liberals who are basically fairly moderate in policy terms but who have been appalled to discover that what seems unthinkable actually appears to be true. The modern Republican party really does seem to want to wreck the federal government."

I consider myself center-left in terms of policy, but I come off as an extremist when it comes to the Republican party. This is because while I am drifting to the right, the GOP is racing off into rightwing oblivion, and they are using some of the shadiest and most underhanded tactics to bring the rest of us with them.

Left Cross

In my blog post "Left Hook", I linked to Peter Beihart's and Kevin Drum's posts on how liberals should respond to the threat of islamofascism. It attracted a fair bit of comments, including one pointing out that I can't spell "totalitarianism." I would make a defense that I had gotten very little sleep and was effectively braindead, but that would pretend that I can spell when I am awake. So I'll just lapse into fringe leftism for a moment and claim that grammar is an oppressive tool of the western capitalist imperialists. Hurray for playing to stereotypes!

There was only one explaination for why I had suddenly gotten real live commenters, and of course it was that Powerline had linked to me again! In deference to the fact that I doubt most Powerline readers want to read my enthusiastic endorsement of Jon Chait's "In Defense of Bush Hatred (again), I'll instead write on the dynamics of the left/right split with regards to terror, why I think the Democrats are better equipped to deal with the problem, and how they should go about doing it.

The key starting point for this conversation is the obvious: Republicans enjoy a tremendous advantage over Democrats when it comes to their perception on National Security. Grover Norquist described this as "Republicans are tough on crime to the point where they'll take away your civil liberties. Republicans are so tough on foreign policy that they'll flatten cities." But far from making the Republicans a stronger party on National Defense, it paradoxically makes them far weaker. Since Republicans enjoy a status quo advantage on National Security, they don't have to actually take any concrete actions (legislation, regulation, etc.) on the matter to "persuade" America they are tough. And because they don't have to, they don't, since many of the necessary pro-security actions are opposed by key donor bases (for example: strengthing security requirements at Chemical Plants is a clear defense necessity, but Republicans killed it because it served no political gain and would impose a cost requirement on a major business donor). By contrast, Democrats are seen as pacifistic and weak unless proven otherwise, so they are constantly forced to push pro-security intiatives to prove their security bona fides. Its no accident that the vast majority of Domestic Security reforms in the post 9/11 era--The DHS, The 9/11 Commission--were Democratic intiatives. Yet, the perceptual differences remain and plague Democrats at the ballot box. Since Republicans are seen as SO tough to the point that its considered possibly a flaw (IE, they're too reckless), attacks on Republicans from the Hawk side invariably fall flat. The GOP, dealing with a too good to be true reality that lets them reap all the benefits of being seen as pro-security without having to make the politically painful decisions that go along with it, has naturally taken a purely rhetorical stand on the matter: Lots of oratory on how Democrats don't care about our nation's defense, precious little action to actual make our country safer.

Furthermore, Conservatives are hindered with two philosophical burdens that hinder their ability to respond to their terror threat. The first is the desire for limited government. Conservatives generally believe in market-based solutions to problems. Indeed, the Bush administration fought against mandatory safety standards and terrorism insurance in vulnerable industries--power plants, chemical facilities, trucking, etc--on the grounds that "sufficient incentives exist in the private market to supply protection" [National Strategy for Homeland Security, July 2002]. However, in the March 3rd 2003 New Republic, Jonathan Chait explains why this logic doesn't hold water:

"At first glance, the administration's assumption that private industry has sufficiently strong incentives to shore itself up against terrorism appears sensible enough--nobody wants their property to be blown up, after all. This logic works perfectly well when it comes to encouraging private industry to guard against, say, burglary, where the victim bears the entire cost of the crime. But, as Brookings' Peter Orszag has noted, businesses hit by terrorism would not bear the entire cost themselves. First, they have every reason to expect a government bailout, like the airlines received after September 11. Second, some firms have interdependent security, which means their security precautions are worthless unless all their competitors follow suit. (The bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988 was transferred to Pan Am after being initially checked through another airline.) Terrorist strikes upon a private business impose costs, both psychological and economic, upon the entire country. So, while a business owner may have no interest in spending more money to prevent terrorism than to prevent, say, an electrical fire, the nation's interest is quite different. For all these reasons, the logic of individual incentive breaks down when it comes to terrorism. "

The problems posed by terrorism are unique and grave in that they mandate government responses, ones that, yes, at times might require government regulation and intervention. But the GOP's business donor base and ideological resistance to government initiatives provide immense barriers to implementing the necessary security reforms.

The second philosophical problem for the GOP is their historical skepticism of the ability to for government to change minds. Again, their reticence to use government as a tool for spreading liberal and democratic values prevents them from hitting the root cause of terror, the state-sponsered oppression of millions of people around the world. Anyone who listened to GOP complaints about US operations in the Balkans surely understands that Republican committment to US peacekeeping and democratization operations is shallow at best. Laudably, the Bush administration and fellow Republicans pushed aside their qualms and did make the effort in Iraq to spread democratic values--originally. However, a mix of inexperience, hubris, and mistrust of US motives by Iraqi citizens (compounded by US missteps) led to the "hearts and minds" effort largely ending in failure. As of result of this, many Republicans are returning to form, voicing skepticism at the ability of the US to innoculate the people of Iraq and the world with western values and recommending that we abandon the effort and revert back to, at the very least, a realist foreign policy. This response is perhaps the worst that the US could take right now, but unfortunately it is also the one most consistant with the GOP's ideological roots.

What Republicans don't understand is that Iraqi mistrust of US democratization efforts isn't because of any hostility on the part of the Iraqi's to democracy per se. It speaks volumes about the character of the Iraqi people that the most powerful national figure, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is also a committed democrat. Rather, the mistrust stems from a mistrust of motives, Iraqi's know (from personal experience and from basic observation of their neighbors) that the US has been perfectly willing to subvert democratic institutions and install friendly dictators when it serves American economic and realist interests to do so. Furthermore, the US has usually coached these actions in the same pro-liberal, pro-democratic rhetoric that we hear from the Bush administration today (cite: Chile, Vietnam). Hence, Iraqi's are understandably paranoid that President Bush's committment to liberalization is a facade, and every misstep and misstatement by the US occupying regime only amplifies these fears. Worse yet, US tolerance and praise of other dictatorships (in Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere), compounds the problem. The GOP still can't quite grasp that anti-Americanism is a global problem with roots in the gap between US rhetoric and US action; a gap that has its roots in US realist policies in the Cold War.

Because the roots of global terror are reified by longstanding US realist practices, the US has precious little credibilty and very little room to make mistakes. The first step is to disentangle US strategic interests from those that are fundamentally opposed to human rights and democratization. This means, at the very least, a reduction in our dependence on Middle East oil (another move the GOP is ill-equipped to do) and far more aggressive support for liberal and democratic movements around the world. The dictators of the world must realize that "making nice with the US" will not immunize them if they are oppressing their own citizens. But this stick must be met with an equal assortment of carrots. States that embark on the path to democracy and liberalization should be rewarded with economic aid, governmental assistance, and developmental program. The creation of a "Marshall Plan" for subsaharan Africa--but tied to the implementation of governmental reforms--is long overdue (if it would make the realists feel any better, this would help check against Chinese hegemonic ambitions in the region). For this task, it is the liberals, with their starry-eyed idealism and their geniune committment to pushing western values that are more aptly suited to the task. But in order to do it, they will have to shake off the degrading and detrimental sector of the party that believes any exercise of US power is ontologically oppressive and imperialist. Furthermore, while international help and assistance should be sought after, liberals with have to realize that many nations are still wedded to isolationist and/or self-interested concerns and won't join. The hand should be extended to the world to join the US in our efforts. But international recognition should not and cannot be a prerequisite for American action.

These projects are ambitious--and expensive. They will require, at the very least, repeal of the Bush Tax Cuts and probably the sacrifice of other domestic priorities at home. But in the long run, the US is far better served when the world sees the US as a force for positive social change, rather than a distant observer unconcerned with, or worse, actively aiding, the oppression of millions of people around the world.

Policies, Character, and Biased Neutrality

I've noted before that Jonathan Chait is the single writer I agree with most often. And it's articles like this one ("In Defense of Bush Hatred (Again)," sub. only) that are the reason why.

"I'd like nothing more than for American politics to revolve entirely around policy and for everybody to ignore personality. I'd happily vote for an obnoxious, philandering, dog-kicking tax cheat who carried out effective policies at home and abroad. Why, then, if the real basis for my opposition to Bush is his performance in office, would I even bother to mention my personal disdain for him? It's a reaction to his success at passing himself off as a moral paragon, and even as a great leader in the mold of Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, the intense personal animosity many harbor against Bush didn't really blossom until the last couple of years, in response to the absurd cult of personality that grew up around him in the wake of September 11."

I echoed this sentiment in my election post-mortum, and I do say again here. Policies are more important than subjective (and frankly biased) notions of "character." It may be natural to a Democracy to look toward the latter, but that doesn't make it valuable or right.

Chait also attacks the "thoughtful observers [who] tend to see any given problem as equally the fault of Democrats and Republicans, and...wish both sides could get along better." The point Chait is trying to make isn't that it's bad to observe thoughtfully. Rather, its that trying to pidgeonhole problems so that they fall equally on the shoulders of both parties is facile, stupid, and factually wrong. To me, objectivity in analysis means that one doesn't slavishly defend a single party or viewpoint, but neither does one go out of ones way to show off non-partisan credentials by attacking both sides. In one of my early blog posts, I quoted Chait and others in explaining how the latter flaw is systematic in the media today and undermines any reasonable claim that there is a "liberal media bias." The point isn't that non-partisanship is bad, it's that sometimes the facts fall decisively on one side of the partisan divide. People who try to say otherwise destroy their own credibility and cheapen the political discourse.

Black is White, Peace is War, Pakistan is a Democracy...

I'm going to be physically ill:

PRESIDENT BUSH: One of the interesting lessons that the world can look at is Pakistan. You see, there are some in the world who do not believe that a Muslim society can self-govern. Some believe that the only solution for government in parts of the world is for there to be tyranny or despotism. I don't believe that. The Pakistan people have proven that those cynics are wrong. And where President Musharraf can help in world peace is to help remind people what is possible. And the solution in the Middle East is for there to be a world effort to help the Palestinians develop a state that is truly free--one that's got an independent judiciary, one that's got a civil society, one that's got the capacity to fight off the terrorists, one that allows for dissent, one in which people can vote. And President Musharraf can play a big role in helping achieve that objective.

Yes, it's important to emphasize that Muslim states can be liberal Democracies that have vibrant civil societies and respect human rights. No, it's impossible to argue that Pakistan is emblematic of that type of nation without being addicted to Crack Cocaine.

I concur with TNR: Irony is officially dead (again).

DeLay on NASA

I can understand--not agree or justify, but understand--the Republicans pushing pet Conservative projects that cost obscene amounts of money *COUGH*Social Security Privitization*COUGH* even while we're in a deficit. After all, they're in control, they have a mandate, and have so much power that no one really can tell them no. However, I did think that, if only so they could have SOME plausible argument that they care about reducing the deficit, they would cut back on some of the more laughable, and expensive, projects, such as the Mission to Mars.

For those of you who have forgotten, President Bush proposed that we put a man on Mars in his last State of the Union address. It was, justifiably, met with laughter and scorn, and was quickly dropped. Or so we thought. Today, the Washington Post post reports that (who else) House Speaker Tom DeLay has added, without debate or a vote, the money neccessary to ressurrect the project:

President Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration," which would send humans to the moon and eventually to Mars, got a skeptical reception in January and was left for dead in midsummer, but it made a stunning last-minute comeback when DeLay delivered NASA's full $16.2 billion budget request as part of the omnibus $388 billion spending bill passed Nov. 20.

Why would DeLay do this? Surely it has NOTHING to do with the fact that the Johnson Space Center is in his newly redrawn district? Of course not! The reality is, DeLay put in the language because he hates America and wants to expand the deficit. Which answer is truly accurate? We report, YOU decide!

Left Hook

UPDATE: 12/02 @ 11:00 PM
Peter Beinart has written an important article for the upcoming New Republic (this ones free to everyone). It outlines the steps contemporary liberalism needs to take in response to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, by drawing parallels to how liberalisms shifted to face the threat of Communist totalitarianism.

Beinart argues that liberalism is split between the "soft" and "hard" wings. The Softs do not condone Islamic terror, but neither do they consider it much of a concern. Rather, the Softs see "the war on terror" as a construct created by the right wing to distract from other, more important goals (healthcare, working families, etc). The Hards, by contrast, are decidedly anti-fundamentalist. They recognize that Islamic fundamentalism is one of the gravest threats to liberal values around the world, and are thus deadly serious about stopping it and rolling it back. Hards are willing to use coercion and force to oppose the totaliterean ideals of al-Qaeda and its allies, while Softs are not. Unfortunately, while there is a powerful Hard Foreign Policy elite in the Democratic party, the grassroots (Michael Moore, MoveOn, etc.) is decidedly Soft. In order to show America that the Democratic Party is serious about security, power will have to be wrested away from the Softs and concentrated in the Hards.

At the same time, Beinart reminded me why the Democrats, ultimately, are the better party for tackling National Security:

"For [Arthur] Schlesinger...it was conservatives, with their obsessive hostility to higher taxes, who could not be trusted to fund America's cold war struggle. "An important segment of business opinion," he wrote, "still hesitates to undertake a foreign policy of the magnitude necessary to prop up a free world against totalitarianism lest it add a few dollars to the tax rate." After Dwight Eisenhower became president, the ADA took up this line, arguing in October 1953 that the "overriding issue before the American people today is whether the national defense is to be determined by the demands of the world situation or sacrificed to the worship of tax reductions and a balanced budget." Such critiques laid the groundwork for John F. Kennedy's 1960 campaign--a campaign, as Richard Walton notes in Cold War and Counterrevolution, "dominated by a hard-line, get-tough attack on communism." Once in office, Kennedy dramatically increased military spending.

Such a critique might seem unavailable to liberals today, given that Bush, having abandoned the Republican Party's traditional concern with balanced budgets, seems content to cut taxes and strengthen the U.S. military at the same time. But subtly, the Republican Party's dual imperatives have already begun to collide--with a stronger defense consistently losing out. Bush has not increased the size of the U.S. military since September 11--despite repeated calls from hawks in his own party--in part because, given his massive tax cuts, he simply cannot afford to. An anti-totalitarian liberalism would attack those tax cuts not merely as unfair and fiscally reckless, but, above all, as long-term threats to America's ability to wage war against fanatical Islam."

The Republican party has already proven itself to be a failure with regards to terrorism (and now knows it will pay no electoral price for its inadequacies). The Democratic party seems unready to take up the mantlepiece for itself. Which one will snap to its senses first? Only time will tell, but hopefully not too much of it.

UPDATE: If Beinart gave the how, Kevin Drum gives the why. His link explains that someone needs to explain WHY Islamic Totalitereanism is such a grave threat that justifies this mass purge.

I'd take a crack at it, but I'm braindead right now. Also, I'm going up to Princeton to judge the debate tournament there (my triumphant return, I won it my senior year of High School). So that will suck into my time ALOT this weekend.

Legal Breakthrough for Gays; Setback for Trees

Andrew Sullivan reports that the South African Supreme Court of Appeals has ruled 4-1 in favor of allowing Gay Marriage (more here and here). As one of his emailers noted, "freedom is on the march," except where President Bush is trying to stop it. If anybody can find the link to the actually ruling and opinions themselves, I'd be very appreciative.

Meanwhile, if any of you wonder why I follow law, its because occassionally something like this case pops up:

Fisher v. Lowe, 333 N.W.2d 67 (Mich. App. 1983), which reads, in its entirety:

We thought that we would never see
A suit to compensate a tree.
A suit whose claim in tort is prest
Upon a mangled tree's behest;
A tree whose battered trunk was prest
Against a Chevy's crumpled crest;
A tree that faces each new day
With bark and limb in disarray;
A tree that may forever bear
A lasting need for tender care.
Flora lovers though we three,
We must uphold the court's decree.
Affirmed.

Now, wasn't that worth reading?

Medical Marijuana Oral Arguments

Lawrence Solum has a good sum up of the oral arguments in Ashcroft v. Raich (link via Volokh). The case, as The Volokh Conspiracy pains to note, is really less of a drug case as it is a federalism case. The question is whether the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) preempts state laws that allow for the use of medical marijuana that is grown in-state and never enters the commercial market (thus implicated the inter-state commerce clause).

This is a tough case. As many commentators have noted, in this case the conservative theoretical position (states rights) would support a liberal policy position (medical marijuana). This is sure to cause at least a few headaches on the court. For liberal ol' me, its not AS difficult, since I didn't find either US v. Lopez [514 US 549 (1995)] or US v. Morrison [529 US 598 (2000)] to be bad decisions (note to the not-legally-inclined: Lopez and Morrison were two of the major cases that limited the Interstate Commerce Clause. Prior to those cases, congress could and frequently did justify virtually any law on the grounds that it impacted commerce. In these two cases, the court essentially held that the ISC clause only could be used if the activity in question actually was economic in nature. Guns in schools (Lopez) and beating women (Morrison) didn't qualify). I'm generally in favor of federal power, but the Interstate Commerce Clause can't extend to anything and everything if we're even going to pretend that we're in a federal system. The court's decision to limit the ISC clause to "economic activities" strikes me as quite reasonable.

However, two more quite thorny issues then present themselves. The first is whether or not the growth and use of medical marijuana is an "economic activity." This is a close call. Since this marijuana never enters the marketplace and is (supposedly) entirely divorced from the recreational and illegal markets, I would tentatively answer no. However, it seems somewhat shaky that the distribution and use of medicine is not an issue of "commerce." After all, many drugs are shipped around the country and are bought and sold for profit. Entire industries (HMOs, Pharmaceutical Companies, etc.) have been built to enhance and sustain this production. To claim that medicine is not a commercial activity seems absurd on face. Yet, on the other hand, medical issues have unquestionably been traditionally seen as a state concern. If the ISC clause was intended to apply to domestic medical issues, then the idea that states had any right at all to regulate their own medical practices would be entirely undermined. What seems to be key here is that, since the marijuana is NOT part of the marketplace and is entirely contained within one state, any impact on commerce is incidental and is de minimis. This is especially true since the amount of users of medical marijuana amounts to a tiny fraction of the overall market demand for marijuana. As such, one of the governments primary arguments, that allowing for medical marijuana would lower market prices and thus undermine the governments regulatory scheme--which consists of creating a black market that keeps marijuana prices high--seems specious at best.

The second issue is whether or not, as a matter of precedent, actions that are "economic" but avoid the marketplace (such as medical marijuana) are within the purview of the ISC clause. At first, the controlling case would appear to be Wickard v. Filburn [317 US 111 (1942)]. In that case, the court held that that wheat entirely consumed on the farm it was grown on still would implicate the ISC clause and was subject to regulation by the federal government. However, as I learned in the oral argument, the wheat in that case wasn't just put on the farmer's dinner table, it was used to feed the livestock which WAS put on the market. Hence, since the wheat was part of the "stream" of commerce that did impact the market, it could be regulated. Since the entire commercial "life" of medical marijuana begins and ends with the patient, there is no similar implication in this case.

Civil War for a Brighter Tommorow

One of the nice things about neo-conservative columnists is that they are so gosh darn optimistic. Iraq DOES have WMDs, we WILL shock and awe them, mission HAS been accomplished, freedom and democracy IS on the march. Because of that admirable trait, its usually safe to assume that things are at least one degree worse than whatever talking point they are parroting at the moment.

So what am I supposed to gather from Charles Krauthammer's column that encourages the US to just let a civil war happen? (tipoff: Iraq'd)

"This is the Shiites' and Kurds' fight. Yet when police stations are ravaged by Sunni Arab insurgents in Mosul, U.S. soldiers are rushed in to fight them. The obvious question is: Why don't we unleash the fierce and well-trained Kurdish pesh merga militias on them? (Mosul is heavily Kurdish and suffered a terrible Kurdish expulsion under Hussein.)

Yes, some of the Iraqi police/National Guard units fighting with our troops are largely Kurdish. But they, like the Shiites, fight in an avowedly nonsectarian Iraqi force. Why? Because we want to maintain this idea of a unified, non-ethnic Iraq. At some point, however, we must decide whether that is possible, and how many American lives should be sacrificed in its name?"

Krauthammer argues that there already IS a civil war, and the US needs to recognize that and get out of the way. That's a viable option, but Krauthammer needs to recognize that it essentially means conceding defeat, because to allow Iraq to go from de facto to de jure civil war will mean the death of Iraq as a sustainable political unit. Krauthammer isn't willing to see this, instead drawing the parallel to the end of the Civil War, when a few ex-confederate states still hadn't fully been reincorporated into the union. But the situations aren't remotely comparable. In 1868 the Union had won a clear and decisive victory over the South, utterly destroying both the means and will for the Confederacy to wage a war. The remaining "insurgents," if you will, were scattered and clearly in an all-out retreat. In Iraq, by contrast, there has been no clear cut victory over the insurgency (which is a very distinguishable entity from Saddam's smashed Baathist government), and the revolt is growing, not shrinking. Krauthammer still seems stuck in thinking that the insurgency is composed of a few Baathist "dead-enders," and that just isn't the case anymore. Until we break out of that mindset and realize that this insurgency is a true and grave threat to Iraq's future stability (not to mention its democratic prospects), we'll never have a prayer of defeating it.

Republican Anti-Intellectualism

In the immediate aftermath of the election, I noted that the current state of electoral affairs privileges "style" over substance. The reticence of Americans to truly engage the issues and think critically about world affairs makes appeals to the basest of instincts--prejudice, bigotry, fear--an extremely effective electoral strategy, one at least partially responsible for recent GOP victories. Now, a paper by George Mason Government and Politics Professor Colleen J. Shogan gives some background and further analysis on this phenomona. She argues that Republican anti-intellectualism allows them to appeal to the "common man" and thus gain votes.

I got the link from Oxblog, whose David Adnesik gave a strong critique of the paper. I don't think it defeats the overall point, but I don't think that was the objective of the criticism.

Adnesik essentially argues that Shogan's article is biased because it presents academia and intellectuals as flawless. Isn't it possible that Republicans dislike the academy because of the certain (liberal) biases contained within it?

This is true, to an extent, and I think it represents a key weakness in Shogan's argument. I do not, however, think it is ultimately overriding. Even if Republicans have good reasons to ignore academics, this section struck me as almost definitely true:

"First, presidential power in the plebiscitary era relies upon the strategy of “going public.” Television is a medium that encourages images of activity and exalted rhetoric. The political era of the sound-byte frustrates an extended intellectual discussion of complex policy issues. Americans now identify directly with the presidency through fleeting visual images, and this connection is more easily forged when the presidency is depicted as “personal” rather than disconnected, antiseptic, and intellectual.

Furthermore, the plebiscitary presidency is dependent upon the creation of “spectacles” that encourage awestruck citizens to become passive spectators rather than active participants in politics.15 Spectacles lend themselves to the portrayal of presidents as energetic, dynamic, hyper-masculine individuals who defeat evil in the name of American democracy, exemplified most recently by George W. Bush’s landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln. The intellectual process of deliberation cannot constitute a spectacle. As images replace political debate, the plebiscitary presidency becomes more anti-intellectual
...
The glaring dilemma is that domestic and foreign policy have become progressively complex. An inverse relationship has developed between the demands of presidential leadership and its current institutional incentives and capacities. In this sense, anti-intellectualism is an indicator of the larger structural tensions that inhibit presidential leadership. The political benefit of anti-intellectualism is the pseudo-egalitarian connection it forges between presidents and the public. The danger is that the political importance of this connection has supplanted the more intricate demands of executive governance and democratic leadership."

I think this claim is true, as is Adnesik's. Republicans can reject the academy for perfectly solid, principled reasons. However, at the moment it is also in their political interests, because a) their base is motivated by issues that recieve the LEAST argumentative (as opposed to rhetorical) discussion in America (abortion, gay marriage, etc) and b) it allows them to maintain their advantage on national security even as they oppose the very programs (Homeland Security, Nuclear Plant Security, Nunn/Lugar, etc) that protect us. Furthermore, the rational reasons for rejecting intellectualism doesn't mitigate the negative impacts of anti-intellectualism: The impoverishment of political discourse and government via soundbites. Ultimately, the rejection of analysis and debate in favor of rhetoric and assertion will cause the death of American political institutions.

Tom Friedman Puts The Hammer Down

Tom Friedman has written a superb article that brings home the selfishness of House Speaker Tom "The Hammer" Delay and other Americans who have forgotten what it means to be an American. A must read.

And Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Never Let a Political Science Professor Tell Any Story, Ever

Earlier, The Debate Link reached the conclusion that Political Science Professors should never be allowed to tell a bedtime story. Now, it appears we must extend that injunction to prohibit them from creating any stories, period.

From Harvard Prof extraordinare Joseph Nye's new book, The Power Game:

"Alexa led me to the bed in the middle of the enormous room and pulled me down beside her. I kissed her breasts and ran my hand between her thighs. She gripped my shoulders tightly. Unlike the first time I made love to Alexa, when the ecstasy had been eroded by a sense of anxiety and uncertainty, I was sucked into this moment as quickly and completely as if I had placed my feet in quicksand. Memories from years ago blended with intense physical excitement in a driving, pounding torrent of passion."

What could be worse than that? Apparently, a story written by an International Relations specialist:

"Diane had longed to bandwagon with Jack since their first year in grad school. In their own prisoner's dilemma, she now knew that she wanted more than just tit-for-tat -- she had to have Jack's grim trigger.

It was taboo for her, as a realist, not to prefer balancing. If word got out, her reputation was ruined. But Jack's social constructivism was too seductive for her feeble rationalist defenses.

"Oh... Jack," she whispered into his ear, "I give in -- reconstitute my identity!"

He smiled and slowly began his discourse...

Afterwards, she turned to him and purred, "Now that's what I call utility maximization." He laughed.

Then her tone changed. "Seriously, I've never had such a shared meaning with anyone before. It was so.... intersubjective."

Winter Break

Winter Break has begun! In accordance with my jetsetting schedule, blogging may be a bit more sporadic (though I'll try to update as regularly as I can). Expect a roaring return when I get back to school on January 3rd.

Shadow Cabinet?

Well, well, well. It looks like The Daily Kos might have stumbled across a good idea. They recommend that the Democrats form a "shadow cabinet" (similar to what is done in Britain or Australia) to respond to actions taken by the real (Bush) cabinet.

Though there are obviously significant structural hurdles to implementing this, I don't think they are insurmountable, and the upsides of having a shadow cabinet are very positive (I should note that I think these same positives apply to whatever party is in the minority, which right now happens to be the Democrats). It would provide one-stop shopping for media outlets looking for Democratic responses to GOP plans. It would give the Democrats their own "bully pulpit" to combat the institutional one given to the party in power. It could serve to elevate and sharpen Democratic critiques of flawed Bush policies. And that's just for starters, the possibilities extend well beyond that.

I disagee with Kos' implication that the cabinet should be partisan by default, preferring that it simply propose good policies. If the good policy happens to agree with the GOP's, then so be it. But considering the nature of the Republican party, it doesn't seem likely that the Democrats will run out of things to principally oppose any time soon.

Any nominations for who to serve where?

Iraqi Debt Relief

Daniel Drezner links to a Financial Times article that says European officials have agreed to write off up to 80% of Iraq's debt. This an important step toward insuring Iraq's future, and I join Prof. Drezner in applauding the Bush administration for getting it done.

In other Drezner news, the good Professor has just finished the manuscript for his next book, entitled "Who Rules." Its about the structures of power and influence that exist in the globalized world. He argues from the standpoint that the Great Powers still control the process, but non-state actors and minor states can still influence and manipulate the procedures in important ways. If you want to READ the manuscript, he's posted online here.

Congratulations are in order, for a job well done.

Resurrecting Bush the Elder

Perhaps we've all been a bit too hard on ol' George H. W. Bush. Certainly, a lot of us Democrats would trade him for our current President in a heartbeat. Tom Friedman offers Bush the elder as a paradigm of who he would have endorsed in 2004 (hint: its not someone named "Bush"). And while breaking the "read my lips" pledge may have been politically idiotic, it was a necessary move to revive a flagging economy. Bush exercised rare political courage in running a tight economic ship, which set the stage for the 90s economic boom that took off under Bill Clinton's spectacular economic stewardship.

And to top it all off, it appears that Bush has a sense of humor as well. Speaking at the dedication of Bill Clinton's Presidential Library, he said:

"Of course, it always has to be said that Bill Clinton was one of the most gifted American political figures in modern times. Trust me, I learned this the hard way...

And seeing him out on the campaign trail, it was plain to see how he fed off the energy and the hopes and the aspirations of the American people. Simply put, he was a natural, and he made it look too easy.

And, oh, how I hated him for that." (hat tip: Wonkette)

Funny man, that H.W. is. Let's all give him a round of applause for being a standup guy, as well as a model of what the Republican party used to be.

Activists Push For Gay Adoption Ban Repeal

Activists in Florida are pushing to repeal the states ban on gay adoption, The Orlando Sentinel reports (thanks to How Appealing for the link). Florida is currently the only state in the country that bans gay couples from adopting children, though it does not place similar categorical restrictions on felons, herion addicts, or any other group of persons.

The state law was upheld in Lofton v. Department of Children and Family Services. I noted my dissatisfaction with the shoddy Constitutional reasoning in that case earlier, and I have seen nothing to make me shift my views in the slightest. But even beyond the (tragically ignored) Constitutional mandates for equality, this regulation is simply bad policy. With an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence showing that children of gay couples do no worse than those of heterosexual couples, and the adoption crisis in our nation which locks thousands of kids in a broken foster system, keeping otherwise qualified gay couples from adopting children is a crime.

The Iranian Regime Reads "The Debate Link"

A few days ago, I noted that the Bush administration's actions in Iraq (both the act of invading and our post-war fiasco) have given Iran the perversive incentive to speed up its WMD programs.

And lo and behold, look what The New York Times is reporting: "Bush Says Iran Speeds Output of A-Bomb Fuel".

9/11 Recommendations Stall Out In Congress

The effort to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 commission is apparently dead in the water, according to CNN.com (at least until next session).

Though a couple of issues appear to be contributing to the hold up, the primary problem appears to be over immigration-related issues. Rep. James Sensenbrenner wants language in the bill that would

have forbidden states to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants; required refugees and those granted asylum to get driver's licenses that are annually renewed; and imposed what some immigrant advocates said were onerous identification requirements on immigrants seeking driver's licenses.

Forbidding states to give Driver's Licenses to illegal aliens is, if anything, counterproductive to homeland security. By getting these people "in the system," per se, we can more easily identify and track them if they are, indeed, breaking the laws. Pushing illegal immigrants further into the shadows of our society will only make it harder to police them.

It's nice that only three years after 9/11, Congress can finally get around to burying the bills that will keep America safe. I can see the slogan now: "The Republican Party: We Can Obstruct Congress WITHOUT the Democrats Help, Thank You Very Much!"