Not Inconceivable


On Sunday, once Dave Weigel of Slate had learned that Jon Huntsman would on Monday end his presidential run and endorse Mitt Romney, he asserted of the GOP, "Divided as they are, ready as they are to let Mitt Romney win the nomination anyway, Republicans in 2012 had no interest in a compromise candidate who could speak Democratic parseltongue."

Never having believed myself that Huntsman had any chance to capture the GOP nomination, I should nod in agreement.      Yet....

The former governor of Utah did have a shot, albeit a long one, at the nomination.      He dropped out six days after running third in the one state in which he competed- and in all likelihood would have remained in competition if he had finished second, which would have given him at least a small boost going into South Carolina.      Serving as an ambassador in the Obama administration, what Steve Kornacki refers to as Huntsman's "original sin," was hardly resume-enhancing to the GOP's populist base.    Yet, Kornack notes Huntsman's


overall platform was far more conservative and tactically-driven than many realized. His economic program, for instance, was nothing short of radical — massive reductions for the super-wealthy and for corporations — and seemed tailor-made to win approval from the GOP’s supply-side wing. He also provided the most unqualified endorsement of Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare as it now exists, was just as insistent as every other candidate that healthcare reform and the Dodd-Frank bank reform law be repealed, and sang the standard conservative tune on abortion, gay marriage, gun control and most other hot-button issues. Occasionally, he’d throw his media and non-Republican fans a bone, but he could be just as quick to reverse himself when he sensed an opportunity to make inroads with the right.


It wasn’t hard to see the strategy that was at work: Ride the “sane” image to a breakthrough showing in finicky, independent-friendly New Hampshire, then be positioned to win over suddenly curious national conservatives by saying, “Have you actually looked at my platform — I’m not the moderate you’ve heard I am.”

If Huntsman had "placed" in New Hampshire, he would have been risen to Gingrich's equal as a competitor to front-runner Romney.       The ego-driven, ego-consumed former House Speaker (whom George Will called "the least conservative candidate"), as well as Rick Perry, has been slammed for criticism of Mitt Romney's job cremation stint with Bain Capital.      Huntsman, though, probably would have been acceptable to the Repub corporate base.       As early as September, his economic agenda had gotten the nod from what is arguably the center of GOP corporatism, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which termed it "as impressive as any to date in the GOP Presidential field."      While Huntsman's foray into Mandarin Chinese at the last debate may have contributed to his loss in New Hampshire, it served as a reminder to the party's corporate base that he had its interests at heart.

This is no small matter.       The GOP establishment has proven widely distrustful of Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker's old colleagues having led the way.      Rick Santorum, as someone committed to the cultural causes which make the plutocrats uncomfortable, might not have been tolerated.        And Ron Paul, who makes defense contractors shudder, is broadly despised.

Certainly, among all the candidates (including the departed Michele Bachmann) who have vied for the party's nomination, Romney has been, as expected, the favorite of the party establishment.     But arguably, the second most acceptable (or next-to-last unfavorable) candidate would have been Jon Huntsman.        The voice of the electorate- or at least that small portion voting in the early caucuses and primaries- wouldn't let it happen.          The game plan, however, really was more plausible than it now seems in light of his early departure. 

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Hey, Look Me Over


I miss Herschel Walker.        Not for his play in the National Football League, significant only in having been the lure for the Minnesota Vikings to trade numerous players and draft picks to the Dallas Cowboys, who went on to win two Super Bowls as a result.      Not even for his exploits as a fabulous running back for the University of Georgia, where he won a Heisman Trophy.

But as both a collegian and a pro, Walker displayed the class exemplified in the video below. No celebrations for Walker; when he reached the end zone, he acted as if he had been there before.      That is rare now, when everybody who scores a touchdown (and often at other times) has to preen for the camera, all the more for friends and family to see him on ESPN SportsCenter, YouTube, elsewhere, or anywhere.

And so there is writer Annie Keeghan, blogging on Open Salon, commenting upon having "heard on the news that Marines were videotaped urinating on the dead corpses."     She admits "when I saw that video, my first reaction wasn't outrage or condemnation (but) sadness."    Further,  

My second reaction to the news was wondering why we're all so surprised, why we expect that these men and women, who carry out duties they cannot decline- living in a state of constant hyper-vigilance, performing acts that none of us can imagine, suffering sleep deprivation and questioning their safety more hours of the day than not, watching their comrades blown to bits in front of them, watching innocent children and families suffering- why we expect that they won't break, won't seek out perverse forms of release...

Perhaps we're surprised because Marines are trained not to act in this manner.      We admire them in part because they are a team and are highly disciplined and dedicated to their nation.  Marines are not expected to commit acts so profane- or perverse, as Keeghan puts it- that video of the incident is scrambled so that women and children are spared being offended, revolted, or both.     Nor are they encouraged to jeopardize U.S. standing abroad among those who view, or are told of, American soldiers grossly humiliating Afghans, presumably Muslims.     It is not a way to convince the populace of
"American exceptionalism"- or to win a war.

Such acts may be committed more often than we civilians know.     But we do know about this event, and we do so precisely because

In the 39-second video, the four soldiers in combat gear and carrying weapons are seen acting in unison as they stand over the corpses and urinate.    They sigh and laugh.   One of the marines says "Have a great day, buddy" while another comments "Golden, like a shower."


They are clearly not concerned at being caught.   One of them asks a fifth soldier who is filming the incident:   "You got it on the video?"

These are not soldiers responding to "a state of constant hyper-vigilance" or "sleep deprivation."      Nor are they merely "seek(ing) out perverse forms of release," as if young males have no more self-control than do lower animal forms.     They appear to be having a jolly old time, intent on drawing attention to themselves, more like today's NFL players than like Herschel Walker.










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Much Ado About Not Very Much


Newt Gingrich, blasting Mitt Romney, early this week stated "you have to ask the question, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?      "Although "nobody objects to Bill Gates being extraordinarily rich, they provide a service," he explains, objectionable is when an investor receives "six-to-one returns, and the company goes bankrupt," at which time "you have to ask the question, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?"      The next day, he noted "if someone who is very wealthy comes in and takes over your company and takes out all the cash and leaves behind the unemployment? I think that’s not a model we want to advocate..."

Reaction from the left was muted, although Benjy Sarlin at Talking Points Memo argued "The former Speaker is making the case that, in contrast to good old fashioned businesses who make stuff, Romney and his ilk have instead gamed the system to create a soulless machine that profits from the misery of others."   And Lawrence O'Donnell somewhat naively praised Gingrich for "forcing Republicans to think about something they don't like to think about, the difference between the right to do something and doing the right thing."

Conservatives predictably were critical, with the Chamber of Commerce, Jim DeMint, and Rush Limbaugh, who claimed "you could have read this in an Occupy Wall Street flier," being among those who objected.        And the oddest knock came from Jon Huntsman, taking a break from slamming Mitt Romney for- well, for everything- curiously maintaining "I think it’s more instructive to look at Governor Romney’s record as governor.     You can’t be on both sides of this issue. If you’re going to stand for breaking up the banks, then you can’t criticize Bain Capital for doing some of what it did."      Whatever that means.

There was no reason for Republicans to be so exorcised (although they do appear to need an exorcist) about the comments of one candidate questioning the rapacious capitalism of corporate raiders.        Newt since has somewhat backed off his comments, and they were merely sound and fury signifying nothing, anyway.          As usual, Robert Reich understood immediately:

Where has Newt been for the last thirty years? Leveraged buyouts became part of traditional capitalism in the 1980s when enterprising financiers began borrowing piles of money, often at high interest rates, to buy up the stock of ongoing companies they believe undervalued. They’d back the loans with the company assets, then typically sell off divisions and slim payrolls, and resell the company to the public at a higher share price – pocketing the gains.

It’s a good deal for the financiers (the $25 billion buyout of RJR-Nabisco in 1988 netted the partners of Kohlberg, Kravis, and Roberts around $70 million each – and most of Mitt Romney’s estimated $200 million fortune comes from the same maneuvers), but not always for the company or its workers.

Some workers lose their jobs when the company downsizes. Others, when the company, now laden with debt, can’t meet its payments to creditors and has to go into bankruptcy. According to the Wall Street Journal, of 77 companies Bain invested in during Romney’s tenure there, 22 percent either filed for bankruptcy or closed their doors by end of eighth year after Bain’s investment.

But, hey, this is American capitalism – at least as it’s been practiced for the past three decades. Is Newt proposing to ban leveraged buyouts? Or limit the amount of debt a company can take on? Or prevent financiers – or even CEOs and management teams – from taking a public company private and then reselling it to the public at a higher price?

None of the above.

Rick Perry criticizes Romney and Bain pushing the quest for profits too far. “There is nothing wrong with being successful and making money,” says Perry. “But getting rich off failure and sticking someone else with the bill is indefensible.”

Yet getting rich off failure and sticking someone else with the bill is what Wall Street financiers try to do every day. It’s called speculation – and at least since the demise of the Glass-Steagall Act, investment bankers have been allowed to gamble with commercial bank deposits, other people’s money.

So is Perry proposing to resurrect Glass-Steagall? Not a chance.

Gingrich, Perry, and others are putting particular focus on the people who lost their jobs as a result of Romney’s Bain Capital. Gingrich’s Super PAC will be running $3.5 million of ads featuring emotional interviews with some of them.

But what, exactly, are Romney’s opponents proposing to do about layoffs that harm so many people? Millions of Americans have lost their jobs over the last four years – and as a result have often lost their health insurance, their homes, and their savings.

Are Gingrich, Perry, and others proposing to expand health insurance coverage for jobless Americans and their families? All I hear from the Republicans is their determination to repeal the law that President Obama championed – which still leaves millions of Americans uninsured. Do Romney’s opponents have plans to keep people in their homes even when they’ve lost their jobs and can’t pay their mortgages? No. Do they propose expanding unemployment insurance? If memory serves, most of them were opposed to the last extension.

Soon, Newt Gingrich will be back to calling President Obama a socialist, South Carolina will customarily vote for the GOP's next-in-line candidate, and all will be right with the world.





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Narcissistic- And Defeated


In retrospect (hindsight always being 20/20) it shouldn't have been a surprise.

The primary in New Hampshire, though it won't redound much to Mitt Romney's benefit in South Carolina, was a significant victory for the front runner.      Not only did he coast to victory but was rewarded by the voters who gave Ron Paul a second-place finish.

Paul, despised by the establishment of the GOP, finished ahead of Jon Huntsman, who is not despised by the party establishment- and probably, aside from Romney, would be its top choice.

But Huntsman was not the top choice, or even the second choice, of New Hampshire voters despite spending more time in the state in the past few months than any other candidate, as graphically depicted (immediately below) by Talking Points Memo.

And that, despite the far-right field and this earlier post of mine, probably speaks well of the individuals who went to the polls last Tuesday.          For no other candidate in a presidential debate of either party has regaled us with the Mandarin version of "He doesn't seem to understand the situation" (embedding of    video disabled by request).

We get it, Jon.   You're the smartest guy on the stage.     Not only can you speak a language foreign to the vast majority of Americans but in so demonstrating, you were able to charge that your rival doesn't "understand the situation."

Not wrong- and not, as is quite likely, insincerely exploiting the justified fears of Americans about the growing power and threat of Mainland China- but not aware of what Huntsman is aware.       Apparently unbeknownst to the former Utah governor and ambassador to China, getting elected President involves far more than demonstrating that you are the best educated and most traveled candidate of  them all, notwithstanding Barack Obama's ascension to the office.

Currency manipulation, prohibitive tariffs on some U.S. goods, cyber spying, rapid militarization, and threats to Taiwan all are of concern to this nation.     And to our people, even these pale in significance to the jobs that are being lost to the Mainland.      These, significantly, have been greatest as a share of total employment in- wait for it- New Hampshire.       The Economic Policy Institute (their map, immediately below) notes that from 2001 to 2008, 16,300 jobs (2.35% of total state employment) were ripped away from Granite State residents.      And that was as a result of trade imbalance, irrespective of Third World Chinese labor practices.

Into this, and in a nation still mired in a serious economic slump, the slow disintegration of the middle class, and declining mobility, steps Jon Huntsman and his impressive facility with Mandarin Chinese.       It was, admittedly, a fine slap in the face but nothing that qualifies him for the presidency.       To the 83% of New Hampshire voters who rejected the most worldly of candidates, congratulations; to that candidate himself, goodbye- and please don't come back in four years.  

Into this, and in a nation still mired in a serious economic slump and beset by the slow disintegration of the middle class and declining mobility, steps Jon Huntsman and his impressive facility with Mandarin Chinese.       It was, admittedly, a fine slap in the face but nothing that qualifies him for the presidency.       To the 83% of New Hampshire voters who rejected the most worldly of candidates, congratulations; to that candidate himself, goodbye- and please don't come back in four years.  




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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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Erratic States


If you were to watch the GOP presidential debates and didn't know any better, you would think that the mean, old federal government has usurped the rights guaranteed to the states by the U.S. Constitution and rendered government inefficient and incompetent.

The truth is far different, however, as demonstrated by the nation's marijuana laws- all 50+ of them.       The Philadelphia Inquirer reports


Ed Forchion, who calls himself "NJ Weedman," will be allowed to act as his own lawyer at his drug trial in April as long as he doesn't argue that marijuana laws should be decriminalized, a judge decided Tuesday.
The longtime marijuana activist said he wanted to try to persuade a jury to reject the legitimacy of "New Jersey's goofy marijuana laws" while throwing out the marijuana charge against him.   But Superior Court Judge Charles Delehey, sitting in Burlington County, said court rules did not permit the defense to put a law itself on trial.
In October, he ruled that Forchion could not represent himself, but he reversed himself Tuesday after Forchion reluctantly said he would limit his arguments.
I'm going to abide by your rules," Forchion said after a long pause.
Forchion, 47, a Camden County native, now lives in Los Angeles, where he ran a pot farm and a medical marijuana dispensary for the last four years. On Dec. 13, federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents shut down his operations and confiscated his marijuana, he said.
Without revenue from his business, he said, he had to ask his mother to pay for his $600 plane ticket to New Jersey for the hearing.
"I didn't want them to issue a warrant for my arrest," he said.
While visiting family and friends in New Jersey in April 2010, Forchion was arrested in Mount Holly when a state trooper allegedly discovered a pound of marijuana in his car trunk during a traffic stop.
He was charged with possession of the drug with intent to distribute.
Forchion carries a card issued by California that allows him to use marijuana to help with pain from benign bone tumors in a leg and his shoulders, he said.
He had planned to argue at trial that New Jersey has conflicting laws about marijuana.
The state recently became the 14th in the nation to allow marijuana to be sold for the treatment of specific diseases and conditions while continuing to outlaw other uses.
Under New Jersey law, benign bone tumors are not eligible for marijuana treatment.



Forchion has been known in New Jersey as kind of a gadfly, and jury nullification is an issue for another day.     But... here we have a fellow running a marijuana farm and dispensary pursuant to the laws of the state, California, in which he resides.       Despite operating within the confines of the law- while providing a public service and perhaps making a tidy profit- Forchion gets arrested.

This would be a simple matter of an inflexible federal government encroaching upon the prerogatives of a state except.... the "perpetrator" decides to return to New Jersey for a visit. There, he is arrested for violating the laws of a state which actually has a medical marijuana law- but not one which does not authorize use for benign bone tumors.

California has an expansive medical marijuana law; New Jersey, under, and because of, the crude Chris Christie, has one that is very narrow.       Weedman isn't the only individual or group stymied by the proliferation of laws and practices in this field.      The Associated Press explains


In California, with the nation’s most permissive medical marijuana laws, 185 cities and counties have banned pot dispensaries entirely. In New Jersey, perhaps the most restrictive of the 17 states that have legalized marijuana for sick people, some groups planning to sell cannabis are struggling to find local governments willing to let them in.
Dispensaries have also been banned in parts of Colorado and have run into opposition in some towns in Maine.
Local politicians have argued that pot is still illegal under federal law, that marijuana dispensaries bring crime, and that such businesses are just fronts for drug-dealing, supplying weed to people who aren’t really sick.
Cities and towns are prohibiting dispensaries outright or applying zoning ordinances so strict that they amount to the same thing. The ordinances typically set minimum distances between such businesses and schools, homes, parks and houses of worship.



States can assume innumerable functions and issue regulations or issue laws to fulfill them. But even a relatively minor and ordinary policy such as pertains to medical marijuana may (mixed metaphor alert) run aground on the shoals of conflicting state laws.      The importance of national leadership, and with it regulations that apply throughout the nation, is demonstrated yet again.






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Issue Avoidance


Another day and another opportunity to blog about Rick Santorum, before his fifteen minutes are up.

The Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky observed that, at the Meet The Press debate (transcript here) Saturday night, Santorum stated

had a good moment, I thought, with his answer to the question about how he’d react if one of his sons were to announce that he’s gay. Santorum: “I’d love him just as much as I did the second before he told me.” General applause to this. I’m not 100 percent persuaded that this is really and fully and completely true, in either Santorum’s case or the audience’s, but everyone knows it’s what you have to say, and he managed to say it with seeming conviction.

Andy Hiller, political director of a Boston television station, asked Santorum "What if you had a son who came to you and said he was gay?"     Santorum, not quite a political neophyde, shot back

I would love him as much as I did the second before he said it, and I would try to do everything I can to be as good a father to him as possible.

It now is notable that a GOP candidate for president doesn't jump at the chance to say that he would kick his son out of his house because of a sexual orientation he is born with.       Tomasky understands such an answer was unavoidable, given that both the left,  sympathetic to gay rights interests (ditto most members of the mainstream media), and the right  would be offended if Santorum responded "I would tell him to go back into the closet and await God's judgement."

But maybe Santorum was being sincere.     In substance (though not in tone) it differs little with his response in 2003 to a similar question, to which he replied "I would try to point out to them what is the right thing to do. And we have many temptations to do things we shouldn’t. It doesn’t mean you have to submit.”

Or perhaps he believes gay marriage and condoms should be banned everywhere but that it doesn't apply to his family, a kind of reversal of the old adage:     "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged."      As often,  a liberal is a conservative who unexpectedly has found that life throws some curve balls even into the best, or most privileged, families.

Think Dick Cheney, a right-winger's right-winger who at least twice (more recently, here) has expressed support for gay marriage (video from earlier instance, below).        Just a guess- but that might be related to the situation of his daughter Mary, who is gay, which would make it either hypocritical or mere convenient pragmatism.     Quite common, really.

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones explains that the candidates could have been asked serious questions about gay rights rather than being lobbed softballs:

The questions were sufficiently devoid of any specific matters of gay rights that they allowed both candidates to garner applause lines. Romney said that while he opposes same-sex marriage, "if people are looking for someone who will discriminate against gays, or will in any way try and suggest that people [who] have different sexual orientation don't have full rights in this country, they won't find that in me."

"When was the last time you spoke out for increasing gay rights?" Hiller asked.

"Right now," Romney said to laughter and applause.

Hiller followed up by asking whether Santorum would be a "force for gay rights in his party." Santorum said he was opposed gay couples being able to adopt or get married. "Just because you don't agree with someone's desire to change the law doesn't mean you don't like them, or you hate them, or you want to discriminate against them," Santorum said after declaring his support for laws that discriminate against gay people.

"What if you had a son who came up to you and said he was gay?" Hiller asked.

"I would love him as much as I did the second before he said it. And I would try to do everything I can to be as good of a father to him as possible."

It was perhaps Santorum's finest moment in the debate—he didn't flinch, or wait a moment to reflect. He came across as entirely sincere. And that's part of the problem. In both cases, the Republican candidates were asked questions that were essentially about whether or not they "hated" gays. Those questions are easy to deflect with a measured tone. Instead of asking the candidates about their feelings towards gay people, they could have been asked about any one of the many pending legal issues affecting the rights of gays and lesbians. Do the candidates support ending the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy? Would they support extending the same military benefits heterosexual couples have to same-sex families? Do they think gay couples should be able to adopt (Santorum, to his credit, explicitly said no.) Do they think Lawrence v. Texas was rightly decided or do they think states should be allowed to criminalize sexual behavior by consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes? Do they support or oppose the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages?

Many of the candidates are on record on these issues, and an informed moderator might have asked the candidates to explain their positions, since Republican stances on gay rights issues typically clash with their stated principles on federalism or individual rights. Instead, the Republican candidates got softballs about how they feel about gay people, which allowed them grin and prattle on about tolerance and equality, even while supporting laws that deny gays and lesbians the same rights as everyone else. Grading on this bizarre curve, Santorum gets applause for not casting a hypothetical gay son out of his home as though basic human decency would demand anything else. Santorum wouldn't cast out his gay son: He just wouldn't let him serve in the military, get married, or adopt a child.

It shouldn't matter to the future of the republic how Rick Santorum would react even if any of his children were gay.      A President should not be judged by what his offspring are or even how he responds to their condition.      Sasha and Malia seem like fine young people.       But that really hasn't lowered the unemployment rate, tamed the rampant greed of Wall Street,  convinced Ahmadinejad to give up any pretensions to developing nuclear weapons, or even undermined the conviction of the American people that the nation is on the wrong track generally.








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