The march of history is a liberal plot

It's always sort of fascinated me, the way conservatives, no matter how many of the levers of power they control, no matter how many things go their way politically, always act as if they're under siege all the time. Like there's a phantom liberal tide always about to sweep them away, however often they win in the short term.

It's actually very simple, I think. They're right, and that tide is history itself.

“At every crossroad on the road that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past.” So said Maurice Maeterlinck, winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize in Literature (confession: I know nothing about him beyond that quote).

In the past, "conservatives" were people who supported slavery, segregation, gender discrimination, anti-sodomy laws, and opposed any kind of social safety network. Because that's what conservatism is: opposition to progress.

Whereas "liberals" are simply people who see tomorrow's conventional wisdom--of course women should have the vote, of course racial discrimination is wrong, of course gay teachers pose no threat, of course the government can and should guarantee health care for its citizens--a decade or two ahead of the mainstream. Liberals are the early adapters of good ideas.

And I think on some level conservatives know change of certain kinds is inevitable, or at least extraordinarily hard to stop. I think they have a legitimate sense that some aspects of the status quo they strongly support are under attack. I think they misidentify the source--they tend to attribute their sense of being under siege to Muslim hordes who are going to make us live under a "caliphate" (a word most of them just learned and can't properly define).

When in fact, the looming threat they're sensing is the progressive march of history. For-profit health care and insitutionalized antigay bias seem likely to be among its next victims. And they fear they can't stop it.

Incumbent Hillary Clinton... what?!

From Digby:

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but George W. Bush is being disappeared from the presidential campaign and everyone's running against incumbent Hillary Clinton. Subtly, but relentlessly, the public psyche is being prepared to deny Junior ever existed. And it could work. For many different reasons, most Americans want nothing more than to forget George W. Bush was ever president. So, we see a very odd subliminal narrative taking shape in which the blame for the nation's failures of the last seven years is being shifted to Clinton (and the "do-nothing" Democratic congress) as if the Codpiece hasn't been running things since 2000.

This is perhaps the strangest warping of reality yet. We've already seen Hillary being cast as The Great Satan among the right, even though she still has an enormous amount of popularity among the rank-and-file. (Her supporters probably rank as a plurality rather than a majority when all the polls are considered, but considerably more popular than the punditocracy would have you believe.)

But casting Hillary as the cause of the last eight years of heartache? Would the media really go along with this meme? We heard nothing but "Is Gore running away from Clinton?" during the 2000 campaign. Is the press going to give the Republican candidates the same scrutiny? By all accounts, the Republican candidates should have their noses rubbed in the refuse of the failed Bush 43 presidency and all the serious war, environmental, and financial issues that could cost us all more than we can afford. Instead, they're being allowed to live in their fantasy world of social security paranoia and Hillarycare. Frankly, I'm worried about the concept of someone as addle-brained as Fred Thompson being handed the reins of foreign policy, but you'd never know it was a concern if you read the mainstream news.

The concept of running against an imagined current Hillary presidency has been created whole from a looking glass world. Who needs hallucinogenic drugs when you have a convoluted fantasy world, created by desperate hacks and fully furnished for immediate move-in by the so-called journalistic set?

Mitt Romney and student aid

Every so often during a campaign you read something that makes you do a mental double-take. This was the case for me when I saw that Mitt Romney had proposed linking financial aid for students to the career they're pursuing. He explained this proposal by saying, "I like the idea of linking the level of support that we're going to provide to young people going to college to the contributions they're going to make to society." Put that way it would give just about anyone warm fuzzies, but this represents something that Republicans should really know better than to endorse -- central economic control.

I seriously doubt Romney would suggest that the government can predict how many cars, airplanes, or shoelaces the nation will need and guide factories to produce that amount. That sort of central economic micro-management was a hallmark of communist states, and it was a failure compared to market-based approaches. And yet, he's suggesting that the government should do exactly that with colleges and universities -- determine how much of their "product" they should produce, and what kind. He really ought to know better.

They Heart Huckabee

Rudy Giuliani appeared at a Family Research Council meeting on Saturday. It went well, in the sense that no one threw anything at him. But to say they lack enthusiasm for him would be an understatement. In a Family Research Council straw poll, he came in 9th, four slots below "Undecided." The winners were Mitt Romney, with 27.6%, and Mike Huckabee, with 27.2%.

What's interesting about this event is how it reveals the deep rifts that have formed in the Republican party. Here we have the religious right declaring Romney and Huckabee to be in a virtual tie for their endorsement. But in the most recent CBS News poll of Republican primary voters, Giuliani has a clear lead with 29% of the vote. Romney and Huckabee get 12% and 4%. There are rumblings among some evangelicals about voting for third-party candidates, or even launching a third party of their own. The religious right feels they're being ignored by the rest of the party, and it's hard to argue they're wrong.

Another startling example of a rift in the party is a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll from about two weeks ago that shows nearly six in ten Republicans agree with a statement that free trade has been harmful to the U.S. economy. Protectionist sentiments, once mainly the province of fringe elements like Lou Dobbs, appear to have won over the mainstream of the party. Yet none of the front-runners have taken a protectionist stance.

The current lack of enthusiasm on the part of Republican voters reflects more than just a lack of good candidates. The Republican coalition has broken down, and large groups of people within the party feel their views are not being represented. This isn't a permanent condition, of course -- the Democrats have suffered the same problem many times, and recovered. But before they can assume power the way they did in the 1990s, the Republicans will need to build a new coalition, and likely find a different set of core issues.

What if Dodd says he will never surrender?

Top five songs the Eagle is digging:

5. Iron & Wine, "Resurrection Fern
4. Lemon Demon, "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny"
3. James Blunt, "1973"
2. Decemberists, "After the Bombs"
1. Foo Fighters, "The Pretender"

Top five politicians the Eagle is digging:

5. Chris Dodd
4. Chris Dodd
3. Chris Dodd
2. Chris Dodd
1. Chris Dodd

Oh God, the stupidity

In an LA Times op-ed, Lee Siegel makes a very stupid attack on atheists:

When our anti-religionists attack the mechanism of religious faith by demanding that our beliefs be underpinned by science, statistics and cold logic, they are, in effect, attacking our right to believe in unseen, unprovable things at all. Their assault on religious faith amounts to an attack on the human imagination.

...

You don't have to be a religious person to cherish the idea of faith in the absurd. When artists have an unverifiable, unprovable inspiration, and then seek to convey it in words or images, they take a leap of faith every bit as vertiginous as that of the religious person.

This is more than just stupid. As an artist who doesn't believe in God (and who believes in reason when it comes to determining what is and is not true), I actually find it offensive.

The idea that imagining things that aren't literally true is exactly the same thing as believing that things for which there is no evidence are literally true is...God, what is Lee Siegel, five years old?

I imagine every day that the characters I draw are real. I don't believe that they are. You'd think I was mentally ill if I started believing that, and you'd be right.

Every time I read a book or watch a movie I imagine that the characters in it are real. I never, for a moment, believe that they are real.

The idea that, in order to protect the human capacity to imagine the untrue, we must continue to embrace fact-free assertions of literal truth is...I'm sorry, I don't know a word for that level of stupidity.

Neil the Ethical Werewolf says it very well:

Belief and imagination are two very different states of mind, and the norms that apply to them differ dramatically. To say that belief ought to be based on evidence isn't to say that imagination should be based on evidence. As an atheist, I'm often happy to imagine that God exists (for example, when reading myths, daydreaming, or considering a philosophical argument). I just don't think there's sufficient evidence to believe in God. Lovers of the imagination have nothing to fear from atheism, since atheists are fine with you imagining whatever you want.

Amen. (If we unbelievers get to use that word.) Art and imagination to not require us to embrace delusion. I actually think it helps if you know what's factual and what isn't.

I Drew This

He has ridden the mighty moon worm, too

Former Vice President Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

He can hang it next to his Oscar and his Emmy.

Obviously I'm thrilled. Al Gore has been one of my political heroes since I was a kid. I read his book Earth in the Balance before he was even vice president, and it had a sizable impact on my political development (I was about 14 I think).

He deserves it, of course. But it's a reminder that he deserved the presidency, too. And got enough votes for it in spite of huge obstacles--namely, a years-long smear campaign on the part of the media. The cattiness continues to this day. (Bob Somerby, at the Daily Howler, has been incomparable in documenting the ongoing media war on Gore.)

They made up false statements like "I invented the internet" to accuse him of saying. They made fun of his suits. More recently they've taken to calling him fat.

From Maureen Dowd to Chris Matthews and everywhere in between, our allegedly mainstream opinion makers loathed Al Gore so much they abetted the rise of our worst president, a man who is now hated by the country and destined for history's trash heap, a man who has done damage we might never be able to reverse.

Meanwhile, too many of us on the left fell into the inexcusably intellectually lazy trap of thinking it didn't matter who was president and that both candidates were basically the same. I recall a Rage Against the Machine video that morphed Gore's face with Bush's, something I can't imagine they would ever do now (God, I hope).

Well, could the contrast now be stronger? We have a man who's just gotten (deservedly) the world's highest honor for making peace, and a man who lied the traumatized nation into, and refuses to end, the most moronic and misguided failed war in our history.

We could have had the peace guy. But he was too much of a nerd. There's a lesson here, somewhere, but I fully expect the elite cocktail party media not to learn it.

As Nick once said to Gatsby...Mr. Gore, you're worth the whole damn bunch of 'em. And it's bittersweet to revel in your honor today because it reminds us of how different the history of the last seven years would have been if the honor you earned back then had not been stolen.

Things I learned from talking heads

1. Criticizing a general who makes himself a political figure is treasonous, but smearing, stalking and trying to destroy a handicapped 12-year-old merely for disagreeing with you is patriotic.

2. If you won't wear an American flag lapel pin, you shouldn't be president, and possibly should be deported.

3. Hillary Clinton shouldn't be president because she laughs too much. Now, if she'd only start smirking every time she talks about people she's had executed, she'd be in great shape.

Some days, I just feel like going and living in a cave.

But she'd look good with a tail!

Remember how, in 2000, George W. Bush benefited from reduced expectations, because everyone thought he was a moron, so when he showed up at the debates with his shirt buttoned correctly, people treated it as if he'd scored a major victory?

Well, via Kevin Drum, maybe all the right-wing blather in the last decade and a half about what an evil bitch Hillary Clinton is will work in her favor, when people see more of her and find that she actually seems okay:

For more than a decade, she has been attacked in a shelfload of books, on countless websites and in repeated direct-mail drives. Her detractors see her as a calculating opportunist with a crisis-ridden past.

Paradoxically, Clinton may be benefiting from that unflattering image as she reintroduces herself.

"If she showed up and doesn't have a horn and tail and speaks clearly and engagingly, people say, 'You know, she's all right,' " said Andrew E. Smith, a pollster at the University of New Hampshire.

Puppy-kickers

In this column here, which you should read, Paul Krugman analyzes the conservative sense of "humor." (I'm so glad the NY Times is no longer putting its opinion writers behind a subscription wall, if only for Krugman and Bob Herbert.)

It has not escaped my notice in the past that when conservatives are being "funny" they always come off as complete and total assholes (P.J. O'Rourke, who I actually quite like, being the one notable exception I can think of). Think of Rush Limbaugh joking back in the '90s about holding the "Homeless Olympics" or calling Chelsea Clinton, who was 14 at the time, the "White House dog."

Molly Ivins wrote of Rush, around the same time:

Satire can be quite a cruel weapon. It has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful. When you use satire as a weapon against powerless people, it is not only cruel, it is profoundly vulgar.

When I listen to Limbaugh, as I often do [brave woman, Molly], I find he consistently targets dead people, little girls, the homeless, and animals--none of whom are in a particularly good position to respond. It is the consistency of his selection of helpless targets that I find so appalling.

I miss Molly Ivins.

(And we won't even get into the slime of Ann Coulter, who thinks it's the hight of hilarity to call people "faggots" and advocate murdering Supreme Court justices and blowing up the New York Times building with all its reporters and editors inside. I've been told I don't "get" her humor. My theory is that this is because I have a soul.)

Of course, as Krugman notes, conservative assholery has a high pedigree, having been given legitimacy by the patron saint of modern conservatism, a man who (ironically) is widely thought of as sunny and positive.

But Ronald Reagan thought the issue of hunger in the world’s richest nation was nothing but a big joke. Here’s what Reagan said in his famous 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” which made him a national political figure: “We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I think my sides may have split. Billy Kristol, writing in the present day, can you follow that act?

In anticipation of [Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill, which would have expanded health care for children], William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.”

Honestly, it's very hard for me not to hope Bill Kristol gets flattened by an ambulance on his way home from work.

I suppose this is inevitably what you get when you mix these particular ingredients into a political movement. Take a bunch of privileged rich kids. In high school and college, have them all read Ayn Rand, thereby drilling into them the idea that acting in their own naked self-interest at all times is not only allowable, it's a supreme moral virtue. Stir.

Krugman also points out something interesting about George W. Bush, he of vetoing a children's health care bill that has over 70% support nationally:

Mark Crispin Miller, the author of “The Bush Dyslexicon,” once made a striking observation: all of the famous Bush malapropisms — “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and so on — have involved occasions when Mr. Bush was trying to sound caring and compassionate.

By contrast, Mr. Bush is articulate and even grammatical when he talks about punishing people; that’s when he’s speaking from the heart. The only animation Mr. Bush showed during the flooding of New Orleans was when he declared “zero tolerance of people breaking the law,” even those breaking into abandoned stores in search of the food and water they weren’t getting from his administration.

At least he didn't tell a lot of jokes about the displaced refugees. (He left that to his mom.)

But I think this underscores an important point about who we as a nation should be empowering. George W. Bush is only interested in being the big tough manly man, not in, you know, actually governing. What was so great about Bill Clinton, for all his failings, was that he actually liked governing, believed in it, and was good at it. He cared about policy and making it work.

In a way, that's the choice in front of us in the next election, isn't it? Vote for the party which, by and large, actually wants to govern, or vote for the party which, on the whole, couldn't care less about governing, unless by "governing" you mean going out and kicking some weak little country's ass so we can all feel tough.

The nerdy administrator who'll make your life easier, or the macho bully who'll make fun of your kids if they get sick. It's up to you, America.

Re: Softball

Quick addition to Liberal Eagle's Softball post yesterday:

While Viacom won't let YouTube carry clips of The Daily Show, they do post clips on their own site -- and the Chris Matthews interview is one of them. Click on it and watch Chris get the worst book tour interview of his life. Or try this embedded version:

The Mayor of Simpledom

Thanks to Eagle for the help with Rudy's face.

Softball

I suppose it goes without saying this bird is a devoted "Daily Show" fan, and I think Jon Stewart is a good interviewer. But even at that, some of them are not going to be gems. Back in like 1999 he interviewed two of the Spice Girls, and they told him "we don't think you're funny." (Yes, well, who's still got a career? You guys or Jon? Hint: calling yourself "Baby Spice" puts a ceiling on how old you can get and still be popular. So does having no talent and a gimmicky public persona.)

So, on Tuesday, Jon interviewed Chris Matthews, he of "Hardball" fame, who, surprisingly if you take the title of his show seriously, did not show up prepared to play hardball. I wish I could link to the video on YouTube, but Viacom won't let me. Copyright and all.

If you missed this, Matthews was promoting his new book, the thesis of which is that you should live your life as if it's a constant political campaign. Pretend to listen to people, "attack" people where you see an opening, go around buttering people up insincerely, whatever. Jon felt, I think correctly, that this was a terrible idea, and wanted to debate the issue with Matthews.

Matthews was plainly caught totally off guard, thereby proving that he has never watched Jon's appearance on "Crossfire" from a few years ago. Carlson and Begala, on that occasion, clearly thought Jon would show up, be nice to them, clown around, and everyone would be chummy and nothing bad would happen. Instead, Jon was highly critical of the show ("you're hurting America," he said), and Carlson and Begala were sort of left stammering defenses of their show, which was canceled a few months later (it seems to be widely assumed that Jon played a role in that).

So how Chris Matthews could go on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart's home turf, and expect to be allowed to talk drivel and have Jon just sit there and go "that's very interesting, and I'm so honored you're here," is an interesting question. So here's what I think.

I think Matthews lives in Beltway Land. He's part of that social circle of Beltway media and political types, and generally it's a very close-knit circle. Generally when one of them has a book to promote, the others are more than happy to help, in exchange for the same favor the next time they have something to promote. It's a happy family, a bit of a mutual-admiration society. I really really don't think that's how politics and media--especially media--ought to work, but it's clear that most of the time it does.

And actually, that's what I like about Jon Stewart. It's clear that he thinks, and says what he thinks, and values his freedom to do so more highly than he does Chris Matthews's approval or the social harmony of the D.C. cocktail circuit. That this would amaze someone like Chris Matthews just goes to show how badly we need Jon.

The most ironic thing was that one of Matthews's protestations (along with comparing Jon to Zell Miller, the completely unhinged then-senator who challenged Matthews to a duel on the air in 2004) involved claiming that he had wrongly assumed Jon would not be afraid of him. This strikes me as exactly backwards. I think he assumed Jon would be afraid of him, or at least afraid not to be deferential to him. In fact, Jon was fearless, and said things that, in Chris Matthews's world, you're not supposed to say. In Chris Matthews's world, if you're in good standing with the establishment, you should be able to promote your book without anyone disagreeing with anything in it.

I don't want to live in that world. I'm glad Jon doesn't either.

Still bitter after all these years