Modest Suggestions

Yascha Mounk, a lecturer on government at Harvard University, has issued a call for a pre-emptive strike because

if you think Trump would never dare to fire Robert Mueller for filing charges against his associates, you still haven't understood his character. And if you think that Congress is sure to act when he does, you haven't been paying attentionfor the past several months.

He would like our ex-Presidents to gather together to  denounce Trump's "clear and present danger to the American republic" and for the two most recent presidents especially to speak out more forcefully than any political heavyweight has.

While Mounk's argument is sound, the criticism levelled at the incumbent by Bush and Obama was not insufficiently strong, but was indirect. Neither mentioned Trump's name, Bush because he was at the time campaigning for a GOP candidate (for Va. governor) and Obama because- well, because he's Barack Obama and having a spine has never been among his greatest strengths.

Nonetheless, it is clear

The people who are best placed to do this, depressingly, sit in the House and the Senate. All members of Congress who care about preserving our democracy (or protecting their constitutional prerogatives) must set out what they are going to do if Trump fires Robert Mueller or pardons the people he indicts. As Ian Bassin, the executive director of Protect Democracy, told me, “Ryan, McConnell, Pelosi, and Schumer must make crystal clear right now that firing Mueller or interfering with his investigation would be met with swift and forceful congressional action, including the opening of an impeachment inquiry against the president and the creation of an independent commission to investigate interference in the 2016 election.”

"Those like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker," maintains Mounk, "who have already bravely expressed their concerns about the president, need to champion efforts to limit the damage he can do right now."

Flake, Corker, and other conservative Republicans who support the President's right-wing agenda but recognize the threat Trump is to common decency and continuation of the planet need not resign or even vote against Trump's initiatives (though that would be great benefit to the Republic).  The following, as presented by Salon, is a list recently compiled by Jerrry Taylor of the Niskanen Center:

Making Trump’s tax returns public

Requiring Trump and all future presidents to put their assets in a blind trust

Demanding that Senate Republicans give more resources to the Intelligence Committee’s investigation of the Trump-Russia connection during the last election

Establishing a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission to offer recommendations for electoral cybersecurity and protection against foreign disinformation campaigns

Reclaiming war powers that have been delegated in the past to the president

Enforcing the sanctions imposed by Congress on the Russian and allied business entities, which are now going unenforced

Refusing to vote for any legislation that has not gone through the normal process of committee hearings, markups and so on 

The five living ex-Presidents, congressional leadership, and the few Republican members of Congress who have expressed disapproval of President Trump's conduct need not call for his resignation or removal, block his legislative proposals, or do anything any reasonable person might consider excessive or partisan. Taylor's recommendations are non-ideological and would reinforce Congress' opposition to an imperial presidency and to efforts to upend American democracy.

Obviously, they will be ignored.









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A Better Outcome

Last week Never Trumper George Will wrote about  the "man whose combinationof impulsitivity and credulity render him uniquely unfit to take the nation into a military conflict."  He noted that candidate Trump had little familiarity with the "one China" policy or the nuclear triad and that the President is truly impressed with the "job" Frederick Douglas is currently doing. He added

Now, however, he has instructed us that Andrew Jackson was angry about the Civil War that began 16 years after Jackson’s death. Having, let us fancifully imagine, considered and found unconvincing William Seward’s 1858 judgment that the approaching Civil War was “an irrepressible conflict,” Trump says:

“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”

Library shelves groan beneath the weight of books asking questions about that war’s origins, so who, one wonders, are these “people” who don’t ask the questions that Trump evidently thinks have occurred to him uniquely? 

Better (or maybe worse) yet, we learned when Will appeared to discuss the column on "The Last Word" that in a primary debate "in defending the conservatism of his sister, who is a federal judge, he said that his sister had signned some of the same bills that Justice Alito had signed on  the Supreme Court."







That's some mighty ignorance going on there, unless Donald Trump has been punking us for the past 23 months. And so it's no trivial feat that 39-year-old former investment banker Emmanuel Macron captured over 66% of the vote in defeating anti-Muslim nationalist Marie Le Pen in the French presidential election.  This followed a debate in which Le Pen gave

an hourslong tirade against Mr. Macron, laced with name-calling and epithets, and woefully deficient in substance. She appeared lost on subject after subject, fumbling on one of her signature issues — withdrawing from the euro — that is opposed by a majority of French. Something essential about Ms. Le Pen, and the National Front, had been revealed to France.

Mr. Macron, on the other hand, demonstrated a quality that French voters, unlike many Anglo-Saxon ones, have long found essential in their successful candidates: cool mastery of the critical issues confronting the country. 

The land of the free, home of the brave, that most exceptional nation, only six months ago could choose a presidential candidate who laced his campaign with name calling, was woefully deficient in substance, and was considered the loser in 3 out of 3 debates. Or it could opt for one with mastery of the critical issues confronting the country.   It didn't go well.

Unlike in the USA, the (runoff) election in France featured two candidates without governmental experience. Still, this small group of voters on the continent selected the more tolerant, rational, sensible, and knowledgeable candidate, as well as the one who far better recognized the proper geopolitical role of the nation. Notwithstanding Hillary Clinton's triumph- narrowly- in the popular vote, the election in the United States of America went the other way.  For now, at least- and despite Emmanuel Macron's shortcomings- Vive la France!






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Don't Be Afraid Of George Will

The letter in June from to syndicated columnist George F. Will from Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey was both diplomatic and direct.  The four Democrats stated

Having an ongoing interest in ways to reduce sexual asssault on college campuses, we read your June 6 column on campus sexual assault with particular dismay. More egregiously, you trivialize the scourge of sexual assault, putting the phrase in scare quotes and treating this crime as a socially acceptable phenomenon.

In a political environment in which conservatives attempt to convince people they are going to die in their bed from ISIL, Ebola, Benghazi, or the IRS, typing "sexual assault" is rather small potatoes.

The Washington Post's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler explained

In the Winter of 2006, researchers used a Web-based survey to interview undergraduates at two large public universities, one in the Midwest and one in the South. A total of 5,446 undergraduate women, between the ages of 18-25, participated as part of a random sample. The survey was anonymous and took about 15 minutes to complete. (Participants received a $10 Amazon.com certificate for participating.)

The Campus Sexual Assault Study, conducted on behalf of the Justice Department, found 19-20% of women were the subjects (objects?) of "unwanted sexual contact" during their four years and, Politifact found,  "the majority of all sexual assaults involved oral, vaginal, or anal penetration and thus met the legal definition of rape in most states."

Will (defending his position, below) slams the researchers' math more than the study's methodology, which yielded what Politifact termed a "relatively small response rate of 42%" and included students from only two colleges." He criticizes "capacious definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also nonconsensual touching"  and that women who had been drinking were counted as victims. That inclusion, however, appears justified because 

Legal definitions of sexual assault factor in one’s ability to provide consent, and individuals who are incapacitated because of the effects of alcohol or drugs (or otherwise incapacitated, such as when they are unconscious or asleep) are incapable of consenting.

Ultimately, Will is more interested in scoring ideological points. When conservatives come upon a right with which they disagree- such as freedom from sexual harassment or the opportunity through Social Security and Medicare to a reasonable retirement- they label it an "entitlement." So he characterizes as "a student's entitlement to serenity" an "entitlement" which

has already bred campus speech codes that punish unpopular speech. Now the codes are begetting the soft censorship of trigger warnings to swaddle students in a “safe,” “supportive,” “unthreatening” environment, intellectual comfort for the intellectually dormant.. 

Channeling Glenn Beck- who has been scapegoating "progressivism" for several years- Will concludes

Academia is learning that its attempts to create victim-free campuses — by making everyone hypersensitive, even delusional, about victimizations — brings increasing supervision by the regulatory state that progressivism celebrates.

What government is inflicting on colleges and universities, and what they are inflicting on themselves, diminishes their autonomy, resources, prestige and comity. Which serves them right. They have asked for this by asking for progressivism.

But no matter.  The Claremont Independent now reports

A prominent conservative political pundit was uninvited from speaking at Scripps College, in a program designed to promote conservative views on campus, because of his conservative views.

Nationally syndicated columnist George Will was slated to speak at the ninth annual Elizabeth Hubert Malott Public Affairs Program, the mission of which is to bring speakers to campus whose political views differ from the majority of students at the all-women’s college, but had his invitation rescinded after he wrote a columnabout sexual assault on college campuses.

“It was in the works and then it wasn’t in the works,” Will said in an interview with the Independent. “They didn’t say that the column was the reason, but it was the reason.”

Will also told the Independent that Christopher DeMuth, former president of the American Enterprise Institute, one of the most influential conservative think tanks in the country, resigned from his position on the program’s speaker selection committee over the decision to revoke the invitation.

The Elizabeth Hubert Malott Public Affairs Program was established under the belief that “a range of opinions about the world – especially opinions with which we may not agree, or think we do not agree – leads to a better educational experience,” according to the Scripps College website.

It has not been announced who will be selected to replace Will at this year’s series. Previous speakers invited to campus by the program include conservative columnists Charles Krauthammer and Peggy Noonan.

News of the cancellation comes shortly after the release of arecurring study by Claremont McKenna College Professor Emeritus Ward Elliott that aims to measure political attitudes at the Claremont Colleges. In the most recent update of the report, Elliott could not find any Scripps faculty members who are registered Republicans.

On October 8, the president of the all-female Scripps College, part of a Claremont College consortium, issued a statement which included

Sexual assault is not a conservative or liberal issue. And it is too important to be trivialized in a political debate or wrapped into a celebrity controversy. For that reason, after Mr. Will authored a column questioning the validity of a specific sexual assault case that reflects similar experiences reported by Scripps students, we decided not to finalize the speaker agreement.

Weasel words. In its statement, Scripps maintains "We do not shy away from bringing strong conservative viewpoints into our community."  But it did not fail to invite a Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative journalist who has been a leading voice on the right for four decades, but went to the effort of withdrawing an invitation already made to him.  

Scripps rejected Will because he expressed a conservative viewpoint with conservative arguments, the latter including jabs at speech codes, academia, government (especially the Education Department, a sore spot with conservatives at all times (except when President Reagan decided to preserve it), Joe Biden, and "victimization" (which Republicans love to attack except when claiming it for themselves).  


The college has every right to do so; there is no constitutional right to an invitation to a college campus to participate in a public affairs program. Nonetheless, one can reasonably conclude that Scripps wanted someone it could designate as a living, breathing "conservative" but who wouldn't question the official consensus on campus sexual assault.  Refusing a reasoned, thoughtful dialogue is usually a conservative game. Not this time.

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It Doesn't Exist. But If It Did.

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, George F. Will saw "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" and wrote (in a column seemingly no longer available)

Disdain for science usually ends when the disdainer gets a toothache, or his child needs an operation. But hostility to science is the anti-intellectualism of the semi-intellectual. That is in part because science undercuts intellectual vanity:  Measured against what is unknown, the difference between what the most and least learned persons know is trivial.  E.T. is, ostensibly, an invitation to feel what we too rarely feel: wonder. One reason we rarely feel wonder is that science has made many things routine that once were exciting, even terrifying (travel, surgery). But science does more than its despiser do to nurture the wonderful human capacity for wonder.

But a lot can change in 32 years, and has since the Washington Post columnist observed "scientists pounce upon E.T." who "is rescued from the fell clutches of the scientists by a posse of kid bicyclists and boards a spaceship for home." Will found "an animus against science, which is seen as a morbid calling for callous vivisectionists and other unfeeling technocrats."

Will  has regressed dramatically in these 3+ decades.   On the May 4 edition of Fox News Sunday, Charles Krauthammer and Will quesioned the existence of climate change, the latter claiming

Now, there is, as Charles says, the policy question is how much wealth do we want to spend directly or in lost production in order to have no discernible measurable effect on the climate? People say, well, what about this report? There is a sociology of science. Scientists are not saints in white laboratory smocks. They have got interests like everybody else. If you want a tenure-track position in academia, don't question the reigning orthodoxy on climate change. If you want money from the biggest source of direct research in this country, the federal government, don't question its orthodoxy. If you want to get along with your peers, conform to peer pressure. This is what's happening.

Jonathan Chait notes

Will is arguing that climate scientists have been massively corrupted by federal funding and peer pressure. (“They have got interests like everybody else.”) He does not consider the countervailing power of opposing financial interests that might lure scientists to question of the scientific consensus, such as the lucrative funding made available in the right-wing think-tank world. He likewise discounts the possibility that scientists would find the lure of being proven eventually correct to be a powerful reputational incentive, let alone that they would actually care enough about being right to disregard social and financial pressure

Of course, of course, and of course.  Will , unlike Sean Hannity and a few others, does not toe the Repub line simply to toe the GOP line. His argument, however, has morphed into an increasingly common, two-track, line among Repubs: we shouldn't do anything about global warming even if it is occurring, which I'm not saying it is. 

But as John Oliver pointed out (video, below) Sunday night, presenting a discussion between a believer and a denier of climate change or treating the issue as if it is a debatable question borders on the absurd.  "You don't need," he remarked, "peoples' opinions on a fact. You might as well ask which number is bigger: 15 or 5? Or do owls exist?"

Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist, by training, ought to understand that. And George Will, who once believed in science and still is a widely read syndicated columnist, could at least acknowledge a scientific fact. That he cannot do so demonstrates how a rational person can fall.











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As Everyone Loses Perspective

The circus must be in town. Politico's Mike Allen and Amie Barnes in "Hillary's Hit List" write that Clinton aides Kris Balderston and Adrienne Elrod in June, 2008

recorded in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet the names and deeds of members of Congress (in which) they carefully noted who had endorsed Hillary, who had backed Obama, and who had stayed on the sidelines...

There was a special circle of Clinton hell reserved for people who had endorsed Obama or stayed on the fence after Bill and Hillary had raised money for them, appointed them to a political post or written a recommendation to ice their kid’s application to an elite school. On one early draft of the hit list, each Democratic member of Congress was assigned a numerical grade from 1 to 7, with the most helpful to Hillary earning 1s and the most treacherous drawing 7s. The set of 7s included Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), as well as Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Baron Hill (D-Ind.) and Rob Andrews (D-N.J.).

On  foxnews.com, Ellen Ratner (video below) was excited and compared Clinton's list of politicians with, as George Will put it Sunday,  the Christiecrats "use (of) the machinery -- the federal machinery of government - to screw our enemies." She stated the Clintons

actually had this list going, going to be using this list if she runs for President, as to who they're going to accommodate and who they're not. Well, the press is kind of leaving that alone. But they haven't left Governor Christie alone.  As you know, they call- what- Washington Bridgegate or Bridgegate. But they haven't left him alone. But this one- hmmm, we're not hearing too much from the press.

But Howard Kurtz explains

Do the Clintons have long memories? Of course. But I searched this excerpt in vain for one example of them retaliating against someone who screwed them.

“‘It wasn’t so much punishing as rewarding, and I really think that’s an important point,’ said one source familiar with Bill’s thinking. ‘It wasn’t so much, “We’re going to get you.” It was, “We’re going to help our friends.” I honestly think that’s an important subtlety in Bill Clinton, in his head. She’s not as calculated, but he is.’”

Sounds like a pretty good explanation of modern contemporary politics. The reason the Christie scandal has resonated is not that his aides—without his knowledge, he says—tried to hit back at Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for his non-endorsement of the governor. It’s that so many New Jersey and New York commuters were sideswiped in the process. 








Though neither Mrs. Clinton's critics nor her defenders are likely to say so, the evaluations made by the Clinton team generally were sound.

"Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.)," Allen and Parnes write, "got the seat closest to the fire," in part because she remarked Clinton 42 "has been a great leader but I don’t want my daughter near him." (Apparently, a good sense of humor is no defense.)  The Clintons had vigorously campaigned for McCaskill when she ran for the Senate in 2006 but she became the first female Senator to endorse Obama. Also earning a "7" was Representative Tom Moran of Virginia, whose support Balderston had assiduously sought until it was actually promised in January, 2008. A few weeks later, Moran endorsed Senator Obama.

The motivation for endorsement of the first viable black presidential candidate by the Missourian and the Virginian was disturbingly similar. When McCaskill endorsed Obama in 2008, she contended

This is a man who has incredible intellectual heft … who is not afraid to figure out a new and different way to tackle problems … Only once in a generation does a leader come along that has that particular gift. … Barack Obama is, I believe, right for the country this time.

She evidently didn't make clear why he was "right for the country this time" and already has endorsed Clinton 2016.  Moran says he has made up with Balderston and is more explicit, recently stating

I plan on making it up to him in the 2016 campaign since I’ve always been in love with Hillary.  I simply thought that given the opportunity, it was too important that this country elect an inspiring black president.  (And yes, he did say "in love with Hillary," not "I love Hillary.")

Box checked for black President; block to be checked for female President in 2016.  If Clinton is in fact elected, a block can be checked in 2016 for someone born with another immutable characteristic- hispanic, LGBT, or whatever is then deemed to be the most important characteristic of arguably the most powerful individual in the world.  And at some point, perhaps we can turn our attention to minor issues such as this:

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That's Really The Point Of It All

George F. Will wrote yesterday

The government should not be closed; the debt ceiling will be raised. Republicans should, however, take to heart the last words of H.L. Mencken’s summation of Theodore Roosevelt: “Well, one does what one can.” Republicans can give Democrats a ruinous opportunity to insist upon unpopular things. House Republicans can attach to the continuing resolution that funds the government, and then to the increase in the debt ceiling, two provisions: Preservation of the ACA requirement — lawlessly disregarded by the administration — that members of Congress and their staffs must experience the full enjoyment of the ACA without special, ameliorating subsidies. And a one-year delay of the ACA’s individual mandate.

The GOP would love to delay the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act.  Chris Van Hollen- though he won't admit to it- understands why a delay in implementation of the health care law would be political gold for the Repubs.  Ezra Klein explains

The individual mandate "compromise" is also looked on with some derision. Republicans assume that it will be attractive to Democrats because the policy is unpopular. But they haven't thought through the way the law works. "If you were to delay just the individual mandate, the premiums would jump much higher," says Rep. Chris Van Hollen. "That would sabotage the entire purpose of the exchange."

When Chief Justice Roberts in 2012 fashioned the majority opinion which saved the individual mandate, he rejected the commerce clause (basis of much progressive legislation) as its justification while striking down the Medicaid provision.  And liberals/Democrats hailed the decision and conservatives/Republicans criticized it, all because the individual mandate was upheld.  If the individual mandate were delayed, premiums rise precipitously, the exchange would lose support and favor and the Affordable Care Act would be doomed.

And that is the point of the GOP strategy.    Two days ago, Digby noted that prominent Republicans, including actor and conservative activist Ronald Reagan, strenuously fought creation of Medicare

But by and large, conservative opposition was muted. Once Medicare was passed, conservatives didn't choose repeal of Medicare as their hill to die on, nor did they decide to attach Lyndon Johnson's name to the program in an attempt to destroy both. And that's how today Republicans can try to claim with a straight face that they are the true defenders of Medicare. Few today would know that when Medicare was first introduced, it faced angry opposition.

Imagine if Republicans had taken up the full politicized revolt against Medicare that they have against the Affordable Care Act. If they had, LBJ would be remembered more for "Johnsoncare" today than for the Vietnam War, and his face might adorn Mount Rushmore. Every election cycle for a generation or two, Democrats would take great pains to remind voters just how much the opposition had stood against Johnsoncare, preferring to see the elderly die in misery and squalor. 

Democrats own Obamacare. Republicans know it.  Republicans have been willing, and appear willing yet again, to destroy the nation's economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.   Sabotaging the Affordable Care Act and with it, health care for tens of millions of Americans, is- at worst- mere collateral damage.


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Wrong Then, Wrong Now



Perhaps he does this about every four years.

If you're old enough, you remember when George F. Will, though conservative, had a handle, however tenuous, on reality.  Not so anymore.

In February, 2009 Will wrote a column attacking what he believed to be the hysteria behind the predictions of global warming.  He concluded by claiming "according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare."

Will's column was widely debunked.  In one instance, author Chris Mooney wrote

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is one of many respected scientific institutions that support the consensus that humans are driving global warming. Will probably meant that since 1998 was the warmest year on record according to the WMO -- NASA, in contrast, believes that that honor goes to 2005 -- we haven't had any global warming since. Yet such sleight of hand would lead to the conclusion that "global cooling" sets in immediately after every new record temperature year, no matter how frequently those hot years arrive or the hotness of the years surrounding them. Climate scientists, knowing that any single year may trend warmer or cooler for a variety of reasons -- 1998, for instance, featured an extremely strong El Niño -- study globally averaged temperatures over time. To them, it's far more relevant that out of the 10 warmest years on record, at least seven have occurred in the 2000s -- again, according to the WMO.

Will additionally had contended that there was a global cooling consensus in the 1970s.  He included exceedingly brief quotes from the New York Times, 5/21/75; Science Magazine, 12/10/76; International Wildlife, 7/75; Science Digest, 2/73; Christian Science Monitor, 8/27/74; and four other references.  Mooney, however, noted that a recently published Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society examined studies between 1965 and 1979 (inclusive) and concluded "emphasis on greenhouse warming dominated "the scientific literature even then."

Fast-forward to February, 2013.   In a column inspired by his belief that the concern that the upcoming sequester will damage the economy considerably is mere hype, Will attempts to draw an analogy to what he still claims was a fear of global cooling in the 1970s.  In it, he refers to- you guessed it- the New York Times of May 1975, Science Magazine of December 1976, International Wildlife of July 1975, Science Digest of February 1973, and the Christian Science Monitor of August 1974.

In the aforementioned study (pdf), Thomas C. Peterson, William M. Connolley, and John Fleck, found 71 papers which discussed a factor which would affect the global climate from a period of decades to a century.  They found seven (7) suggesting global cooling, 44 implying warming, and 20 which were neutral.   "A major cooling of the planet," Will quotes The New York Times- twice- was "widely considered inevitable."  Apparently, ten percent (10%) of experts is considered "widely" in the world of George Frederick Will, master of disinformation.

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On Further Review, Pierce's Criticism Stands



The Washington Post uses the headline "Can Romney Turn This Thing Around?"Meanwhile, Investors Business Daily goes with the more accurate "Why Americans Might Tolerate This Failed President" to describe the misguided essay against Barack Obama by George Will.The columnist, long syndicated by The Washington Post's Writer's Group, contends

A significant date in the nation’s civil rights progress involved an African American baseball player named Robinson, but not Jackie. The date was Oct. 3, 1974, when Frank Robinson, one the greatest players in history, was hired by the Cleveland Indians as the major leagues’ first black manager. But an even more important milestone of progress occurred June 19, 1977, when the Indians fired him. That was colorblind equality.

Managers get fired all the time. The fact that the Indians felt free to fire Robinson — who went on to have a distinguished career managing four other teams — showed that another racial barrier had fallen: Henceforth, African Americans, too, could enjoy the God-given right to be scapegoats for impatient team owners or incompetent team executives.

Perhaps a pleasant paradox defines this political season: That Obama is African American may be important, but in a way quite unlike that darkly suggested by, for example, MSNBC’s excitable boys and girls who, with their (at most) one-track minds and exquisitely sensitive olfactory receptors, sniff racism in any criticism of their pin-up. Instead, the nation, which is generally reluctant to declare a president a failure — thereby admitting that it made a mistake in choosing him — seems especially reluctant to give up on the first African American president. If so, the 2012 election speaks well of the nation’s heart, if not its head.

In "George Will Is Not Making Any Human Sense, Continued" Charles Pierce writes

First, in my capacity as the Don King of Punditland, I will make the match right now: George Effing Will vs. the Kindly Doc Rachel Maddow. Fifteen rounds. The parking lot at Caesar's. Who ya got?

Second, if Will believes that the reason the president seems to be prospering right now is because the good heart of America is giving the black fella a break, he's climbed so far up his own ass that he could sneeze and break his collarbone.

Will, who  claims "Obama's administration is in shambles," is annoyingly prone to conflating baseball with life, or anything in it.   But I'll play that game, and you can play that at home.   When Jackie Robinson was signed as a player by Branch Rickey  

Fellow players were slow to accept Robinson as a member of their team. Some were openly hostile; others refused to speak to him or even sit near him. It didn't help that Robinson began his season in a slump, unable to make a hit in the first five games.

His teammates finally rallied to Robinson's defense after witnessing several incidents in which opponents verbally and physically assaulted Robinson. One player from the St. Louis Cardinals intentionally spiked Robinson's thigh so badly, he left a large gash, prompting outrage from Robinson's teammates. In another instance, players on the Philadelphia Phillies, knowing that Robinson had received death threats, held their bats up as if they were guns and pointed them at him.

Maybe- just maybe, of course- Obama as president has faced similar obstacles.   Apparently, Will did not notice a politically slick politician from Georgia recently say, however misleadingly

You have to wonder what he’s doing.  I’m assuming that there’s some rhythm to Barack Obama that the rest of us don’t understand. Whether he needs large amounts of rest, whether he needs to go play basketball for a while or watch ESPN, I mean, I don’t quite know what his rhythm is, but this is a guy that is a brilliant performer as an orator, who may very well get reelected at the present date, and who, frankly, he happens to be a partial, part-time president.

Yes, we (but not some columnists) get it, Newt.   The black fellow plays basketball (don't they all?) and has "some rhythm," though it is hard to determine "what his rhythm is."   Gingrich forgot to say he "dances around issues," though he remembered in January to call Obama "the most effective food stamp president in history."    He has labeled as "a partial, part-time president" (shiftless and lazy?) a chief executive who vacations far less than his immediate predecessor and whom The New York Times in May reported

insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

“He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world.” He added, “He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short.”

George Will gets to have it both ways.    Without any evidence, he infers that Obama's hopes hinge on white guilt because voters are "especially reluctant to give up on the first African American president" and won't want to admit "it made a mistake in choosing him."   He calls on voters to reject his candidacy, like the Indians who "felt free to fire (Frank) Robinson," which "showed that another racial barrier had fallen."

Yet, October 3, 1974 also had been "a significant date in the nation's civil rights progress" because a black man was hired as a manager.   In the same manner, according to Will, America demonstrated it was not racist (though unwise, disregarding "its head") when it "hired" Barack Obama; it will prove "an even more important milestone of progress" when it fires him.   Convenient.

Will believes (or pretends to believe) that the U.S.A. struck a note for racial progress when a black was chosen as President.   Voters in Democratic caucuses and primaries arguably (full disclosure: I voted for Clinton) did so when it made a one-term Democratic Senator the nominee of the party over a heavily-favored spouse of an ex-President popular with the party's voters and establishment.  In the general election, however, the nominee faced a bad presidential, and even worse vice-presidential, candidate in an atmosphere in which Charles Manson, if released from prison, could have run a strong race against a Republican.   The GOP label was toxic at the time because any connection with the incumbent, George W. Bush, was deadly.  (Four years later, it took Mr. Bush's brother even to mention his name at the party's convention, and that was done somewhat defensively.)

Being a baseball aficionado, Will might do well to acknowledge while the opposing club is not strong and his own clean-up hitter is mediocre, his team is lousy, and most people realize it.



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A Surfeit Of Psychiatrists

Joe Klein, carrying the torch for sensible gun control, and Ed Rendell, the trying so hard to be respected by George Will, had a rude awakening, must have been frustrated surrounded by so much nonsense on Sunday's This Week (transcript, here, relevant segment, page 5) with George Stephanopoulos.       (Cokie Roberts, as usual, supplied official Washington Wisdom.)   First, it was George Will claiming

Well, there isn't a human itch in the modern age to commit sociology as soon as this happens and to piggyback various political agendas on a tragedy. I just think we ought to resist that.
Before locating this in some defect, for example, of America society, deal with Norway. That was where a young man on an island, killed 67 teenagers, that was not counting the eight he killed with a bomb in downtown Oslo. There are deranged people in the world.

It's remarkable that someone would ridicule "a human itch in the modern age to commit sociology" in the same breath as he attributes mass murder in two societies as diverse as Norway and the U.S.A. to the existence of "deranged people in the world."   True, Will wasn't "committing sociology"; but he was committing psychology, and without having examined James Holmes.

The other Washington Post contributor, Jennifer Rubin, on the panel also is an expert in diagnosis of mental health in individuals.   She contended

There are very disturbed people out there. And I think the leap to make this into a gun issue rather than a mental health issue, has a limited payoff. I think we saw with the assault gun ban that these instances didn't increase or decrease. Over the last few decades we have had a decrease in crime. But I think we have a mental health epidemic. And we have...

You're right, George. These tend to happen with single men of a certain age, that is also the age at which certain mental illness begins to manifest itself, whether it's schizophrenia, whether it may be depression, it's aggravated in many instances by drugs or alcohol.

Certainly there are very disturbed people "out there," wherever "out there" might be, and Holmes may be one.   (Presumably, "out there" would be the U.S.A. but as a card-carrying conservative, Rubin is reluctant to admit any problem in America.   Except for Americans, whom she believes are disturbed.)   Rubin went on to credit "better policing" and "incarceration" for the gradual decline in crime in the country, no doubt because of an improvement in police techniques and increase in the rate of incarceration.     There have been, however, other factors (such as a drop in cocaine use probably occasioned by a decline of lead in the environment) at play- and the ratio of police officers to population has dropped in recent decades.

But the sleight of hand is most impressive.   Rubin notes that crime is disproportionately committed by men of a certain age, that "at which certain mental illness begins to manifest itself."  Even if accurate, it would be largely irrelevant, given that she is maintaining that is the age at which the disorder manifests itself- which is to say, is reflected in behavior.  It is an impressive circular argument.   She does not- although seems to- argue that schizophrenia causes crime, only that it is reflected in crime.

And that's wise.   The argument that the assault weapons ban, or an allergy to gun control generally, plays a role in crime is simply to suggest that the overall rate of violence would be lower if individuals diagnosed with mental health disorders didn't have access to firearms or individuals weren't permitted to buy an unlimited number of weapons at one time, or in a month.    But when individuals of the left or center are quick to diagnose a particular individual- one whom they didn't know a week ago even existed- they imply that mental illness is the reason for commission of that crime.

It gives pundits wanting to pass off shooting incidents as the work of someone "deranged" or "mentally ill" no pause to consider that crime has been declining while most psychological disorders go untreated, nor that more women are affected while men are more often the offenders.    Nor does Rubin, who cites improved police work and more incarceration, note (charts below from Ezra Klein's Wonkblog) that gun ownership has declined in the U.S.A. over the past half century and gun violence (and killings overall) is greater in states with lax gun laws than in other states.   Inconvenient facts, those.

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The Victim Card, Again



Now we know why.

It was not one of George Will's stated reasons for considering Newt Gingrich "not merely the least conservative candidate, he is thoroughly anti-conservative," but it may as well have been.    During last Saturday's debate in New Hampshire,  ABC's Diane Sawyer asked the GOP presidential candidates about same-sex marriage.        Gingrich, in part, responded

I just want to raise a point about the news media bias. You don’t hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry?

Three days later, as noted by Think Progress, Gingrich, asked by CNN's Soledad O'Brien about the claim that the Roman Catholic Church has been banished from the abortion business because it excludes gay couples, contended

No, that’s not true. That’s not true. There are states now, including the District of Columbia, which essentially adopt laws that say you can’t offer an adoption service unless you meet the secular standards of the state. They are in effect saying the secular standards of the state are more important than religious freedom. I think it is inherently anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. It is in favor of a secular model, that I think is wrong. And I think that it’s wrong for the government to impose its values on religion. That’s the whole point of the First Amendment, is to not have the government imposing values on religion.

Inconveniently for Gingrich, the First Amendment says nothing about "government imposing values on religion"- and Gingrich's suggestion otherwise hardly comports with the strict constructionism characteristic of conservatives.       Instead, it reads in relevant part "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."   Gingrich, incomprehensibly, argues that requiring a religious institution to adhere to the same regulations as secular institutions when they have a government contract is "inherently anti-Christian and anti-Jewish." More accurately, subsidizing adoption arranged by a Church entity if it violates federal guidelines would represent preferential treatment and itself breach that wall of separation between government and religion.

No one, and no government, is preventing Catholic Charities from providing adoption services consistent with their beliefs about same-sex relationships.      Anthony R. Picarello Jr., general counsel and associate general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, inadvertently acknowledged that when, defending the Church, he stated It’s true that the church doesn’t have a First Amendment right to have a government contract, but it does have a First Amendment right not to be excluded from a contract based on its religious beliefs."

But that government contract is being denied not based on "religious beliefs" but the actions of the agency, which is free to believe whatever it wishes about whomever it wishes.         No institution, religious or otherwise, may be permitted to take the money of taxpayers (straight and gay, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindi, or of another faith) if it violates state or federal law.

As conservatives ought to understand, there is no constitutional right to a government subsidy.





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Newt Gingrich, Defined And Confirmed

A week and a half ago on the roundtable discussion on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour, George Will noted Newt

Gingrich's is an amazingly efficient candidacy in that it embodies everything that is disagreeable about modern Washington. He's the classic rental politician.

The conservative syndicated columnist went on to explain

People think that his problem is his colorful personal life. He'll hope that people concentrate on that rather than, for example, ethanol. Al Gore has recanted ethanol. Not Newt Gingrich. Industrial policy of the sort that got us Solyndra, he's all for it. Freddie Mac, he says, hired him as a historian. He's not a historian.

And all that is without mentioning Gingrich's personal life which, really, is his personal life- or would be, if he left it at that. Yet, being the classic rental politician, the former House Speaker is pursuing a means for it to enhance his candidacy.

The Family Leader in July announced "THE MARRIAGE VOW: A Declaration of Dependence upon MARRIAGE and FAMiLY" (all emphasis the organization's). It includes a 14-point "candidate vow" emphasizing an "adherence" to "faithful sexual monogamy" and mandating "personal fidelity to my spouse," "respect for the marital bonds of others," belief in "robust childbearing and reproduction" as a national goal, "rejection of 'Sharia Islam'," and "commitment to downsizing government" (how did that get in there?).

The pledge has been signed by Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and no others.

But that has not stopped the Classic Rental Politician. In July, Gingrich was asked whether he had signed the pledge and responded "No, we’ve talked about it. Vince Haley, who’s my policy director, is gonna work with Bob and others to work through some things." According to the Des Moines Register's Jason Clayworth, the Family Leader has narrowed its decision upon whom to endorse for the GOP nomination to four individuals- Santorum, Bachmann, Perry- and Gingrich, a personal favorite of the organization's CEO, Bob Vander Plaats, with whom he allegedly has financial ties. According to Clayworth, "Vander Plaats said today that his group has been in communication with the Gingrich campaign about the pledge and expects to hear something from them shortly."

The mind reels- or maybe not, given that the vow includes a determination to pare down the size of government, by which The Family Leader is not referring to the defense budget or the cozy relationship between the federal government and Wall Street.

Gingrich could have gone any of four ways. He could have adopted the approach of Mitt Romney, who in July said he "strongly supports traditional marriage but he felt this pledge contained references and provisions that were undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign." He could have been a little bolder and declared that he won't sign any pledge, identifying them as a gimmicks and a prime manifestation of the interest group politics which the American people find "disagreeable about modern Washington."

Or he could have gone courageously where no other politician has dared to go. He might have declined to sign the pledge by arguing that public behavior is more important that private behavior in someone asking to represent 300 million-plus individuals in a nation of culturally diverse individuals and families. He might have noted that in a country facing such enormous challenges at home and abroad (which he could have blamed on President Obama), he- and other candidates- ought to be judged on the basis of their policies, experience, and ability to move the conservative agenda forward.

Such honesty would have been asking too much of any office-seeker, of course. Alternatively, Newt might have differentiated himself from his main rival by simply signing the pledge, which would at least have been definitive.

But, no. Instead, the classic rental politician will sign, but only under certain conditions. For Newt Gingrich- as for, it appears thus far, The Family Leader- Groucho Marx's aphorism applies: "Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."

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Apocalyptic! Some Americans Don't Pay (Federal) Income Tax!


It was like old-timers' weekend in Washington after the November election as the GOP repackaged its trusty "tax and spend" talking point. Fox News reported:

We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem," as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday.

In fact, no fewer than four Republican lawmakers who rode the wave of morning talk shows repeated the new mantra Sunday in what is undeniably the underlying theme behind the GOP approach to tackling government spending in the next Congress.

"The election result reflected the fact that people get Washington does not have a revenue problem. It's got a spending problem," Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the expected next House majority leader, said on "Fox News Sunday."

"We do not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Let's focus on the problem," Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the likely next House Budget Committee chairman repeated later on the same show.

"Well, I think it's not a revenue problem; it's a spending problem," said Sen.-elect Rand Paul, R-Ky., on ABC's "This Week." "A lot of times people would come to me and say, well, you don't believe in any government. And I would tell them, you know what? I believe in $2.4 trillion worth; I just don't think you can have $4 trillion worth if you only bring in $2.4 trillion."

But if we thought Republicans were aghast! appalled! outraged! that the taxes of Americans of modest means are too high, we have been fooled. South Carolina's Jim DeMint laid it out in 2009 when he contended "there are two Americas but not the kind John Edwards was talking about. It's not so much the haves and the have-nots. It's those who are paying for government and those who are getting government." Two Americas, according to this Senator- the wealthy and all the rest, and we know which side he considers worthless.

In a recent column lauding the GOP's right wing economics, George Will got all tingly about incoming House Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp of Michigan:

Many conservatives, including Camp, believe that although most Americans should be paying lower taxes, more Americans should be paying taxes. The fact that 46.7 million earners pay no income tax creates moral hazard - incentives for perverse behavior: Free-riding people have scant incentive to restrain the growth of government they are not paying for with income taxes.

"I believe," Camp says, "you've got to have some responsibility for the government you have." People have co-payments under Medicare, and everyone should similarly have some "skin in the game" under the income tax system.

Wisely, this leading Republican waited till after the election to argue- or career Republican Will wisely waited till after the election to report- that taxes on the working class were too high. In fact, apparently, they are too low.

Camp might have emphasized the contribution of those he considers freeloaders to government treasuries through excise taxes, broad-based state and local (property, sales, or income) taxes, or the FICA. Contributions to the latter tax, of course, are capped by income, wherein Bill Gates, Goldman-Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Rush Limbaugh, and those corporate Chief Executive Officers courted by President Obama paid no more in 2010 than a guy or gal making $106,800 (and paid at a far lower rate).

Or Camp could have been troubled that United States corporations, legally, or otherwise, routinely pay no income tax; or that the aforementioned Blankfein received a $9 million (all-stock) bonus in 2009, though that was exceeded by the $17 million bonus package received by JP Morgan Chase and Company President and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon. (And why not? They were so, so successful.) Both their companies were among the beneficiaries of the "bailout" excoriated by the tea parties and some of the politicians they adore, who seem untroubled by these bonuses.

The rich and their benefactors do so much whining (my whining, meanwhile, is only righteous) that we would hardly notice there is so little for them to whine about (chart from Economic Policy Institute):





But for the likes of DeMint, Camp, and Will, productive Americans who make too little to pay federal income taxes, whose income decline in real terms and find their job benefits wither away, should be oh so grateful to the wealthy and powerful whose interests they serve.

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Climate Change And Skepticism Of Scientists

George Marshall is the founder and director of projects at the Climate Outreach and Information Network and founder in England of what he refers to as a climate change charity. His "blog explores the topic of the psychology of climate change denial." Back in July, he analyzed the inability of scientists to convince the British public that changes in climate are due primarily to greenhouse emissions, commenting 'polls over the past five years have shown that 40% of people in Britain resolutely refuse to accept that our emissions are changing the climate. In the US it is over 50%. He observed

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has done a particularly poor job of promoting itself as an authoritative and trustworthy institution. It should be telling the story of how it achieves consensus on an unprecedented scale, and enabling its most presentable participants to speak directly to the world.. At present, under sustained skeptic attack, it can’t even provide a list of the people involved in the process. It has no human face at all – the only images on its website are the covers of reports or the beach resort where it will hold its next meeting.

The single greatest quality of the people we trust and believe is that they appear to be like us and understand our needs and values. We badly need to widen the range of voices speaking on climate change and, inevitably, this means that climate experts relinquish some of their dominance and become more concerned with enabling others to speak.

That was more than three months before the servers at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia were hacked. Discovered were millions of e-mail messages, which climate change skeptics claimed (largely unjustifiably) showed a conspiracy among scientists to suppress evidence contradicting the evidence of the human origin of global warming. In November, Marshall recognized it as "an organized smear campaign" but lamented

climate scientists have always misunderstood the dynamic of public belief and trust. They assume that belief will be built on their data and that public trust is merited by their authority. With the exception of a few outstanding communicators, they often make no attempt to speak to deeper values or make an emotional connection with the public – indeed they see that as contrary to their professional independence.

Climate change deniers have always understood this. They use language that is designed to appeal to deeper values (such as freedom, independence, progress). The narrative they tell of being determined (and even persecuted) free-thinkers, standing against the tide of oppressive and self-interested conformity is designed to create an aura of integrity and trustworthiness.

It may, however, not be only climate scientists who (unfortunately) lack legitimacy with, at least, the American public. It may seem odd- and probably is- to cite the writings of George F. Will as a voice bolstering the credibility of scientists, given his ham-handed attack on climate science early last year. But back in 1982, when there existed a more sensible Will, the long-time syndicated columnist set out to do just that in a column "Well, I Don't Love You, E.T." Identifying the bias of the popular movie about the lovable extra-terrestial, Will noted

Throughout the movie they have been hunting the little critter, electronically eavesdropping on the house and generally acting like Watergate understudies. They pounce upon E.T. with all the whirring, pulsing, blinking parapernalia of modern medicine. He dies anyway, then is inexplicably resurrected. He is rescued from the fell clutches of the scientists by a posse of kid bicyclists and board a spaceship for home. This variant of the boy-sundered-from-dog theme leaves few eyes dry. But what is bothersome is the animus against science, which is seen as a morbid calling for callous vivisectionists and other unfeeling technocrats.

A childish (and Rousseau-ist) view of children as noble savages often is part of a belief that nature is a sweet garden and science and technology are spoilsome intrusions. But nature is, among other , things, plagues and pestilences, cholera and locusts, floods and droughts. Earlier ages thought of nature in terms of such afflictions. As Robert Nisbet says, this age can take a sentimental view of nature because science has done so much to ameliorate it.

Disdain for science usually ends when the disdainer gets a toothache, or his child needs an operation. But hostility to science is the anti-intellectualism of the semi-intellectual.

There are those, such as this freelance science journalist, who would doubt that denial of global warming is encouraged by a general disdain for science. Further, much of the resistance to the extremely strong case presented by scientists is attributed to the strongly religious/Christian nature of the American populace- but how then to account for the skepticism of residents of Great Britain, a highly secular society? Hostility toward scientific inquiry and intellectualism, even among individuals who steer clear of all churches on every day but December 25, clearly does play a role in skepticism about the predominately human nature of climate change. It's something we ought to remember as progressives/liberals go about criticizing charges of the deniers while the mainstream media attribute to the latter equal credibility as of scientists.

Illegal, At Least

On ABC's This Week on Sunday, host George Stephanopoulos asked of his "roundtable" about "the information we gleaned from all this and whether it was worth the interrogations we conducted." Regular panelist George F. Will responded:

We ought to have a commission. Fred Hiatt of The Washington Post suggests this morning- Sarah Day O'Connor and David Souter- bring them down, set it up, and answer some factual questions. For example, Khalid Sheik Mohammed was reticent; he was waterboarded 183 times and became locquacious. Did it have something to do with that and was he useful? Because whether or not these techniques are immoral and how immoral they are surely depends on whether or not they worked.

This is quite a linguistic sleight of hand. If in fact morality is to be fused with effectiveness (as he argues in the last sentence), it cannot be detached from legality.

And no commission is needed to determine legality. It is prohibited by the Geneva Convention. The Army Field Manual. United States Code Title 18.2340A. The U.N. Convention Against Torture. Odd, isn't it, that Will would suggest a commission featuring two former Supreme Court Justices- not to determine legality, but morality and effectiveness of torture, which would seem outside of their area of expertise.

But Will is thoughtful and open-minded compared to one of the other panel members, Liz Cheney, who claimed "waterboarding isn't torture and we can go down that path." (See it at approximately 3:40 of the video from This Week.) She did not do so, presumably because she is probably aware it is torture, defined in the U.S. Criminal Code as

an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

Cheney went on to contend that these extreme interrogation tactics were thoroughly effective. Here, Glenn Greenwald argues effectively that the Inspector General's report concludes no such thing.

But it shouldn't even get that far. The tactics are clearly torture and torture is clearly illegal by international law and U.S. law. And as Greenwald notes,

If we want to be a country that uses torture, then we should repeal our laws which criminalize it, withdraw from treaties which ban it, and announce to the world (not that they don't already know) that, as a country, we believe torture is justifiable and just. Let's at least be honest about what we are. Let's explicitly repudiate Ronald Reagan's affirmation that "[n]o exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification of torture" and that "[e]ach State Party is required [] to prosecute torturers."

If the right took that position, it would at least be principled and honest. And they would be demonstrating a little courage, instead of cowardly hiding behind claims they know are completely without merit.